Converting roundabouts into crossroads

Last year The Times newspaper published a map of the most dangerous road junctions for cycle collisions in the UK. At the top of this list was Stratford High Street where it meets the Warton Road junction, which is where the extension to Cycle Superhighway 2 was built in 2013. Various vocal opponents of segregated cycle facilities used this article as an opportunity to criticise the route, with Hackney councillor Vincent Stops the most prominent at doing so again and again. This was despite it repeatedly being pointed out to him that this section is actually not segregated at all and had been widely criticised after the CS2 extension was opened by both cycle campaigners and the London Cycling Campaign. What I have not yet seen Vincent Stops do is mention that, according to the same report, the seventh most dangerous junction in the UK for cycling is located in the borough of Hackney and is on the route of the soon-to-be-renamed Cycle Superhighway 1, at the junction of Pitfield Street, Hyde Road, Whitmore Road and Hoxton Street. This road junction was a roundabout for many years and the Hackney Cycling campaign were calling for it to be turned back into a crossroads as far back as 2005, with nearly £600,000 spent doing so in 2011.

Before and after images from google earth

This being a Hackney Council led scheme the carriageway was, despite the space available and both roads assigned as cycle routes, not provided with any dedicated cycle infrastructure and was rebuilt as a very narrow road forcing people to adopt a 'vehicular cycling' middle-of-the-road position, with the remodelled pavements becoming absolutely bloody enormous. Even though this is a junction where the LCN+ cycle route 10 and LCN+ cycle route 16 cross there are no restrictions for motor traffic on all four roads in the immediate area so it is a very busy junction with motor traffic continually crossing all four arms of the junction. It is especially busy with cars going east-west, using this as a rat run between the A10 and New North Road, whilst most cyclists want to go north-south using this as a route between the North of the borough and Central London. The changes were widely criticised at the time with accusations that the junction was now more dangerous and a collision occurring within a month of the new layout opening with the local tenants association blaming the new layout for people jumping the give way and shooting across the junction. This is backed up by the person who leaves a comment at the end of this Loving Dalston piece with similar remarks from another person here. I have to agree and have witnessed several near collisions right in front of me whilst cycling along here and I was also struck by a car myself  recently (although at very low speed) who failed to give way as I travelled north to pick my daughter up from Nursery. Confirming, if I ever needed it to be, that I will never, ever cycle along Cycle Superhighway 1 with her, as this road is simply far too dangerous.

A lot of cars don't even bother to slow down as they cross East to West across Pitfield Street, despite the give way markings

Hackney Council recently responded to a freedom of information request on road traffic collisions in the borough and the data provided confirms The Times report about this being the most dangerous junction for people cycling in Hackney. In the three year period from the beginning of 2012 (nearly a year after the roundabout was removed) to the end of 2014 there were 14 casualties for cyclists at this junction, the highest amount by quite some distance, more than double the amount of cycling casualties than any other junction in the borough. It was also the fourth most dangerous junction in the entire borough for collisions of all types.

I've also had a look through the details of the cycling casualties occurring at this junction since the new layout and they tell a similar story, here are a sample of them:

• 04/07/2012 10:53 - Car and Cycle. V1 FAILED TO GIVEWAY AND CROSSED PEDAL CYCLIST V2'S PATH. Casualty Reference: Male, 34
• 06/07/2012 08:00 - Van or goods <3.5 tonnes and cycle. V1 FAILED TO GIVEWAY AND HIT PEDAL CYCLIST V2. Casualty Reference: Female, 30
• 23/07/2012 18:20 - Motorcycle and cycle. MOTORCYCLIST V2 FAILED TO GIVEWAY AND HIT PEDAL CYCLIST. Casualty Reference: Male, 30
• 16/07/2013 11:00 - Cycle and car. V2 MOVED ACROSS JUNCTION AND COLLIDED WITH V1. Casualty Reference: Male, 25
• 29/01/2014 16:15 - Car and cycle. V1 NOT LOOKING PROPERLY PULLED AWAY AND COLLIDED WITH V2. Casualty Reference: Female, 24
• 26/03/2014 06:36 - Car and cycle. V1 FAILED TO GIVEWAY AND COLLIDED WITH V2. Casualty Reference: Female, 29
• 08/05/2014 08:00 - Car and cycle.  V1 MOVED OFF AT JUNCTION ACROSS PASSING V2'S PATH. Casualty Reference: Male, 24
• 08/05/2014 13:30 - Van or goods <3.5 tonnes and cycle. V1 FAILED TO GIVEWAY AND CROSSED JUNCTION COLLIDING WITH V2. Casualty Reference: Female, 28
• 15/05/2014 07:54 - Car and cycle. V1 MOVED OF AT JUNCTION ACROSS PATH OF V2 CAUSING COLLISION. Casualty Reference: Male, 48

