Forum topic: Enfield Cycle Forum

Thank you David for the mention. I am the Planner you mentioned. I am a Town Planner with an MSc in Spatial Planning who specialises in Heritage and Urban Design with a PGDip in Historic Conservation. Whereas I work with transport planners I am not one, but at this level of interest you tend to become multi-disciplinary.

I will set out the issues I have:

In Enfield Town, there are 10 bus routes, 50 buses per hour. This level will increase over time. There are two bus stops, each serving different routes. Buses heading to the second bus stop will be held up by those loading and off-loading on the first, whereas those leaving the first will be held up by buses loading and off-loading on the second. It will be total bedlam and a complete disaster. The only similar place I know like this is in Oxford City Centre on the west to east route to Carfax, where there is a passing place, and cycles do not have a dedicated lane but are tolerated in what is essentially a shared space between cyclists, pedestrians and buses, which can be acceptable because bus drivers are trained to deal with cyclists who will not have erratic cars to deal with.

It should also be noted that bus drivers are not allowed to pull out if somebody refuses to pay, if there is a disturbance or if there are fears of a malfunction. This will happen, and if there are problems for one bus for just 10 minutes, you could have a queue of ten buses, half of whom cannot let out passengers because their bus stop is the next one along.

Furthermore, I was bought up in Winchester, where there is a pedestrianised shopping high street, where cyclists are banned, because pedestrians tend to fear fast cyclists, particularly the elderly, can can get knocked over easily. We could instead have a cycle route to the north of the high street along the rear side routes. One could run along Little Park Gardens, Wilford Close, borrow a slither of the Grammar school to link to Burghleigh Way (providing direct cycle access to the school to support sustainable transport), rejoining the A110 at The Town where the road is wide enough for multiple modes, then running alongside New River Path with a spur along New River towards Forty Hall, with the cycle path tracking Southbury Road along Sketty Road, which can hold a cycle path if it is made one way. Then run through the Odeon car park and cut through to Great Cambridge Road via a slither of Kingsmead School, again, providing sustainable cycle route right up to a school.

Next, have a cycle bridge over the Great Cambridge Road, avoiding the complex junction, with both ramps heading north so that the route takes you into the heart of the retail park at Dearsley Road, with the bridge having shared space for pedestrians who do not like walking across that road at car level. Then back down to Southbury Road via Baird Road. This diversion would take a lot of cycle traffic and, avoiding the Great Cambridge Road would make it on balance a fast route. The Mayor's Cycle Design guide says to avoid junctions like the one this scheme tackles at the A10, because cyclists will not use it if they need to negotiate multiple traffic lights, and nobody in their right mind would reduce any capacity from A10 junctions presently at capacity that will only get busier, for the sake of the whole of London. Then, to avoid the complex junction between Hertford Road and Southbury Road, take a diversion via Glyn Road and then towards the Lee River via Durants Road, rejoining Southbury Road via Alexandra Road.

Note, that one of the worst bus cages is at Gyn Road bus stop for west bound buses and cars, which has heavy traffic coming from Lea Bridge Road, which is the only car route from the Borough to Waltham Forest anywhere between the M25 and A406, yet this bus stop, where buses can presently be overtaken, loses that function, so traffic will back up across the junction and it will fail, regardless of whether you provide it a box. This is all to achieve a cycle lane in-between the bus and pavement, yet that route cannot be taken when buses are parked because bus users will be on the cycle path. Under health and safety, bus drivers will not be able to deploy the disabled ramp and there is real risk that the elderly and babies in push chairs will be knocked over if cyclists think they have right of way. Most elderly people will stop using it because they will know they are one fall like that from death or a care home, so they will be house bound. As such, where an island bus stop and by-pass cannot be achieved, the bus cage should be a shared space between cyclists and buses. Bus drivers are well trained and will not overtake cylists ahead of them if they are about to pull into a bus stop thus, if a bus pulls into a bus stop in-front of you it will have overtaken you a while back and will likely pull out as you reach the bus, so a better balance needs to be made, and the Mayor's Cycle Design Guide, again, supports shared spaces for buses and cycles for the reasons stated above. The main segregation priority is from car traffic.

On these routes, where such bus stops are provided, the designers have not paid any attention to the Mayor's Adopted Cycle Design Guide, which unlike Cycle Enfield was informed by an Equalities Assessment. These are being done in retrospect for this scheme, which is arguably illegal because the Equalities Assessment and Safety Audit should be consulted upon.

tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/streets-toolkit

Criteria 4 states:

"Most main roads in London are, however, also bus routes with frequent stops. The cycle lane would have to go between the bus and the pavement. Everybody getting off or on a bus would have to step straight into the lane, which would raise safety concerns both for bus passengers and cyclists." The guidance proceeds to state that "we will" provide floating bus stops on islands to avoid this, seeking alternative forms of segregation where this cannot be achieved. Elsewhere, the design guide allows for shared cycle and bus lanes, which is where I feel the compromise must be made, noting that 44% of people take a bus to Enfield Town, whereas only 2% cycle, so if we reduce bus capacity by 50% to double cycling, the community as a whole loses.

