Category Archives: Road Network

Challenge to Embankment Superhighway

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Our last blog post was about rising congestion in London and the impact of road space reductions such as the cycle superhighway on the Embankment. But London taxi drivers are not letting the matter rest. They have now lodged an application for a judicial review in the High Court on the grounds that TfL should have sought planning permission before beginning construction.

London taxi drivers are of course one of the groups who have been most severely impacted by road space reductions in London and have been threatening legal action for some time. Richard Maffett of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) suggested that cyclists safety could have been improved by other means and said “Roads are there to move goods and people around, and they’ve been gridlocked for the rest of London road users”.

Comment: One cannot but agree. See this note for our analysis of the scheme before it was approved: http://www.freedomfordrivers.org/Cycle%20Superhighway%20East-West.pdf

Roger Lawson

London leads the rest of Europe

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But London residents may not be pleased to hear that London is now the most congested city in Europe, having recently overtaken Brussels according to a report in the Financial Times. The average London driver spent 96 hours stuck in traffic last years, a rise of 14 hours on the year before according to data from Inrix. The cost of this congestion was reported as being $8.5 billion. Explanations given were population growth, a strengthening economy, on-line shopping causing a rise in light vans, and construction projects.

Garrett Emmerson, Chief Operating Officer for London Streets (part of TfL) suggested this was because “We are a medieval city in many ways, certainly in Central London” which implied it was difficult to do much about it.

Comment: Mr Emmerson is being disingenuous. Not only has London failed to improve its roads and add more capacity over many years unlike other major cities, it has actually been reducing road capacity. The reduction of the Embankment, a major east-west route, from two lanes to one is an example. This has contributed to a major increase in traffic congestion in central London in recent months which has been blamed on the road works to implement the cycle superhighway, but that congestion is very likely to be a permanent new feature in London.

Roger Lawson

More Consultation on the East-West Cycle Superhighway

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Transport for London (TfL) have issued another consultation on the details of the East-West Cycle Superhighway route through St James Park and Green Park, plus the junction of Northumberland Avenue and Victoria Embankment.  Some improvements have been made which will reduce journey times for vehicles.

You can see more information and respond to the consultation on-line via this web page: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/east-west-phase-2?cid=east-west-consult but you have to do so before the 29th March!

The latest journey time impacts for the whole route are now here: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/c075a39a/user_uploads/traffic-data-table-updated.pdf

You can see they are not as bad as originally forecast but still increase journey times from the Limehouse Link Tunnel to Hyde Park Corner by over 6 minutes both east and westbound at certain times.

Roger Lawson

East London River Crossings

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Transport for London (TfL) have published the results of their latest consultation on new crossings of the Thames River to the East of London, which have been demanded for many years. They got over 7,000 responses to the consultation, the vast majority from local boroughs such as Greenwich and Bexley. Over 98% of respondents expressed support for new crossings.

The proposals included a new tunnel at Silvertown to relieve the volume of traffic at the Blackwall Tunnel and cope with minor disruptions, a replacement ferry at Woolwich, a new ferry or bridge at Gallions Reach (linking Thamesmead to Beckton) and a crossing at Belvedere.

There was some opposition to a new ferry at Woolwich (although the existing ones are reaching the end of their useful life), with some arguing that more capacity would increase congestion as vehicles queued for the ferry, that ferries are unreliable and that a fixed link might be preferable.

There were similar objections to a ferry at Gallions Reach with most people supporting a bridge instead for the same reasons.

There was also overall support for a bridge at Belvedere although concerns about increased congestion, increased air pollution, the costs and likely timescales for construction were mentioned by objectors. Many people wanted both a bridge at Gallions Reach and Belvedere.

As this writer said in response to the consultation, a number of people made comments that more crossings are needed, and that implementation needs to take place sooner rather than later. Improved crossings have been debated for very many years, with no ultimate action taken. There is surely a general feeling that prompt action is now required because it takes years to construct new bridges and the problems experienced by those in South-East London in particular (as they have difficulty accessing the rest of country let alone north London) will only get worse.

TfL are now to do further work to study the concepts of new bridges at Gallions Reach and Belvedere and will also consider the option of using tunnels rather than bridges. Tunnels might release more land for development. The impact on traffic flows, the environment, possible charging regimes and funding for those schemes will now be developed.

Comment: The outcome of the consultation and TfL’s decisions on which options to pursue are sensible. But there is a grave danger that the projects will get delayed, or ultimately be thwarted by those who oppose an improved road network.

