Rockets

DulvilleRes- that escalated quickly...is this, per chance, another case of the pro-LTN lobby spinning things to such an extent that it bears no semblance to the facts? We have seen this type of behaviour before. We eagerly await your reply....

The 1,200 registered residents around Dulwich on the One Dulwich website would probably argueotherwise... Just out of interest are any other subcommittee's that may deal with contentious local issues that are afforded anonymity? By way of a reminder DulvilleRes - you were calling for the "outing" of whomever is behind the One Dulwich group in your previous posts so I can't help but think a lot of this is laced with a massive slab of hypocrisy - that you are quite happy to protect and defend anonymity for people who are claiming to represent the community at the table of the Dulwich Society when it comes to traffic matters yet scream that One Dulwich don't represent the community and should be stripped of their anonymity. I must admit your postings and the actions of the Dulwich Society do make me wonder why those transport sub-committee members so want to protect their anonymity (sorry I am not buying the trolling element) - I think it will make many wonder if they are linked to the council or the local Labour party, maybe part of the cycle-lobby, maybe have a conflict of interest or maybe their online presence is as part of one of the many pro-cycling lobby groups in the local area - who knows but thanks for highlighting this issue as I am sure most of us were not aware.

Probably a great day for Rachel Aldred and Anna Goodman to do one of their cycle counts.....;-)

Ha ha...where to start dissecting another Peter Walker less than impartial puff piece...so many places to choose from..? The very best example of activist journalism. A pro-cyling "transport professional" (out of interest is there anyone with a job in transport that doesn't come from the cycle lobby or is it a closed shop to anyone from beyond the two-wheel fraternity?) highlighting an article by the pro-cycling lobbyist "political correspondent" from the Guardian....kind of highlights what the problem is...less than impartial people trying to convince everyone they are impartial - when all they care about is their blinkered cycle-centric world. Yes it is ludicrous given most bang on about Vision Zero and trying to reduce road deaths to zero - surely this would help? Or don't people killed by.cyclists count?

Hen123 are you still struggling to bring yourself to watch and pass comment the cycling videos? Your continued blinkeredness seems to be the go-to position for many of the cycling cultists and is amplifying our position on why it is so difficult to have a pragmatic, rational discussion with the pro-cycle lobby.....they just don't want to hear anything other than cyclists are angels and car drivers are devils...I am afraid to break it to you but there are a growing number of cyclists who are giving the good ones a very bad name by their selfishness. Probably a good time for another of the regular updates on the rogue's gallery of local offenders....anyone recognise themselves on here on the latest compilation posted 9 days ago...;-)

But we are talking about the cyclists are we not? Did you also notice the very same pedestrian walks across the pedestrian crossing and what happens...the cyclist cycling up the wrong way of the cycle lane doesn't stop at the pedestrian crossing.... Perhaps you would like to try and find fault with the pedestrians in the other video....or are you refusing to watch that one too...time to take the blinkers off perhaps... Well if they get caught speeding they get fined...you can kill someone when youre riding a bike and claim the speed limit doesn't count for you and you can't be charged with causing death by dangerous cycling. Is that perfectly acceptable in your world? As I have said for a long time the daily repeated examples of.bad cycling everyone can see must be down to arrogance or ignorance...which one is it? Police are starting to have to more aggressively police cycling not because they want to but because they have to..why..because cyclist behaviour is getting worse.

Some choose not to watch the Simon Munk video because it confirms what we are saying that bad cycling is very prevalent. There are three cyclists in the video: one is cycling along the pavement, one cycling the wrong way up a one-way cycle lane and another cycling incredibly fast across the pavement onto the cycle lane. And the previous video shows every cyclist ignoring the pedestrian crossing and others riding in a manner that puts pedestrians at risk. One ignores the pedestrian crossing and knocks and old lady flat on her face. But Simon Munk, and no doubt a lot of the cultists on here, will have you believe that all you need is a raised pedestrian crossing to solve the problem and anyway, how dare you change anything to do with cycle infrastructure as it will "endanger lives". They'll probably also try to provide a defence that if you're a cyclist and you kill someone whilst you're doing an average of 25mph whilst racing in a peleton around Regents Park you can claim: "The speed limit does not apply to me". Well it's about time it did and cyclists are just going to have to accept that they need to stop thinking they own the road and start following the rules. Changing laws like causing death by dangerous cycling is only due to an increase in dangerous cycling and affording protection to pedestrians, who are the most vulnerable road users - something the Highway Code now makes very clear yet many cyclists chose to ignore.

