Queensbridge Road cycle route consultation

Queensbridge Road is roughly a mile long and runs from Hackney Road, at the very south of the borough border with Tower Hamlets, through to Dalston Lane. It lies parallel to, and less than half-a-kilometre from, the A10 and although officially a B Road it does carry a lot of motor traffic, mainly as a distributor road to the many residential roads either side of it in Haggerston and London Fields. It is a very wide road and was a four lane road not too long ago.

Queensbridge Road in 1983, via Alan Denney on flickr 

The same location on Queensbridge Road today

Which makes it an easy target to install protected cycle tracks on, which has been the plan for some time. Hackney Council are now consulting on doing just that, along a southern section of the road, between Hackney Road and the Whiston Road "quietway", which really is not very quiet at all. The Central section, from Whiston road to Q2 at Middleton Road, will follow sometime before the end of 2021 and the northern section up to Dalston Lane will then follow at some point before the end of 2022. It is a shame that the Council have not presented a plan for the full section of the road in one consultation, rather than over three years, however this section is still a welcome proposal to see. It's understandable why the council have started their plans with this section first, as it contains very few side roads and no bus services use it, so there is no need to design floating bus stops.

The changes begin at Hackney Road where there will be a few tweaks, mainly for the benefit of people on foot, with refurbished pavements and wider traffic islands. There will also be low level "early release" traffic signals for people cycling from Queensbridge Road into Hackney Road and also out of Horatio Street. Presumably as well as the refurbished pavements this junction will be resurfaced, which again will be a slight improvement for people cycling on Hackney Road itself, which is in a very poor condition

Hackney Road at the Queensbridge Road junction 

No doubt the ASLs on Hackney Road will be repainted, only to fade away again in a few years. This entire junction needs a complete overhaul, rather than a minor tweak. Let's hope one day a project to install protected cycle tracks the full length of Hackney Road manages to achieve this and that this will just be a temporary makeover.

The cycle tracks begin (or end, if you're cycling South) a short distance north of the Hackney Road junction. I'm not sure why this is, it would make more sense for them to start immediately after the pedestrian crossing and would reduce the risk of cars parking at the track entrance, especially on Sunday when the Columbia Road flower market is taking place

The council state that these will be 2m wide stepped cycle tracks, separated from the main carriageway by a kerb and from the pavement by a raised separator. The example they use in the consultation documents are from the recently installed cycle track on Nuttall Street but they also look similar to the recently constructed cycle tracks at Wick Road

I'm pleased that the plan is to make the cycle tracks 2m wide, rather than the 1.5m width that has been built at Wick Road. That really should be the minimum width for uni-directional cycle tracks, as it safely allows people to comfortably cycle side by side, which is especially important if parents are accompanying their children to school by bike.

Protected cycle tracks are needed so children can safely cycle to hockey class, alongside their parents pic.twitter.com/p4IsLaxOfa

— Hackney Cyclist (@Hackneycyclist) August 6, 2019

My only concern with the design of the tracks is that it does appear from the plans that, just as on Wick Road, the narrow kerb will be the only separator between the cycle track and the roadway. Ideally there should be a wider buffer between the cycle track and the roadway, even if it is only 0.5m or so.

A narrow buffer between the cycle track and roadway in Eindhoven, the Netherlands

A diagram at the bottom left of this page states that the roadway is going to be 6.4m wide, so there is the space to narrow that further as there is really no justification for each vehicle lane to be any wider than 3m, a narrower carriageway would also ensure traffic speeds are kept lower as well.

The very wide Queensbridge Road. All car parking and the central hatching will be removed to make way for cycle tracks. There is space here for a buffer between the cycle track and roadway

Dunloe street is to be closed to motor traffic either side of Queensbridge Road, which is an excellent improvement. Both of these side roads are very busy with motor traffic using it as a short cut to avoid waiting at the traffic lights.As well as reducing conflict between turning vehicles and people cycling on the track this will also be a great improvement for people walking on Queensbridge Road, who will no longer have to give way to the constant flow of rat running traffic at these side roads. There will also be a parallel pedestrian and cycle crossing linking both halves of Dunloe Street, which is a positive addition, although the wiggly and indirect planned quietway along here is yet another waste of funds, it's quite clear the vast majority of people will simply stick to the more direct and useful Hackney Road instead; this is the East - West route that needs intervention and to become a safe cycle route!

