• Well, that was bound to come up. :) It wouldn't bring any advantages, chameleon, and would only generate a set of problems which in Central London is insurmountable. People often think that all that is required for segregated cycle tracks is space. However, the main things that are required for them to 'work' (i.e., for them not to cause so many problems) is low levels of frontage activity and low levels of side street interaction. There is no chance of either of these things ever happening in this area, not that segregated tracks would be desirable here even then.

    The issue here isn't bus-cycle interaction; that is often demonised way out of proportion. The issue is the interaction between all four lanes (or five at the Kingsway junction, I think) that causes cyclists to be timid about getting in the right lane. Once the street is made two-way, this issue will disappear in an instant.

    One shouldn't try to apply segregated tracks as a blunt, non-specific remedy. There is a place for them in certain environments, where they can have specific purposes, but Central London, by and large, isn't one of them. You could have such tracks in unusual streets like Lambeth Palace Road, for instance, but not in a lot of places. There are a lot of myths surrounding their benefits, and for many people they are a kind of ideal that fills them with hope. However, the reality of street design in London is hard work without any panaceas.

    (By the way, we've been through this sort of thing many times in various guises. Back in 1997, LB Hackney came up with a design for contraflow segregated cycle tracks all around the Shoreditch gyratory. The local group then made a principled decision not to go for these but to hold out for full two-way working. Strategically, this has always been the right move. Compare this to the decision by the Camden local group in the 1990s to support segregated tracks. In the time since then, they've managed to get two tracks in, both of which will probably not last that much longer, and have achieved virtually no change in the traffic environment of central Camden, in marked contrast to what's been happening in Hackney. The Camden group are now campaigning much more strongly for permeability, following Hackney's example.)

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