Cycle Superhighways

Typically, the aim of a strategic cycling plan is to increase the number of cycle trips whilst reducing cyclist injuries.

When Val Shawcross spoke at the Transport Select Committee hearing last December, she said:

"I think, looking back over the period of time where we've had the latest programme—since the current Mayor has been in City Hall—of trying to promote the cycling revolution—for which there is great enthusiasm in London—I mean this is seen as an enormously positive thing for our health and environment. But I think the early infrastructure was poor and was weak and did not offer the appropriate levels of protection in the most dangerous environments.

"In 2010, we carried out an early survey of the reaction of cyclists to the installation of the first two Cycling Superhighways, which I think was CS3 and CS7. We had over a thousand cyclists comment on them, and actually 60% of the people who commented said at that point they didn't feel safe enough on those Cycling Superhighways, and that was because those early Cycling Superhighways had issues on them. For example, there were areas where the strips of blue paint were too narrow, and disappeared at the most dangerous points of certain junctions; certainly there wasn't any actual physical segregation, again at the fast and most dangerous areas of the roads. And bearing in mind these are on London's most dangerous roads to begin with; I mean, by definition that's where they've gone. And we did call at that point for the Mayor to evaluate these properly and retrofit to improve them before moving on. I think since then, there's been a gradual improvement in the quality of the infrastructure that's gone in. And certainly the last extension to Cycling Superhighway 2 was completely segregated, and I think that probably represents the type of infrastructure that should have been put in in the first place. So I think there's been a long process of learning from mistakes.

As to the cost, "the blue Superhighways without the physical segregation going in were about a million pounds a kilometre, so they were already pretty expensive, and I think that's because there was a special blue paint invented for the purpose, and so forth, and so on. But there were some complementary measures as well. I think we underplay those. There were things like training schemes that went around those areas."

Cycling in Copenhagen (Picture credit: The Guardian)
The Danes invented a special blue paint for the purpose,
and then the British (of course) reinvented it.

There were two big mistakes, I think, made with the Cycle Superhighways. Firstly, they were massively over-hyped. Apart from CS3—which used to be LCN 15—the remaining three cycle highways mostly operate at a minimum level of functioning. The second mistake was that cyclists were sometimes positioned in the wrong place relative to the motor traffic, particularly at junctions, and were not therefore visible to the drivers of HGVs.

The lesson we appear to have learned from the three "blue paint" Superhighways is that only segregated facilities are appropriate on busy roads. But actually, I think this is a mistake. These high-engineered solutions are the destination, like a beacon shining brightly in the distance; if they are the start-point, it's likely to be a very long, very slow journey. (Note: CS routes 1, 4, 6, 10, 11 and 12 are currently on the "too-difficult-to-do" pile; only CS5 and CS9 are moving forward.)

When plans to build an airport in the Thames Estuary were rejected by the Airports Commission, Boris Johnson suggested that Whitehall was totally wedded to the idea of expanding Heathrow. He said: "They can't get their heads around the series of risks, as they see it, that are involved with the estuary solution. I think they take all of those risks together, and they rule it out that way. And I think that is not the way our ancestors would have approached it. I mean, we would not have a Tube system if we took this attitude."

"I remembered another wise quote: 'A man's strength is measured in tears, not his fears.'"

David Arditti said recently: "We will, for the foreseeable future, actually need to accommodate significant flows of motor traffic on many roads which the dense cycling grid (that is needed to enable mass cycling) will not be able to totally avoid."

Like it or lump it, this is how it is. The idea, then, that we should be avoiding vehicular cycling solutions (as a stop-gap) is preposterous. Done properly, they would make conditions safer for existing cyclists—not safe, necessarily, but safe-er—and could be installed relatively cheaply and relatively quickly. (For more information, please refer to this blog.)

Anyway, the reason I started thinking about the Cycle Superhighways is because of something that Mark Ames said recently. He said, "Existing cycle highways have seen increases in ridership of 30 to 40%, and that is just with blue paint." Now, I had no reason to doubt Mark, but I just wanted to check it out for myself, and have, you know, some fun with numbers.

CS3 is mostly on the back streets, so I couldn't find much in the way of up-to-date data for that. But the three other CS routes are on the main roads, and here the Department for Transport collects traffic flow data on every junction-to-junction link.

So I picked two points along each of these routes at random, and plotted that data onto graphs.

The first route I am going to look at is CS2X (indicated by the outer green placemark). This route was installed in November 2013.

CS2 (indicated by the inner green placemark) was installed in July 2011.

The CS7 route is indicated by the two blue placemarks. This route was installed in July 2010.

Finally, the CS8 route is indicated by the two red placemarks. This route was installed in July 2011.

As a final thought, I wanted to see what a graph showing the average use of the three CS routes would look like.

The spike in 2006 can be explained by the 7/7 bombings (July 2005).

