Cycling Quietway - E&C to Crystal Palace Consultation

[Medley]

Charles Notice - how have you managed to know Holland for 45 years and yet seemingly know nothing of the 'Kindermoord' (child killing) campaigns launched in the '70s?

It is precisely because Dutch cities were rather like London is now - favouring the car too much, not safe enough for other road users, especially the more vulnerable such as children - that there was appetite to change.

That changed grew, and has continued to grow. The Dutch did not at a stroke design their existing cities around cycling and walking, and nor did they build a raft of new ones around cycling and walking. Instead they improved what they had in ambitious but sustainable ways, learning as they went. They're still learning. Holland isn't perfection for this - it's just very far ahead of a lot of London.

BrandNewGuy - no one's suggesting London can do without vans, it's about controlling their numbers, routes, hours of operation in some circs perhaps.

But the real prize in modal shift is not out of vans or lorries, but out of private cars and public transport into cycling.

And you'll never have a cycle route that goes exactly where everyone wants it to go. The point is to have corridor routes that deliver the right direction for a significant journey chunk for significant numbers of cyclists in good enough conditions, and then build on that by extending the network.

[BrandNewGuy]

What's so undesirable about public transport?

[Charles Notice]

Medley wrote

Charles Notice - how have you managed to know Holland for 45 years and yet seemingly know nothing of the 'Kindermoord' (child killing) campaigns launched in the 70's

I suspect nobody abroad would have known about this but if you were Dutch or a resident of Delft or Amsterdam in the 1970's you would have been involved

You might have known about it now because the The London Cycling Campaign used a Dutch article from the period.

The point is Holland and its Cities and towns are not populated like London and greater London.

Dutch plans for cycling were built on rebuilding.

Most Dutch do not cycle along heavy traffic roads like we have in London.

I am sure there is a lot that has passed me by in those years.

[jj2]

I love this quietway concept!

People who complain here do not realize that bike commuting is one of the biggest asset that an area like East Dulwich has, that is, a desireble area not well connected to all London areas by transport, but possibly connected by bike within max 45-50 mins to 90% of London working locations.

The more bike commuting will be made easy, the more desirable ED will become compared to other Zone 2 areas better served by transport lines.

[James Barber]

Clearly bicycles are the answer to many of our ills - obesity, air pollution, poverty, etc.

But any new facility has to be designed really well to ensure it works properly. And that requires better engagement with residents lining the proposed routes than Southwark Council offering an online map that they've not told residents about and that doesn't explain what it would look or feel like.

[wulfhound]

You only really need cycle lanes on busy roads. I think the point of quietways is they try to stay to less busy roads where possible. I use the 22 route a lot and it is a lot better than going the way you would by car.

It is. But much of the 22 is still a very long way from suitable for kids to ride - and that's a great shame. Given suitably benign road conditions, a healthy kid of 7-8 will happily ride 15 miles in a day at a good speed - enough to get them from ED to the Science Museum and back. (Perhaps not today's couch potatoes or should that be mouse potatoes, but that's another story). It's a great shame kids are denied the option to be active by default, instead relying on Mum's Taxi for all sorts of routine stuff.

What's so undesirable about public transport?

I use it a fair bit, as it happens, but buses are slow once you factor in walking/waiting, and trains don't always go where you need to go. Most importantly though, it's just not active. Anything that combines exercise and travel (whether that's walking, cycling, skating, scooting, running) gives you 2 for 1 on your time. Public transport works to somebody else's schedule; active travel, like driving, works to your own.

As I mentioned before, cycle routes will always, at some points (possibly many), throw nervous cuclists into regular traffic. I'm questioning whether or not that's a wise approach.

I don't think that's necessarily any more true for cyclists than it is for pedestrians. As a pedestrian, there are, broadly speaking, two kinds of road: those you cross informally, and those you cross at zebras or lights. Sat Nav has blurred the distinction somewhat, by increasing rat running, but it's generally true.