The existing zebra crossing at Edith Street (which did used to be an actual street with terraced housing on it, but is now a walking and cycling "street" within Haggerston Park), will be rebuilt as a raised crossing. The council declare that this is unsuitable for a parallel pedestrian / cycle crossing, although I'm unsure why they have come to this conclusion. I often use it to cross from the Park into Queensbridge Road northbound if I'm cycling from Goldsmith's Row, as do many others. Once these changes are complete many people will continue to do this, especially families cycling home from Seabright Primary school or the children's centre right alongside. It would surely be better to make this a legal manoeuvre.

With the filtering of Dunloe Street the only side road remaining to be dealt with in the section under consultation is Kent Street. The plan here is for a "blended pedestrian crossing giving priority to pedestrians", the design of which looks very similar to the treatment given to the side roads at Wick Road, although unlike on Wick Road here the cycle track does thankfully remain alongside.

Side road treatment at Wick Road

As Kent Street can be reached by car via other roads, such as Thurtle Road, I do wonder why the street can't be filtered here. I'm sure the council will have considered it and have their reasons for ruling it out, in which case there surely can be no justification for not making the road one way for motor traffic but keeping it two way for people cycling. This would then reduce the side road to just one lane, instead of two lanes as the plans indicate, much further reducing the chances of a collision as people cycling would not have to worry about cars both going into and coming out of Kent Street. Ideally an angled buffer should be in place between the cycle track / pavement and roadway either side to slow traffic down as it crosses

This side road is entry only for cars but two way for bikes, limiting the amount of interactions anyone cycling here with have with motor traffic, as well as limiting the amount of motor traffic accessing the street. An angled kerb also slows down motor traffic as it turns to ross the cycleway and footway

On the opposite side of the road is the only section where the protected cycle track becomes a painted cycle lane, in order for it to go around the cycle hire stand. If the cycle hire stand cannot be moved to a different location close by then perhaps the cycle tracks could run inside the cycle hire stands instead, acting as a buffer between the roadway and turned 180 degrees?

Wardour Street in Soho where a cycle hire docking station has been used as a buffer for a contraflow cycle lane 

The scheme once again ends shortly before the traffic lights at Whiston Road where it returns to painted cycle lanes and ASLs, rather than continuing right up to the junction. My only other concerns would be the colour and surface of the cycle track, it would be great if Hackney could follow the example of Waltham Forest and use red asphalt

Waltham Forest 

and also the treatment at the estates where there are bin stores. Unfortunately on Wick Road the cycle track dips down to roadway level, it should really be the other way for a route that is only used by bin men once a week!

One of several examples on Wick Road where the cycleway undulates for bin access

Note the angles kerbs on the left of this cycle track so bins can cross the cycleway, The cycle tracks stays level 

Overall though this scheme is very much worth supporting, with a few tweaks. Please do have your say and respond to the consultation before the end of Monday 30th September.

An upgrade to Quietway 2 on Queensbridge Road

Quietway 2 runs between De Beauvoir Town and London Fields via Middleton Road. One of the obstacles of this long popular cycling route has always been crossing the busy Queensbridge Road, which usually involved a wait for a gap in traffic to cross, and often a risky manoeuvre between two streams of moving traffic. There was a pedestrian crossing just south of the junction and so this did help, providing a pedestrian pressed the button, although I've also witnessed people cycling down to the pedestrian crossing via the footway on occasions, to cross there instead.

Middleton Road (quietway 2) running East / West across Queensbridge Road

A year ago Hackney Council ran a consultation on installing traffic lights at these crossroads, following eleven recorded collisions over the previous five year, four of them involving cyclists. The consultation also included some changes to Queensbridge Road just south of the junction, with all of these changes carried out in 2018.