The chair of the Hackney Cycling Campaign at the time of these changes, Trevor Parsons, responded to criticism of this scheme in a local councillors blog defending this scheme, although with some odd comments about a bakery and a pub previously being at this location. Several local residents and users of this junction responded that in their opinion this scheme did not make conditions safer at all.

The same junction in Victorian times when it wasn't even a crossroads. It had a pub, a post office and a bakery but, more importantly for road safety, no white vans racing through at high speed. 

Here is what Vincent Stops had to say about these changes in his blog

 In Hackney we think about cycle journeys, not cycle routes.The changes at Britannia Roundabout on Pitfield Street demonstrates the philosophy better than most. It's a scheme that was 100% driven by the Hackney Cyclists group, but 95% of the benefits accrue to the local residents and pedestrians in terms of a better street environment.

So, 100% delivered by the local cycling campaign group and the result is a junction which is the more than twice as dangerous for people cycling than any other junction in the borough and the seventh most dangerous junction to cycle through in the entire United Kingdom.  In the draft vision for Shoreditch the call was for the Old Street roundabout to be replaced by a crossroads, something which will not now happen although it will still be significantly improved with more space for pedestrians and safe protected cycle tracks through it. Whilst the vision talks about 'new development on the corners of the crossroads', 'new public space', demolishing 'poor quality buildings' and even narrowing Old Street east of the crossroads to 'release more land for development' it doesn't once mention any actual provision for people cycling. Just as Trevor Parsons focuses on wider footways, trees and seating areas at the Pitfield Street crossroads it seems some cycling campaigners have public realm very high in their thoughts but don't always consider looking at creating cycle specific measures which could improve the safety of people cycling.

One thing that struck me during my trip to the Netherlands last year were how much of a joy it was to use roundabouts. I almost always had priority so no slowing down taking me out of my stride and I always felt safe using them. I was often surprised when using the google maps street view feature to look at junctions I had cycled on to find that many of the roundabouts I had used had recently been built to replace a crossroads.

Just one junction of many I passed through that had been hugely improved by replacing the crossroads with a roundabout. Priority and safe conditions for people walking and cycling, improved public realm and five lanes of motor traffic reduced to two lanes.

This is something the Dutch have been doing for several decades due to the increased safety of roundabouts, as detailed in this post from Paul James and his version of what a Dutch style British roundabout could look like would have been a much better design for Pitfield Street

Dedicated cycle tracks with priority for pedestrians and cyclists across all of the arms of the roundabout at all times, with single exit and entrance for vehicles on each arm as well. This would have been a much safer design for this junction, particularly as both roads are cycle routes and one of them a "cycle superhighway". We could have even kept the sculpture in the middle of the roundabout!

A cycle track in Amsterdam at a junction I stopped at last year, a similar treatment would have been a much better solution at a roundabout at Pitfield Street. Clear priority for pedestrians and a level, easy to cross cycle track . No trip hazards here! 

Proposals in some of the draft vision for Hackney documents and some of the "ward asks" from the Hackney Cycling Campaign in 2014 are for roundabouts to be replaced by crossroads and turning the Lea Bridge Roundabout into a signalled crossroads may well be a big improvement, as long as it has protected space for cycling. However in other areas it may well be more beneficial to either keep a redesigned roundabout in place or even convert some crossroads into roundabouts, based on classic Dutch roundabout design, to increase safety for people walking and cycling whilst also improving public realm. One thing the Hackney cycling campaign should never do again is campaign to spend over half a million pounds replacing a busy junction without ensuring safety for cyclists is a priority, especially if space is available for dedicated cycle tracks. Simply calling for roundabouts to be removed is not an adequate measure if the junction is to remain the most dangerous junction in the borough and in the top ten of the most dangerous junctions for people on bikes in the UK.