Conclusion

If anything then, Mark understated the relative success of the "blue paint" Cycle Superhighways: perhaps as much as a 70% increase would be more accurate, though admittedly things have tailed off over the last year. By way of comparison, the only data I was able to find about CS3—a largely segregated route—showed an 83% increase (source).

Impressive though these numbers are, in the wider scheme of things, I don't think they make a hugely significant difference. There are something like 580 000 bicycle journeys made each day in Greater London (source), and between them, the three "blue paint" CS routes carry a little bit more than one per cent of the total cycle traffic.

According to a recent report on road.cc:

"The key advantage of the proposed cycleways is that they will be separated from motor traffic. As well as making it physically harder for people cycling to be hit by cars, buses and trucks, separated lanes make people feel safer, so it's far more likely they will be used."

It is true that segregated routes are more likely to be used, but actually things are not as black-and-white as the road.cc report suggests (source). The report continues:

"The poll found that only 10 per cent of Londoners say a painted cycle lane would make them feel much safer and 23 per cent say it would make them feel a little safer, versus a total of 51 per cent who say it would not make them feel safer. By contrast, 74 per cent say a physically segregated lane would make them feel safer."

A visualisation of proposed segregated cycle tracks on Bow Road (CS2)

I am specifically not saying that we shouldn't be building segregated tracks like the one pictured above. Rather, I am very emphatically saying that we should be building segregated tracks like the one pictured above within the framework provided by a functioning cycle network.

Also, what exactly is the argument or evidence which says that providing for the needs of a load of people who don't yet cycle is more pressing than providing for the needs of a load of people who do (or who are most likely to)?

I have yet to hear any such argument or evidence, though I have asked this question many times (most recently here and here). At this stage, then, I do not believe the authorities in London should be trying to develop a cycling environment around the needs of that group of cyclists known as the Interested but Concerned (i.e. the 51% of Londoners who say that painted cycle lanes would not make them feel safer). I do very firmly believe the authorities in London should be trying to develop a cycle environment around the needs of that group of cyclists known as the Enthused and Confident (i.e. the 10% of Londoners who say that painted cycle lanes would make them feel safer).

If nothing else, the benefits of this approach would be more immediate, more widespread and more far-reaching. It would cut through a lot of red tape. It would make the best use of London cycling's greatest asset: the labyrinthine network of quiet streets and parks. It won't be seriously fabulous; it definitely won't get any kudos; but it would be real.

Connectivity and density: these are not simply desirable, they are essential; and nobody, not ever, disputes this.

Who wants to go to Acton?

It may be that some of the people who read my blog do not read all of the London-based cycling blogs, in which case, you may have missed a debate that took place on the ibikelondon blogspot (here).

The blog's author, Mark Ames, had written that the two new Superhighways "will certainly lead to a large increase in the volume of cyclists along these routes". I replied as follows:

Evidence from the States indicates things are not nearly as black-and-white as you suggest. The likelihood is that there would indeed be more cycling along the new routes, but that about three-quarters of the "new" users would already have been using their bikes for that trip.

"We're seeing people who already bike shifting the routes they're taking," study co-author Jennifer Dill said in an interview. "We're seeing a small amount of new cycling."

According to an LCC report: "Isolated cycle paths are almost useless if they’re not connected, making a network from the beginning."

The bottom line is that protected cycle lanes can't rapidly boost bike ridership without a network. David Hembrow said as much in his interview with Jack Thurston:

"Another problem with what's happened with the Go Dutch campaigning has been people celebrating [...] the idea of having a single high-quality route. This is something which the Dutch found in the 1970s had almost no influence at all on people's cycling patterns. You actually need a dense grid of high quality routes so that people can make their journeys from A to B without any problems along the way. If you have a single route, it works only if A and B are on that route. Otherwise the majority of people in the city where the new route is are completely unaffected by it."

This brings me on to another point, as expressed recently by lludovic on the LCC website:

"Who wants to go to Acton? Not me, certainly. Has any traffic survey been undertaken? What about Hyde Park to Hammersmith and then onwards to Putney and Richmond? Those boroughs have the highest proportions of cycle ownership..."

The case is, these routes are going, not where they are most needed, but where they can be installed without causing too much inconvenience. The Mayor’s press release practically says as much:

“The routes have fewer of the usual features which can make installing segregated cycle lanes difficult. They have also seen a reduction of around a quarter in motor traffic in the last ten years. Only a small fraction of the east-west route is on roads served by TfL daytime buses, for instance, and there is little residential parking along most of the routes.”

Mark's response was nothing if forthright. "I fundamentally disagree that these routes are not going where they can be useful," he said.

He continued: "I don't know who Lludovic on the LCC website is, but it does not seem sensible to base your position on the comment of just one person."

I don't yet know how far west the A40 route is planned to go, but I do know that, as things currently stand, it is not planned to go sufficiently far east.