So you provide for cyclists in two ways: build solid cycle lanes on those main roads "which have space", and reduce traffic volume + speed on those minor roads "where you can", as far as possible making them access-only. So there'll still be cars and vans on them, but only those that actually need to be there to access properties on that street. It's quite possible to cycle across the whole of London on roads which either could be made access-only, or could have cycle lanes/tracks installed, given sufficient will from the politicians. There are a minority of roads which don't fall in to either category, being essential main roads but too narrow for cycle tracks - East Dulwich Grove, Croxted Road, the northern end of Lordship Lane - but there's usually a way to avoid them.

"which have space" and "where you can" are in quotes, because it's really more a matter of politics than engineering. Ask a Green and a UKIPper (the most pro-car party of all) whether you "can" close one end of a road, take out some parking to put in a cycle lane, or even ban a right turn (surely not...), and you'll get very different answers.

[hopskip]

I am trying to understand or find a simple explanation of the origins and connections between:

London Cycle Superhighways

Southwark Spine

Quietways

LCNs

Southwark Cycling Strategy (Southwark Council)

- What are their origins/history; what organisation originated them if this is identifiable, etc

- If and how they overlap at all

Apologies if this is obvious to everyone else!

[henryb]

hopskip Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I am trying to understand or find a simple

> explanation of the origins and connections

> between:

> London Cycle Superhighways

> Southwark Spine

> Quietways

> LCNs

> Southwark Cycling Strategy (Southwark Council)

>

> - What are their origins/history; what

> organisation originated them if this is

> identifiable, etc

> - If and how they overlap at all

>

The current drive for Superhighways and Quietways comes from Boris. Not sure how they connect to what southwark are doing. I guess the councils can get funding for project from the Mayor if it ties in with his strategy.

https://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/transport/cycling-revolution

[Townleygreen]

I think the boroughs are working with Sustrans (the sustainable transport charity) to deliver the Quietways.

[wulfhound]

LCN are the oldest. Goes at least back as far as Ken Livingstone's first term as Mayor, maybe a lot further (think its origins may even be GLC). Commissioned London-wide but implemented by the boroughs, so it varies enormously in quality even on the same route (mostly depending on whether the borough responsible gave a damn). When I say enormously, anything from off-road cycle track like Green Dale and Surrey Canal to 30mph "A" roads with no cycle facilities at all. **On the same route**. Which is, frankly, stupid. Although the LCN is no longer funded (Boris axed that early on), & some officials might regard it as no longer existent, they still get used a lot by commuters as the signage is there and they're, well, better than nothing.

Superhighways. These are identified as Boris' brain child, hence the blue paint to go with his Barclays Boris Bikes. Broadly speaking there are two generations of these. The first are often just blue paint on a main road, aimed at commuters, generally popular with the fast-commuter type; the second generation (of which only one short segment in Stratford exists so far) are done properly, following a spate of widely publicised deaths on the blue paint. TfL put these along the Red Route main roads, I think, partly because of the problems of getting the boroughs to do the LCN consistently; but the first generation are almost consistently pants safety-wise - although they are getting progressively upgraded. Originally there were going to be 12 of these, I think they've built maybe 6, some seem to have been cancelled when they realised they couldn't be done properly. At one stage it looked like there might be one along Lordship Lane and Dog Kennel Hill, that's definitely not happening anymore.

The second generation Superhighways are the big-budget ones being done right from the get-go. Supposedly. There are two of these planned, a North/South one from Elephant to Kings Cross and an East/West one that's eventually supposed to run from Barking to Uxbridge, but at the moment they're working on Tower Hill to Hyde Park along Lower Thames Street & the Embankment. They should be pretty great, the conceptual drawings look fantastic, but they may yet end up getting watered down. AFAIK they're building them next year.