Goldsmith's Row cycle counter

Goldsmith's Row runs from just South of the Cat & Mutton Bridge over the Regents Canal to the junction with Hackney Road. It is part of London Cycle Network Route 9 and is a highly used cycle route for people travelling from Hackney Central or Waltham Forest and beyond into Central London as it joins up with the cycle path through London Fields via Broadway Market and continues onto Hackney Town Hall via the partially filtered Martello Street and the bicycle only Hackney Grove via the Richmond Road Crossing. Although it is now often referred to as a cycle route it has been a well used route for centuries, and was formally called the "Black Path" or the "Market Porters Route" as this was where farmers would walk their livestock into the City of London back when London Fields really was just fields and Hackney was a small farming village on the outskirts of the City. This map from nearly 200 years ago gives you a good idea of the route they would have taken via Bird Cage Walk (now Columbia Road) and on through Shoreditch to Smithfield meat market in Farringdon.

A few years ago the bottom half of Goldsmith's Row became a bicycle only road and then in August 2013 a cycle counter was added which, via a sensor buried in the roadway, counts and displays the number of bikes that have been past that day, along with the total so far for the year and similar figures are also displayed on the Hackney Council website, updated daily

A picture I took of the cycle counter a few days after it was installed 

A few months ago I asked Hackney Council for a list of daily counts here since it was installed, they duly obliged but I have only now got round to doing anything with the figures. I've worked out the average number of cycle trips each weekday for each month since August 2013, along with the average number of cycle trips per day at the weekend, as these are always significantly lower (presumably due to the large number of commuters using the route during the week). I've also worked out the average number of cycle trips each week (Monday to Sunday) for each month and then added the total number of cycle trips that took place in each month (minus August 2013 and April 2015 which I don't have the full set of figures for).

Note that I've counted these as the total number of "cycle trips", not the number of "cyclists" as often these will be the same person twice going to and from work, the pub, etc.

2014 is, obviously, the only calendar year where a full set of figures is available but with figures for the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2015 it gives quite a good picture of cycling figures across the year along this road. The average number of cycle trips is at just over 4,000 for August and September 2013, dipping below 4,000 in October and November and then down to just over 2,000 in December. Into 2014 it then rises above 3,000 in January and February, reaching nearly 4,000 from March to May and then hits over 4,500 in June and July before dipping down to under 4,000 in August, rising back above 4,500 in September and then following a similar patter of the year before to the end of 2014. The figures for 2015 are similar to the previous two years averaging between 3,000-4,000 cycle trips per weekday.



The average number of cycle trips at the weekend are (roughly) half of that during the week averaging between 2,000-3,000 over the summer and 1,000-2,000 during the winter. Goldsmith's Row is a popular commuting route so this is to be expected but it is also popular at the weekend due to the market on Broadway Market on Saturday, the Columbia Road flower market on Sunday, the very popular Hackney City Farm and the quiet link it provides to the canal which links up with Victoria Park and other popular cycling green areas. Interestingly the Christmas & New Year week at the end of 2013 is the only time that cycle trips are actually higher at the weekend than they are during the week



The average number of cycle trips per week unsurprisingly follows a similar pattern to the average per day but is always between 20,000 and 30,000 except for January 2014 and February 2015 where they dip just below 20,000 and both Decembers when they both dip below 15,000.



And then monthly totals also follow the same pattern of being higher in the summer and lower in the winter. July 2014 is the highest figure here when nearly 130,000 cycle trips were made with December 2013 the lowest with just over 65,000 trips, the only month where the total number of cycle trips was below 70,000. In 2014, the only year with a full set of figures, the total number of trips was always above 100,000 a month from March to October and always below it from November to February.



Of the ten lowest daily totals it'll probably come as little surprise that Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years' Day all feature in the five lowest daily totals but I was also surprised to see a date in August there; Monday the 25th 2014, which was the date of the Summer Bank holiday. I also count myself as two of the cycle trips on Christmas day in both 2013 and 2014.