View larger map here

During another (but related) discussion, I suggested that, in order for a route to be useful, it must be meaningful (i.e. go to the places that people want to go to), direct, pleasant (where possible) and joined up with other routes. One of the first things to be said about the Westway elevated section (shown in light blue above) is that it doesn't properly meet a single one of these criteria.

The elevated section is very nearly 2 miles, and along this length, at least five good cycle routes pass beneath it. In practical terms, what this means is that for most of the people who live in the area defined by the red border (see map below), this new cycle route is going to have extremely limited value, despite the fact that it passes directly through the middle of their neighbourhood. This is because, as far as these people would be concerned, the new route would not be accessible and / or alternative routes would be more accessible, more pleasant, more direct, etc).

Over on ibikelondon, the blog's author stated: "If it is a difference between getting it built out to Acton and not getting it built at all, I know which I would choose."

An anonymous commentator added: "There are plenty of people in Acton wanting to go to central London. Acton is a very populous area, with no good cycling routes to central London [...]. The Westway to Acton branch (which is already delayed, apparently) will have a big catchment area, with Quietways linking it to other neighbourhoods, like Shepherd's Bush and Paddington (so I was told at one of the consultation exhibitions)."

Yes, it links to other neighbourhoods, notably White City and Paddington, but look again! nowhere in between!

Paul M suggested that the superhighways proposals are "vital" for two reasons. "Firstly," said he, "I am confident that they will prove that taking a small amount of road space from motor traffic does not mean world's end and in no time at all the result will actually be an improvement on what went before, for motorists too. Secondly, I see this proposal as the canary of cycle infrastructure planning in this country. If it dies, it is telling us that the atmosphere for cycling in the UK is irretrievably toxic.

The slipway road from the Westway to Paddington

In the first instance, as I said in my comment on ibikelondon, these routes are going, not where they are most needed, but where they can be installed without causing too much inconvenience. Developing routes which have "fewer of the usual features which can make installing segregated cycle lanes difficult" does not automatically mean that a worthwhile precedent has been set.

In any case, I believe that the most important thing to be proved from these Superhighways is not whether they will add to or take away from the traffic chaos, but rather, whether they will encourage more people to cycle. In this event, the real risk with the Westway link is encapsulated in this statement from Ricardo Marques Sillero of Seville (as reported by the LCC):

"Sometimes politicians want to check first if the idea works, for instance, by making one or two isolated bike paths before making a stronger decision. But isolated cycle paths are almost useless if they’re not connected, making a network from the beginning. Therefore people don’t use them and the politician becomes disappointed."

As to Paul M's second point, if this proposal dies, I don't accept that this means "the atmosphere for cycling in the UK is irretrievably toxic". The constant factors of a thoroughly-understood cycling policy are threefold: network, training / education, and publicity / promotion. If this proposal dies, I hope it means something better will come along in its place.

Better, to my mind, would be to build on the positives, and not to keep banging on about the one big negative. People don't need reminding that cycling is dangerous. But they do need reminding about some other things, however.

The fact is that these high-profile schemes are not without controversy, and that they take time to deliver. It may also be fairly added that they are not much use without good connections. These things being so, why is it that planning, studying and then introducing a comprehensive, city-wide cycle network to the point where it functions, why is that not "on the table"?

"The network you refer to already exists," Mark Ames from ibikelondon said. "We just need to be able to get cyclists in [...] London to access it."

What does this entail?

According to a European Parliament document: "Mobility encompasses not only the activity of travel, but also, more importantly, the possibility for the traveller to decide when and where to travel, by being aware of, and being able to make use of, an information set for optimising the journey."

Good waymarking and mapping is definitely part of the solution, therefore.

"Existing cycle highways have seen increases in ridership of 30 to 40%," Mark pointed out, "and that is just with blue paint."

Replicate that across an entire city, and by jingo! you'll have a cycling revolution worth its name.

"Every network has to start somewhere," Tim said.

Yes, but what is the evidence or the rationale which says that developing a couple of high-profile routes is the place to begin? Please can you quote someone.

"Cycle routes are needed EVERYWHERE," the leisurist added.

That's my point.

"I really don't think that a one third increase is such a bad outcome," Paul M suggested.

In closing, I would like to say that I applaud the ambition that is attached to these schemes. I think the section along Thames Street and The Embankment is superb. But generally speaking, these schemes fall short because they are not connected to a wider network.

Mark agrees that hundreds of smaller interventions are needed and useful. Mark agrees that it is not an "and / or" situation. Mark agrees that we need both.

However, Mark says that only one is more likely to happen than the other. I have to ask why that is, why "the table" is relatively so bare.

According to Cycling: the way ahead, the measures needed to get a network to function may be adopted automatically, "without major risk of error or loss". If the people who wrote this are telling the truth, why do we not believe them?