TfL ask passengers to walk or cycle

Public transport in London is a victim of its own success - bus passenger journeys continue to increase, as do tube passenger journeys, and indeed cycle journeys; more capacity has been injected into all three modes of transport (Ken Livingstone made huge improvements in all modes, but in particular to buses), however the additional resource often cannot come on stream fast enough to keep up with demand.

 

Several of my old commutes were to and around London. The tube is a miserable, infested place. moist hot air in winter, very hot in summer and packed to the gunnels with people being miserable.
Was always happy to walk whenever possible. That said, they're trying desperately to play catch up - air con in the tube, more frequent trains, wi-fi etc

 

The trouble is, that as much as our successive governments have said about supporting cycling and sustainable transport, very little have actually been done, and even less of that has been done with any sort of cohesive approach. Now, I make no secret of the fact that I have a deep dislike for cyclists, however I have formed that opinion by seeing too many of them behaving like idiots on the roads and all the while moaning about motorists. In reality, I accept that there are good and bad in both camps. However, for once I am going to come down on the side of the cyclist as well as the motorist - the main problem as far as I am concerned is down to road design.

For example, there is one local authority near me that is (finally) putting some major investments into their roads/streets - their plan is that all pavements will be relaid or resurfaced, and that the majority of roads will also be resurfaced with a new heavy duty tarmac and they are installing LED street lighting to improve visibility whilst saving energy. So far, so good.

Now, they have partly done one particular road that is near me, in as much that the pavement has been resurfaced and the lighting has been renewed - the road surface however remains in a poor state and will stay like that until they resurface it in 2015.

This road only has a pavement up one side, with a fairly wide grass verge on the other side, however it is also one of the main thoroughfares for traffic to get to the dual carriageway.

Only last week, I passed a cyclist on this road, and the 'tramlines' that are worn into the surface were pulling and tugging at my steering as I passed him - now, I was still fully able to control my car and pass him safely, but how would that play out for someone with an older car that perhaps isn't as well maintained, or passes the cyclist too close? Sure, there would be blame to be apportioned if there was an accident, but that would be no consolation to the cyclists family as they were by his hospital bed.

The current theory seems to be that cyclists should be segregated wherever possible, and money is being thrown at building special cycle lanes which quite often end quite abruptly leaving the cyclist no choices, and more often than not they start nowhere, go nowhere, and aren't much use in the middle.

Now, this particular road could have very easily have been widened by anything up to 10ft, but in reality 3-4ft would have been more than sufficient; widen the road, improve the drainage, fit the LED lights to improve visibility and fully resurface the road - properly (nice flat smooth finish); this would provide a road where motorists and cyclists can co-exist safely, see each other and pass each other without issue, and pedestrians are not getting harangued by cyclists who are on the pavement because they are in fear of their lives.

There are so many roads around here that are like that - pavements like football fields, and motorists and cyclists left to jockey with each other on rutted and holed surfaces; if all roads were looked at again, widened where possible (get rid of all the clutter such as unnecessary signage, road humps, bollards chicanes etc), lighting improved/modernised, and good smooth, well marked surfaces were laid, I reckon that this would be more beneficial to all. Hell, even residents would benefit if it was done right as these new harder wearing surfaces also have the benefit that they are quieter under tyre, so noise pollution should be less.

 

As if to prove my point, sadly there has been another fatality on London's roads today; two cyclists were hit in two separate incidents in separate parts of the city, one of those sadly died.

Going from the image in the BBC article I have deduced that the accident took place around here somewhere; I do not know this area of London at all, but take a look at the street view in that link - a very complex junction with loads going on to take away the attention of cyclists and drivers alike.

Convince me that the road layout was not a major contributory factor in this person's death?

EDIT - This ITV link has more images - CAUTION, you may find a couple of them distressing.

It would appear to my semi-trained eye that the bus was turning right out of the nearby junction and the cyclist was on the nearside somewhere - in fact, I would take a punt that he has come off the cycle lane to either cross or join the carriageway and either hasn't seen the bus, hasn't given way to the bus, or the bus driver hasn't seen him; the annoying thing is, the give way on the cycle lane at that point leads the cyclist to nowhere - - - its not even a crossing in that direction!

 

And the scene of the second accident, judging by the pictures on the ITV link above. Again, I do not know this area of London at all - in fact I don't think I have ever been down this particular road.

Look at the amount of road space that is available! If adjustments were made, there is two solutions available here - there is more than enough room for a completely segregated cycle lane (indeed, there is room to have a wee sort of two-way road set to one side of the road, specifically for bikes); alternatively, get the street light poles set to the back of the pavements with longer outreach brackets if required, have inset parking spaces and then have sensible carriageway lanes with as little clutter as possible.

Sticking a blue stripe down the road, in my opinion, only leads the cyclist to believe that they have the 'right' so therefore they will stop looking at hazards in the same way, and then to add insult to injury there are parking spaces/loading bays that carve the cycle lane to bits; half-baked solutions that merely give a false sense of safety and actually increase the risk.

 

To be fair, the layout in your link is among the better I have seen - cyclists should be using (made to use) signal controlled crossings to navigate junctions such as that one.

I really do believe that road design is the key - so many times, cyclists will be provided with cycle lanes that are only there to tick a box on a local authorities list; these cycle lanes are often of little or no use as they are interrupted too often, or they don't follow a logical path, or (worst of all) they lead to absolutely nowhere and actively encourage a cyclist to 'bunk down' off the pavement/cycle path onto the road (the junction in Croydon is a prime example of that);

I am firmly of the mind that there is often too much intervention nowadays, and not only on the roads; health & safety it often falls under - the more things you put in place to get people to do the safe thing, or to protect them, the LESS they think that they have to think and look for themselves.

Strip it all back, and provide something that is simple, clear and high quality and then make sure it is well maintained - then let the users take some responsibility for themselves.

 

You can go both ways @pete, but that feature is completely negated when, as you rightly point out, the cycle lane is interrupted every 100 yards - the cyclists are going to do what all of us do, take the path of least resistance, whether that is the safe/sensible/courteous option or not