Love this video of Simon Munk talking about the floating bus stop issues...just watch the behaviour of the cyclists who appear in shot....not one of them following the rules....the fact that LCC pushed this out shows just how blinkered they are...it's like that famous clip of some local government official being interviewed on the road side to talk about how much safer that particular stretch of road is now because of their interventions and a crash happens right behind him!

Chris Boardman makes a very valid point but he is also engaging in a serious piece of whataboutery and the go-to position for the pro-cycle lobby that we don't kill as many people as cars is blinkered in the extreme. Let's be clear - there is an increasing problem with bad cycling - that video from NFBUK clearly illustrates the problem and the swerving around pedestrians (did you notice an elderly woman actually gets hit by one of the cyclists) and ignoring of infrastructure to make pedestrians safe is all too familiar - now is that bad design, or cyclist arrogance/ignorance? I saw Simon Monk on the BBC news last night saying that they shouldn't remove floating bus stops as that increases risk to cyclists - which can also be interpreted that he is happy for the risk to be put on pedestrians instead. For too long this type of attitude has created the feeling that many in TFL etc only care for cycling, that cycling is king and the only form of transport that matters but this can hardly be surprising if you install cycle lobbyists in positions of authority and power. There was a lot of focus on how the changes to the Highway Code offered more protection for cyclists (a good thing) but many cyclists seemed to have overlooked the increased protection afforded to pedestrians with the new hierarchy of road users and the need for cyclists to give way to pedestrians at junctions - which you very rarely see. And when I read articles like the below it is clear there is an increasing problem and when Strava has the Outer Circle on it's leaderboard it is encouraging cyclists to race and it will inevitably lead to more accidents and deaths like the one below. This sentence sums up the problem: The fastest ever public completion of the Regent's Park CCW segment, which is 4.4km long, was 4:49 in September last year, which means it was done at a speed of 54.8km/h, or 34mph. https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/strava-urged-to-delete-popular-london-cycling-segment-after-deadly-crash I think it is time for the cycle lobby to start engaging in pragmatism instead of idealism - their increasingly negative perception is being crafted by their own actions.

On a day that Will Norman tries to convince us floating bus stops are not an issue I do wonder whether he is in deliberate denial or being misled by his own numbers when I watch videos like this - is it bad design, cyclist arrogance or ignorance?

Floating barrage balloons to police Low Traffic Airways in the nicer parts of town whilst mile wide A road-flightpaths through the rest? 😉

Can you imagine school drop-off and pick-up times with a bunch of those buzzing around?! The fact this relies on the user to pilot it is the really scary thing. Seen plenty of drones adapted for carrying people but they are autonomous.

Quicker than a car…crikey how fast do they go? I have PTSD from a folding bike I had as a kid that snapped in half when I did a jump! I look at things like this and Bromptons and get the fear which is why I stick to sturdier bikes!

Earl…that isn’t misinformation it comes from the very report the 20% increase (in cycling stages) claim was taken from and regurgitated by many without actually checking the facts. Unless, of course, you are saying that TFL is spreading misinformation….;-) Here are all the reports: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/travel-in-london-reports Then scroll down to the Travel in London 2023 - Active Travel trends (pasted below to make it easy for you to find) and then you’ll find everything I have quoted from page 13…. https://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-in-london-2023-active-travel-trends-acc.pdf And I am actually shocked that, despite all the investment, that growth has been minimal…hardly the 10x growth Will Norman claimed was coming….. Cycling made up 4.5 per cent of trips in London on an average day in 2022, up from 3.6 per cent in 2019.

Earl, I think the 20% increase you refer to is cycling stages rather than trips and is explained in the TFL report here (which is fascinating when you look at the detail...and there is a lot of detail): The relatively higher growth in stages compared to trips suggests that the increase in cycling as part of multi-modal trips (for example, to access public transport or combined with other modes) has increased more than cycling for cycle-all-the-way trips. When looking at cycling trips the growth is more aligned to that of the national picture (a small % increase since pre-pandemic) and the report explains: Cycling made up 4.5 per cent of trips in London on an average day in 2022, up from 3.6 per cent in 2019. I wonder how food delivery cyclists are captured and also given the majority of hire bike journeys are less than one mile is that a stage or a trip? Another interesting chart is the analysis of cycling trips - I was surprised by the drops in many of these.

