A “temporary” cycle lane on Kensington High Street is being removed – note the reference to “temporary”, it was never intended that it would necessarily be made permanent. It was installed as part of the temporary Covid-19 emergency measures and financed accordingly. But cyclists are angered by its removal.
Johnny Thalassites, lead member for transport in the borough has said: ‘The cycle lane was a trial scheme to help those hopping on bikes during lockdowns and encourage shoppers to the High Street. Businesses and residents have told us loud and clear that they believe the experiment has not worked. We are listening”. The council claims to have received hundreds of emails asking for it to be removed and large numbers of signatures to a petition.
The whole scheme was planned to cost over £700,000 and the council has received £313,000 in funding via TfL’s Streetspace fund for the cycle lanes. But Cycling Commissioner Will Norman is suggesting TfL should ask for the cash back.
This is what the petitioners said on Change.org about the scheme: “The Council of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) has, without much consultation, created bike lanes along Kensington High Street, from Hyde Park all the way to Hammersmith, on both sides of the road, restricting the traffic to one lane for all vehicles (cars, vans, motorbikes, buses, etc.).
Kensington High Street was already a busy road, but as a consequence of this scheme, it has become unmanageable. The traffic East to West is now backing up all the way to the Albert Hall and on some days almost to Knightsbridge, and it is taking an unacceptable amount of time for commuters, workers, families dropping off and picking up from schools, taxi drivers and vans delivering goods to residents and businesses, to cross this crucial bottleneck.
This scheme has introduced chaos to an entire area of West London”. See photo above showing the congestion it caused, from the petition site.
Comment: Reducing road space to include cycle lanes so that a whole traffic lane is removed is never a good idea on busy roads. In addition putting cycle lanes on roads where heavy traffic is present and hence some air pollution is also not a good idea. Best to put them on quieter back streets. But the major objection to this scheme was the lack of public consultation before it was installed. It’s now being removed without public consultation.
The lack of public consultation has meant an enormous waste of money and it could never have been justified by the Covid-19 epidemic.
It is also proposed to remove the cycle lane installed on the Euston Road, and there are many objections to the one on Park Lane where there is a good alternative “off-road” route for cyclists.
We suggest that cycle lanes should be off the road, or cyclists should share road space with other road users as they are perfectly capable of doing. The removal of traffic lanes just causes big problems to other road users and there is never any cost/benefit justification provided. With the number of cyclists using the new “pop-up” cycle lanes being small, most of them could never be justified.
At least it is good to see that the Council in this case has actually listened to local residents and businesses who mainly opposed the scheme..
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