TFL Cycle Superhighways

Could I PM you? I really would rather not discuss this in a public forum...

Yes, sure. Not sure I can help, but who knows.

Poll on the Chiswick Herald (below the videos) about CS9, in case anyone feels like enraging some locals.

Cheers, I will PM tomorrow when I am at work as I have written a fairly detailed account of the incident for our reports, so I can just copy and paste and maybe grab a picture showing you the issue(s).

Gave the very unfinished Q5 a go from Oval to Tooting Bec Common this evening. Thought it might be educational to note down some thoughts.

Oval to Clapham Common is nice and quiet, but is the definition of 'low intervention'. They've picked some decent back roads, but I found myself letting a car through in the opposite direction more than once. I felt like for the most part I was just being shown a quiet route that existed anyway, but never felt like bike was king, like I do on Q1.

Emerging onto Clapham Common, you start to realise how unfinished the route is. Only made it to Q5 on the other side because I happen to know where it is. Nice ride across the Common, but either it's poorly-signed enough for me to completely lose the thread or it's not Q5-ified yet.

Most disappointing bit for me is that, having attempted a completely quiet route home, once i get to Tooting Bec Common I am then forced to choose the lesser of two busy options. Either I turn left onto the busy-ish road half way down the common, then follow said busy-ish road (which is also in shit condition) up and over the railway bridge, round a busy corner and up Becmead Ave into Streatham, or go all the way through the common and use the even busier road that goes past the athletics track to go up past St. Leonard's Church into Streatham.

Is development of Q5 completely parked? I would really love a properly quiet way back to Streatham, but the options above are close but no cigar, and Streatham High Road itself is a complete non-starter. Every possible way home involves at least one busy section.

Streatham needs sorting out generally - nowhere should have a 6 lane high road. Until then, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a place for people to live it's a fucking motorway service station with houses attached.

@skidlidsid

Apparently the quietways haven't even had TfL’s “Cycling Level of Service” (CLoS) checks done.
So I would expect a lot of the routes to be very crap in places.

https://activetravelnow.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/millions-of-pounds-have-been-wasted-say-cycle-group/

Interesting - certainly rings true.

Tried Q5 in the other direction last night - found myself nose-to-nose with cars that had gone round corners too quickly on two separate occasions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2018/nov/30/whos-behind-the-bid-to-get-londons-flagship-bike-lane-ripped-up

Ah, so there is a thread for this.

Company in nefarious lobbying shocker!

Hi all
I have a freind who wants to get into cycling to work but is understandably nervous and I am trying to draw her a good route, using as many quiet paths and roads as possible, without making the route too long and windy. Here is what I have so far, and I wondered if anyone had any suggestions.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/30599988

She has tried before, and the things that annoyed her most were the thames path being blocked in many places, and getting lost on the greenwich peninsular. These things can be avoided when you know where to turn off. We are hoping to do the route together next week.

If TFL want to up their game then an adoption of this model of junction would go a long way to standardising and normalising cycle infrastructure.

An important difference is a lack of light signalling between pedestrian and cycle movements, in general, which speeds up the light cycle significantly. This in turn reduces the pressure to avoid segregation due to demands of motor throughput.

Square Mile Cycling appears to be a grassroots group campaigning for a
new cycle lane through the City of London, collecting signatures and
taking part in public consultations.

However, Square Mile Cycling group was overseen by the same CTF staff
who were also looking after two astroturfed pages named Londoners for
Transport and Unblock the Embankment which wanted to rip up the
existing lane along London’s Embankment.

Sources within CTF said that Canary Wharf Group was funding the
apparently contradictory campaigns. The company, a longtime opponent
of the central London cycle lane, declined to comment.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/01/brexit-cycle-lanes-and-saudi-arabia-ctfs-facebook-campaigns

Looks like they've shut down their Facebook page after it turned out they were Canary Wharf Group:

https://www.facebook.com/squaremilecycling/photos

You need @Amey and @Mickie_Cricket.

I'd leave Thames path at Greenwich Yacht club (peartree way) > ride on Woolwich road for a bit (its sign posted as part of NCR 1 to Thames path, you have to ride on pavement for a bit) and then join thames path again > then Quiteway 1 > the real time vs effort dilemma is Blackfriars or Waterloo, Blackfriars is infinitely safer but if she can bare (maybe later) Waterloo, the payoff is having to stop for Savoy st lights on east west AND the awkward strand junction > I'd go through seven dials (mercer st)

Nasty.... this was the same group that tried to get it stopped in the first place.
Andrew Gillingham is back in a position so I'm hopeful positive things may happen.
My main gripe is with Kensington and Chelsea being in the West of London.
A group of well connected and organised people have literally blocked everything.

Weird. Scary the desperate tactics some people will stoop to because they don't like a bike lane.

The lengths people go is amazing... impersonating a cyclist fatality grieving aunt really stoops to an all time low imo.

I use a very similar route but I try to avoid all busy roads.
Don't like the traffic on any of the bridges so I walk over Hungerford/ Jubilee Bridge.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/30726547

Look at this. The workers who are building our new safe cycle path
#CW9 in West London — heroes every one — and some of us local cyclists have brought them breakfast this morning:

https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1218479727515705345