You are reading a single comment by @Oliver Schick and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Oliver Schick
Sorry, didn't see this one. There are a variety of initiatives to reduce street clutter--it's in every streetscape guidance document, for instance, and in Hackney we have an evidence-based policy to remove them (they have not been shown to improve safety).
Don't be too quick to link this sort of effort with the late Hans Monderman's work--there are quite a few differences. Clutter removal is a very piecemeal approach and at best a very preliminary stage to more civilised street environments, but every little helps.
The drawback is that cycle parking is disappearing in a lot of cases, and that will of course have to be replaced. Cycle parking stands are a much more preferable form of street clutter than railings, though. They allow people to pass between them and have a positive primary function as opposed to a negative one. Where there are narrow footways, though, they can't be positioned in the same place as railings, as they have to be placed further from the kerb than railings to lock bikes to both sides.
Yes, in the City of Westminster or LB Tower Hamlets, you'll probably wait for a while to see these initiatives take hold, as transport policy in these local authorities has some catching up to do (to put it mildly).