TfL consultations close at midnight Friday (27th Feb) on 'improvements' to parts of the cycle track along Cable Street and the cycle route on Horseferry Rd (CS3). The consultations can be found at:
consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/cable-street
consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/horseferry-road
Horseferry Road
This proposal is an improvement. Members are supporting it. We haven't canvassed sufficient opinions to feel confident at the moment in adding ' given the low volume of motor trafffic and the 20mph speed limit this could be a 2-way road without the cycle track'. But if that's your view please state it. The on-street parking here is unfortunately an impediment to decent design.
What we would ask supporters to add is a request that TfL and the borough look at solutions to the inadequacy of CS3 across St James' Garden and over that far too narrow bridge. Is there scope for CS3 to by-pass St James Garden?
Cable Street
THW do not support these proposals. They do not deal with the problems and adding traffic islands will impede proper improvements.
The Cable Street tracks are too narrow to carry the current cycling traffic and in 2016 even more people will be cycling along CS3 when phase one of the East/West Superhighway opens.
The Mayor of London's 'Vision of Cycling' for London', published in April 2013, envisages 'crossrail for bikes' as a continuous good quality 15 mile cycling route that incorporates CS3 to Barking. We say that TfL need to go back to the drawing board and return with proposals that make CS3 from Tower Hill eastwards a good environment for people cycling and walking. It should be as ambitious in delivery as phase one of the East/West Superhighway.
What is particularly surprising is that these proposals don't even meet recommendations made to TfL in April 2012 by the 'stakeholders' group of the Better Junctions process (Design Review Group, DRG), at which London Cycling Campaign (LCC) is represented. THW have a rep on the LCC committee that considers the design proposals and hence hear the feedback from the 'stakeholder' monthly meetings.
The DRG is not a radical body but even their recommendations started from a more 'whole street' approach when considering similar 'tweaking' proposals for Cable Street!
Their suggestions included removing through motor traffic and hence reducing motor vehicle volume, reducing speed of vehicles and creating a better environment for pedestrians. They agreed that consistent cycle track priority across side roads is to be supported, which is part of what this current proposal is dealing with, but not likely to resolve the major problems without other measures. Some delegates were new to concepts of 'filtering' and were worried that residents may oppose it. Even so one of the options favourably considered was removing from a stretch of Cable Street all traffic bar buses and cyclists to enable a calmer environment around Blue Gate Fields school.
Since 2012 there has been a huge leap forward in the design understanding of what is required for a good quality street. TfL now has a 'toolkit' that includes the updated London Cycle Design Standards - recommended reading is chapter 3 "Cycle-friendly streets and spaces". Plus other 'tools' are now available; the borough will be 20mph from 1st April (bar some trunk roads) and last year the Department of Transport introduced the possibility of 15mph 'advisory' streets.
To this we must add, if not political will at least political expediency! A result of the 2014 Space 4 Cycling council election campaign in Tower Hamlets, which many candidates signed up, for was the council decision last July to support Space 4 Cycling. Further we have been told by council officers working on schemes for CS3 that at meetings last year residents supported removing rat-running motor traffic.
We need to see a design that recognises the continuity of 'crossrail for bikes' eastwards, that can cater for not only the growth in people cycling to and from work but also those making shorter local trips and children cycling to school. Tower Hamlets needs an active population - too many overweight children and a diabetes time bomb; but it also has an excellent school cycling team keen to get children safely peddling.
The following pages of 'Vision of Cycling' for London' have good quotes to pepper a response: page 10, "We want to change the nature of cycling, attracting thousands of people who do not cycle now" and page 11, "Routes will be wide enough to cope with higher volumes of cyclists, and designed to reduce conflict between pedestrians and bikes". Boris Johnson's 'vision' is to double the numbers cycling by 2023. Let's have a CS3 worthy of that vision.
