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The LCC's demand for Cable Street has always been to filter--the existing track is a sub-standard joke and the side street junctions are very hazardous. Just last year, a forumenger lost some teeth somewhere along there in a crash (graphic photo posted on the forum). We have long said that the track needs to go and the street fully filtered.
There are definitely problems with the proposals, however--they're proposing to create a lot of one-way streets. Basically, they're filtering Cable Street but are proposing using 'traditional' and very poor methods (one-way streets, banned turns) to manage traffic in the rest. I think they may have taken the words 'filter Cable Street' to mean that they should filter only Cable Street. You always have to filter the whole cell, not just one street in it. I do hope we can get that changed. The track should, of course, be scrapped in both directions, with full modal filtering. At the moment, they probably can't afford all the kerb work that would require (re-routing drainage etc.), so they're proposing to do only half a job, but the proposal to only have a carriageway in one direction causes problems with traffic management. The new Mayor of Tower Hamlets supports it, and he's still here for a while, so there's no reason not to do it properly.
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Tom Conti
“Cyclists should be made to pay road tax. If they want money spent they should contribute. If they want a special road, they should have to pay for it.”
He added: “There are still far more cars than other forms of transport on our roads. This is the beginning of some kind of Soviet idea to ban all vehicular traffic from London.”
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But in other news, good to see the traffic moving smoothly in the background.
I don't know when the video was filmed, but traffic usually moves just fine outside the peak hour, if there are no unusual events. (All the design constraints imposed by TfL only relate to the times of heaviest pressure (the morning peak, as the evening peak is more spread out) and because most people go to and from the same destination (Central London) at the same time.) London has vast traffic over-capacity but doesn't use it because of the poor organisation of the city, which the huge amount of development largely in the centre is making worse.
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I think we should stick to mild curses at worst and not actual nasty death wishes.
I'd also caution against building the pollution/air quality argument up too much. Electric cars are already waiting in the wings and stand ready to move pollution elsewhere while still isolating people in cars. Next up is the 'road safety' argument--when self-driving cars come along, everything will be perfectly safe! Long queues of cars will move off simultaneously at junctions!
Obviously, anything that reduces air pollution and deaths or injuries is welcome, and there will continue to be motorised carriages in London no matter what, but to my mind the main problems with them are the isolation of people while they are technically in the public realm, as well as the inactivity and geographical dissolution (trip origins and destinations increasingly far apart) that they breed.
The latter bit is probably an over-reaction to your post, but politics is already building up to letting politicians off the hook if only they support electric cars--look at what Zac Goldsmith has said recently.
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Oh, and just on self-driving cars--the industry momentum behind them is very fast indeed:
This is the biggest threat to efforts at increasing public transport use and non-motorised mobility. The car industry is hoping to build on the technology for a revival of its flagging fortunes. Once the complaints about air pollution and road safety in cities are removed, the futuristic impetus towards motorised hypermobility will receive a huge boost again. You only have to look at the bonkers road-building plans already announced for London how serious the threat is.
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Boris's last move: getting TfL to remove the tree slalom and make the Old St crossing of CS1 as it was at consultation.
https://www.london.gov.uk/decisions/md1659-apex-junction-improvements
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-36050790
I've also been asking black cab drivers what they thought of the new lane.
One told me "it's alright now it's finished", but another said: "Boris Johnson has done more damage to London than the Luftwaffe".
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how many people have been killed in accidents involving cars during Boris' time as mayor?
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I have a friend saying it took her an extra 10 mins to get to work on the new (dunno which one) superhighway because of very short green light phases and a lot of queueing at junctions. Anywhere she can feedback and/or will TFL adjust these when people just use the road instead?
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Nothing she can do about that, the green are shorter on the cycle lane because of the left turning traffic, so it go red before the light on the road does.
Best solution? mix the cycle lane and road instead, I find it take me less time to get to work this way.
Only problem, you'll get some angry drivers telling you to fuck off to the cycle lane.
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Well that's why I'm wondering if they'll be adjusted. No point having a 'superhighway' if it's bottlenecked in favour of everything else.
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Other people exist. Take another route or sit back and enjoy the ride.
Oliver Schick
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About
TFL Cycle Superhighways
Posted by
@Drokk
CS3 is a victim of its own success. It's too narrow for a two way cycle route at the moment - It gets so busy in rush hour that I've had some hairy moments there with other cyclists overtaking me straight into another cyclist coming the other way. Granted they shouldn't cycle like dicks, but it's such a confined space - compare with the nice wide n-s superhighway.
So the whole thing needs to be widened or they need to do something else to address the problem - one of which might be a traffic calmed mixed traffic route in one direction, for example.