Centralised discussion space for TfL plans and cycling in London

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.

Don't you end up with loads of cars driving down to the filter, realising they can't go through and doing a u-turn and driving back again. This seems to happen frequently at the ones near me.

It happens where people don't know the layout (often just after implementation; before navigation systems came along, people obviously first had to get used to it, today navigation data may not be updated immediately) and where the signage isn't clear, yes. It's not hugely significant, though.

That mini roundabout was terrible. I found drivers travelling south were very unlikely to give way when you approached from the west despite it being a standard road junction. Will be interesting to see if the new design improves anything.

To put the other point of view, I never found the mini roundabout a problem at all but am willing to accept I might be in a minority. I don't know if there are stats on collisions there. It's the least obvious 'who has priority' junction I have seen since the building of the roundabout with the parallel cycle lane on Drayton Park.

Pure anecdata but whenever I use the Drayton Park cycle crossing arms I've been pleasantly surprised with drivers giving priority, never had a problem there.

@ reply

https://x.com/Hackneycyclist/status/1810723490367938952

Yes, well, that's completely wrong. It will have been the request for 'clear cycle priority' that caused the current bad design. Southgate Road is the cell boundary street and should have the priority alignment through this junction. As before, this would not be a problem at all if the east and west arms of the junction weren't filtered. Filters should be inside the cell, not on the boundary. The previous problem was caused by a filter on the boundary, the current design has two of them. Riders who are hit there may be in the right legally, but it would obviously be preferable if they weren't hit in the first place. It does make you worry about impending crashes there.

The root cause is the DfT refuses to develop and publish standard designs for cycle infrastructure, so councils are left, nay, encouraged to design whatever they want and Islington are particularly shit about over-complicating designs and adding public realm guff that makes the junction harder to read.

Hold on

Doesn't LTN 1/20 cover this?

My impression is that 1/20 is unachievable across much of London's streetscape.
Waltham Forest is a good example of what it's unworkable
The bad infra is around the Baker's Arms being a case in point.
Perhaps we need to rethink how we do infra.

This is really terrible, the Greenway is such a great route.

https://youtu.be/e-gL1f88Q7o?si=vmRQ00h_ygtFoqBU

I posted about that here:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/17521866/

Kensington Palace Gardens

Was closed for a week in the summer. If you are trying to enter Kensington Gardens via the Ken Palace car park you have to dismount to enter (and exit) the car park.

Apparently a cyclist had a coming together with a pedestrian in the alley at the side of the Israeli embassy earlier in the summer. As a result the side alley all cyclists are now required to dismount at the 2 entry points crossing Ken Palace Gardens.

There are chaps there all day, until about 10pm and they now just largely track the numbers of cyclists using the road. I spoke to one of them a couple of weeks ago and he told me about the incident above. As this road is owned by the Crown Estate it is up to them what they do with it and my understanding is that the current status is that they are monitoring usage. Whether the chaps stay there once the clocks go back and the temperature drops is tough to say.

Apart from the closure in the summer for a couple of weeks, I've had no issue accessing the entrance next at Bayswater Road (between the Czech embassy and Russian consulate), and also at the Ken High St end. But note I am sure it is closes at 10pm.

Ah, I can't say I'm familiar with any of that. By 'side alley', do you mean York House Place?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5034466,-0.191816,3a,41y,71.66h,83.72t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sy-wOvO5dVBpg3Mn4eiOCGw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D6.282173608761553%26panoid%3Dy-wOvO5dVBpg3Mn4eiOCGw%26yaw%3D71.6587182343316!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkyMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

I didn't realise you could get through there. Is this where you emerge?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5041684,-0.1882419,3a,86.9y,288.44h,73.9t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sG3u0OTumTukQHeWbNVUKvw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D16.099636428378034%26panoid%3DG3u0OTumTukQHeWbNVUKvw%26yaw%3D288.4438112707094!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkyMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Apart from the closure in the summer for a couple of weeks, I've had no issue accessing the entrance next at Bayswater Road (between the Czech embassy and Russian consulate)

You mean they don't even check if you're rushing?

KPG access.

From York House Place you emerge into Ken Palace Gardens then into the car park, then into the Gardens themselves.

The attached shows the other side of the car park and the Gardens are behind you.
At the far end of the car park is the Romanian embassy, which is the other side of York House Place from the Israeli embassy.

I didn't meant to @ you, I was actually responding another users comment.

I guess Google didn't get the permission to photograph on Ken Palace Gardens

1 Attachment

Thanks, that's what I thought. I've never been through there.

I suspect they anticipate whether they can or cannot film anywhere rather than ask for permission. It also seems to be possible, even in the UK, to have your house blurred out on StreetView--when they started in Germany a long time ago, there seem to have been a lot of people who requested that. Then there was a long hiatus, and now they've started to StreetView Germany again.

I used the parallel crossing on Northchurch/Southgate every day last week and it's as bad as I'd expected. Neither many drivers or other cyclists know to give way. I understand that some cyclists were anxious about the mini roundabout but it seems to have been replaced with a crossing where as a cyclist you will be more anxious as at least with a roundabout you can be sure drivers know the rules even if some didn't adhere to them. It's not helped by the sight lines being very poor from Northchurch in either direction so you have the double whammy of appearing in view late in front of many drivers who are not expecting to have to stop.

Wednesday evening will see the inaugural (Zoom) meeting of the LBHilingdon Cycling Forum,
formed in response to our Council's (pisspoor) Cycling Strategy.
Our Council's draft Cycling Strategy is here.

The reasonable Recommendations from the Ruislip Residents' Association Cycling sub-com is here.

Our Council's published Cycling Strategy is here.

The London Cycling Campaign issued this summary of the state of cycling in London in 2023, here.

The TfL Cycling Action Plan is here.

This report, from London Travel Watch, was a good summary as of 2017, here.

What other documents/publications should we be considering?

Yes, all caused by the problem I identified up there--filtering at the junction with Southgate Road itself, which turns the approaches on either side into much-inferior alignments. You need to open them up, push the filters further inside the cell, and create a simple, legible junction. Obviously, it should ideally be signalised, but they don't want another set of signals between Englefield Road and Downham Road.

Not sure if this is the right thread
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cew25weew0zo
Interesting that Lime can be made to make changes when it has to, hopefully other Boroughs will realise that they have some power. Also interested in the 'speed limit' thing and how that works.

Also interested in the 'speed limit' thing and how that works.

I've experienced this 'go slow' thing.

I was shown by a lime project manager when I went for a test ride with him (ahead of developing a cycle training programme for them)

The go slow areas are geofenced with gps. Pretty accurately, for example, then the cycle along the westway was a go slow area. The cycle dropped max speed from 15mph to 5mph.
not abruptly.

Similarly when riding through wormholt park. 5mp for the 50m through the park.

The app shows in its map these places

This was a few years ago now so things may have changed

'skydancerrr incoming!'

'Tractorrr beam activated, sirrr!'

A little 🐢 pops up in the display panel and it slows you down quickly but not horribly, my immediate thought was the bike was broken but then I noticed the icon

It's almost as if it was always a stupid folly waved through by an idiot.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-cable-car-greenwich-opening-hours-cut-passengers-b1194637.html