World through the Wheels

Lanes, Paths, and Blind Alleys

And I used to think cyclists were such friendly folk. What’s not to like about people who enjoy travelling at a human pace, engaging with the landscape and community they cycle through, yet leaving no trace of their journey in the environment visited? In stark contrast to the boxed-in aggression of motorists, being on a bike encourages conversation, opens the mind and puts a smile on your face.  

When I wrote a piece for the Guardian’s Bike Blog last week contextualising and exploring the implications of LCC’s ‘Go Dutch’ campaign, I was surprised by the vehemence of the response in the blogosphere and on Twitter. It’s good to see cycling debated so vigorously. Almost anything which raises the profile of the argument for better cycling facilities will help move it on. The need for better facilities is obvious, but the best means of achieving it is much more complex. 

Much of the dispute my piece has provoked concerns the safety improvements of separate lanes. There is no evidence which demonstrates conclusively and specifically that riding in a segregated lane is safer than riding on the road. (There is quite a lot, some of which I mention in the article, which suggests that it’s more dangerous.) In this article on the GB Cycling Embassy site, there is some attempt at contesting this fact, before the argument is re-focused on the interesting but different point that cycling in a segregated lane makes people feel safer (even if they’re objectively not). There are many quicker ways of doing that. The success of the Dutch approach has many factors beyond segregated lanes, as I explore in the article, though you wouldn’t know that from the LCC campaign, in its current form. 

Lanes have their uses, as I explain in the article, but starting from our current situation in London, I’m not convinced that segregated lanes are, in many cases, the most effective way to improve cycling facilities. Especially when we have such large areas of quiet residential streets, from Barnet to Belgravia, which can be quickly and easily signposted and adapted for cycling. 

But the view persists among the hardest cycling core that the only plan in town is the lane. A particularly silly example was suggested to me in a Twitter (@lyricalcyclist) discussion recently: let’s build a separate bike lane along Euston Road, a major East-West central London thoroughfare (for out of London readers). 

Here it is.
View Larger MapThere are dozens of side roads both north and south. Several of these are major traffic intersections. If we were to build a proper Dutch-style lane, 2.5m wide each side, with priority for straight-riding bikes over left-turning cars, enforced by traffic lights at the bigger junctions, and traffic-light controlled crossings for right-turning cyclists (and if we didn’t do this, it would be both lethal and useless), there would be so many separate traffic lights, for the bikes, pedestrians and motor traffic, that the area would be lit up like Las Vegas and the New Orleans Carnival rolled into one.

To fit a 2.5m lane each side you’d have to remove a lane for motor traffic. You’d have to re-design and re-build every intersection on Euston Rd. It would cost millions, and take years to plan and implement. On one of London’s busiest routes, this - in addition to the extra lights needed to protect cyclists crossing the car lanes - would create gridlock. You’d need some separate light phases for cyclists and pedestrians, too, slowing everything down even more (for bikes as well as motor traffic). We should rightly continue to reduce car journeys in London, but have to recognise that the city will always need road space for buses, and for some essential goods vehicles, supplying shops, collecting rubbish, etc.  

With the possible exception of the Green candidate, no politician would sanction the disruption. And when you’d done all of that, spent all that money, you’d still have a facility which would be slower (because of all the extra lights) than taking one of the numerous parallel back roads, and less pleasant. 

Not to mention the dangerous and disgusting particulate pollution. It will surprise no one who’s been there to discover that Euston Road is one of London’s most polluted roads, and London one of Europe’s most polluted cities. Air pollution kills quite large numbers of people. Increasing cycling instead of driving is an important means of reducing pollution, but until more progress is made, it seems pretty undesirable to encourage cycling through these corridors of pollution. 

I fully support campaigns like the recent Blackfriars Bridge campaign to provide safe cycling facilities on main roads, where there is no other option. But there are loads of other options here. Insisting on a separate cycling facility to make the point that bikes should go everywhere motor traffic goes is a self-indulgent and dogmatic posture. (As is LCC’s apparent desire to create cycle lanes on London’s orbital routes. The North Circular is an urban motorway, along which no sane person should want to cycle.) 

With the money and campaigning effort it would take, you could more quickly achieve thousands of smaller but more effective improvements: closing small roads to motor traffic, installing bike contra-flow lanes on one way streets, reducing speed limits, creating extra bike paths across squares, parks etc. These things might not make a few hard-line campaigners glow with self-importance, but they would make cycling in London safer, faster and more enjoyable.  

Many campaigns and interest groups have a fanatical wing, which pursues a principle far beyond what can usefully be achieved in practice. A separate bike lane on Euston Road, or the North Circular, is a classic example of this. I’d hoped cycling was exempt. My sad discovery this week is that cycling, like atheism and the Conservative Party, has its swivel-eyed dogmatists.