Southwark Spine. I'm not sure anyone outside the council really knows, or if they do they aren't telling. All I've seen is a line on a map - my guess is it'll be more like a quietway than a superhighway, if only because of the choice of roads and parks. No way are they putting anything Superhighway-ish through Dulwich or Burgess Parks, for example, nor are residents of Eynella Road likely to want a filthy big slick of bright blue paint up the carriageway; and yet some of it (Barry Road, Lyndhurst Way, Thurlow Street) is very far indeed from quiet. So perhaps a bit of both, but whether it's actually any good or not depends on them being able to reclaim some space from traffic on Lyndhurst Way, Thurlow Street and suchlike. It would be a crying shame to put a load of new tarmac down in the parks and yet *not* get something out of it that simply anyone can use.

(Just to be confusing, I've seen some pages on Southwark Cyclists' site which refer to one or other of the LCNs as "Spine Route", but the Southwark Spine on the council consultation web site doesn't overlap significantly with either).

Quietways. These are somewhat like the LCN: Originated centrally by Boris / TfL / Andrew Gilligan, but using mostly borough controlled roads & with Sustrans somehow involved. Southwark are building one right now in the north of the borough (runs north of, and parallel with, the Old Kent Road). There's a second one planned for even further north - Canada Water to Waterloo, south of, and parallel with, the A200.. less than half a mile north of the first one in places, go figure. Finally there's the Crystal Palace to Elephant/Borough/Waterloo(? depending on which press release you read), which runs through Dulwich/Camberwell, on average about a mile west of the Southwark Spine line-on-map.

Quietways are intended "to use quieter roads" and be "for less confident cyclists", but if any politician has offered a straight answer on what this actually means, I've not seen it. There appear to be no guarantees, for example, as to whether quietways will be suitable for children to cycle to school; there is a laudable set of design standards, but how hard will they actually try to meet them? Right now it's not very clear at all. If they draw the map line along a road that's not quiet enough, and locals object vehemently to any plans to quieten it (by blocking off one end with bollards, say), what happens next? The proponents won't want to lose face by cancelling the plans, but the councillors responsible for the area won't want a postbag full of bile and fury.

I hope people can keep a sense of perspective though - they're only cycle routes. It's not so long ago they were seriously considering building this monster...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Cross_Route

Not sure about you, but I'd much rather have a Quietway than a Ringway on my doorstep.

[tomdhu]

>

> www.sdgdigital.co.uk/sites/southwarkquietways/

>

>

> Hope of interest

This survey is ill-prepared as it only allows a "For" or "Against" vote relevant to the first person's comments.

[hopskip]

WHound

very helpful - now I can 'start' to try to make sense of this.

I can see the Southwark Consultation on their 'Cycling Strategy' link

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200107/transport_policy/3623/cycling_strategy

Transport and Streets - Cycling Strategy Consultation

CONSULTATION ending 1 Feb 2015:

It has a rather peculiar questionnaire (the consultation ending 1st Feb) with options such as I don't cycle because I would get messy hair. It also has an interactive map that seems to have Quietways, spine, superhighways all included. This is confusing.

How will the Quietways consultations happen - are they TfL?. The post that started this thread is not a consultation in fact but an interactive map. Or does this constitute a consultation?

Beats me...... time for sleep cycles

[wulfhound]

Good question.. that web site isn't what you or I would normally think of as a consultation (the kind legally required by, IIRC, the Town and Country Planning Act(?)), seems more like a fishing trip / knowledge gathering exercise to me.

On the Waterloo-Greenwich, which they're doing right now, they had a bunch of neighbourhood-level consultations on every individual change, I'm not sure whether it was TfL or LBS who ran the process, but on council-controlled roads it'll be the counicl that takes the final decision. Quietways run across multiple boroughs, and may cross TfL-controlled roads, so it's not all in one place for any one route. Most were on stuff like rearranging bollards, dropped kerbs, moving parking bays around a bit, tightening up junction geometry; IIRC there was talk of putting new crossings (bike-zebra or lights, don't know which) where the route crosses a couple of busy roads. The biggest controversy seems to be in relation to existing anti-motorbike barriers - some bikes can't get through them (especially those used by disabled people), but residents are worried about anti-social idiots on mopeds using it as a cut-through.

So I think it's a fairly safe assumption that the process looks something like this:

1) Line On Map. Council / TfL decide roughly where they'd like the route to go.

