So, question is: is there any sort of consensus amongst cyclists about best practice in the actual design of infrastructure like the Bow roundabout and what the design of CS2 got wrong?
I should add: Designing first only along the links between two major nodes is a mistake. In whatever you do, you want to first consider what people do with the wider network (change the nature and purpose of traffic, e.g. stop people rat-running or enable people to do their daily business by making it possible for them to live closer to wherever they have to go, and not having to take so many trips to different destinations, etc.), then you treat the nodes (e.g., you've reduced the need to travel by looking at the network, and now you can reduce a junction in size because you don't need it to pump so many cars through), and lastly you can look at the link, whose operation is the least important in network logic.
The CS2 mistake is that virtually nothing was done about the junctions (comprehensive network-wide measures would go way beyond the scope of a CS, although are not inconceivable, e.g. modal filtering of some side streets to reduce side street interaction); there was one half-decent junction treatment of the Cambridge Heath Road junction (which could have gone further), but almost nothing else. It's at or near junctions where the vast majority of crashes occur, so if you give people the illusion of 'safety' (a slippery concept if ever there was one), their crash risk will merely be shifted along to the junctions.
The main nodes are the A11 Bow Interchange and the Stratford gyratory. Amending both of these mistakes of the past is very costly, much more costly than shifting a few kerblines along a link (and the idea of reducing the A118 Stratford High Street to two general traffic lanes each way had been around for a long time, anyway--I first heard about it in the context of the disastrous Stratford City development in 2002 or so). The complaints that TfL doesn't have any money are, of course, a consequence of all that austerity nonsense; if you want to have some more and better-quality economic activity for a growing population, a good project like a new town centre in a location that undershoots its potential, right next to the Olympic Park, is really where you want to go.
This would make a lot of journeys stop at Bow and relieve the pressure on the further course of the A11 into Central London, create more jobs there, etc. It would be win-win and if consistently applied throughout London, it would also have a beneficial impact on road danger reduction.
I should add: Designing first only along the links between two major nodes is a mistake. In whatever you do, you want to first consider what people do with the wider network (change the nature and purpose of traffic, e.g. stop people rat-running or enable people to do their daily business by making it possible for them to live closer to wherever they have to go, and not having to take so many trips to different destinations, etc.), then you treat the nodes (e.g., you've reduced the need to travel by looking at the network, and now you can reduce a junction in size because you don't need it to pump so many cars through), and lastly you can look at the link, whose operation is the least important in network logic.
The CS2 mistake is that virtually nothing was done about the junctions (comprehensive network-wide measures would go way beyond the scope of a CS, although are not inconceivable, e.g. modal filtering of some side streets to reduce side street interaction); there was one half-decent junction treatment of the Cambridge Heath Road junction (which could have gone further), but almost nothing else. It's at or near junctions where the vast majority of crashes occur, so if you give people the illusion of 'safety' (a slippery concept if ever there was one), their crash risk will merely be shifted along to the junctions.
The main nodes are the A11 Bow Interchange and the Stratford gyratory. Amending both of these mistakes of the past is very costly, much more costly than shifting a few kerblines along a link (and the idea of reducing the A118 Stratford High Street to two general traffic lanes each way had been around for a long time, anyway--I first heard about it in the context of the disastrous Stratford City development in 2002 or so). The complaints that TfL doesn't have any money are, of course, a consequence of all that austerity nonsense; if you want to have some more and better-quality economic activity for a growing population, a good project like a new town centre in a location that undershoots its potential, right next to the Olympic Park, is really where you want to go.
This would make a lot of journeys stop at Bow and relieve the pressure on the further course of the A11 into Central London, create more jobs there, etc. It would be win-win and if consistently applied throughout London, it would also have a beneficial impact on road danger reduction.