Forum Topic

Time to remove the cycleway along Chsiwick High Road?

I was travelling through the Euston area on Marylebone Road yesterday and observed that the extensive eastbound, segregated cycle lane has recently been removed and all road traffic lanes have been re-instated as before and cyclists have to share traffic lanes. The economic harm that this cycle lane has caused over two years is significant and TfL has had to recognise, no doubt through gritted teeth, the detrimental effects of the increases in traffic congestion they have caused as well as the unacceptable delays imposed on bus passengers. Are there lessons for Chiswick High Road?This return to common sense resonates with the new thinking coming from the Netherlands that the mix of cycle and scooter types, sizes and speeds in segregated cycle lanes is becoming a significant safety problem and in 20mph zones in urban areas it has been accepted that the cycle lanes can be removed and the whole road space made available to create a better and fairer balance between the demands of all road user types. Rather than waste yet more public funds on the cycleway along Chiswick High Road, which TfL acknowledges needs to be modified because of current safety failings, there has to be an opportunity to learn from the experience in The Hague and on Marylebone Road and abandon the cycleway experiment in the centre of Chiswick and revert to a use of the road space that better reflects the total public need as well as reducing local road traffic congestion and delays to bus users.

David Kerr ● 1479d141 Comments

Good morning David,The problem for me is that I don't agree with your starting premise. I mean the definition of the problem. Your opening post says that "The mix of cycle and scooter types, sizes and speeds in segregated cycle lanes is becoming a significant safety problem and in 20mph zones in urban areas it has been accepted that the cycle lanes can be removed and the whole road space made available to create a better and fairer balance between the demands of all road user types."The first problem here is that CHR is not your classic 20mph zone, like, say, Devonshire road. And it goes back to my point that most small roads in the medieval city centres of places like Antwerp, Hague and so on don't have a cycle lane but are also traffic-restricted and, crucially, one-way only. The other point I don't agree with is that "The mix of cycle and scooter types, sizes and speeds in segregated cycle lanes is becoming a significant safety problem"which I'd like to challenge on two accounts:1) proof. Where is the proof that, on the cycle lane, mixing of cycles/scooters is a safety risk. 2) how is removing the lane making this any safer? If mixing bikes and scooters is inherently dangerous (it isn't) then how is it adding cars, vans, trucks, lorries, buses and motorbikes to the mix going to make it any safer? Have a wander around High Street Ken, which at rush hour looks more like Beirut than London. How is it safer? There sure is a problem with scooters on pavements, and that ought to be addressed. But removing the lane won't change that. As it won't make traffic any less clogged. Case in point, the queue of cars that fits, bumper-to-bumper, from the Italians all the way down to the Chiswick Roundabout, and from side streets, every afternoon.

Francis Sheehan ● 1477d

I agree, we don't have much data to go on, even on the length that's stayed open up to this point, from Heathfield Terrace to Chiswick Lane. But it's possible to at least see if there's any evidence for the significant increase in collisions that some claim has occurred.The Met's reports on TfL's collision dashboard give 17 collisions involving bikes from 2017 to the opening of C9. After the opening until the end of April this year there have been 4 reported collusions. The last reported collision was in September last year, so all the collisions were in the first nine months of operation and there have beennone in the last seven months up to the end of this April.We also have TfL's annual bike counts for 2017 to 2021, so it's possible to calculate the daily risk, that is the probability on any day that a cyclist would have been in a reported collision.Before C9 opened the collision risk was 5 in a million. After C9 opened the risk dropped to 3 in a million. However, as there were only 4 collisions after C9 opened, the uncertainties are large. Hence, this does not provide definitive proof that C9 has made cycling safer along this stretch of the High Road, but there is certainly no evidence it has made it less safe. We won't have a definite answer on collision rates for some years. However, we do know that segregated cycle lanes in general do reduce collisions and safety is the major concern for those considering cycling. While cycling in general fell back to prepandemic levels in 2021, counts stayed higher on C9: actual cyclists don't share the same perception as a non-cyclist who listens to Onesie anecdotes.

Tom Pike ● 1477d

First of all in terms of east-west traffic north of the High Road, the more recent report by Ealing, unlike that of Hounslow, did actual traffic counts of traffic on South Parade. The counts showed a 7% reduction in vehicles compared to prepandemic values. Hence there is no evidence that east-west traffic has been diverted from the High Road to South Parade.South of the High Road, traffic is unlikely to be coming eastwards from Chiswick Roundabout up the High Road only to then turn south at Acton Lane to get back to the A4, but that is what you are implying.In contrast, it is quite possible that some existing westbound traffic coming from east of the High Road may be turning down to the A4 along Chiswick Lane rather than taking the length of Chiswick High Road to Chiswick Roundabout. That should be encouraged as it reduces both pollution and bus delays along the High Road. I'm sure you are not in favour of the reverse happening, as we are seeing at present, with A4 traffic transferred to the High Road.In terms of North-South traffic, there is no dispute that some southbound traffic now takes Acton Lane rather than Fishers Lane - Ealing measured an increase in southbound traffic on Acton Lane south of Chiswick Park Station. But that increase is only a fraction of the predominantly southbound traffic that originally took Fishers Lane, and there is no increase in northbound traffic on Acton Lane. Given the measured overall fall in NS traffic due to the closure of Fishers Lane of 1000 to 2000 cars, I'm sure you will agree that overall pollution levels will also have dropped. https://www.ealing.gov.uk/downloads/download/6523/fishers_lane_-_detailed_monitoring_report

