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Croydon Council's approach to the London Cycle Network seems to be a matter of taking the money and running away from the issues that really matter. The results are often laughable and frequently dangerous. Here are just a few examples:- |
| Gravel Hill - LCN route 76
Here a narrow pavement besides a fast road where traffic is inevitably well over the speed limit, has been relabelled as a shared use cycle track, despite the fact that it is far too narrow to be safe for shared use and is blocked by a telecoms cabinet! It is quite clear that the designer couldn't care less about what s/he was doing. |
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Lodge Lane - LCN route 76
A little further west and the shared use pavement has had a new bus shelter put in, almost completely blocking the pavement. |
| Whitehorse Road - LCN route
23
These, gutter only, cycle lanes are only 60cm wide and have been painted on both sides of the busy A212 Whitehorse Road. The lanes are dangerous in themselves, being less than half the minimum width for a cycle lane, but they also include 50cm wide, storm drains with highly dangerous 45 degree gratings just to add insult to injury. |
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| Whitehorse Lane - LCN route
23
These cycle lanes were put in AFTER the pavement parking. Totally useless and mindblowingly stupid, it is tempting to take a mountain bike and ride along the parked cars..... |
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Wellesley Road
(pre summer 2002)
This is apparently called a jug handle! It is at an infamous cycling black spot where several cyclists have come off on the tram tracks. The cycle facility is quite ridiculous on a fast moving dual carriageway where all the traffic is breaking the speed limit, and I have never seen it used. However, we know of one cyclist who was hit by a bus when she tried to use it! |
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Wellesley Road
(post summer 2002)
The new version is even worse, it now directs cyclists out into two lanes of speeding traffic. Most cyclists will end up cycling up the tram tracks. |
| South Park Hill Road - LCN
route 76
More gutter cycle lanes, and these were put in at the end of 2000 and made the road so dangerous I have stopped cycling on it! When I complained to Croydon Council they tried to blame the cycle lanes on a local resident. These lanes are officially only 80cm wide. Drivers using the road now expect bicycles to get out of their way and use these dreadful lanes, when it simply is not safe to cycle that close to the edge of the road. The problem is particularly acute because this road is a busy bus route and contains several schools where parents park illegally on the road and on the pavement every morning. |
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The cycle lanes run along both sides of South Park Hill Road in Croydon, the B243 linking Coombe Road with Croham Road. This road slopes up to a blind summit where there is a primary school, bus stops and a well used footpath crosses from South Croydon railway station. The slope is especially steep at the southern end. |
| Croydon Council have failed to take any notice whatsoever
of national government guidance on these matters. Back in 1996 the DoT,
as it was then, published a joint guidance publication called
"Cycle-friendly Infrastructure". It gave guidance on the design of
cycle lanes (page 46, paragraph 11.3.2):
"Cycle lanes on links should be a minimum of 1.5m wide and 2m wherever possible.... Widths below 1.5m give cyclists very little room to manoeuvre around debris, potholes and drainage grates..." |
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The
response from the council's so called "cycling officer" to my
complaints was to blame the cycle lanes on a request from local
resident, and the poor standards set by the London Cycle Network Design
Manual.
This dangerous road has been added to the London Cycle Network as route 76, though it is a completely detached section with a highly dangerous double mini roundabout at the northern end and a very nasty section of road and another mini roundabout to the south. |
