Why are you against TfL’s proposed new cycleway across Holland Park roundabout?
While we support all efforts to make cycling safer in London, we are against the proposals because they involve removing road space and adding traffic lights on one of the busiest intersections in Central London, connecting key arterial routes for buses, trucks, vans and emergency vehicles. This will inevitably cause congestion, longer journeys and pollution, resulting in inconvenience for residents, workers and key services that keep our city working. There are no practical alternative routes for traffic to use to access this part of West London. There is already cycling infrastructure, albeit in need of improvement, in place around the perimeter of the roundabout, which is currently used effectively and safely by cyclists.
TfL claim that the new segregated cycleway will make the roundabout even safer – that has to be a good thing?
The planned cycleway is not totally segregated as it has three unprotected, unsegregated controlled crossings over the lanes of traffic to reach the short, segregated section around the centre. Our observations indicate that during rush hour, almost 50% of cyclists shoot red traffic lights on crossings to get onto the roundabout. If they continue to do this (which they most likely will), the tightness of the corners and poor sight lines on the roundabout will mean that vehicles will have little visibility of them, likely resulting in more, not fewer, cycling accidents.
What are you proposing instead?
We believe that TfL should upgrade the 2 cycleways that already exist on the roundabout perimeter through better signage, better surfaces and some segregation to keep cyclists and pedestrians apart. They are used very safely by cyclists and pedestrians today and have the advantage of giving cyclists much better flexibility on which direction to go in when leaving the Shepherd’s Bush area. This work could be carried out with far less disruption and most likely at less cost, without jamming up the roads. We believe it would also encourage more cyclists of all ages and abilities to use these routes rather than joining heavy traffic on the roundabout itself.
TfL claim that this roundabout is not safe – why do you disagree?
To justify its plans to build a third cycle lane through the roundabout, TfL cited all accidents in a wide vicinity of it, even though the vast majority didn’t involve a cyclist. Analysis of accidents on the roundabout itself reveals only one slight cycle accident in TfL’s 3-year reference period, so the roundabout is not dangerous for cyclists. It also does not appear on London Cycling Campaign’s list of the top 20 most dangerous cycling hot spots in London.
TfL claim that they’ve modelled the scheme and that there will be minimal traffic disruption – why do you disagree?
TfL based its traffic modelling on cycleway 34, a totally different and non-comparable quiet route that runs along the river in Hammersmith & Fulham, using traffic data from the midst of the pandemic. Independent traffic modelling of the proposed scheme shows massively increased congestion on all the feeder roads to the roundabout. TfL themselves admit in their consultation report that there will be increased traffic pushed onto surrounding residential streets, going against their policy of creating more low traffic neighbourhoods and increasing the accident risk for cyclists and pedestrians, including children and the elderly, who use these quiet routes.
TfL claim that local people support the scheme – why do you disagree?
The public should be able to trust bodies like TfL to be open and honest. However, in its publicity for the scheme, TfL used misleading data to make its case and asked leading questions in the survey to generate the responses it wanted. Their own consultation data showed that fewer than 12% of people and 30% of cyclists were supportive of the scheme. A petition against the scheme received over 3,500 signatures, 68% more than responded to TfL’s consultation. Yet, TfL plans to push on with this expensive and unnecessary scheme regardless of the negative impacts it will have on local communities and businesses, just to enable a few of the less than 5% of London’s road users to cycle in a slightly straighter line during rush hours on weekdays! This just cannot be justified in any way.