There are many other places on Southbury Road and along Hertford Road where high capacity junctions are reduced from two to one lane and where the ability to overtake parked buses is removed, which will cause chronic bottlenecks, disasters for bus users and traffic speeds more akin to 5kph than the 30kph sought.

Also, Criteria 6 states:
"Routes should make more use of secondary roads, where they are sufficiently direct, to separate cyclists from volume traffic." "Nor is there any rule that Superhighways need to be on the busiest main roads"

This is important. Cycle Superhighway 1 runs parallel to the A10 and only shares space with it at the Seven Sisters Broadway, yet it does provide a fast route into Tottenham, Hackney and the City. I can get to London Bridge from Edmonton in an hour with ease via it. It runs behind Fore Street and Hertford Road and what becomes the A10 through and along Kingsland Road, to the west of it, all the way from the City to White Hart Lane. So instead of tackling Hertford Road and destroying the capacity of this congested bus route, continue Cycle Superhighway 1 north, via North Middlesex Hospital (one of the area's largest employers, thus reducing car traffic), along Pymmes Park to promote cycling to parks and usage of them, then under the railway bridge to Edmonton Green Station, and then a green route alongside the rail track to Jubilee Park that has been planned for years and not built, then run it through Jubilee Park and on towards Southbury, noting that anybody commuting to Tottenham or the City will want to go via Cycle Superhighway 1 and will expect a similar experience throughout, avoiding major roads.

tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/cycle-superhighway-1

The difficult parts of Green Lanes can also be by-passed via New River, with push button crossings that provide cyclists immediate green lights.

So we do have serious problems here, with cycle lanes built not holistically, but with one idea in mind. Note also, the bus operators and emergency services are being consulted on this rather than being integral parts of the design process. If this clogs up the main roads and bus routes for Enfield, it will literally collapse the economy over-night.

For far too long Enfield Council allowed speed and drivers’ sense of entitlement to prevent people from cycling. Children in particular have been prevented from enjoying and benefiting from a convenient, speedy over short distances, non-carbon emitting, non-polluting, health-promoting form of transport. Welcome Philip Ridley to your expertise in this area, and in the debate about the best ways to foster cycling whilst redressing ‘the balance between cyclists and drivers’ on Enfield’s roads’. Welcome also to your support for the need to convey the importance of London’s buses with their relatively flexible contribution to the powered transport mix.

But there is a ‘but’. Which is that it’s not clear in the range of the points you made how you feel/think about the way traffic, and the dominance it has been allowed/encouraged to have, on issues such as the street scene, residents’ quality of life, social areas like high streets and kids’ independence/freedoms. For example, I was a little concerned about your readiness to steer cyclists away from their most direct routes onto residential streets – not sure myself that I’d think it a good move to transfer a multitude of high-speed commuting cyclists away from Green Lanes on to parallel residential streets – or, for that matter, onto the banks of New River, with all that might mean for the wildlife and plants. We have enough hard surface in London, and we can be sure New River is a wildlife corridor.

There is also a possible conflict with the proposed Quieter Neighbourhoods. Not that cyclists should be unwelcome there – the hope is there’ll be the training grounds for cyclists young and old – but head-down commuting cyclists, challenging the social and child-raising functions of side streets, are a different matter.

On a different tack this quotation from your piece worried me a bit, not least because I suspect you've thought it through: “If this clogs up the main roads and bus routes for Enfield, it will literally collapse the economy over night.” Which appears to be in conflict with the Council hopes/expectations that cycling will bring about a reduction in short driver-only journeys causing a reduction in congestion. If you’re right that’s not going to be enough, and then…….disaster?

On top of all that there’s a whole bundle of proposals/preferences of people like me, which may make matters worse, or perhaps better. For example a default 30kph speed limit. In my mind, and I know it’s quoted by people like Ben Hamilton-Baillie, slower, steady traffic flow could conceivably improve traffic flow/journey times as well as improving quality of life. And make a formal Shared Space more tenable in places like Palmers Green.

Finally, for now - there’s so much to discuss with you – is Strasbourg one of your experiences or areas of thought? I found its muddle of ways of supporting cycling the best overall solution I’ve come across – I know London’s a very different place – but I don’t think I’m competent to judge (For the record I compare it with Cologne and Stockholm which as a pedestrian I found to be terrifying).

A little after your piece hit the website Clare Roger’s piece for the Guardian followed. She gets to the heart of a city’s part in family life in the age of the dominance of cars, and I wonder what the latest thinking about that is in your area of expertise? Personally I share her concerns about the effect fast-flowing traffic has had on kids’ lives and freedoms, and the behaviours they take to be normal as they mature.. Attitudes to exercise and independence developed at that age could remain into adulthood with catastrophic effects on both their lives and NHS bills. Worse they miss so much fun.