London's Cycle Network – Letter to Ken
Dear Mr Livingstone,
As a resident of Shepherd Bush, I recently picked up a leaflet entitled "White City Development" that details the new £1.6bn "Westfield" retail and leisure complex, and I have some questions concerning the transport links that I very much hope you can answer. This letter concerns the following three specific issues:
1. Cycle route around Shepherds Bush roundabout for the Westfield Centre.
2. Cycling across Hyde Park
3. Lack of cycle route information on the TFL website.
The leaflet details all the benefits that the new centre will provide, including changes to the transport infrastructure to support new facilities: new tube stations, renamed tube stations, new bus stations, taxi routes, proposed tram routes and, eventually, cycle routes. Under the auspicious co-heading "Taxis and Cycling routes" there is a cursory indication that "New cycle routes are planned", but no details are actually provided.
Looking at your "London Cycling Action Plan", Feb 2004, I was delighted to hear that objective number 1 (which I presume would be of highest priority) was to "Introduce quality conditions on the London Cycle Network plus (LCN+)". There appears to be no mention of this network in the Westfield leaflet. Furthermore, cycling is apparently "integral to the Mayor's vision to develop London as an exemplary sustainable world city", but cycling does not appear to be particularly integral to the Westfield site. I would have hoped that the Westfield development would provide an excellent opportunity to design cycling access and routes into the heart of the transport infrastructure and not, as it appears, as a reluctant afterthought.
My concerns for your cycling policy extend to the rest of London, as I feel that TFL alone has the mandate to actually transform the cycling infrastructure into a coherent, accessible network. I have seen no evidence of this as yet. The majority of the massive investment in the underground network appears to have been spent on station cosmetics and not in improving the tube service per se. I am sure that a fraction of these funds could have a significantly greater impact on London's transport infrastructure had they been allocated instead to the cycle network.
I ride my bicycle from Goldhawk Road to Hackney each day, and I invite you to take this journey to witness the issues first hand. The first obstacle is Shepherds Bush roundabout where one has to wrestle with 3 lanes of frustrated traffic (not to mention the ridiculously inappropriate bendy-buses that have the enviable ability to completely block all 3 lanes of traffic at the slightest turn of the steering wheel. I wonder, did the person responsible for commissioning these things ever actually visit London?). It might be a good idea to re-consider the design of this roundabout and put cyclists as a priority. Has this been considered?
So, assuming that one survives this roundabout ordeal, the next part of the journey is up to Notting Hill and onto Bayswater, around Lancaster Gate. Again, this is a convoluted junction where taxi filled streets aim at you from all directions, creating a foaming mess of exhaust and danger for the cyclist. I once mistakenly thought I could just pop over to Hyde Park to avoid this area but, alas, Hyde Park doesn't really do bicycles – now why is that?
And so onto London's Peripherique, Marble Arch and Oxford Street. This is not so much a road but a car park for buses and an exercise yard for pedestrian lemmings. This road is thoroughly unsuitable for cyclists. And so it continues to Hackney where I arrive 40 mins later with lead filled lungs and a few more grey hairs.
When I attempted to plot an alternative cycle route to work, I duly consulted the TFL website for guidance. I was delighted to find a link to the London Cycle Guides. Here I am presented with a convoluted menu from which I select a particular zone or zones of interest, input my most personal details and wait for the postman to deliver the appropriate leaflet. One week on from embarking this procedure, my postman still only brings me pizza menus and utility bills. I think it might be technically possible to make these cycle guide leaflets available on-line. Perhaps you could enlighten my as to why they are not?
I also attempted to use your on-line route planner. Having entered "Goldhawk Road" to "Kingsland Road" in the appropriate fields, it then presented me with my instructions:
1. Start Goldhawk Road
2. Cycle to Kingsland Road.
3. End Kingsland Road
Brilliant.
Pressing the "Map" link generates a 17 page pdf document of directions, constituted of no less than 117 explicit instructions and 15 road maps (unfortunately in no particular order).
So, in summary, I think it is about time we utilised this city's resources properly and considering the issues of global climate change that I am sure you have heard about, I would like to see the implementation of a coherent cycle network carried out with as much gusto as the Congestion Charge. Perhaps I am being cynical, but I sincerely hope that the lack of taxation and surveillance opportunities will not prejudice any progress.
I look forward to hearing your views on this, as well as answers to my above questions.
Yours faithfully…
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Our Ref: SM020542/1/es
Date: 17 May 2007
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your correspondence. Your email dated 02/05/07 raised some interesting points. Having considered your enquiry I can provide the following response.
To answer your concerns regarding the Westfield site, I can confirm that cycle routes are planned. The specific details have not yet been finalised but the local London Cycle Campaign group are being consulted on the proposals. TfL Cycling Centre of Excellence is taking part in all discussion related to cycle access to and from the new development.
We are keen to hear feedback from cyclists on difficulties they may have experienced on the roads as it identifies opportunities for further improvements. TfL is developing proposals for improved cycling conditions across and around Holland Park roundabout in conjunction with the Westfields White City/Shepherds Bush development and in addition, proposals are being prepared by TfL and the Royal Parks for improvements for cycling at Lancaster Gate gyratory, along the north side of Hyde Park and through the Marble Arch gyratory
TfL and the Mayor remain committed towards the growth of cycling in London and will continue to work towards making sure London becomes one of the most sustainable cities in the world. We are now investing £26 million a year in improving the cycling environment, a vast improvement on previous years. Most of this money is being put towards the development of the London Cycle Network Plus (LCN+). When this is completed in 2010, cyclists will have access to 900km of radial and orbital routes. These routes will be continuous, fast, safe and easy to use. As more facilities become available we hope that even more people choose to cycle rather than drive, further improving safety.
As far as investment in London Underground goes, the PPP (Public Private Partnership) is using its budget to deliver new signalling and increased capacity through additional carriages.
I am sorry to hear of the trouble you experienced whilst using our website. Unfortunately the cycle guides are too large to download and if the resolution of the maps were reduced (thus making the file smaller) they would be unreadable. TfL is continuously examining new ways of updating our online services and the London Cycle Guides are currently being updated – this new version will then be fed into Journey Planner.
I hope that this answers some of your concerns. Once again thank you for your correspondence.
Yours sincerely
Eleanor Stanhope
Customer Services
November 11th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
On the contrary, I think the tfl cycle maps are a great resource, I use them all the time to plot routes and the first page of the pdf is a summary, showing you an overview of the route, so the order of the pages shouldn't be a problem for you if you just click along the line. I agree that it could do with a summary of the directions, a bit like you get on multimap, but to be honest, if a route's so convoluted that I need one I'd rather find another way.
Agree about the bendy buses though. They are a menace to cyclists.