Someone leaked the report to an "activist" journalist knowing full well they they would "selectively pluck" items to fit their agenda.....and remember large parts of the report were based on data from "activist researcher" Dr Aldred... https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-generally-popular-report-ordered-by-sunak-finds Very much a case of when the headline: Rishi Sunak’s report finds low-traffic neighbourhoods work and are popular ....doesn't get supported by your article: A copy of the report seen by the Guardian said that polling carried out inside four sample LTNs for the DfT found that overall, twice as many local people supported them as opposed them. A review of evidence of their effectiveness said that although formal studies were limited, they did not support the contention of opponents that LTNs simply displaced traffic to other streets rather than easing overall congestion. “The available evidence from the UK indicates that LTNs are effective in achieving outcomes of reducing traffic volumes within their zones while adverse impacts on boundary roads appear to be limited,” it read. The problem is these articles then get reposted by "activist lobby groups" like of Clean Air Dulwich as "proof".....

Ha ha...are you sure...if I remember rightly someone leaked it to Peter Walker at the Guardian and he "selectively plucked" some headlines for his article and as you read the article you realised he was absolutely Peter Walker'ing his coverage with some absolute, bleedingly obvious, pearls like: A copy of the report seen by the Guardian said that polling carried out inside four sample LTNs for the DfT found that overall, twice as many local people supported them as opposed them. The leak to him was about getting some pro-LTN spin on the story before the government put their anti-LTN spin on it! CleanAirDulwich is a bit misleading isn't it as they are actually an anti-car, pro-cycling lobby group who don't actually talk about clean air in Dulwich at all - unless, of course, you think cycling is the cure-all for all pollution problems!? All of their content seems to be weighed very heavily, ahem, to just one form of active travel....

The majority of PM2.5 comes from sources (much naturally occurring) outside of London - I think it is around 50%-60%. Of the PM2.5 created locally about 42% comes from industrial and commercial activities (construction, cooking), about 30% is from road transport and this share is reducing as efforts have been made to clean-up the TFL bus fleets, taxis, diesel vehicles etc and another 20%+ is domestic sources. You will see very little on the CleanAirDulwich timeline on anything other than car use which leads many to believe it is just an anti-car pro-cycle lobby group purporting to be interested in clean air. I must admit when I see them rallying against the school coaches on Townley Road I do wonder what their motivation is - they lobby for people not to use their cars and then lobby against the coaches the pupils turn to instead of cars...kind of beggar's belief really.....some people are, seemingly, never happy.....

....on the roads they live on... I must be missing the posts where they are talking about displacement on East Dulwich Grove, Lordship Lane etc.... The fact their twitter page carries a disclaimer that they are: "not funded by Southwark Council" speaks volumes...

But by the same measure you can see why some might think the anonymous online lobby group Clean Air Dulwich are a group of rich local residents happy to lobby the council to get their roads closed to traffic at the expense of other Dulwich residents. You sense an agenda on this thread - did your Spidey-senses get tweaked on the thread questioning who is behind One Dulwich and you just didn't bother mentioning it? 😉 What's good for the goose etc... And your statement that you can't get cleaner air without some restrictions on drivers is blinkered nonsense and just shows how some seem to think private car drivers are the sole root-cause of all air pollution - reducing car emissions helps but is not the silver bullet. And if the measures you put in just displace traffic rather than remove it then what's the point - and that's what Clean Air for all Dulwich are trying to make.

That's an incredibly (and somewhat predictably) myopic view Mal. CleanAirForAllDulwich are campaigning against is the injustice of some having to live with more air pollution from displacement caused by the very things the likes of you and CleanAirDulwich lobby for. Sue you are right - as in everyone deserves cleaner air. And Mal, your industrialist analogy is spot on, the council and their supporters (like CAD) are trying to live in areas with lower pollution whilst forcing more pollution onto their neighbours.

This is the chart that the DFT published last week that triggered the Cycling Weekly article. Clearly, nationally, something isn't working and I wonder if the approach taken needs a complete rethink and overhaul as if this is the result of a £2bn investment then clearly it is not delivering any ROI - but isn't a 2% or so increase what has been seen in the City of London (per Carlton Reid's "More bikes than cars in the city now" article) so maybe this is consistent in cities too and 2% increase is all that anywhere has seen?

Interesting editorial piece in Cycling Weekly: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/what-happened-to-the-golden-age-for-cycling-in-the-uk

Doesn't sound too dissimilar to my engagements with the council! Zero chance of a balanced summary in a single place I am afraid - read anything by Peter Walker in the Guardian on the matter, then read anything in the Daily Mail on the matter and plot a course for somewhere between the two and there you shall find the truth!

Well worth signing up to become a "supporter" as they send their updates and often shed light on things the council and their supporters would rather didn't get too much attention! https://www.onedulwich.uk/get-involved