Hackney Council have been looking at installing protected cycle tracks on Queensbridge Road for some time now. It's an obvious road to choose as it is very wide road

Queensbridge Road in 1983, via Alan Denney on flickr 

The same location on Queensbridge Road today, with the Holly Lane Estate demolished and a wide road remaining. The houses on the left and Queensbridge Primary school in the distance, remain

Queensbridge Road remains wide all the way down to Hackney Road (with the exception of where it crosses the Regents canal) and so suffers from motor traffic (including lorries) travelling at high speed and making it an unpleasant road to cycle on

Queensbridge Road further south from the Middleton Road junction 

Therefore Queensbridge Road is an easy target for Hackney Council to upgrade as creating the space for cycle tracks could be achieved with no reduction in motor traffic capacity, as well as maintaining car parking, trees and street furniture. Another advantage is dealing with cycle tracks at the bus stops, as it carries just one bus route, the lightly used 236 to Hackney Wick, along the northern section of the road, with no buses at all using the southern end of the road.

In the consultation last year Hackney Council correctly described Queensbridge Road as a "busy distributor road" with "above average wide lanes, high traffic speeds and volumes for a 20mph road" and took the opportunity to create changes to a small section of it at the same time as upgrading the Quietway 2 crossing. This involved extending the pavements outside Queensbridge Road Primary School to "create a quiet space"

Before and after the changes on Queensbridge Road

I'm not sure how extended the footway slightly helps to create a quiet space, as the road remains just as busy as it was before. Very little extra space has been added for pedestrians as most of the space taken from the roadway has been reallocated to "greenery"

Which makes Queensbridge Road much worse if you're on a bike, as you now have to negotiate pinch points as you approach the school and are pushed closer towards lorries on the road 

It wasn't so long ago that there were four lanes of traffic outside this school so it seems a real wasted opportunity that this space was not instead used for protected cycle tracks to allow children, and their parents, to cycle safely to school here. A wide road still remains and children and most parents instead cycle on the pavement, rather than alongside lorries

Before and after: a child cycles on the pavement on one side of the road and visible in the distance is a parent cycling on the pavement  on the other side of the road, with a child on the back of their bike. I don't blame them. 

Even with the extended pavements the road does still remain wide, showing how there was ample space to create protected cycle tracks here 

In the delegated powers decision documents Hackney Council claimed that:

"narrowing the road will help change the nature of the road from a busy distributor road to a calmer road with reduced speeds but this might not be the ideal situation for cyclists"

Narrowing the road could have been achieved by creating protected cycle tracks of course, which actually could have resulted in an even narrower road here as the proposals:

 "were designed with minimum lane widths of 4.0 metres and meet the minimum requirements of the London cycling design standards. These were changed to 4.2 metres at the detailed design stage"

The consultation also states that the road was 11.8m wide before the narrowing, so instead of designing an 8.4m wide carriageway to accommodate cyclists on the road the vehicle lanes could have been 3m wide in order to create a 6m wide carriageway (the same width as Old Shoreham Road in Brighton). This would have left nearly 6m to create cycle tracks on both sides of the road, with a buffer or even some added greenery between the cycle tracks and the roadway

Hackney Council also claim that:

"an overall cycling level of service for Queensbridge Road would achieve a high level of service of 70+ if the proposed Central London Cycle Grid scheme is implemented"

Which is a different scheme entirely, for a much larger area, and hasn't been consulted on yet. The kerb build out was raised as an issue by members of the public in the consultation who were concerned about the future implementation of segregated cycle lanes here, and the council responded that

"this section will be traffic calmed and this rules out future segregated cycle lanes"

Which I'm pleased to hear the Mayor of Hackney disagrees with, but it does seem an odd decision to implement a narrower carriageway with these kerb build outs if they are only going to be demolished at a later stage to build protected cycle tracks. Surely the sensible option would be to build the cycle tracks here and then extend them the entire length of Queensbridge Road at a later date?

In their 2014-2024 ten year cycling plan Hackney Council stated that they want it to be second nature for anyone to cycle, no matter what their age, with a target of 5% of all school children cycling to school by 2024. We're now halfway through that plan and I don't see how Hackney will get anywhere close to that target with terrible schemes like this, directly outside a school, or how this fits in with creating "clear safe space for cyclists"

On Queensbridge Road Hackney Council have deliberately created poor road design in an attempt to force people cycling into a position very few people want to cycle in (also known as "primary position"). Children will not and should not be expected to cycle on narrow roads with thousands of drivers per day

The extended pavements (Queensbridge Road) will help reduce traffic speeds while the trees and shrubbery will help create a barrier to emissions and improve the air quality outside the school.