Tom Pike ● 1477d

"Smart motorways are set to come under intense scrutiny tonight during an episode of BBC’s Panorama programme (8.30pm).A Freedom of Information (FoI) request sent by Panorama to Highways England – reported by BBC News –  shows 38 people have been killed on smart motorways in the last five years.The FoI request also reveals on one section of the M25, the number of near misses has risen 20-fold since the hard shoulder was removed in April 2014.In the five years before the road was converted into a smart motorway there were 72 near misses. In the five years after, there were 1,485.During tonight’s episode ‘Panorama, Britain’s Killer Motorways?’, transport secretary Grant Shapps says he wants to ‘fix’ smart motorways because they are too confusing for drivers.He also says the findings of a government review are due to be announced shortly, and will include recommendations to improve safety.The BBC understands this will include scrapping dynamic smart motorways, where the hard shoulder is opened to traffic during busy periods – but closed at others.A vehicle detection system – which can spot stranded vehicles as soon as drivers break down – will be fitted across the whole smart motorway network over the next three years, while there will also be more emergency lay-bys.Meanwhile, the former government minister who approved the roll-out of smart motorways tells Panorama he was misled about the risks of taking away the hard shoulder.Sir Mike Penning agreed to the expansion in 2010 after a successful pilot on the M42 near Birmingham.An all-party group of MPs, led by Mr Penning, will publish a report on Monday that accuses Highways England of “a shocking degree of carelessness”.

Adrian Irving ● 1477d

Tom, you appear to be suggesting that clutching at straws, funding judicial reviews against temporary traffic orders, endlessly copying and pasting extracts from a Danish blogger from 2014, whining incessantly on social media, harassing anybody who expresses support of cycling and car reduction schemes, defaming people who have done amazing things to make Chiswick better, lying to the national media, reporting people in bad faith to the police, writing countless illiterate emails to elected officials to berate them, vandalising Council property, preventing Council workers from doing their jobs, sealioning (where is your data / proof - no not that data/proof), threatening to sue active travel campaigners, writing to people's employers to demand they are disciplined for expressing views supporting a cycle lane, wishing harm on cyclists, personally abusing cyclists, inciting violence against cyclists, lying about bike shops signing petitions against a cycle lane, arguing that disabled parking spaces outside shops block able-bodied shoppers from shopping, catastrophising and general hysteria are ineffective lobbying tools for anti-cycling car supremacists and that further investment into C9 will happen regardless and that Fishers Lane will remain closed to cars while other schemes such as Staveley Road will remain in place?Mad if true. Those are some pretty brave and determined politicians that won the vote and are doing what the electorate asked them to do.

Paul Campbell ● 1476d

Hi Mikey Hellooo!! I’m still here. How are you? You, and your groupies, Tom and Paul, can’t get rid of me simply by reporting me as ‘fake” because you don’t like the fact that I challenge your spurious data with facts that you can’t refute - even Tom had to admit I was right after a long discourse, didn’t you, Tom. I so hate bad losers. And neither does that give you the right to troll me, or some random driving instructor, across Chiswick in the way you did.  It was clearly very frustrating that you couldn’t find out more about me, simply because I have a low online profile (lower than Paul’s even; I guess he must be really worried that his employers find out what he does with aeons of their time). You were worried weren’t you, that someone was finally calling you out and you couldn’t bully them with your coordinated attacks? I think your paranoia and behaviour says rather more about you than it does about me. And to answer your question, I don’t think Mr Kerr is arrogant or incompetent judging by his post, so no, it’s not worth you pointing that out. He suggests some interesting ideas. Decades ago the Dutch even pulled out pavements since they demonstrated that not segregating pedestrians slowed driving considerably and made it safer. Did you not know that? It’s no surprise they have extended that thinking to cycling, too, therefore. I think most impartial observers (not Jeremy Vine, therefore) would suggest you, Paul and Tom, and not David, are rather arrogant, though. For example, you call OneChiswick Facebook a “toxic cesspool”. Have you gained this insight from being a member Michael? Perhaps you’re a member under a pseudonym? Or is it just you venting off because they happen to disagree with your view of the world? LoveAmanda xxx

Amanda C Smith ● 1475d