Ten lowest daily totals:

01/01/14	256
26/12/14	292
26/12/13	321
25/12/13	415
25/12/14	419
27/12/14	423
01/01/15	452
25/08/14	520
27/12/13	548
03/01/15	631

As for the ten highest daily totals Tuesday the 3rd of June 2014 is listed as the highest at 6,624 trips but this is significantly higher than any other day and the only time when more than 6,000 cycle trips have been counted in one day. I initially searched for any events that may have been happening that day, such as a bus strike, or exceptionally hot weather but could find nothing. It was the Hackney bike workshop alongside in Hackney City Farm that day but that happens twice per month so shouldn't skew the figures by that much. I then saw that the Hackney Cycling conference took place just four days later so thought perhaps there may have been some local rides by councillors, cycling activists or highway engineers to view cycle infrastructure in the local area that may have contributed to the sudden rise.  However I then noticed that the previous day, Monday 2nd June there were only 2,559 trips which is also exceptionally low for a weekday in June so have therefore concluded that this is an error with the counting software and some of the cycle trips from Monday were mistakenly counted on the Tuesday instead and Goldsmith's Row has still not seen over 6,000 trips in one day. Or I could be wrong of course and those two days are exceptional for no particular reason.

Ten highest daily totals:

03/06/14	6624
20/08/13	5825
21/08/13	5785
17/09/13	5778
29/04/14	5412
16/07/14	5411
22/07/14	5396
23/07/14	5325
10/06/14	5305
15/07/14	5290

From September 2014 to March 2015 we're also able to have year-on-year comparisons and can see that the total number of cycle trips per month increased in four of those months but decreased in three of them. However these are fairly small numbers so there hasn't really been any real significant increase or decrease in people cycling along here so far as I can see. At the end of next Summer I'll probably approach the council again for more up to date figures and if they oblige then we'll have three full years' worth of data which should give a much clearer indication of any significant changes in cycling numbers.

I can't really see how the number of people choosing to cycle here can increase significantly as whilst Goldsmith's Row is a lovely route to cycle along any serene cycling conditions simply end at Hackney Road when you're suddenly thrown into some of he worst cycling conditions possible in London, which I've written about before and continue to bang on about. There is a nice two way cycle track to the North of Hackney Road but it only runs for about the length of a swimming pool and links Goldsmith's Row up with Columbia Road so is no use if you're travelling along Hackney Road from Shoreditch to Cambridge Heath. Quite unbelievably in the draft "vision for Hackney" document for this area found on the Hackney cycling campaign website the call is for this cycle track to be removed and the land given over to Hackney City Farm!

Now I'm a big fan of Hackney City Farm and am there often, either there with my daughter mostly watching the pigs sleep or enjoying the food in the cafe, but it is insane to remove the only section of traffic free cycling from Hackney Road, turn it into #space4chickens and force people into cycling in primary position in front of lorries. Any measures like this will certainly not increase the amount of people cycling on Goldsmith's Row. The correct answer of what to do with this valuable piece of land is, of course, to use it for building cycle tracks on both sides of Hackney Road, with bus stop bypasses, as part of a plan to install segregated cycle lanes along the entire length of Hackney Road as loosely promised by Hackney Council last year. However I'm sick of waiting for this so I'll be switching my commute to Tower Hamlets and CS2 when it is finished next year, a longer but safer cycle route to work as I simply cannot stand ten more years of mixing it with lorries on Hackney Road.

Olympic Park 2.5

This week marks two-and-a-half years since the closing ceremony of the Paralympic games and the Olympic Park being sealed off again to be transformed into legacy mode. My first post was written in the Summer of 2013 when the Northern section of the park reopened to the public. I followed that up when the Southern half opened up around nine months ago. Since then there have been a few small changes to the park and, as I continue to live close to it, I thought I may as well continue to keep you updated on some of these changes, in particular when it comes to accommodating cycling.

For us local residents living on the Hackney side of the Park a new pedestrian and cycle bridge recently opened into the park from Fish Island. Unfortunately as I pointed out on the day it opened it isn't great if you're intending to use it on a bike or with a pushchair (the two main ways I use the bridge) as you're directed to use the zig-zag path to the side of the steps, having to make six very sharp turns, something I found near impossible on my Dutch bike with its big fat front wheel

So like most people who cycled here I just used the desire line instead



But they've put a stop to that now, the bastards.