It is often damn scary to ride a bike on Queensbridge pic.twitter.com/dpc0TQVFFh

— filter more streets (@iambrianjones) 28 August 2018

As for the Quietway 2 crossing, it is now much safer and more comfortable to have a dedicated crossing over Queensbridge Road. However it was fantastic for several weeks last year, when these changes were being put in place, as Middleton Road was closed both sides of Queensbridge Road, resulting in a very quiet quietway



Since Middleton Road has reopened and the traffic lights have become operational I've been a regular user of this route and the main downside is just how busy Middleton Road is. Usually several motor vehicles will overtake you, only for you to overtake them at the Queensbridge Road traffic lights to get to the ASL (which are heavily favoured towards the busier Queensbridge Road meaning if you're on a bike you almost always seem to get a red light). Only for the same pattern to repeat itself over the second half of Middleton Road until you then have to overtake all the same vehicles again once you get to the lights at Kingsland Road. In an ideal world Middleton Road would have remained closed to motor traffic to allow a tiger crossing to be built over Queensbridge Road, giving cyclists priority

A cycle route I used in Zoetermeer, the Netherlands, which has priority over the main road, with a cycle track on the main road as well. 

On the whole though, this is a much improved crossing on Quietway 2 and probably the best that could have been achieved at this location at the present time. It's encouraging to see Hackney Council continue to make improvements to Quietway 2 and they should be applauded for this. However the changes on Queensbridge Road are baffling and a real step backwards if you use this road on a bike

This was an opportunity to enable more children in Hackney to be able to safely cycle to school and improve a small section of Queensbridge Road. I look forward to future proposals to create this along the rest of the road but this is an opportunity missed to create safe space for cyclists.

Four years of the Goldsmith's Row cycle counter

I wrote about the Goldsmith's Row cycle street and the cycle counter located on it almost exactly two years ago. The cycle counter has now been there for four years, providing an exact count of the number of cycle trips occurring on this road during that time.

Once again I have worked out the average number of trips made by bicycle each workday, each day at the weekend and also the average for each week in every month. I've also totalled up the number of trips in each calendar month. For ten days in March of this year the cycle counter did not work and recorded zero trips for that period so whilst the average number of trips should be about right, the total number recorded for that month is lower than it actually would have been.

Each year follows roughly the same pattern; the average number of cycle trips is between 3000-4000 each weekday at the beginning of the year, rising above 4000 from June to September in 2014 (except in August), from June to October in 2015, from April to October in 2016 and from May this year. It then dips back down to between 3000-4000 at the end of the year and then between 2000-3000 in every December in all four years

 At the weekend the figure is mostly around 1000-1500 each day during the winter and then above or around 2,000 during the summer, with the exception 2017 where June is the only month (so far) that has averaged above 2,000

The average number of cycle trips per week follows a similar pattern to the average per day and is always between 20,000 and 30,000 except for in every December and in January 2014 and 2017



And then monthly totals also follow the same pattern of being higher in the summer and lower in the winter. There is no change since my last post about this counter; July 2014 remains the month with highest figure when nearly 130,000 cycle trips were made with December 2013 also still the lowest with just over 65,000 trips. The total number of trips per month was always above 100,000 from March to October in 2014, from April to October in both 2015 and 2016 and above 100,000 in each month from May onwards in 2017.



Each year the total number of cycle trips along Goldsmith's Row is roughly 1.2 million

The figures for 2016 to 2017 are wrong of course as the counter didn't count anyone for ten days. If I look at the data for the same ten days in the other three years I have concluded that roughly 31,190 people would have passed through in the time (give or take a few thousand) and so have added that on to try and get a more accurate number, although this still falls short of 1.2 million

Both these yearly totals and the averages show that each year the number of people cycling on Goldsmith's Row has decreased by a small amount. I've been thinking why this could be; young people priced out of the borough and moving further away into areas like Waltham Forest? Young Europeans leaving the UK due to Brexit? With the recent construction of protected cycle tracks nearby are people using a different route? I used to cycle to work along Hackney Road, very close to this counter but since last summer I've shifted over to the much more pleasant CS2 route along the A11 instead. However the decrease is not substantial and it would only take between 50 and 100 more cycle trips here each day to see an increase, so it'll be intriguing to see the figures for next year and weather the decrease in cycling is a trend or a blip.