We are here => 2) Knowledge gathering. They put the proposed route up on a site like the above, and see what people say about it.

3) Reviews, designs and suchlike. Council officers, Sustrans or whoever review everything that's been gathered & try to design something that fits the available budget and political constraints (bearing in mind some stuff that people ask for may fall well outside of either) & fixes the worst problems identified in (2). Fixing could mean anything up to and including reengineering a junction or rerouting the route, the former is expensive though so there's not likely to be too much of it on any given route.

4) Once they think they've got the design right, each element goes out for the legally required consultation to local residents and various statutory bodies. It's worth bearing in mind that consultations are not referendums: quality of responses may count for as much as quantity.

5) Make any changes in response to the statutory consultation, and then build it.

[hopskip]

Whound - clear again. txs

The Cycling Strategy 'consultation' looks like a wish list or more generously, a best guess of theoretical routes. No one but the originating few will have a clue what the Quietways vs Spine vs Highways are - and it is not easy to find out. It's a rag bag assembly of good intentions.

The interactive map will give very limited insight (as few will reply) into what might work in theory but it will have no scaleable local input. That all takes place piecemeal after the fact and during the chunked up consultations. And then it may fall apart at the critical stage if the consultation process is poor or the modelling is shown to be flawed.

Then follows a preliminary sanity check called the statutory consultation. Is this the yellow notices pinned to lampposts that would generally go unnoticed?

I am perplexed by the packaging as a Cycling Strategy and a Consultation. I would describe it as a well meant blending of a whole range of separate plans but a strategy it is not.

And Consultation - it is not. The popular understanding of this from a formal body such as a Council implies diligence, detailed planning and wide response gathering. Followed by impartiality in assessing the feedback.

This 'Consultation' is just a messy posting of information but the concerning bit is that it may be repositioned as something else.

And that is where it looks like Southwark planners are in a mess and surely cannot expect people to have confidence in their processes. I am struggling to get with their purpose and despite trying to give them benefit of the doubt - I think Southwark Council are stirring a hornet's nest in terms of the credibility of their methods.

It is a shame, but it seems to be so.

[wulfhound]

Highways aren't something we have to worry about around here. There was one planned (Penge to City via ED), it was cancelled before it ever got off the drawing board, I can't see it coming back unless the next Mayor goes superhighway-crazy. So in ED we're left with Quietways and Spine, which seem to be roughly the same thing.

AFAIK, the yellow notices on lamp posts and the web page with feedback like they did for Townley are one and the same thing.

The cycling strategy consultation? No idea either - seems mostly warm words that they may or may not stick to, I'm not sure what the point of consulting on it is. To me it reads the same as their glossy manifesto web sites in election year, how much of that stuff ever actually happens?

They have to be impartial in assessing feedback, yes, but it's worth understanding that what they want to build is a transport network; again, consultations are *not* a referendum or popularity contest, the process is much more like a planning application. Of a different kind to main roads and railways, yes, but perhaps no less important in years to come. 25% population growth in London by 2030 = 25% more cars on the roads, if they're not careful. Population growth is going to happen whether we like it or not - even if anti-immigration parties gain power, London is where all the jobs are, and with a season ticket from the Home Counties costing upwards of ?3,000/year to stand for 45 mins each way on a miserable cattle truck, it's where everyone will want to live.

Consider this: say population growth causes the 1960s-1990s GLC road plans to get resurrected, or Boris' grand plan to put the South Circular in a tunnel, how much will they value local concerns then? The answer on infrastructure mega-projects is 100% sweet F.A. Says someone whose office is next door to a Supersewer drilling site :(. In other words, perhaps be grateful it's only a cycle network - yes, it might mean more jams or less parking in places, but in each of the five decades up to the 90s, they razed entire neighbourhoods in the name of getting people from A to B. At one point there were deadly serious, centrally backed & well-funded plans to put a 8-lane motorway smack through the middle of Denmark Hill & Bellenden Road. Perspective?