More details on the consultation and responses thereto are available here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/new-river-crossings

Roger Lawson

Increasing Journey Times: London Wall and Bow Roundabouts

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London WallThe Museum of London Roundabout at the western end of London Wall in the City had a road safety scheme installed a few weeks ago. The Museum blocked sight lines across the roundabout and traffic speed was quite high making it difficult particularly for cyclists to negotiate it safely. The solution: reduce the two entry lanes to one on all entry roads this reducing the roundabout to one lane from two and enabling a lane for cyclists to be introduced.

Unfortunately the result of this “experimental” scheme has been to create long queues of traffic westbound on London Wall, particularly in the mornings as can be seen from the photo right. At peak times it could take 11 minutes to go from Moorgate to the London Wall roundabout.

The City of London Corporation have produced a report on this which you can find on the internet and they are proposing to revert the London Wall entry to the roundabout to two lanes which they hope will fix the problem. We will see in due course, but in the meantime I have sent in a complaint to the Corporation.

This is of course a classic example of changes to road infrastructure in the name of road safety, particularly reductions in road space, road narrowing and reassigning space to cyclists which increases travel time for motorists very substantially.

Another example is the proposals for Bow Roundabout – a junction of the A12 Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach, A11 Bow Road and A118 High Street Stratford. This interchange sits below the A118 Bow Flyover, and above the River Lea. It is now proposed to improve pedestrian access across the junction with considerable changes to the junction and the introduction of a light controlled pedestrian crossing. Journey times for some motorists and bus passengers to cross the junction might increase by as long as two minutes and cyclists might suffer an extra minute also.

We have objected to these proposals by responding to the public consultation. You may care to do the same. It seems odd to even be consulting on this matter because according to a report in LTT, Transport for London are considering a proposal that would remove the flyover and roundabout altogether (the roundabout has of course been the scene of a number of accidents to cyclists but these proposals do not seem to be about cycle safety).

How Much is “Ambience” Worth? The Economics of the East-West Cycle Superhighway

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The East-West Cycle Superhighway has a range of benefits and disbenefits. Some people will gain (mainly cyclists) while others will lose out (motorists from traffic delays, and even bus passengers and pedestrians). There is of course a way of combining all these different advantages and disadvantages as with any other major transport scheme which is to calculate the Net Present Value (NPV), or Cost/Benefit ratio. This also gives a good measure of whether it is sensible to invest in a scheme, in comparison with investing in something else instead.

Well what is the NPV of this Superhighway? It was given in the report to the TfL Board before they made a decision to proceed and is present here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/board-20140205-part-1-item06-cycling-vision-portfolio.pdf

Note that the financial budget for all the Cycle Superhighways that was approved is £162 million which is of course a very substantial sum.

You can see the NPV (or Benefit to Cost Ratio, BCR, as the report calls it) on page 65. This shows that although there are positive overall benefits over 30 years for the other cycle superhighways, the East-West one has a negative value of minus £200 million.  And that’s even after valuing the improved “ambience” for pedestrians at £14 million, improved ambience to cyclists of £8.2 million, improved ambience to “others” of £5 million and reduced absenteeism at £1.2 million. Bus operations have a disbenefit of minus £5 million and although health and safety show positive figures they are swamped by the minus £37 million from traffic delays.

They don’t even include the reduced “ambience” for motorists and goods vehicle drivers stuck in traffic jams.

Stephen Glaister of the RAC Foundation said he was astonished the scheme is going ahead given economic disbenefits of £200m. The other superhighways are also questionable depending on whether you believe the “ambience” improvement (and they don’t say how that is measured or valued) offsets the negative impact of increased journey times.

In the view of this writer, this scheme smacks of irrationality and of course these figures were not provided before the scheme went to public consultation so no informed responses to the consultation were possible. A stitch-up by TfL management and by Boris Johnson in essence. As I already said to him, I won’t be voting for him ever again based on his promotion of this scheme so his ambitions on the national political scene may not be as good as he thinks, if others take the same view.

Roger Lawson

TfL Board Approves East-West Cycle Superhighway

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The Transport for London board have now approved the East-West Cycle Superhighway. The web site Politics.co.uk revealed some of the discussions on the matter that took place in the board meeting. Here’s some of it:

Sir John Armitt, Chairman of the National Express Group, said that cyclists had only themselves to blame for fatal collisions on the roads. To quote: “I would say the biggest danger to London cyclists on the roads in London are actually themselves”. He also said “”The way in which many, many, many of them ride one is surprised that in fact the number of accidents is not far larger because it is an entirely different way of cycling to which you see in many other cities”. He also said that he did not take the result of the TfL consultation seriously, which indicated a majority in support of the scheme, because “Without knowing where somebody is coming from when they respond to an opinion poll then it is pretty difficult to take on board the support or non-support for a scheme.”