The total number of cycles passing the counter from installation day on August 12th 2013 to the end of August 2017 was 4,844,422 (although had the counter worked for those ten days this would be closer to 4.87 million). It will tick past the 5 million barrier one day next week (most likely between Thursday and Sunday) but had it been working for those ten days this year then bicycle number 5,000,000 would have peddled past at some point this week.

The ten lowest daily totals were all recorded on either Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Years' Day

Ten lowest daily totals:

01/01/14	256
26/12/14	292
25/12/15	300
01/01/17	318
26/12/13	321
26/12/16	349
26/12/15	359
25/12/16	369
25/12/13	415
25/12/14	419

As for the highest count days once again there is no change since my last post; the 3rd June 2014 remains the highest total with 6,624 trips recorded. Although as I explained then I think this was an error with the counter and the amount was actually lower but I could be completely wrong about that. The next highest total is 6,380 on the 9th July 2015 which was the day a tube strike shut down the entire underground network. These are the only two days where more than 6,000 cycle trips have been counted.

Ten highest daily totals:

03/06/14	6624
09/07/15	6380
20/08/13	5825
19/07/16	5817
21/08/13	5785
17/09/13	5778
13/09/16	5706
06/08/15	5643
20/07/16	5630
01/07/15	5490

Last time I wrote about this cycle counter Goldsmith's Row was London Cycle route 9 but is now Q13, part of the Central London cycle grid. This means that councils are awarded funding from Transport for London's 'vision for cycling' budget to improve these routes for cyclists. Tower Hamlets have improved Columbia Road recently, which connects to Goldsmith's Row as part of the grid (although this route is closed on Sundays and not particularly quiet on weekdays). It used to have very roughly laid cobbles making it uncomfortable to ride on. Now this road has smooth cycle lanes at each side of the road with the cobbles retained in the middle to slow down motor traffic

Before and after on Columbia Road

 It is a very nice upgrade, the only issues are no enforcement of parking on it and it can still be quite busy but filtering Ropley Street to through motor traffic would easily solve that. Hackney Council have also made improvements to the crossing of Hackney Road by bringing the pedestrian crossing alongside the cycle crossing. It used to be located about 20 feet away and so pedestrians just used the cycle crossing instead

Not quite sure why Hackney Council have painted "Q2" here as this is not Q2!

These improvements are welcome but I really wish so much resource was not being spent on quietways. Hackney Road badly needs protected cycle tracks along it, as agreed by Hackney Council in 2015. This could link up with the Clerkenwell Boulevard creating the West End - Old Street - Olympic Park Cycle corridor as suggested in the 2014-2024 cycle plan. An upgraded cycle route along the B108 as proposed by Tower Hamlets Council would then also create a link from this route (and from Hackney Central) south to CS2, CS3 and create safe routes for staff and visitors to The Royal London Hospital. I truly believe if this happened then the numbers on the cycle counter would rise dramatically.   

You can follow the Goldsmith's Row cycle counter totals daily via twitter

The improved Central London cycle grid on Whiston Road

Last October Hackney Council consulted on improving a section of the Central London cycle grid along Whiston Road, and I wrote about it here whilst the consultation was still open. This section of road was historically known as LCN+ route 16 but is now referred to as the Central London Grid, which forms part of the 'wider quietway route'.

The Central London Grid is a matrix of safe, connected quietway routes and is aimed at new cyclists and people who like to cycle away from heavily trafficked roads. The CLG network will provide continuous and connected routes for cyclists linking key destinations. The intention of the CLG quietway routes is that they will follow direct back-street routes, through parks, along waterways or tree-lined streets. The routes will overcome barriers to cycling, targeting less confident cyclists who want to use low-traffic routes, while also providing for existing cyclists who want to travel at a gentler pace.

However Whiston Road is also a busy road as there are no restrictions for motor traffic and so many drivers use it as it is the most direct and fastest route from Hackney Road or Broadway Market through to Pitfield Street (Cycle Superhighway 1) or New North Road and is also the preferred route for sat nav and mobile phone navigation apps for East-West drivers in the area.

These cycling improvements along Whiston Road were fully funded by TFL, at a cost of £640,000, as part of the Mayor of London's vision for cycling in London programme but were designed and implemented by Hackney Council.

