Narrow cycle lanes

Anyone who has cycled in other countries will notice that the cycle lanes in London, particularly the City are much narrower. In fact many of the cycle lanes have been narrowed since they were introduced a few years back.

Our demand to the Corporation is simple - repaint all the wrongly painted cycle lanes to at least the official minimum standards, making them wider where there is sufficient road space and mandatory at least for peak hours when there is already a stopping ban in place.

Warrington Cycle Campaign's useful page on cycle lanes.

When reading the above it is worth remembering that high quality cycle lanes do attract more people to cycling and higher levels of cycling mean drivers become used to looking out for cycles. So while individual cycle lanes can lower safety, when combined with other measures to make the road network more cycle-friendly they do have a good effect on safety.

Stay safe! Stay out...

Why is this woman cycling outside the cycle lane that was painted in for cyclists like her? Is she simply another "lycra lout", camouflaging herself in a skirt, who in a fit of bloody mindedness/arrogance/moral superiority typical of these "two-wheeled terrorists" wants to hold up the traffic behind her?

Actually she is simply a competent and safe cyclist, cycling where she would do if there wasn't a cycle lane. Indeed the taxi is able to pass her with space and stay on its side of the road.

From TfL's London Cycle Guides: Cycling Tips - over a million distributed

"Be confident. If you are new to cycling in London remember that cycling too close to the kerb increases the risks as it makes you less visible to other traffic. Cycle one metre from the kerb"

In the City, according to official statistics, the main cause of collisions is pedestrian inattention. For those cycling this frequently takes the form of pedestrians stepping into the road and turning to look if it is safe to cross as they do so, by which time someone foolish enough to use the gutter cycle lanes will have collided.

The Department for Transport recommend a width of 2m for cycle lanes wherever possible and an absolute minimum of 1.5m. If there are more than 150 cycles in the peak hour a width of 2.5m is suggested. This is the same from the USA to Germany, as cycles are the same width across the world and need the same clearance. At side roads the cycle lane should be wider and there should be a gap between the give way line and the side of the cycle lane.

So why does the Corporation mark out lanes that are 1.2m or even 1m wide? City Cyclists made a number of complaints which the Corporation could not be bothered to answer. When referral of the matter to the Ombudsman was threatened, they finally managed a letter a month later saying that they see a "1.2m width as being more appropriate in many urban locations, where roads are narrow, speeds low and demand for waiting and loading is high; factors common in the City". In fact the opposite is true: in such locations narrow cycle lanes are more dangerous: for example, a driver checking their mirror to see if it is safe to open their door will not notice a cyclist approaching from the rear in the gutter.

The mystery of the shrinking cycle lane

While on roads such as London Wall (see hall of shame) and Fleet Street, cycle lanes have been repainted narrower than before following resurfacing, on Cheapside you can see someone has gone to the expense of repositioning the cycle lane so that it ends up under 1m wide just before the ASL, despite the fact the road is wide enough for a bus and car. The Corporation has refused to acknowledge let alone explain why this happened or even to comment on this incontrovertible photographic evidence.

But it IS possible

On Cheapside where it turns into Poulty, are two of the three City cycle lanes that conform with the minimum width of 1.5m. If it's possible here, on a narrow busy street, why is it not possible elsewhere, particularly beyond the traffic signals where Cheapside is much wider?

Width is just half the problem

Cycle lanes are two-dimensional so length is as much an issue as width. Unfortunately City cycle lanes tend to stop as often as they start. The Corporation recently boasted in its CityView newsletter that it had put in new cycle lanes. The photo above shows the only new cycle lane in the City since 2000 and it ends a few metres after it starts in a bus stop. If people weren't dying as a result, this sort of photo might just be amusing.

Latest update: City Cyclists complained about the Newgate cycle lane (first photo) and the Corporation admitted it had been incorrectly marked and would be corrected as soon as possible. In fact the narrow lane has now been painted green, meaning that cyclists who stay out are now face further abuse from drivers for protecting themselves. The incompetence of the City's Department of Technical Services and its contractors FN Conway gets worse by the month.