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Barclays Cycle Superhighway (source - Transport for London)Minister for cycling says he feels safe riding on London roads - but understands why others don't
Minister for cycling Robert Goodwill says he does not feel in danger when cycling in London traffic, although he understands why others might. He also wants to see more women and people in suits riding in the city, rather than cyclists in Lycra – but is sceptical that fully segregated cycle lanes and a rush-hour ban on HGVs is the answer to getting more people cycling in the capital.
Mr Goodwill was speaking after taking to the city’s streets on his Brompton on Friday on a route designed by staff at the Department for Transport to highlight the best and worst of the city’s cycling infrastructure.
His trip came at the end of a month in which six cyclists were killed in London, all of them following collisions with large vehicles such as lorries and buses.
His itinerary took Mr Goodwill, who regularly rides his bike in London as well as in the Scarborough & Whitby constituency he represents, from Kings Cross to Westminster by way of Camden, Southwark and Lambeth reports the London Evening Standard.
“I didn't feel in danger at any time,” he reflected afterwards. “I do cycle in London but I think if I was a London cycling virgin I would have been a little bit nervous, possibly.”
The minister said that he wanted to see more infrastructure of the type in place in Royal College Street in Camden, where ‘armadillo bumps’ and flower planters provide a form of segregation, without being the type of fully segregated lane many cyclists and campaigners are calling for.
"When we came out of Kings Cross, we got on to some quite good segregated routes, some quiet routes I didn't even know existed. We went down Royal College Street where they have spent a lot of money... I thought that was fine and I felt safe. Because of the little armadillos, if the cyclist did need to cross over the road to get to a shop they can weave in between, but a car can't get over.
"In a way, because it's much cheaper [than fully segregated lanes] I would rather see a lot of that and less total segregation, which is quite expensive.”
However, he was less impressed with his experience once he ventured onto the south side of the Thames, saying: “There was a bizarre one in Southwark where I went across the road and there was a cycle lane coming the other way, but the cycle lane on our side started three metres later and then it was on a footpath. It was marked on the footpath but there was no ramp or anything."
Mr Goodwill said that cyclists needed to be assertive when taking position on the road, and noted that perception of danger was a common barrier to would-be cyclists, especially women.
"The advice I get from my officials is women are more nervous about going on the roads than men," he said.
"Also, sadly, women are possibly more likely – or inexperienced older people, men as well – to be at the left-hand side of the road, thinking they are safe near the kerb when actually they should be in the box at the front, behind the advance stop line, taking possession of their lane, making it clear to people behind they are turning or going straight on.
"If people around you know what you intend to do, you're much safer."
Mr Goodwill’s remarks reflect the fact a disproportionate number of cycling fatalities in London in recent years have been of female cyclists killed by left-turning lorries at traffic lights.
Transport for London and Mayor Boris Johnson have come under particular criticism for the design of Barclays Cycle Superhighways that take cyclists along the kerb then.
In October, the coroner in the inquiry of the Brian Dorling case noted the design gives riders a false sense of security and puts them in a position of danger at junctions; Mr Goodwill’s comments about riding away from the gutter suggest he may share that view.
He did say that he appreciated why some people might be fearful of sharing road space with large vehicles: "I can understand why people do feel a bit nervous and why you have to have your wits about you in London - for example, don't cycle when you're drunk.
"I sometimes think people on Boris bikes who have not much experience cycling in London are probably putting themselves in danger - but I didn't feel any danger."
However, he reiterated that he did not see a ban on lorries at rush hour in London and other cities as the solution, something that British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman has called on, although he said other measures could be taken.
"There are issues to be looked at in terms of side protection bars on tipper lorries, on skip wagons, on certain other refuse wagons," the minister explained.
"Experience in other countries like Denmark and Holland has shown you can design a network in an urban environment which is safe for cyclists and we do need to do more.
"What we need to do is transplant the best I have seen into some of the areas where I have also seen the worst.
"Some of the worst areas are because of not much investment. But some of them are actually areas where they have spent quite a bit of money but it has not been spent intelligently.
"We need to review some of the road-marking legislation, low-level signals for cyclists so they can see them, there's things like that we can do," he added.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- HoarseMann 2 sec ago
Not quite the same scenario, but has some similarities......
- HoarseMann 18 min 31 sec ago
“It all happened so fast,” the bus driver said in his statement. “To my horror I saw a male laid on his back with a mobile phone on his chest and...
- chrisonabike 24 min 38 sec ago
I agree she might have chosen a different cycle/clothing combo there. Still, if you're riding with a long coat - or indeed a skirt, or bell...
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no one cares enough to fix it...
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I won't be getting anything on Friday...
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It's in the land of the sidewalk, for better or worse, that driving 'right of way' does exist. . . and many other things they can keep as well!
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CHPT3 is in receivership. Their website replaced by this notice. https://chpt3.com/
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45 comments
Hmm, maybe he should do the same tour again (on a heavier bike? pulling a trailer?) wearing one of those suits that make you older than your years (vision a bit worse, hearing a bit worse, joints a bit stiffer.) The fact that an able-bodied middle-aged man can use a bike to get around in relative safety doesn't necessarily mean that the infra is adequate for the young, the old, the heavily laden etc.