Other board members from the Canary Wharf Group and taxi drivers also opposed the scheme. But Peter Hendy then reported that another cyclists had died in a collision with a coach, so the proposal was passed.

Comment: The behaviour of cyclists in London is certainly exceptionally bad, and in reality the consultation result was probably obtained by promotion of it by cyclist groups and by dubious repeated submissions from the same people (it is very difficult to avoid fraudulent behaviour in on-line surveys). I would certainly dispute that the outcome of the consultation and the board’s decision is a fair representation of public opinion on this scheme.

Note that TfL have revised some of the proposals for this Cycle Superhighway and are doing further consultations on it. The Lancaster Gate, Hyde Park, St. James Park, Green Park and Victoria Embankment/Northumberland Avenue sections have been substantially changed. Go here to see the latest plans and to submit your opinions on them before the 29th March: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/east-west-phase-2

Roger Lawson

Chelsea Bridge to Embankment – A New Kind of Junction

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Transport for London have invented a new junction layout to enable cyclists to turn right by first going left and then waiting. Not only will this cause delays as they already admit, but it will surely be dangerous.  This is what I said in response to a public consultation (available here if you wish to make your own comments: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/chelsea-bridge ):

“This is one of daftest proposals I have seen in a long time. The proposed road layout will be exceedingly confusing for anyone who is not familiar with the junction – and yes there are people who drive in London who don’t know the roads unbelievable as you seem to think it is.

Apart from the delay to east-bound traffic, it will be positively dangerous as cyclists potentially are turning right in front of traffic on exiting from Chelsea Bridge.

Please reconsider!”

This seems to be yet another attempt to favour cyclists over other traffic in the name of safety. But safe this will not be as even cyclists may not understand it and are likely to ignore the new layout. You have until the 20th March to respond to the consultation.

Roger Lawson

Go ahead for East-West Cycle Superhighway

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Boris Johnson has given the go ahead for the East-West Cycle Superhighway that will run along the Embankment, despite many objections from taxi drivers, many businesses and business groups and local boroughs including the City of London. It only now needs to be approved by the Transport for London Board.

But there have been some amendments made to the plans to reduce the additional delays on the travel time from Limehouse Link to Hyde Park Corner from 16 minutes to just over 6 minutes. One change has been to increase the originally proposed two lanes to three at pinchpoints such as Tower Hill, Blackfriars Underpass and near Temple Station (it’s currently 4 lanes of course). With a slight narrowing of the segregated cycle track at certain points, this will mean two lanes are retained along all the westbound route. But the east bound route is also heavily congested, particularly in the evening rush hour and that is going to become very much worse. The plans to “hold back” traffic by signal changes and other means from these roads will also still take place, thus affecting a wider area.

Comment: The Freight Transport Association called the announcement “Rushing into delays” which well sums up the speed of implementation of these proposals without proper consideration at the behest of the Mayor before he leaves office, and the likely outcome. It is extremely disappointing that the Major has succumbed to cyclists vociferous promotion of this scheme which will have a very damaging impact on the road network in London. A judicial review has been threatened by some interested parties and it is to be hoped that this will be pursued. It would certainly get my support.

Roger Lawson

TfL Consultation on the Stockwell Gyratory

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Transport for London (TfL) have launched a public consultation on proposals to revise the Stockwell Gyratory road system.

Details of the Stockwell proposals and how you can respond are here: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/betterjunctions/stockwell-cross

The proposed changes include:  Removing the gyratory and simplifying the road layout ; further improving facilities for cyclists along, and leading to, the well-used Barclays Cycle Superhighway Route 7 (CS7); landscaping Stockwell Memorial Garden and closing part of South Lambeth Road to create an improved public space.

However the removal of the gyratory will delay vehicular traffic. Widening of bus lanes and more provision for cyclists will also reduce road space. Unfortunately the general policy now pursued by TfL is to remove gyratory roads and the results (such as at Aldgate) has often been much increased traffic congestion and longer journey times. No cost/benefit justification is provided for such changes.

Anyone who uses this junction in Stockwell would be advised to study the proposals and made a response a.s.a.p.

Roger Lawson