At last, it looks like some tangible progress is being made with the London Quietways scheme. Those of you that attended our meeting last year at the Town Hall, heard Andrew Gilligan describe these routes as the ones that will encourage new and less experienced cyclists to choose cycling more often.
One of the first Quietways approved will be Q2 and it will link Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark to Waterloo, across the north of those boroughs. The design of each borough section is down to the individual borough, it seems, and Southwark have already produced some initial design, on which the local cycling group has been consulted. I requested to attend that consultation, too, as Lewisham Cyclists will probably use longer sections of the route through Southwark than many Southwark Cyclists. Of course, there will be more formal consultations coming up where everyone will have the chance to look at the designs and comment. We will tell you about these as soon as we hear. However, they will need to move quickly if they are to live up to TfL’s promise here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/planning-for-the-future/vision-for-cycling/central-london-cycling-grid
The map of the proposed route is here
Our major concern, at the Southwark meeting, as it will be when we meet with Lewisham, probably sometime at the end of the year, were the junctions. There was still in our opinion, not quite enough protection at the junctions from left turning traffic and not quite enough provision to make right turns safe and easy enough for the kind of cyclist these Quietways are meant to attract. However, it was apparent that the engineers were thinking along the right lines, and were considering these issues. For example, the Dunton Rd crossing will be signalised, a great improvement to the wait and grab a space in the traffic manoeuvre one has to perform at the moment here.
As far as the route in Lewisham is concerned, it will begin with the new path which will finally connect the new bridge across Rotherhithe New Rd at South Bermondsey station to the network of very useful cycle paths around Surrey Quays and South Bermondsey. There is a lot the Lewisham engineers will need to think about. The most difficult problem is our old friend, the Trundley’s Rd junction with Surrey Canal Rd. We think an interim measure will be adopted, using a traffic refuge, pending the acquiring of more land in this area to enable a redesign of this junction completely. Not perfect, but an improvement, definitely. We just need to make sure the council don’t forget they have said they do intend to do more here, once the interim measure is in place.
Of course, this is not the only problem on the route which will need sorting out. The Surrey Canal Road itself, is peppered with entrances to industrial areas and junctions where priorities do not favour cyclists, and if greater numbers of less experienced cyclists are encouraged to use it, this will need careful planning to make it a safe and welcoming route. But, the good news is, cyclists are now being consulted on these schemes from the beginning of the process, so we have a much better chance of making our views known at a point when they can be used to inform planning, rather than merely highlighting bad design choices which are already in place. The next task is to make sure those views are not just heard, but acted upon.
As soon as we are consulted on any designs for the Lewisham section we will inform you, of course. In the meantime, look at the route, see what you think of it and tell us, so we can feed back to the council as soon as possible.
Addition to original post. Here is a google map mock up of the Q2 proposed route…much easier to view the actual roads used than the one posted above…however, please be aware that there may be some slight inaccuracies and is made by us, not TfL.
This link will take you to a list of Southwark Council’s detailed drawings of their proposals for their section of the route…there is a consultation in process at the moment on these.
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/3889/quietways_2_proposal_drawings