SW London: Priory Lane consultation - Closes 16 Feb 2018

It's not a bad attempt at a scheme there, but it won't solve one of the main problems (the biggest problem, of course, is its alignment as a rat-run between major streets) that stretch of Priory Lane has, which is the absence of a footway on one side for most of its length. This changes the ambience of the street very much for the worse, as drivers feel they only have to pay attention to one side. That problem won't be so bad for drivers going northbound, but those going southbound will pay much less attention to cyclists on their own side and much more attention (while going faster than they should) to the northern side. I don't know where the crashes and close passes occur, but I'd guess they're mostly southbound. It's very difficult to solve this problem, as buying more land on the non-footway side is unlikely to be possible (and would cost a bomb), and re-aligning kerbs within the existing envelope of the street would likewise be extremely expensive (you have to reconstruct all the drainage) and would not result in adequately wide footways either side.

Layouts with advisory cycle lanes are generally to be avoided, but the exception to that rule is the type of layout in which either side of the carriageway has an advisory cycle lane without a centre line. While far from ideal, that works quite well when insufficient carriageway width is available for proper wide kerb lanes and vehicle flows are not too high. My guess is that they've judged flows to be too high for this type of layout to successfully deal with the head-on conflict it causes between drivers when cyclists are present, but I certainly don't think the proposed layout, while undoubtedly an improvement, will really work.