So if you do want to visit Fish Island with your family on a cargo bike then I'm afraid you'll just have to find another route. Fish Island is mainly known for its graffiti-ed warehouses which contain artists studios (worth a trip during the Hackney Wicked festival when they are opened up for the weekend). It's also home to some small independent businesses such as the cafe and roastery that I buy my coffee beans from, a smoked Salmon factory and the new home of Trumans Brewary. The empty warehouses won't be hosting pop up events for much longer though as there are many planning applications, which you can view here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, to demolish a large chunk of Fish Island to make way for more characterless and unaffordable flats, most of which will be high up in the sky. Indeed some independent local businesses have already left so some of the unique features of the area are due to be lost forever

Fish island is not actually an island in the traditional sense of the word, it's just nicknamed that as it is hemmed in on all sides by either water, the A12 or victorian sewers. There is also only one road in and out which gives it the advantage it shares with other areas that have no through roads and that is a real lack of motor traffic. The bike and foot have a high mode share around here, perhaps beaten only by the learner drivers crawling around the streets at a very slow speed. I'm not sure how long it'll stay that way though as on a trip up to the top of the orbit I noticed the future map of the park on display showed the newly opened pedestrian bridge is to be replaced by a road bridge with a replacement pedestrian and cycle bridge built just a little further south instead. That seems to be confirmed by a similar layout on this map and also the new pedestrian bridge can be found here in this planning application. It'll be a real shame if another road is built into Fish Island which allows unlimited amounts of motor traffic to pass through. Currently everyone in Fish Island is either here for a reason or is lost; the South end of Hackney Wick was the same from 2007 until White Post Lane reopened last year. This area, along with Sweetwater on the other side of the river, will one day be home to thousands of people so it seems the London Legacy Development Corporation want motor vehicles to be able to speed through these areas unhindered, much like they've already allowed to happen within the Olympic Park itself.

Sweetwater is the name given to what is currently a vast empty area on the other side of the new bridge and where the worlds largest Mcdonalds traded for a few weeks in the Summer of 2012, along with the megastore. Sandwiched between the stadium and the river Lea it will one day have over 600 homes, a primary school, two nurseries, a library and a health centre. It was meant to stay empty until nearly 2030 but will now be completed within the next decade as development has been brought forward by a number of years in return for a reduction in the number of affordable housing, which sounds like a bad trade off to me. Back in the spring of last year the road leading into Sweetwater looked pretty much exactly the same as it did during the Olympics, when it was part of the ring road that ferried athletes to and from the Stadium:



And here is a picture I took in the Summer of last year, just as they had ripped everything up to start rebuilding the road again:



with the new final layout pictured below



I really don't understand why with all the space available here we have, yet again, ended up with the modern East London trend of building unnecessarily wide pavements whilst people cycling are expected to do so on the road directly in front of motor vehicles, presumably so as they can function as human speed bumps. You can pretty much guarantee the mums and kids heading to the nurseries or primary school here probably won't be cycling on the road. Below is an image of the new road compared with the Google maps Streetview image from the same location shortly before the Olympic games took place

I just think it is crazy to not build any provision for people cycling here if you're going to spend all that money ripping it up and replacing everything. This will not be a quiet road; it's named "loop Road" as, you've guessed it, this is the main road that loops around the southern half of the Olympic Park. It'll have flats on one side of it, a school and canal park on the other and it leads directly to the 54,000 capacity West Ham Stadium so the wide pavement should make an excellent car park on a Saturday afternoon in a couple of years time. Just to the left of here there is a shared path which runs alongside the River Lee so one could argue that there is no need to build cycle specific infrastructure on this road but the path is very narrow and also pitch dark from late afternoon at this time of year.




And don't get me started on the cobbled surfaces; I still find it a pain on the Dutch bike but tend to avoid it all together when I'm here on either my road bike or my fixed gear bike



They've now opened the new path round the back of the former Big Breakfast house in the spot where the Planet 24 production gallery and offices used to be on the Bow Industrial estate. Hard to believe that everyone from Hollywood stars through to pop stars have been in this spot over the years but now it's the loneliest spot in the park. If you fancy a bit of quiet time alone then come down here or to the Great British Garden next to the stadium as you're unlikely to be disturbed.



