There have been lots of complaints about the proposed Cycle Superhighway 11 between Swiss Cottage and the West End running through Regents Park. Transport for London (TfL) have made some minor changes to the scheme but otherwise it is going ahead. Some further consultation on the Regents Park routes is being done however. See https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/cs-11/ for TfLs note on this subject.
However the objectors are not at all happy. The main campaign against said “TfL and Camden Condemn Thousands of Residents And Commuters To Years Of Congestion And Misery” and “Despite months of detailed meetings with us and other local stakeholders where we have repeatedly raised your concerns about unacceptable traffic “reassignment” onto residential streets, increased pollution, increased disruption and severe adverse impact on the emergency services, disabled, businesses and road users who rely on motor vehicles, TfL (and Camden Council under the shameful direction of their Councillor Phil Jones – Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Transport & Planning) have condemned thousands of people to years of misery from CS11 construction works and associated impacts. TfL have only made minor, meaningless tweaks to the original CS11 scheme including: Allowing a right turn from the bottom of Fitzjohns Avenue / College Crescent into Finchley Road northbound and re-introducing a banned turn right from Finchley Road into Hilgrove Road (which we pointed out to them will cause traffic to back up all the way along Finchley Road).
Yes it seems that TfL is yet again ignoring the views of road users other than cyclists in the name of the policy to get us all cycling. There is more information here, including how to object: https://www.change.org/p/transport-for-london-stop-transport-for-london-s-ill-planned-cycle-superhighway-11-scheme-in-north-london/u/18804455?utm_medium=email&utm_source=notification&utm_campaign=petition_update
Cycle Superhighway on Westway Abandoned?
Reports in LTT and elsewhere have suggested that the Cycle Superhighway planned to run along the A40 from Paddington to Action which was proposed to run along one lane of the Westway has been axed by the Mayor. This would have taken up one lane of that elevated road, but with existing traffic volumes that might not have been an issue. The Mayor is now denying that the route has been abandoned, although the exact routing may be changed.
Comment: This all seems very odd to me because that seemed to be one of the few cycle superhighway routes that would not have created massive congestion and inconvenience to other road users, as the others have done. It seems likely there were doubts about its usage by cyclists, and perhaps the cost was a problem when Sadiq Khan’s budget for TFL is proving to be ever more unrealistic.
Roger Lawson