[@Woodwarde]

The original draft cycling strategy has vanished from the Southwark website, replaced with this:

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s53924/Appendix%20A%20Cycling%20Strategy.pdf

Decisions made by Cabinet in June 2015 are recorded here:

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=302&MId=5136&Ver=4

See item 9

Also see:

http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50005667

[goosey-goosey]

It's the similarity with the Southwark Spine, which slarti and wulfhound also note, that most disturbs me. Do central and local government (yes, Southwark will pay for some of this despite what they say) really have the money for this Quietway scheme? No.

[wulfhound]

Money's not the issue - it's arguably cheaper to do it properly than to not do it at all, once you take all the potential savings in to account.

The single most effective intervention - closing streets along the route to through traffic - is incredibly cheap. ?10K per street including construction and all the required legal paperwork.

Overall, building a Quietway costs about the same as lengthening one Overground trains from four to five cars.

The problem is politics, or local consent if you prefer. There's basically four things you can do on a Quietway:

- Signage

- "Public realm" work (build-outs, pavement widening, surfacing)

- Junction rebuilds

- Modal filtering (closing roads to through traffic)

Signage is cheap as chips, politically uncontroversial, but doesn't accomplish anything apart from letting politicians and TfL people pose for nice photo shoots and claim to have done something.

Public realm work is moderately expensive (lots of nice dosh for council contractors), mostly uncontroversial unless you lose your parking space to a kerb build-out, again gives the appearance of doing something but really does sod-all in terms of making the route accessible to a wider demographic of people on bikes.

Junction rebuilds are massively expensive, can be somewhat controversial although only if they significantly change flows, can be very effective in improving the safety statistics for the *existing* cycling demographic (nearly all collisions happen at junctions), but don't do very much in terms of improving accessibility.

Modal filtering is cheap, highly effective, does an enormous amount to improve accessibility, but there's no point in pretending it is anything other than controversial. The Quietways are a complete waste of everyones' time and money if it isn't done - and yet a lot of people will fight any road closure tooth and nail.

I'm vehemently pro-Quietway & make no apologies for that, but I'd rather they built nothing at all than spent public money on a half-baked job & took credit for building something that isn't any more widely accessible than the old LCN routes. TfL, by neglecting to mandate much in the way of minimum standards, have created a situation whereby that's all too likely an outcome.

[Vick]

You are spot on Wulfhound. Good post.

[goosey-goosey]

wulfhound, does that mean we don't need the Spine as well as the Quietway? If the latter is cheaper and serves a very similar purpose along a similar route, let Southwark plan it and implement it asap. And dump the Spine, I say.

[wulfhound]

wulfhound, does that mean we don't need the Spine as well as the Quietway? If the latter is cheaper and serves a very similar purpose along a similar route, let Southwark plan it and implement it asap. And dump the Spine, I say.

Good question. Again, money isn't really the issue - it's all about political will, but you're right that doing both well is going to be harder than doing one well.

The Quietway is a quicker & more direct route to Central London for people coming from the south, but it's quite a bit hillier as you have to get over the top of Dog Kennel Hill via Greendale. The Spine is much flatter & serves those on the Peckham side of ED better.

Also - Portland Street, which is the main route for LCN23 (the Quietway's forerunner) is likely to be carrying a lot of construction traffic during the Aylesbury rebuild. The Spine is supposed to use a new segregated cycle lane along Thurlow Street instead. So although there's some overlap, there's a case for both.

I'd personally far rather they did one of them really well & the other not at all, than both of them in a half-baked fashion, but looking at the politics, the short term incentives are all around delivering "a cycle route" (with a side order of nice lucrative paving work for the contractors), not "a really good cycle route that anyone from 8-80 can use". The reason I say this is that I ride these routes every day, and for a reasonably fit adult on a bike they're basically fine as-is (total budget: ?0) - I wouldn't ride them if they weren't; yet for those less fit and trained - families, secondary school kids, older people - they're both equally hopeless.

So the way I look at it, there's no point in spending public money on it if it's not something for everyone.. but again, it's political capital / bravery / long term thinking that's the key ingredient, not the money.

