“Dishonest and farcical”: Campaigners accuse council of rejecting “safer” cycling infrastructure plans as it will be “too difficult” for pedestrians to cross two-metre cycle path

Cycling campaigners are accusing Hackney Council of “giving up any leadership on being a leading cycling borough” by rejecting a plan that ensures safer cycling, speeds up buses and retains pedestrian crossings, for a plan that looks “idealised” in graphic images but in reality would be “messy”.

Hackney London Borough Council has recently published new virtual plans for a redeveloped Pembury Circus junction, which it claims will reduce traffic and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists, while also benefitting green spaces and high street footfall.

However, according to Hackney Cycling Campaign, the plan is a “dangerous redesign” with a 25 per cent score from the Joint Approval Team (JAT), with a minimum 70 per cent score required for Active Travel England (ATE) to sign off the project. Due to technicalities,  ATE is not required to sign off this this junction revamp, despite ATE now being responsible for the funds.

The alternative to the council’s design is a Vision Zero compliant design that achieves a near-perfect 95 per cent JAT score, as well as allegedly achieving the following objectives:

• Ensures safe cycling in all directions, transforming a junction which is currently only navigable by strong and confident cyclists, into one which will be approachable for all ages and abilities.
• Speeds up buses by increasing the junction’s capacity as compared to the council’s approach. This is because there is no need for advance stop lines, or early release signals, to attempt to mitigate the safety issues inherently caused by requiring cyclists to move through the junction during the same phase as general traffic. The council can then choose whether to use this extra time to speed up bus times, or to prioritise pedestrians and cyclists and reduce waiting times for people travelling using these modes.
• Provides an ‘all-green’ traffic light phase, and significantly more pavement space, to provide a better experience for pedestrians.
• Retains pedestrian crossings on all arms, whereas the council’s design removes a crossing.

The campaigners are now claiming that the council has decided to “hide” this option from the public. “The only times these designs have been publicly shown previously were at a few in-person events on the Narrow Way, and then buried in 100-page council decision documents,” the campaign said. “When looked at carefully, these visualisations show just how bad the junction design is, and these are idealised images and the reality will be a lot more messy.”

They added: “Remember, whenever you hear Labour politicians say that they care about cyclist safety, that given the choice between a design with a JAT of 25 per cent and a design of 95 per cent, Hackney Council are choosing the one that will not keep cyclists safe.

“From a political standpoint, by approving their design, Hackney [Council] are giving up any leadership on being a leading cycling borough, and any serious claim to wanting to achieve Vision Zero. If you can’t address the 6th most dangerous junction in the borough when you have £20m and a clean slate, when will you ever do so? Please, no more mention of Vision Zero at future London Walking and Cycling Conferences; those words are now meaningless.

“All of this unnecessary added danger for decades, and for what? Because they think it’s dangerous for pedestrians to cross a 2m cycle track.”

Overhead view of Pembury Junction after council's redesign (Hackney Council)

However, Hackney Council has argued that the latest CGI images show in detail how the “complete” redesign will make the roads and surrounding areas less dangerous. In a press statement, Cllr Sarah Young, cabinet member for climate, environment and transport, hailed it as a “once in a generation” opportunity and claimed that the project will bring about “a greener, more accessible, liveable and safer town centre, which meets the needs of people walking, wheeling and cycling here”.

She said: “We’ve spoken to thousands of residents over the past five years about their priorities for Hackney Central and our plans have been formed on the basis of what they’ve told us.

“I’m continuing to have those conversations and listen to local people’s views so we can make Hackney Central one of the best town centres in the country.”

> Hackney cyclists to protest following two deaths in borough in recent weeks

However, it has led to scathing criticisms from cyclists and campaigners who described the council’s approach as “troubling”. Hackney Cycling Campaign said: “The Council like to pretend that this is a Town Centre project. Look at all the lovely pedestrians here, stopping for a lovely chat at the side of a lovely new junction! We know that visualisations are idealised. But in the decision document, this idealised town centre vibe is the main reason that is given for refusing to build safe cycling infrastructure on this junction.

“Yet, the facts remain that this junction will remain a complex five-arm junction, with over 10,000 motor vehicles a day. That’s around the same vehicle numbers as at the Mare Street/Well Street junction, which we don’t think anyone would claim is a nice place to stop. No amount of pretty visualisations are going to make the new junction a picnic hotspot. Pretending that people will want to spend time on this junction, or that having two-metre wide cycle track would destroy an otherwise scenic idyll doesn’t help anybody. In fact, it’s farcical.”

Hackney Cycling Campaign's alternative redesign of Pembury Junction

Last year, the campaigners had organised a protest ride to “demand safer streets” and an end to serious collisions and fatalities involving cyclists, after two people were killed riding their bikes since September on roads where, the organisers claim, repeated calls for safety improvements over the years have been ignored.

However, Vincent Stops, a former Hackney councillor who worked on transport policy in London for over 20 years branded the group’s protest “deeply distasteful”, claiming that attempts to influence policy “in the shadow of tragedy” are “putting people off” riding their bikes.

Meanwhile, active travel advocate Will Petty writing on social media described Pembury Circus junction and Amhurst Road — used by as many as 1,500 cyclists every day, with one of them being seriously injured every 17 months — as “awful” and argued that the council does have a “genuine desire” to improve it, with the guiding principles for their approach being taking away as much space as possible from motor traffic and giving it to pedestrians.

“They’re putting a bus gate on an A road to achieve it. Lots of boroughs would love public servants who care that much about making beautiful spaces for pedestrians,” he said. “[But] Where does cycling fit into this utopia? In the gaps, unfortunately. Apart from one lonely tokenistic cycle track in the northeast corner, cycling gets the crumbs from this great road space reallocation.”

He added: “Every defence of this decision mentions the need to balance the needs of all road users, but this is dishonest. There's no balance here. Of the extensive space reclaimed from cars, you can see with your own eyes that pedestrians get all of it, and cyclists get next to nothing.

“As campaigners, we say cycling must be made safe wherever cyclists are at risk. Pembury Circus undoubtedly qualifies. The council position is directly opposed to that: actually, there are places where you *don’t* need to make cycling safe, and Pembury Circus is one of them.”

“For Pembury and Downham Road, we were told that cycling wasn’t considered initially, and only subsequently evaluated because campaigners asked for it (apparently, evidence that we’re listened to). The eventual cycling designs were perfunctory and second-rate (and bereft of trees).

“The excuses evolved over time. First, we were told that junction capacity made cycle tracks at Pembury impossible. Then, when our engineer showed that wasn’t the case, it was the need to protect mature trees. When we cleared that hurdle, others sprang up. And so on… Ultimately, despite the thousands of words justifying these decisions, I think they were felt more than reasoned. Hackney officers have a *vision* – and cycle tracks would spoil it. Call it aesthetics, call it ideology; for all the talk of compromise, they didn’t budge an inch.”

> Cycling campaigners slammed for organising “deeply distasteful” protest demanding safer streets following two fatal collisions

He concluded: “It would be unfair to say that Hackney [Council] have taken the easiest option – they are after all filtering a main road. But they have gone with the one that will minimise discontent. Isn't that what the government is supposed to do – the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people?

“Only if you discount protecting the vulnerable from unlikely but catastrophic events. The 1500 people a day who currently cycle Pembury will surely increase. They’ll be fine… until one day (or night) one of them isn’t. There will be hand-wringing and sad faces, but nothing more.”