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None of my business, really, but why insult people if one of the key things to achieve is that the local community comes together behind the proposals?
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Tweed cycling fashion victims thread >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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As the Waltham Forest Cycling Campaign's Council Liaison Officer, just thought I'd jump on and add one or two things:
Yup, some roads in the "villagisation" (read: us knicking Hackney's filtered permeability model) weren't properly closed off in trial - as Oliver put it, that's exactly why some roads were busier. We wait to see what final scheme looks like - but vibe in council is good and yup, residents were broadly in favour of it.
Sad to see even cyclists on here flummoxed by the "I/a mate was in a car stuck on the Lea Bridge Road and therefore it must be mini-Holland" cobblers. We had broken traffic lights in several key points for much of the (too short) trial, a closed north circ and a closed Blackwall Tunnel. The engineers have been over the data as best they can and their broad response was "Lea Bridge Road is often messed up - on the days it wasn't messed up, the villagisation trial doesn't seem to have added much traffic to the main roads". Fairly obviously, the capacity and flow of main roads even versus heavily ratrunned side roads is huge.
Ruckholt Road - they're using "cycle separated junctions", priority lights for cyclists and possibly even all-green scramble phases at junctions - the fine detail subject to final modelling and TfL sign-off. That means you should have no points at which you're in danger of being hooked etc. WFCC has a list of remaining problems we have with Ruckholt Road at our mini-Holland page - Alexandra Road is the main remaining issue.
We've now met with Enfield and Kingston to work better together to ensure the mini-Hollands all actually do look like mini-Hollands and not just business-as-usual - which I think the new Tory council in Kingston (the Lib Dems put the bid in) particularly were veering strongly towards.
I'll also be attending the next Hackney CC meet in early Feb - to discuss what can be done about the ends of Ruckholt Road and Lea Bridge Road where they hit the border with Hackney.
What's really important to understand, and has been a huge learning process for me personally from just before the trial to the end of December, is how much people fear and hate change. And how a few voices can dominate. Several thousand people signed the "stop mini Holland in Walthamstow" petition. But their biggest public turnouts have been 100 or so people. Many of them live outside the currently affected areas. Many come from groups that have clear reason to be upset - professional drivers and driving instructors, OAPs with mobility issues etc. Their concerns need answering, sure, but ultimately the reality is most people locally are either semi- in favour of plans or broadly in favour of them so far. A tiny minority of very angry people are intent on making a lot of noise - I'm increasingly ignoring them, as we've moved well beyond the point of sensible issues and discussions to wild conjecture, conspiracy theories and angry ranting.
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We've now met with Enfield and Kingston to work better together to ensure the mini-Hollands all actually do look like mini-Hollands and not just business-as-usual - which I think the new Tory council in Kingston (the Lib Dems put the bid in) particularly were veering strongly towards.
Interesting point about the Kingston political composition. I don't really seem to hear anything much about it at all, and things have been looking pretty poor there for a while. Hearing that they've gone from a Lib Dem-led council to a Tory one explains a lot.
Enfield council have been warned that they need to get a move on because if the scheme is delayed and a new Mayor who is less sympathetic to cycling is installed in 2016, that money might completely dry up and scupper the concept entirely. Kingston will have been given similar warnings, I'm sure. Can't help thinking they're going for a double whammy in Kingston - cut back the scheme as much as possible so they can say, "look what we did for you in protecting you from the foolish Liberal Democrats", and then once the scheme fails, "look at how this brand new Labour Mayor of London has taken £30m away from you!"
But yes, good work in helping move these along. Just hope we can blast them all through without the venality of local governers ruining it all.
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I don't know what the original plans were so don't know if they've changed much...
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Hairnetnic - not a lot of changes from the post-trial consultation document - a few changes to a few roads. But there were a lot of changes from the trial to the consultation. Essentially, we warned the council they weren't closing enough roads, we were right, and so the ratrunners got funnelled into fewer roads in some cases. The council then did act to deal with that issue we hope.
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Lots of these in shop windows in Enfield this week:
It's a little less overtly negative than previous campaigns, but the general sense of "OMG DANGER DANGER BICYCLES EVERYWHERE" remains intact. Possibly because of its relatively anodyne phrasing ("go to the public consultation to get more information" instead of the previous "OBJECT TO THIS NOW OR WE'LL ALL BE RUINED"), the posters are now pinned up in practically every damn shop along Green Lanes.
I have made a strategic decision to shop elsewhere until after the public consultation. Not out of any attempt or desire to boycott businesses or punish them or anything, just because the negative sentiment is so dispiriting that it made me feel pretty depressed walking past all these posters yesterday. As if anyone needs any more reason to feel depressed in austerity-era Enfield.
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As a former resident of Leytonstone [LBWF]...i have signed the petition.
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some tweeted details here https://twitter.com/psimonk
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A petition against Enfield Mini Holland has been started on the government e-petitions thing. It has a couple hundred signatures:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/74598
When this happened in Walthamstow, we organised a pro-petition that garnered a surprising amount of support. That's been very helpful in mitigating negative stories in local media and for keeping councillors on board.
You should get one going on change.org (which is much more effective at gathering support) if you live in the area and support the scheme...
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Also if I could get some help trolling the anti Mini-Holland site 'Walthamstow Toss' here, that would be much appreciated:
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Oh, they're insane. There was a public exhibition for the council to present a few different ideas and a bunch of traders turned up and started shouting "you don't pay road tax".
I'll see what support I can rustle up from sympathetic residents - the Enfield Green Party are likely to be interested.
Oliver Schick
bothwell
fussballclub
jv
PsiMonk
spindrift
SoCamJam
somebody
Backstop
marxist_vulcan
mongrel
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@user48975
Opened local newspaper today and found the first not-entirely-negative story about Mini Holland in it! Bloody hell. The council are doing a few public meetings that are open to everyone (as opposed to meetings that only invite businesses, or meetings that only invite residents associations and campaign groups, like the previous ones) have been "welcomed" by campaigners and business associations alike. Costas Georgiou - the independent candidate at the last election who tried and failed to win support on an anti Mini Holland ticket and chairman of the Green Lanes Business Association - is "looking forward" to it. I bet you are. Looking forward to standing about moaning about everything you see to everyone who'll listen, I think you mean.
Local paper balanced the not-entirely-negative article out with two reader letters, one short letter from somebody complaining that he was smashed into by a man on a "heavy racing bike" recently, and a second, much lengthier one from a chap asking why-oh-why-do-cyclists-not-pay-for-the-roads and suggesting that perhaps we could pay for our cycle lanes with a £25 tax disc each. Flung newspaper into bin in despair.