The first section of work to be carried out here was in January, when low level traffic lights were installed at the crossroads junction at Queensbridge Road, which included early release lights 'giving cyclists extra time to clear the junction and making it safer for cyclists to cross the junction'. Yet despite a complete replacement of lights on all four arms of the junction, with some very much welcome pedestrian countdown signals also added, no early release lights were installed on Queensbridge Road for cyclists travelling from North to South. In fact the whole junction was resurfaced and repainted without even an ASL installed to assist anyone wanting to get onto the cycle grid by bicycle from Queensbridge Road

The Queensbridge Road / Whiston Road junction, before and after improvements funded by TFLs "vision for cycling" budget

The early release signals also only allow about three seconds head start. A slight improvement but not enough time to 'clear the junction', especially for less physically able cyclists. This is not the case on CS2, which I use daily, where the early release for cyclists is about double the length of time as it is here.

As the pavements along Whiston Road were repaved and pinch points added temporary provision was provided for pedestrians, as it would clearly be unsafe for school children to mix with fast moving motor vehicles on foot but, for some reason, perfectly acceptable to do so whilst on two wheels



For a week at the beginning of March it was very pleasant to cycle along Whiston Road due to the fact that it was closed whilst resurfacing was carried out and kerbs replaced on the repaved pavements; all motor traffic, including buses, were diverted elsewhere



Once the resurfacing was completed and the car parking spaces were repainted it was clear to see just how wide this road is with all the parked cars removed and how there was easily the space available for protected cycle tracks



However Philip Glanville, the Mayor of Hackney, declared that the road "wasn't suitable" for cycle tracks as Hackney has to "balance the needs of all road users"

The improved Central London cycle grid in Hackney, a dedicated quietway targeting less confident cyclists who want to use low-traffic routes, except that we have to balance the needs of all road users and ensure that four lanes remain for the use of motor vehicles, including lorries taking short cuts to avoid main roads

Before and after cycling improvements on the Embankment in Central London, a road that now does genuinely balance the needs of all road users with dedicated space for motor traffic, cycling and walking

Hackney's road user hierarchy puts cyclists second in their list below pedestrians but way above private motor traffic. This hierarchy has not been used in this scheme and to even suggest that the council would place cyclists above buses is nonsense 



Most of the buildings have been completely regenerated along both sides of this road over the past few years but it seems a missed opportunity that a complete redesign of the road layout did not also take place. 

The same spot on Google street view in 2008 and last week. The space either side of the road has been transformed but there are barely any changes to the road itself except for some resurfacing, improved pavements and also that it is no longer a tree-lined street!

New car parking has been created for residents, both under the new apartments and on the three new through roads that were also built off Whiston Road

Moving parking off the street into the newly created side roads and large parking garage should have been an opportunity to free up valuable space on the carriageway for safer cycling on this dedicated cycling route

A quick browse of the Councils website shows the price list for the resident parking space on Whiston Road, and for those vehicles with the largest engines it costs £265 per year or just over £5 per week to store your car here 24/7 all year round. Most cars with "normal size" engines will pay just over £2 per week and the greenest vehicles with no local emissions pay £10 per year or 19p per week, although a £10 discount is applied if you apply online or by post, so I assume it then becomes free to park here. Prices don't really increase at all from September and actually slightly decrease in a few cases

A cycle hanger is available for cyclists just off Whiston Road, one of two hangers along this section of Whiston Road

The installation of cycle hangers in locations across the borough  is something that Hackney Council can be praised for and, as you can see from this map, they are one of only a handful of councils who have been really committed to this scheme. However it costs £30.00 per year to store a bicycle here and whilst that is subsidised by the council it is three times the costs to store an emissions free motor car, despite the fact that a cycle hanger fits six bikes, takes up less than one space of a car and also uses no on carriageway space. 

The CLG will contribute to Hackney's core strategy by improving accessibility and safety for cyclists by improving cycle facilities to encourage cycling in favour of car use thereby decreasing congestion.

The only sections of Whiston Road that weren't resurfaced were the speed cushions at both ends of the road. Below you can see how they remain in place at the Eastern end of the road but due to the car parking cyclists have to travel directly in the middle of the road to avoid both them and the door zone, assuming it is safe to do this if no traffic is coming the other way. Motor vehicles avoiding them will often drive directly on the other side of the road to avoid them too, pretty daunting if you're cycling in the opposite direction.



