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I mostly agree, the East West desire line is further North I feel, Clerkenwell and Theobalds to the East and Bayswater to the West. Anyone traveling along the embankment is probably going South West to Brixton and Richmond and as such it feels a bit out of place, but then starting from near zero there is no existing route to join up.
As such I think this is more important politically than commutingly, it's a big statement about who the roads are for...
Backstop
Now I've read through the plans for each section, this seems almost purposefully designed to fail.
Some small sections are good, and should be done... but there are large chunks which just don't work as advertised (the A40 Westway being glaringly obvious).
When you look at this as it should be looked upon, from the many perspectives of everyone's transit needs... it has some parts that aren't going to make it through consultation.
If I were being cynical (and I'm not, I want a great East/West route) I'd wonder whether there was an element in the design to save money by not having some parts get through... by encouraging some parts to be delayed to a later stage that never materialises.
Quite why they didn't view this as a great opportunity to go along Bayswater Road > Holland Park Avenue > Uxbridge Road... where cyclists already successfully force the traffic into a single lane (of the two lane each direction flow) for most of that... I don't know. It would have formalised the existing arrangement, recognised one of the routes that the vast majority of West based cyclists choose to use, and strengthened a lot of the businesses along that route.
For the North/South route, this is all brilliant and should be done. Some changes in the actual design, but it's the right route, and it's pretty well thought out.
For the East/West route, I guess they'll do the Embankment, and a little bit each side... a few bits of the East section, and that the rest will be binned when the consultation rejects the other bits. Oh, maybe they'll put more cycle parking at Acton Main Line too.