[goosey-goosey]

Thanks for the insightful posts, wulfhound.

[Gadge]

It defiantly is worth spending the money on these routes, because they will end up being the quickest way into London and as such will grow in use. As someone that has worked abroad for many years returning to London annually I can tell you that the growth in traffic is alarming. One doesn't realise the extent when living here full time. These plans are for the future of London not just today.

[marigolds]

James Barber Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Clearly bicycles are the answer to many of our

> ills - obesity, air pollution, poverty, etc.

> But any new facility has to be designed really

> well to ensure it works properly. And that

> requires better engagement with residents lining

> the proposed routes than Southwark Council

> offering an online map that they've not told

> residents about and that doesn't explain what it

> would look or feel like.

I live on one of the proposed Quietway roads. I went on this online map months ago and struggled to make any sense of it. I did this after a neighbourhood group sent an email alerting us that our busy through road was designated as part of the proposed Quietway route. Six months later still 'no engagement' from Southwark or whichever organisation is responsible for this. No letters, flyers but lots of local speculation that is doing nothing to inform or garner support.

Our road is quiet between about 1am and 6 am at best.

Can anyone tell me what he time frame is for the ED to CrystslPalace Scheme ?

Why does the scheme go across the horrible Dulwich Village junction into Turney Road rather than through Dulwich Village and up the toll road ? Hilly yes, but Crystal Palace is on a hill. Is the issue that the toll road is owned by Dulwich Estate ? It's certainly a 'quieter way'.

[wulfhound]

It defiantly is worth spending the money on these routes, because they will end up being the quickest way into London and as such will grow in use.

End up being? Already are, if you've got reasonable legs or a power-assist. 20 minutes from Green Dale to London Bridge, and another ten to the far side of the City.

I live on one of the proposed Quietway roads. I went on this online map months ago and struggled to make any sense of it.

The online map you refer to appears to be more of a fishing trip or pre-consultation than anything.

I did this after a neighbourhood group sent an email alerting us that our busy through road was designated as part of the proposed Quietway route. Six months later still 'no engagement' from Southwark or whichever organisation is responsible for this. No letters, flyers but lots of local speculation that is doing nothing to inform or garner support.

Haven't heard anything either, and as a supporter of the Quietways in principle at least, I follow this stuff pretty closely. I suspect we're about to hear a lot more, but have no idea what they'll actually propose.

Can anyone tell me what he time frame is for the ED to CrystslPalace Scheme ?

Consultation programme starting soon, taking place over the summer & autumn; construction and delivery over the winter and in to next year. In theory AFAIK it's supposed to be ready middle of next year, but being more realistic if they have to do anything disruptive (alterations to Dulwich Village junction, say) they'd be stupid to try and do that any time before next summer holidays.

Why does the scheme go across the horrible Dulwich Village junction into Turney Road rather than through Dulwich Village and up the toll road ? Hilly yes, but Crystal Palace is on a hill. Is the issue that the toll road is owned by Dulwich Estate ? It's certainly a 'quieter way'.

I can think of a few reasons.. land ownership yes, also it may be difficult to provide "all abilities" cycling facilities from the Dulwich Village junction to the Picture Gallery. Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, just that any loss of parking to create cycle tracks or change to the fabric of the street would inevitably be controversial.

Also you've got the congestion past Dulwich College in the morning rush hour - cyclists can't get through, you often see them riding in to oncoming traffic. The Spine, had it not been truncated at Crystal Palace Road / Lordship Lane, would have faced the same problem.

The toll road's nice, but it dumps you on Crystal Palace Parade at the top - nasty junction, nasty road. The top of it's quite busy too (access to Kingswood & traffic using it as a cut-through) and there have been quite a few accidents along there.

Finally, perhaps they're looking at the area on the West Dulwich / West Norwood border (Rommany Rd, Clive Rd, Rosendale etc.) & can see there's a promising demographic there for cycling to work in London. Probably more potential there than Crystal Palace, it being pretty flat most of the way.