But I think he's on to something when it comes to the benefits of "soft" segregation with paint (and maybe a few strategically-placed armadillos.) It's all too easy to interpret a desire to build infrastructure cheaply as a lack of willingness to spend serious money on it, but just as easy to argue that building cycling infrastructure cheaply allows you to put in lots of it very fast. Paint and armadillos can also be moved easily to give cyclists more roadspace if cyclist numbers rise further. And soft segregation allows cyclists to leave segregated infrastructure to overtake slower cyclists and then to return to it seamlessly afterwards.
That's not, of course, to say that all cycling infrastructure should be cheap, or as cheap as possible. I think it's very worthwhile to spend serious money on cycling when it obviously adds value. Superhighways worthy of the name that would allow cyclists to make fifteen mile journeys into city centres without having to wait at lights or yield to other traffic more than a handful of times wouldn't be cheap, but they would definitely generate modal shift to cycling and ultimately work out less expensive than providing other ways for the same people to travel.
So my preferred approach would be two-pronged: lots of decent, cheap infrastructure now and a much smaller number of projects that are expensive and that need careful planning and will take time to come to fruition, but are worth doing and worth getting right.
Whoever wrote this story hasn't actually added up the number of male/female fatalities in London over the last five years, because if you do you'd find they're pretty much equal - about 40 of each sex.
Of course, more men cycle, so there's a slight over-representation of women but it's nothing like as much as this implies.
To Fluffy Mike, You missed the word 'disproportionate' then? Its been well-publicised that only a small fraction of London cyclists are female (e.g. 3 times more male than female cyclists http://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/may/13/cyc...). yet (as you point out) half the fatalities have been female. We need to understand why this group is so much more likely to be killed.
That grauniad article has some discussion of the question.
Next excuse?
I'm willing to give anyone a chance but this guy is an endbell. His quote a couple of months ago was "we want to give drivers a bigger say in what happens to THEIR roads". He's now said segregation is out if it costs much more than a few flower pots, and banning HGV's wont happen, presumably because they don't want flak from "business".
I'm more and more coming to the conclusion that the government, central and local in London, think a dozen or so deaths a year is a price worth paying to keep the delivery companies happy and save them spending on some decent infrastructure. If the recent spate of deaths hadn't have happened in such a short space of time, if they'd be spread over the full year, they wouldn't be going through the motions of pretending to give a toss now.
I've been a conservative voter for quite a while but not any more, I'll be voting for whoever has the best transport policy in future, probably Green
It might have something to do with the fact that any restrictions that ramp up the prices in the shops, with so many vulnerable groups already having to choose between heating and eating, in a country that is struggling to keep many essential services running, is barking.
Sure, he's been wheeled out to utter a few placitudes at a politically sensitive time, but at least he rides a bike. Let's face it, we could have had much worse.
But get real guys, even the sort of money that has allegedly been earmarked for cycling infrastructure is hardly going to make much of a dent in KSI rates nationally. As people who happen to use bicycles as part of our own individual transport solution, we have to be far more concilliatory, and engage with all interested parties, to create a step change in attitude on the roads.
We certainly don't have to wait to be drip fed flagship schemes by successively incompetent governments.
Banning HGV's doesn't have to add anything to costs, one of the biggest costs to transport is the delays caused by congestion. Smaller vehicles, alternative delivery methods, off peak hgv's when the roads are quieter, there are lots of options. They seem to manage fine in Paris, or we could just carry on having people killed so that the price of a pair of designer jeans or plasma tv doesn't go up by a couple of quid.
The Paris lorry ban only restricts trucks with a gross weight of 28 tonnes or more. Most lorries are less than this.
One artic is equivalent to 13 transit vans or 5 7.5t box vans. More vans mean more congestion, more pollution, more deaths from respiratory diseases. Currently, 3,000 die from vehicle related pollution per year, just in London.
Most delivery and collection points in London do not run 24/7. More complex distribution would require a fundamental step chage in the working arrangements of large numbers of Londoners.
It's unlikely that vulnerable groups will be shopping for designer jeans or plasma TVs. I was referring, fairly obviously, to food and other essentials, all of which will indeed rise in price.
Yes there'd have to be fundamental change, but if that's what's needed then that's what's needed. Don't confuse can't with can't be bothered. Hgv can still deliver, just not during peak hours, they'd be stuck in traffic less so there'd be less pollution, not more. For deliveries that must be made by smaller vehicles, why not invest in electric vehicles ?
The cost to major food retailers in central London would be negligible compared to their turnover. It would be less, probably, than the increase to their costs caused by the national minimum wage, which didn't increase prices at all.
It would be difficult, and it would cost money, but seeing as people are being killed using the roads and as you point out, through pollution, I think we should work on a proper long term solution rather than accepting the status quo
So you ride to work in your suit and honk all day?....or maybe change into your Lycra?
What has wearing Lycra got to do with it???
That's all you really need to know about this. It's all about the money.
Yes. That would involve spending money though. Which you've already indicated isn't going to happen.
My thoughts too.
He feels safe but recognises others will not, yet when the crunch comes he doesn't want to do anything about it. A waste of time.
The guy is a nobber.
Where's the 'less lycra' quote? Why would anyone want fewer people to wear appropriate clothing?
What he means (I think) is that cycling should be a relaxed and safe means of transport. Dutch people don't need to dress up and get a shower at work because they've meandered at a comfortable pace along lovely segregated infrastructure. Trouble is..he seems to be against such infrastructure because it is "quite expensive" (unlike public transport subsidies, roads, A&E treatment for injured cyclists...).
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