Support for Min Holland

"So how can £30m be spent for the benefit of so few?"

Well, the spending isn't for "so few", of course is the answer.
Currently 2-3 per cent of people in the borough commute by bike regularly. But the proportion of people who own bikes, who in surveys say they'd like to use them more, is actually a majority of residents.

Meanwhile, in many Walthamstow wards, car ownership per household is around 50 percent. So currently, we have a roads system designed to only benefit half of local residents, that has far more than 30 million spent on it per ten year cycle (the amount of time the mini-Holland bid is theoretically meant to cover). Shifting a tiny proportion of overall road spend to allow far more people to cycle, who already want to, hardly is for the "benefit of so few". Look at the bid again - this is not aimed at merely improving safety for the
MAMILs (Middle Aged Men In Lycra) who dominate cycling currently. It is specifically a bid to calm key routes enough to enable children and grannies and everyone in between to cycle a lot more. 80 percent of outer London car journeys are under 2km. How does that benefit us?

"one of my biggest issues with the attitude of the report is it is already encouraging cyclists to share the pavement with pedestrians - extremely dangerous and it won't be long before a child is seriously injured"
This is simply not accurate. The report actually recognises very strongly that "shared use" space is not popular. What is proposed is fully segregated cycle facilities - in other words, separated from both road and pavement. This, in some places is in the form of a small kerb up from the road and another small kerb up to the pavement. It is not shared use space. Secondly, you are approximately 40 times more
likely to be seriously injured or killed by a car on the pavement, than you are by a bicycle on the pavement. It is certainly annoying to be buzzed by a pavement cyclist. But statistically, it's very unlikely to be dangerous. Your assertions are not backed up by fact - the number of children seriously injured by bicycles, on road or pavement,
each year is miniscule. The number injured by cars is massive. So where would be a more appropriate place to put your concern?

"Most of us travel by car at some point, white van man and refuse collection we all need to maintain our homes, buses to get about and of course in an emergency fire engines, ambulances oh and of course police cars or are they all coming by bike!"

This is a document that had to get past famously conservative and nervy transport engineers, car-addicted local councillors and TfL. It is an absolute fallacy to imply that the bid represents a carmaggedon for refuse lorries, buses and ambulances. The "villagisation" of areas will still mean you can park on your road, outside your house, if you
could before; it'll still mean refuse lorries and ambulances can get through to your front door (or to hospitals, the tip etc.). Nowhere do you back up these wild assertions with any facts or even citations of how, why or where your predicted chaos is going to come from.

"I am old enough to remember when our streets had no parked cars and what traffic there was flowed easily. Now with parking on both sides of roads we have reduced the road space by two thirds. This should never have been allowed to happen. If they are cleared away to allow
access to cycles where will the cars go?"
Ah, so you seem to be saying that because we made bad decisions in the past, we're not allowed to start to reverse them?

"there is no point is saying people should give up their cars - they have them because they are affordable and more convenient for most people - the owners won't be swapping their cars for bicycles! Even more importantly there is a huge majority of people who cannot travel any distance except by car i.e. disabled, elderly, and children. Cycling is only for the fit from 10 years to 60 years and only if they have no goods to carry! Interestingly I would suggest a small car with 4 people in it takes up less room than 4 cyclists."

OK, this is the crux of the matter - where we really disagree. Imagine a future where we do nothing, where we say "OK, everyone, we give up - just drive wherever, whenever you want"? How does that future fix climate change, the looming obesity crisis, the fact London is being threatened with record pollution fines, not to mention the huge number of early deaths and health-related issues pollution creates in urban
areas? It doesn't.

We have politically chosen, over and over, to make car travel cheap and convenient. The mini-Holland bid marks a shift in the opposite direction - making cycling more convenient. It won't fix all those problems overnight, but your alternative seems to be sitting doing nothing with your hands over your ears. Will you be proud of leaving that as the result of your action for your children and grandchildren? I won't.

And there is not a  "huge majority of people who cannot travel any distance except by car". There may be a huge majority of people who currently will not in London do that - but look at other cities in other countries to see six year olds, 80 year olds, routinely cycling to school, to the hospital etc. And living longer, happier lives because of it. Cycling may only be for "the fit from 10 to 60 years and only if they have no goods to carry" right now, in Walthamstow.