Although I couldn't help but notice all the CCTV cameras about this area and didn't want to be too obvious taking photos unless I was evicted from the park. It is easy to forget that around here, just like in the cycling friendly Canary Wharf, you're not wondering round a public park but are on private property.

Back on the loop road the lamp post on the pavement shows us that the speed limit here is 20mph



It remains 20mph up to White Post Lane, the junction in the distance, where the speed limit changes to 30mph. Turn right onto White post Lane itself and at the traffic lights 60m further on the sign on the lamp post indicates that the speed limit halves down to 15mph (although The Ranty Highwayman assures me the legal limit here would still be 20)



Note the desire line on the grass here! Turn left at these lights and after a short 200m drive over the London Overground line you come to Waterden Road; turn left from Tower Hamlets into Hackney and it is 20mph, turn right into Newham and it is a 30mph limit. The changes in speed limit is confusing me just writing about it so it must be a nightmare for people driving here. Not that it matters of course, everyone just drives through here at whatever speed they fancy, safe in the knowledge that it is not enforced and probably never will be.

Let us do that left turn into Hackney and onto Waterden Road which remains the best main road in Hackney to cycle along. It is rare for me to have to make a journey along here but when I do I love cycling along the cycle track where I can slowly pedal along without having to worry about motor traffic, just as I do when I visit the Netherlands



Here is Prince Harry using the cycle track in the same location of the picture above (before the pavement was boarded off for redevelopment works). 

Picture via @HereEast

Can you seriously imagine him riding helmetless and so casually on other main roads within Hackney such as the A10 or Mare Street? 

An image you won't be seeing anytime soon, Prince Harry on Hackney Road.
Original picture by Ross photoshop skills by Schrödinger's Cat

The cycle track also has priority over the side roads here and is set back from the main road providing an area where motor vehicles can wait to enter Waterden Road without obstructing the cycle track, and also an area to give way to people already cycling on the track, with good visibility



The road crossing the cycle track above will one day lead to some of the homes in East Wick and also a new primary school is due to be built here. Fantastic news that the residents and school children have the option to move around this area away from motor traffic and can safely navigate this junction based on a similar design that the Dutch have been using for years

A still from this video by Mark Wagenbuur showing how to build safer junctions 

There have been some strange comments from some within the London Cycling Campaign recently about the effectiveness of these kind of junctions but with three cyclists killed by lorries in London in the last three weeks, and two of those within Hackney, I strongly feel we should be implementing the junction layout above at many more locations in London. This cycle track is not as well designed as others I have used in the Netherlands but it remains a damn fine cycle route and I hope to see many more of these within the borough of Hackney in the future.

The Hackney cycling campaign don't agree with this cycle track however; in their vision for Hackney Wick they call this cycle track "poor-quality cycle-specific provision ... which should have no place in Hackney" and, quite unbelievably, that "ideally, the street would at some point in the future be upgraded to a shareable width". I simply do not understand why anyone would wish to rip up a perfectly good cycle track and instead share the road with lorries, buses and cars

These cars on Waterden Road are queueing to get into the car park at Westfield shopping centre, 1.3km further down the road.

It is simply not appropriate for children to share the road with buses and lorries on a main road like this in the same way that ripping up the pavements and expecting children to walk with lorries wouldn't be. I can't believe this even needs saying.

The children cycling here on Waterden Road are oblivious to the ambulance on an emergency call on the road alongside them

I was under the impression that LCCs motion 3 was quite clear in its meaning but apparently campaigning to remove cycle tracks and force people into vehicular cycling is in line with this policy. Someone will have to explain this to me as I just don't get it but in the meantime I'll continue to not renew my LCC membership until they no longer adopt a vehicular cycling policy within Hackney.

