CS11 Plans - Regents Park

Email I just received:

Dear all,

I hope this finds you well.

As many of you are already aware, there have been several talks about the proposed CS11 cycle superhighway route that could potentially affect cycling around Regent’s Park in a big way.

After looking at the history of the dialogue, data points, plans, and getting to know the various groups involved, it became very clear that cyclists who commute or ride around leisurely are being thought about (rightly so), but those of us (and there are loads of us) that use the Outer Circle to train have not been thought about. What is also clear is that a lot of people / agencies are actually working quite hard against our interests, in some cases, unintentionally.

To keep it concise: in the worst case scenario there could be speed humps and/or a 20mph speed limit, which, safe to say, will affect all of our members who use Regent’s Park to train. I should emphasise that Regent’s Park is currently one of a few places in Central London with long, uninterrupted stretches of road that provide the opportunity for sports oriented cyclists to train effectively.

CC London, Tri London, Regent’s Park Rouleurs, Muswell Hill Peloton and Islington have been actively involved in building relationships already, so we started organising stuff as quickly as possible to work out how we deal with this. It’s been a crazy week, but things are moving fast and we are now relatively optimistic.

What has not skipped our mind is that there are loads of clubs that have a really big vested interest in this and more than likely share the same ultimate objective. It’s a massive burden to try to take this beast on, so, if you feel strongly about this, we would greatly appreciate your involvement and to work with us as a team.

The big argument that comes up whenever cyclists are involved is that we don’t care about rules or pedestrians. This is not a Regent’s Park thing, just appears to be an anti-cyclist thing. The elephant in the room is always red light jumping. In this case, we have a very weak voice unless we can solve the issue in Regent’s Park. We simply have to stop it in the Park immediately if we want a voice at the table. We have talked to the Police who are going to proactively monitor the lights and we plan to do a physical leaflet campaign on this, but we all have to be on our best behaviour if we stand a chance to win this battle. I know that we’re probably preaching to the choir and that the worst offenders are generally not club riders, but we would like to agree on our broad common objectives and get as many other clubs involved as possible. In short we want to:-

-       Develop a code of rider etiquette that all of us are happy with.

-       Encourage a culture that is less tolerant of red light jumping and encourage people to call out any bad or dangerous behaviour that will put cyclists in a negative light.

-       Communicate what is at stake to all Regent’s Park cyclists.

-       Invite clubs to attend the meetings and get involved with developing solutions.

-       Keep training around Regent’s Park.

If you do feel strongly about this then we would appreciate your involvement and I would suggest the following:-

1.     Have no more than two representatives from each club attend meetings to discuss. Currently these are planned for Monday evenings from 18.30 at The Stag in Hampstead (http://www.thestaghampstead.com/ ), but subject to change. If you plan on attending, please let us know so we can book an appropriate size table.

2.     Share any suggestions, objections or ideas via this email or, preferably, via the Facebook group or in the meetings (https://www.facebook.com/groups/regentsparkcycling/).

3.     Share the social media links (Facebook, as above; Twitter: https://twitter.com/RPcyclists)

4.     We’re also proposing Friday morning chat-laps at 6.00 around Regent’s Park, for a less formal discussion on the issues. All welcome.

In the meantime, attached is a very rough draft of a Riders Charter / Etiquette Guide and we would really like the finished guide to contain content that we have all agreed upon, so please feedback. I should, however, make clear that we already have someone on board to help with the design and layout, so this will be fixed.

I hope you would like to get involved and I look forward to your feedback.

Thanks in advance,

(on behalf of Islington CC, Muswell Hill Peloton, Regent’s Park Rouleurs, CC London and Tri London)

Details of threat to Regents Park as a cycling venue.

1 Attachment

• Cyclingetiquette-DRAFT-FOR-CONSULTATION.docx.docx