Forum Topic

Adrian - counting cyclists: people are employed who stand by the side of the road with 'clickers'. I have seen this in action only once. Frankly not very scientific but hey ho.The key issue here for anyone concerned about air pollution and the climate emergency is, has there been any significant modal shift? To speak plainly this means has the segregated cycleway persuaded anyone who was regularly travelling by car or bus along CHR to adopt cycling as their normal mode of transport on this route.There may be more people cycling but has the number of people in motor vehicles actually reduced?If there has been no modal shift then as TfL's own specialist air quality consultants concluded the cycleway will simply move the air pollution around from one street and junction to other streets and junctions. They concluded that the original scheme would have a negligible impact on air quality i.e. it would be a complete waste of money as far as air quality and climate change is concerned.  The evidence, such as it is, suggests that there has been little or no modal shift. So we are not improving air quality or rolling back climate change.So has the cycleway improved safety for cyclists? Once again the jury is out on this and the statistics are capable of being interpreted in more than one way. Incidentally can anyone recall what alternative measures TfL suggested for improving safety for cyclists? No neither can I. It would appear that they were so obsessed with promoting cycleway9 that they stopped developing other less "sexy" measures such as redesigning pedestrian crossings and road junctions.

Cllr Sam Hearn ● 1928d

“This workbook contains the results of area-based cycle counts from TFL’s cycling monitoring programme, which are aimed at tracking cycling volumes across the whole of London over time. The counts in this file contain the number of cycles by apparent gender, survey wave, site, direction, and 15-minute period for a typical weekday in that period. These counts are based on 16h (6am to 10pm) classified counts on a constant panel of sites representative of the road network in outer London. These counts are conducted annually in spring (approximately April to June) and are representative of a typical spring day in the year. Outer London is defined as the area within the outer cordon boundary and outside the inner cordon boundary (see map below). Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 outer London counts took place in Autumn (September/October) instead of spring and only a subset of the usual panel. For questions about this dataset or to report any errors please email CyclingResearch@tfl.gov.uk” Chiswick is recorded in four locations the locations are given a code, but the codes are not marked on the map. I eventually found the one to the south listed as Staveley Gardens. In the five years of data only once have double figures been recorded in one of the 15-minute periods at this location. There was no data collected for this location in 2020. in 2019, 107 cyclists were recorded. To the West it looks like the Great West Road / Harvard Hill, but there are other markers that also look like they could be the Great West Road. As I don’t know the code locations I cannot be sure I am looking at the correct data. To the North the data is recorded at South Parade west of St Albans Ave. The only thing I could say about the data in 2020 is that small changes can make a big difference to low numbers. There is similarity with both sets of numbers. Less people are cycling between 6am and 9am, there is a huge increase between 9am and 5pm, then a small increase between 5pm and 8pm. There is a huge increase between 8pm and 10pm, helped by a 1050% increase westbound as numbers increased from 2 to 23. The marker to the East is on the High Road by Chiswick Lane. This location records about 2000 people each year. The location is not far from the river where cycling was banned, but I am sure every journey along the river evaporated and every journey along the High Road was a new journey and completely unaffected by external events in 2020. The numbers recorded at this location in 2020 are similar to the other two locations, a small increase between 6am and 9am (A decrease westbound and an increase eastbound). A huge increase between 9am and 5pm, then a small increase between 5pm and 8pm and a huge increase between 8pm and 10pm.  The increases between 2019 and 2020 in % are similar, 23% at South Parade, 28% on the Great West Road and 32% on the High Road. In numbers they are a bit different, an increase of 87 at South Parade, 104 on the Great West Road and 679 on the High Road. If anyone has a link for the 2021 data, I’d like to have a look at it to see if any of the odditys are repeated or if they look more like the five year averages.

Colin Potter ● 1928d