Royal Parks have just published some stuff on their movement strategies

https://www.royalparks.org.uk/managing-the-parks/park-strategies/the-royal-parks-transport-and-movement-strategy

The Richmond Park one seems pretty reasonable, should cut down on traffic significantly.
I assume that no more lap records will be made on Strava once the barriers go up…

The Bushy Park one (my local) will cause some issues with local traffic, but tbh, I don’t care if it makes the park nicer…

Interesting for RP, I wonder if “all through traffic” includes cyclists – it’s not particularly clear in the document.

The Richmond Park changes are actually a downgrade from where things are the moment, which is essentially completely traffic free. Apart from having the gates mainly closed, there are also barriers at strategic points that force everyone into a single lane which are fine for bikes paying attention but would be quite the challenge for more than one car at once.

As a result there are so many different people out on all sorts of bikes it’s unreal. Lap records are out the window just because it’s not cool to fly past 10 year olds or their grandma’s out on bikes, let alone the traffic control measures.

It’s delightful, and probably going to get worse again once they let some cars in.

The Bushy Park proposal looks like what’s been in place since Covid began. Cycles can use the bit of road that’s blocked off to motor traffic.

With the Richmond Park proposal, similarly I think it applies to motor traffic only, so cycles will still be able to use the roads blocked to motor traffic.

Yes, the RP changes stop people driving laps (surprisingly common) but reopen the two worst rat runs.

negative consultation feedback encouraged – they should never have reopened it to cars except for car park access. The surrounding streets manage for evening rush hour through winter when it’s closed (closes at dusk so as early as 4pm at some points in the year)

RP Facebook pages attract a fair amount of nutters, people complaining about the cyclists doing sixty miles an hour and crashing into pedestrians and deer and cars all the time. But can’t provide a single bit of evidence apart from what they think, fairly standard internet behaviour. When lock down was in full swing I read some woman saying she saw six people cycling through the park and she could tell they weren’t essential workers….