But in Holland, Portland, Germany etc. that's simply not true. That's why the project is called "mini Holland". The idea that we have what we have and that's the end of that is an absolute fallacy - societies, towns, cities change all the time - we need to collectively decide which direction that change goes in.

Portland, Oregon, is a great example of how quickly cities can change - it has dramatically increased the "modal share" of cycling over the last five years by doing many of the things this document proposes - segregated lanes, protected junctions, safe and convenient cycling routes.

The future you consider most desirable appears to be one where increasing congestion, increasing pollution, increasing smog carry on until... well I can't even imagine where that's going. The alternative starts with sensible, deliverable and practical alternatives - look again at the mini-Holland bid and you may see a better future than the one you're pushing for.

ENDS

"My main objection with the Mini Holland report is it is not balanced."

Ah, but your response is of course perfectly balanced? (Hint: no, it's not.)

"I think it will be a bad day when the grass open space of Whipps Cross roundabout becomes a tarmacked normal road junction just to cater for cyclists."

One of the few points I semi agree with. The diagram shown in the bid is far from a final representation of a good solution IMHO. It's too complex for cyclists to navigate happily. And I'd rather leave things as they are than put in a half-way house measure that solves nothing for anyone. That said, that "grass open space" is currently entirely cut off from the rest of the forest and never used - because it's encircled by one of the fastest, nastiest roundabouts in the borough.

So exactly what utility does it currently serve? You seem to be saying that a relatively small, polluted and car-encircled, unused patch of grass trumps any concerns for cyclists.

"I cycle round there regularly and there is a perfectly adequate official cycle path on the pavement and I find when I cross the road at pedestrian crossings traffic is happy to stop for me if I am on my bike."

How many other cyclists do you see doing the same? One, occasionally?
That roundabout, despite some work recently (at Waltham Forest Cycling Campaign's behest) to make it marginally better for cyclists, is still a massive, hostile barrier to most people who might want to cycle. I find it bizarre that you on one hand cheerfully suggest that much of the local infrastructure is "perfectly adequate" for cyclists because
you feel comfortable on it, yet simultaneously suggest that no one outside of 10 to 60, who is not fit and lightly encumbered, could ever cycle locally.

"There was a party of a dozen or so primary school children riding along the road accompanied by a teacher either end. The traffic behind them was forced to go at their rate and they cycled on for some distance so the traffic around the St James Street roundabout started to block up - this can't be the way forward."

I really don't see the problem here - the St James St roundabout is often blocked up, the traffic on Markhouse Road is often at a total standstill. Those schoolkids probably added, ooh, a minute or two to the drive of the few people stuck behind them. There are so many bits of false logic here it's amazing:

1. The idea that without the schoolkids, everything would have been hunky dory on those roads.
2. The idea that the purpose of roads is not to have schoolkids getting around but simply to get as many cars from A to B as quickly as possible, no matter what other external costs there are (health, noise, pollution, emissions etc.)
3. The idea that if we agree the scheme - for instance which removes most cycle traffic from Markhouse Road - then the result will be thousands of school kids slowing up traffic on every road.
4. The idea that the "way forward" could in any sane world be more of what we currently have.

"All I am asking for is a sensible approach - there are perfectly good alternative routes for cycles parallel to Lea Bridge Road without having to try and squeeze in cycle lanes in a very narrow important through route."

No, there aren't any "perfectly good" alternative routes. And the simple reality (as backed by the council's cycle counts) is thousands of cyclists use LBR every day, while a mere handful use your "parallel" routes.

"Recent experience has shown our highways engineers don't always get it right so what opportunity if there going to be for non-cyclist to give their views on the plans? When do you think the first detailed plans will be available for examination?"

There will be widespread public consultation - don't know when yet, it's early days post winning the bid.

Your ongoing outright hostility towards cyclists and cycling measures is not even a mainstream view any more - it's certainly not an objective or unbiased one. It really saddens me to see you just going off on one in this way - using wild assertions, unbacked by fact, as a basis to attack cycling.

Yours,

Simon M