The crossing area outside the playground was narrowed to 'make it easier for children to cross the road'.



But it unfortunately creates a pinch point for people cycling. There is easily the space here to create a cycle bypass, whilst improving the crossing distance as suggested by myself in this blog in October, and also by the Hackney Cycling Campaign in their consultation response. The response from the Council officer to this was that "Existing parking bays are located on the approach to the proposed build outs, therefore cyclists would be in the primary position when approaching these build outs reducing any risk of conflict with traffic following behind." So any children wanting to cycle to this playground simply need to "man up" and cycle in the primary position in front of lorries. This is something I attempted to do whilst cycling along here to take pictures last week, which the car behind took exception to inflicting a close pass punishment on me in return

I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable expecting my child to cycle in primary position along this "improved quietway"

before and after the cycling improvements on Whiston Road. The Hackney Council officer is wrong; this schoolchild is not in the primary position here as they approach the narrowed crossing but is cycling on the pavement, as almost all children  will continue to as the road just is not safe enough

The crossing is an improvement for pedestrians of course, as is the new build out that finally allows those in a wheelchair or with a pushchair to finally be able to pass the tree, five years after the yard outside the new apartment block was built which caused this blockage

Raised entry treatments have also been installed on all the side roads, another slight improvement, but again I don't understand why the council won't experiment with continuous pavements so it is made clear that pedestrians have clear priority at these sides roads, rather than motorists, as is standard in the Netherlands and being installed in the neighbouring borough of Waltham forest. As with CS1 it seems pedestrians have got more value out of the vision for cycling budget allocated to Hackney than people cycling have.  

Will this child continue to cycle on the pavement or will he now cycle in primary position on the road through this pinch point in front of the council refuse truck? I watched the refuse truck drive directly from one end of Whiston Road to the other, far exceeding 20mph without stopping, using this route as a cut through like most motor traffic here does

A distributor road in Breda, the Netherlands. The distance between the buildings on this street is actually narrower than on Whiston Road above but here they have managed to keep car parking along both sides, along with a bi-directional cycle track to allow safe cycling conditions for parents with their young children. The carriageway for motor traffic  is much narrower than Whiston Road instead, despite this also being a bus route, leading to slower vehicle speeds overall

In their recent cycling plan Hackney council stated that their aim was to have 5% of primary school children and 15% of secondary school children in the borough cycling to school by 2024. I can't see how they expect to achieve that with this scheme unless they expect all of those journeys to be made on the pavement. In the cycling plan the council also stated that they "provide all year 5 and 6 pupils with national standards cycle training delivered by a training provider so that they can develop the skills, knowledge and confidence required to cycle to school safely using the roads. This training is important for pupils cycling anywhere in Hackney, and can go a long way towards changing people's perceptions of the safety of a road, giving them the confidence to cycle safely without needing segregated cycle tracks" Whilst bikeability training can increase confidence there is no evidence to suggest it leads to more children cycling to school. Two million school children have received bikeability training in the last ten years (including every schoolchild in Hackney) with little or no increase in cycling levels to school recorded

Hackney Council on the limitations of the cycle training they provide

A queues of cars along the "improved" Whiston Road towards the junction with the A10, at the spot where Niniam Donald was killed whilst cycling in 2007 by a lorry turning into Whiston Road

This scheme offers only very little improvement for anyone who already cycles here, I've used it several times in recent weeks and it it still unpleasant to use. A much better route exists slightly further north, adjacent to the canal and it is farcical to suggest that 'this route will overcome barriers to cycling, targeting less confident cyclists who want to use low-traffic routes'. 

I like Philip Glanville as he is clearly a nice guy and I hope he'll do a decent job as Mayor of Hackney. However housing is his specialist subject and he doesn't seem to get cycling. He did buy a bike, as that was a mayoral election pledge of his, but doesn't seem to have used it yet. I hope he does use his new bike and tries out some of the boroughs dedicated cycling routes like Whiston Road. I also hopes he looks to other countries to see how we can make Hackney a place where everyone can cycle by improving our roads, making better use of the cycling budget and truly putting people at the top of the hierarchy.