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Sure it wasn’t this?
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I used to ride the Greenway when it was just known as the sewers.
Most frightening thing that ever happened to me while cycling was coming round the bend past the cemetery late at night. Rode straight through a ghostly column of mist rising from the floor...
Was only when I got to the end and was brave enough to turn round that I realised it was steam coming from the vents!
Don’t think I ever got home quicker. -
I've seen one going through Dulwich on more that one occasion. Similar to that one above, minus the downtube & basket, and white. Think the rider was wearing a particulate filter mask also.
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TfL have a consultation open over making all their roads (i.e. red routes) 20mph...
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/streets/20/
Edit: On closer inspection it's limited to central London, so not as significant as I first thought.
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This time last year I had tan lines. Now have tide marks. Sigh.
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I do the stretch from East Ham to Olympic park daily, it's gotten heaps better since they installed 24/7 lighting and turned it into Q22. Never had any trouble on it during regular commuting hours; commuter traffic does drop a little during the winter months but that just makes it more fun.
Best ridden at 4AM very stoned when it's deserted and you can pretend it's ghosts rising out of the vents instead of sewer stank.
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We’ve had 20mph limits for years across the whole of Edinburgh city centre; they effect very little difference on driver behaviour. On a 5 mile, 18mph ave. spd. commute in from Leith most days I am overtaken by at least 10 bellends doing 25mph+; a few months ago I had an empty private hire taxi overtake on a downhill - wrong side of the road - doing at least 38mph, only to pull in front of me at the red light some 15 yards ahead and give zero fucks when I questioned his driving skillz through his resolutely closed window. Given most city centre traffic rarely gets beyond an average of 10mph, largely due to antiquated street layouts, the fact that traffic is literally what slows you down seems to have little or no impact on the MGiF* brigade.
*©️Youtube
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This morning rounded the final bend of my ride in to be greeted by a work van squeezing past a stopped lorry towards me on the one way. I stop and quizzically raise my hand. Window rolls down and the passenger immediately asks what my fucking problem is and why I'm in the way. Just say to him and the driver that it's a one way cos I couldn't be arsed with a discussion, driver apologises that he didn't realise and tells the passenger to shut up as he continues to complain about my fucking problem. They start to reverse and I head in to my building. Hope it did reverse the whole way back to turn around as I don't think the driver of the large van that entered the road behind me and was about to come around the bend would have been as lightly fussed about the blockage as I was.
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Well, it most certainly won't be Met policy to 'ignore' 20mph speed limits. More likely it will be expressed in terms of policing priorities, in which 20mph is likely to be quite far down the tree.
The Met does some 20mph enforcement, though obviously too little, and its level of activity in this respect appears to have declined in recent years. When Islington and Hackney adopted 20mph throughout their boroughs, there were a few enforcement bursts, probably partly for publicity (not necessarily self-serving, but also to inform drivers), but these have declined in recent years. Inevitably, there has been talk of councils taking over enforcement powers from the police:
From the article:
The Met issued 12,251 tickets for speeding in 20mph zones in 2016. It only targets areas where there is known to be a problem.
Long before the introduction of 20mph limits (just signs), as opposed to 20mph zones (fitted with speed humps etc.), the Met always said it wouldn't enforce them unless it got funding for the enforcement (that's partly why it took so long for limits to happen, and there was an element of 'let's call the police's bluff' to it). A critic of the police once said to me at a meeting that there had long been a tendency by the police of wanting to fight crime and not police what they see as 'regulatory' offences. I'm sure the police would dispute that, but while my experience of policing is limited, I can see a logic to the claim.
The problem continues to be that there is hardly any traffic policing in London, and what dedicated traffic police there are are mainly concerned with collision investigation, so it's basically pared down to an indispensable function--never mind that with more traffic policing there would probably be fewer collisions overall. It's simply bizarre that there's been no political will to fund traffic police for so long. This isn't just a Boris Johnson/Tory thing, either--the situation was very similar under Livingstone, although obviously it's got worse since 2010.
I still remember a police trial in Haringey a long time ago, probably nearly 20 years. They received funding for two officers to do nothing but traffic enforcement. This proved amazingly effective--although obviously I'm reflecting the verdict of people supportive of the project, including the officer who addressed the meeting. They found large numbers of weapons and amounts of drugs in cars they searched, as well as wanted criminals--I think the phrase was 'denying criminals the use of the roads'. Over the years, I've repeatedly heard it said that criminals are much less likely to adhere to traffic regulations than non-criminals. I don't know if there was a report about this scheme and what it might have said, but needless to say, the trial was not continued. :(
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This is also interesting, Caroline Russell challenging Cressida Dick about the inadequate enforcement at present and asking about plans for the future, including TfL's intention to make the TLRN (or much of it in Central London) 20mph:
http://islingtontribune.com/article/police-too-slow-to-enforce-20mph-zones
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This morning's commute and other commuting stories
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@RikiBanger
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