I've always found it strange that Waterden Road is the only road within the park to get this treatment. Elsewhere roads have cycle tracks that stop before any obstruction, tracks that don't stop for any obstruction, cycle lanes that are so small you can't even use them and others, such as in Sweetwater, offer nothing at all. The original planning application to upgrade Waterden Road back in 2011 granted permission for a dual carriageway to be built:

The original plans here show, just like on Westfield Avenue, cycle tracks on the pavement that give up way before you get to the junction and two-tier cycle provision with ASLs also at the traffic lights to cater for the eight people in Greater London who still want to cycle among heavy traffic.

For some reason this design was changed with another proposal submitted in early 2013 to instead create a single carriageway road. Planning permission was granted but included a number of conditions including regularly carrying out traffic surveys "to analyse traffic conditions on, and in the vicinity of, Waterden Road to demonstrate the performance of the road network. The performance of Waterden Road and the associated network will then determine if the road should be retained as a single lane, two-way route or to be widened to a two-way dual carriageway as per the original planning condition." In the most recent survey they've measured the amount of "vehicles" using the road but this presumably means only counting vehicles that use the road, with people using the cycle track not taken into account.

The survey also shows that traffic travels at an average speed of 30mph along here, despite having a 20mph speed limit.

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is a public transport destination they say here on this page explaining to people visiting the Copper Box Arena how to use the over-twice-as-long-as-the-Copper-Box Multi-Storey car park located in the North West of the park, which has space for 554 cars. Meanwhile this page says if you are not using a specific venue then they advise to use the 5,000 capacity car park at Westfield shopping Centre and they also talk of how the car parks are free of charge at the VeloPark and at the Hockey and Tennis centre. They don't even mention the 850 capacity Stratford International multi storey car park which is also located within the Olympic Park. Not forgetting the large amount of on street parking available and the total lack of enforcement when it comes to pavement parking. So it definitely is a public transport destination except for the fact they provide parking for thousand and thousands of cars and if enough of you do drive here then they'll rip up the cycle track and slap a dual carriageway down instead. Still, they've paid a web developer to write the sentence "public transport destination" on their website.

Westfield avenue and its assault course cycle track is now something didn't think could be possible, it is actually even worse to cycle on than it was last year. Firstly these roadworks have been in place for a few weeks



The vast empty space alongside Westfield Avenue where the army searched spectators during the Olympics has recently been both a circus and Hill Valley. This means the track often gets used as a storage area for barriers when the shows are over



and due to the dropped kerb here to allow security to let various vehicles into the central area of the park people like to use the cycle track as a car park or drop off point

Even the Google Streetview car caught a lorry doing this when it drove down Westfield Avenue last summer. Still, within the next year construction is due to start on the International Quarter here where a large number of Skyscrapers will be built, as you can see in this render here on the website of the Financial Conduct Authority, who will be moving 3000 staff here. TFL are also moving thousands of staff here so expect that cycle track to get much busier with parked vehicles.

Meanwhile the cycle track along the southern section of Westfield Avenue has been closed since last summer and will remain closed until 2016



With "Cyclists dismount and use other carriageway" signs in place but no temporary temporary cycle facilities have been built on the other carriageway to assist anyone

The closure of the cycle track is due to what is currently some concrete stubs but will soon be Glasshouse gardens, two towers of 30 and 17 storeys that don't look too different to the council blocks over the road in the Carpenters estate to me. Due to much needed local affordable housing in East London these were launched in Singapore and Hong Kong and Rightmove are already flogging compact one bedroom flats for just over half a mllion pounds

All of these closures and obstructions on the cycle track could have been avoided had the cycle tracks been built to Dutch standards in the first place, which should have been easy enough considering the Olympic Park was a complete blank slate. Astonishing to think that Westfield Avenue was just some mud in a building site exactly five years ago.

A lot has changed within the park over the last two-and-a-half years and there will be many more changes over the next few. Construction of the apartments in Chobham Manor and Glasshouse Gardens is underway with East Wick and Sweetwater due to start soon. The Olympic Stadium will once again welcome spectators during the World Cup later this year before West Ham move in a year later. By then it'll be a major workplace with people moving into offices in Here East and the International Quarter just in time for Crossrail to arrive in about four years time. The park will be a very different place with billions of pounds pumped into it. Let's hope they spend just a small amount of it on repairing the cycle infrastructure and make it a truly great place to cycle rather than the frustrating experience it can be now.