Centralised discussion space for TfL plans and cycling in London

If the Council Officer compiling the responses,
or,
the Councillor, (notionally) responsible Council Cabinet member,
or even the Council Leader are anti-cyclist/pro-motorist,
they regard the comments as supporting their inactions.

Each of the 6 routes that make up the London Overground will be given a new name and its own colour. Giving each of the 6 London Overground routes an individual line colour lets us improve the way our customers experience our network. It also gives each line their own name and identity.

Euston to Watford Junction line – will be called the Lioness line – and will be yellow
Stratford to Richmond/Clapham Junction line - will be called the Mildmay line – and will be blue
Highbury & Islington to New Cross/Crystal Palace/West Croydon/Clapham Junction line – will be called the Windrush line - and will be red
Liverpool Street to Cheshunt/Enfield Town/Chingford line – will be called the Weaver line – and will be maroon
Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside line – will be called the Suffragette line – and will be green
Romford to Upminster line – will be called the Liberty line – and will be grey

Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside line – will be called the Suffragette line – and will be green

It's the Goblin, everyone knows this

I've never heard that. I rarely use OG lines, mostly because I have bikes but also because they only go to icky places like Clapham.

I've never heard that. I rarely use OG lines, mostly because I have bikes but also because they only go to icky places like Clapham and always cover the same squadrats.

Fixed.

Actually, getting some lunch squadies might be the only reason to use an OG line coz you can take bikes on them off peak maybe?

Query about London bike lanes from anecdotal observation; I regularly go up and down the Jamaica road bike lane and am looking forward to the Lower Road extension which is largely built. While I am of course glad for the existence of the bike lanes making my commuting a lot safer, I do often wonder about how the council justifies the use of road space/expenditure of public funds to drivers - whenever I go down the road outside of peak hours, I often see 10 cars queued (or driving along) for every other bike I see. What is the general argument for justifying the allocation of space and funds to cycling given what seems to be the comparative lack of beneficiaries?

Is the idea to build a large enough network to give more people the confidence to get on bikes en masse a la the Netherlands, because that seems like a pipe dream to me?

I often see 10 cars queued (or driving along) for every other bike I see.

Bikes are much more efficient than cars in cities

Cars create congestion. Bikes don’t. You’re seeing the higher inefficiency of one mode of transport and thinking that equals higher usage.

I am aware of this, but you would expect to see bikes bunched up at lights regardless, just closer together. But this is not often the case. Would be interested in actual numbers and e.g. whether increased number of bikes on the road owing to the bike lanes outweighs the additional travel time for car road users.

additional travel time for car road users

Big assumption

Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood surveys up.. worth engaging, some fairly big changes being proposed. https://holbornln.commonplace.is/

For example, if you ride West from Old Street, you could see..
Theobalds Road 'adding segregated cycle lanes in both directions ' and onto Bloomsbury Way that is 'exploring changing the road to a bus and cycle only route'.

https://holbornln.commonplace.is/en-GB/proposals/tell-us-how-you-feel-about-holborn-now/step1

I get a sense that parts of the city can no longer rely on people having to come to work, and are seeing they need to change to be places people want to visit, hang out and live.

Just to add to whats already been said, this is a useful visual of capacity of car traffic and cycle traffic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06IjfbqdnNM

Bloody hell, bikes are terrible, ban those fuckers.

Again am aware of the efficiency of this as a mode of transport, which is one of the many reasons I ride, but in terms of absolute numbers (and not how much space is being taken up on the road) there just seem to be more people who will choose to get in a car and not a bike (I completely understand that anecdotal evidence doesn't count for much, but there are always just more cars that I see every journey than bikes in contrast to, say, Cambridge), and it's not clear that a bike lane changes that calculus at the moment, so I'm wondering if that is the end goal and how we get there. For the avoidance of doubt I am in favour of anything that gets more people on bikes, I just don't know what gets us there and how to sell it to people living in London.

@elswick halving the number of lanes makes an already inefficient mode of transport even more inefficient, so to simplify the model and going by the visualisation above, that is twice the amount of time taken to cross each traffic light on a road that has had a car lane replaced with a bike lane..

Edit: found this from a few years ago that seems to tie with observations until now (i.e. cycle use is higher during particular hours of the day as compared to constant motor traffic)

Cycleway 4 is now open between Greenwich and Tower Bridge. Will keep it a test spin tomorrow
https://twitter.com/n00dles71/status/1764753357686636963

Didn't know where to put but, I've heard kensington Palace garden (billionaires row) is now 'temporarily' closed to pedestrian and cyclist citing safety concerns.
I've never had an issue on the massive wide road. However the resident clearly have an issue with cyclists as they blocked it being designated a quiet way a few years ago as it might effect the exclusivity of the road.
I remember getting caught in the middle of convoy of large BMWs coming out there a few years ago they were furious!

I guess bike lanes aren't built for current usage but future usage. If one of the results of installing them means car journey times increase it may lead to some drivers questioning if it is the most appropriate form of transport for their journey, and maybe seeing more people cycling using safer infrastructure might lead to them choosing to cycle instead

seeing more people cycling using safer infrastructure might lead to them choosing to cycle instead

This is all you need to know about building a safe, smooth grid of bike infrastructure.

Anyone else used the new crossing at Northchurch and Southgate? I have no idea who is supposed to have priority there and as far as I can tell nor do any car drivers - leastways not if cyclists are supposed to have it. I know a lot of people don't like roundabouts or mini-roundabouts but I can't see how the new layout is better at the moment.

I'll check out the final layout soon but from memory the cycle traffic has priority over motor traffic due to the parallel crossing that was being proposed. I'll have a look and hopefully there's lot of yellow signage going up to warn everyone (motorists) to take extra care as it beds in..

https://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/dictionary/parallel-crossing

It's just another bad design there, in a long history of bad designs dating back to the original filtering scheme in De Beauvoir. The following may sound too abstract, but I've said it many times. The problem is filtering at the edge of a traffic cell, i.e. at a junction with a cell boundary street. Southgate Road is such a cell boundary street, Northchurch Road a street inside two traffic cells, one east, one west of Southgate Road.

When you de-emphasise a side street entry, even with a showy design like this that supposedly makes it clear to drivers that they're meant to stop for east-west traffic, they will treat it as a street that they can speed past, and Southgate Road has long had a speeding issue. What you need is perfectly normal side street entries that cause normal driver behaviour--with give-way lines but always the possibility that another driver might turn out of or into these streets, which is what drivers are really worried about.

The previous design had a filter only on the east side, which caused numerous bad crashes as people emerged from Northchurch Road east effectively off a footway, even if a narrow cycle track is laid across the footway. Now someone has decided that what's really needed is to repeat this mistake on the other side and to de-emphasise the east-west crossing even more, with lots of lining and signing--forget that, it doesn't make much difference to driver behaviour. These designs are to be avoided.

The thing to understand about filters is that they do exactly the same job inside a traffic cell, ideally as close to the centre of a cell as possible, of deterring through motor traffic, as filters placed at the cell boundary, but do a far, far better job of enabling better junction designs on the cell boundary.

@reply

The mini roundabout there was the only place I've been hit in many years cycling in London, drivers just blast straight over them. It's great that it's being looked at.

I think the issue with the new layout is that drivers aren't familiar with parallel cycle crossings. I understand why they've done it, but the council adding give way markings on the cycle path when the cycles actually have priority adds to the confusion.

Sorry, was tired.