@db 🙂 I would imagine the Police, taxis and delivery trucks are allowed to park/stop in a cycle lane. If they weren’t they’d have to stop in the middle of the road

Im not sure what the health benefits of cycling in London are vs heavy breathing some of the most polluted air in Europe.
Bus strikes lead to a huge reduction in central London air pollution and reduction in hospital admittances for breathing difficulties and heart attacks.
Borris’ vanity projevt Routemasters for all their cost were pushed through with engines that fall foul of new EU pollution laws.
He has managed to claim the glory of implementing kens hire bike scheme as his own and handed Barclay’s a huge advertising g coup in the process.
The kind of segregated lanes he’s talking about don’t exists because he took men’s orginial superhighway plans and dumped them in favour of painting some if the most dangerous stretches of road in London Barclay’s blue and calling them ‘safe’.

air: you need to visit some more European cities, there are tons worse than London
buses: possibly but much better than more cars/taxis/Ubers
Routemasters: very popular re-introduction, they are excellent and are hybrids with electric start to get moving. A million times better than the death trap/congestion causing bendy buses so popular in Europe.
Bikehire: Ken had an idea, well not really as bike hire is in many cities. Boris made it work.
Barclays: Very poor return which is why they didn’t renew. Nobody calls them Barclays bikes, they are virtually anonymous as a sponsor.
Superhighway: Agreed generally just paint but given budget constraints there wasn’t a lot of choice. How much input do you think Boris has to the location and route choices, answer very little. Some are indeed appalling, Bow and Blackfriars bridge spring to mind. Alternative in each location though was nothing.

The superhighway lane along the Embankment is well underway. It is 3m wide with high kerbs on both sides.

Looks good until you realise it’s two-way!

It’s so short-sighted. Infrastructure improvements should cater for the situation you want to create – more people on bikes. These lanes are insufficient for the situation we already have.

They will be great for the slower and less confident cyclists, but no good for impatient commuters like me.

They will be great for the slower and less confident cyclists, but no good for impatient commuters like me.

😯

They will be great for the slower and less confident cyclists, but no good for impatient commuters like me

this is indeed one of the downsides of completely segregated landed s they have in Denmark and the Netherlands but I think I’m asking to live with it to see more people out on bikes. I think the whole eBike thing may solve that anyway

Not in the Netherlands it isn’t in general, as they build the bike paths wide enough that fast people can still ride fast. Of course this isn’t the case in busy city centres at peak hours, but even then it’s faster on a bike path than on the road.

This is bad.

Do cyclists actually hold up traffic in London? I don’t think so. Other traffic holds up traffic.

It would be massively frustrating for anyone needing to get anywhere to have to use the superhighways and more than likely result in loads of cyclist/other cyclists/ped accidents.

The best place for FAST cyclists is on the road.

If experience here in Scotland is a guide, they’ll be poorly maintained, difficult to access, ungritted and unswept, festooned with dogs, horses, and their leavings, and in general essentially unusable for transport purposes.

t demonstrates massive lack of faith in cycle superhighways IMO. If he thought they were good enough for people to use them because they’re the best solution available, then he wouldn’t have to put in punitive measures to force people to use them, he’d have confidence they’d use them anyway…

This

The best place for FAST cyclists is on the road.

Depends how well you build the cycle paths. In Belgium you quite regularly get whole club runs using specific cycle paths as they’re very wide, well surfaced, safe and convenient.

I’ve done rides averaging 20mph on some of the cycle paths over there and I’m very happy to use them.

Over here of course, even the best paths give way to traffic at every junction, they’re not wide enough, they disappear at random intervals… If Boris built them properly there wouldn’t be any need to threaten cyclists with fines for not using them, they should be the default choice for cyclists because they’re so good (as in Belgium). Somehow can’t see that happening in London…

a twitter bloke from Belfast @nigreenways regularly posts pics of (usually commercial) vehicles parked in Belfast’s protected (by kerbs) bike lanes

If Boris built them properly there wouldn’t be any need to threaten cyclists with fines for not using them, they should be the default choice for cyclists because they’re so good (as in Belgium). Somehow can’t see that happening in London…

It also would need a change in culture. Cyclists using the lanes would need to learn lane discipline and to expect faster cyclists to be over taking, learn to use life savers etc as they would on the road. Pedestrians etc will also need to learn to stay out of them as they would the road, which may be naturally easy to do, or not, depending on they these lanes come about.

I’m still not in favour of compulsory usage, never mind that it shouldn’t be be needed in the first place, but it sets the wrong example and could set an unwelcome precedent.

The lanes will need to accommodate Boris-Bike bimblers, mamils, little sister jeans hipsters, strava warriors and, in an ideal world, kids and their parents and grandparents touring London landmarks. Its brilliant that they will have the chance to get around by the most civilised form of transport in relative safety.

All these people have just as much right to the roads and lanes as me, and I should show the patience that I expect from other road users and sit back and cruise. But, like most people, I’m a selfish hypocrite.

If they jam up as it looks like they will, I will stick to the road or go by other routes

I supported the plans when they came up for consultation (the lane was supposed to be 4m wide at that point)but I made the comment that people shouldn’t be compelled to use the lanes and that this should be publicised to avoid the sort of altercation most of us experience from time to time.

I hope these first attempts at proper infrastructure inspire more ambitious schemes in the future.

I hope these first attempts at proper infrastructure inspire more ambitious schemes in the future.

I think this stance is important. Be cautiously positive.

If they’re not very good, we should say thanks for the investment, they’re a good start but not good enough… be positive and show support but maintain pressure until we get something decent – be clear about what we do want.

Whilst also remembering that this magical ‘something decent’ is the roads we already have, but with proper enforcement of existing law and culture change to deal with the ridiculous tantrums some people have when they drive… the rest of Europe seems to manage to mix cyclists with drivers without acting like toddlers!

In the meantime, even the weak effort so far has led to a massive increase in people riding in London so really, there’s great hope here for the future

Bubbles for Prime Minister!

All these people have just as much right to the roads and lanes as me, and I should show the patience that I expect from other road users and sit back and cruise.

No, you shouldn’t. You should be able to use the road if it enables you to make safe progress at reasonable speeds. Cycling infrastructure is great, but we shouldn’t be forced to use it.

In the same way that motorists aren’t forced to trundle around on country lanes – they get motorways to reduce journey time. Roads (at least certain roads* ) do the job of motorways for fast cyclists.

* In London I’m thinking of Victoria Embankment and Thames St. It takes bloody ages to pick your way through the City and these roads, whilst busy and unpleasant, turn a 50 min trip into a 30 min one.

If you want to see what happens when fast cyclists who need to get to or from work on a nice cycleway, go on the Bristol-Bath cycleway at rush hour. It’s not nice for the pootlers, nor is it nice for the Stravaholics.

The thing is, as always, what passes for top notch cycling facilities here would be seen as sub-standard if it was in Holland, where a path with similar levels of use would be twice as wide.

Why not let the fast guys use the road?

(In the Bristol-Bath example, for those who don’t know, the cycleway is much shorter and more direct city-centre to city-centre which is why it gets that much traffic including fully lycrad up on training runs. It’s an example of what happens when you mix lots of fast and slow riders, which you’d get in London)