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London's iconic "Bike Crossrail" opens next month

The new three mile section from Westminster to Tower Bridge links to the existing Cycle Superhighway 3, making a 12 mile bike route

London’s “Crossrail for the bike”, Europe’s longest substantially segregated city bike route, will open next month, it was announced today, three years since Boris Johnson launched his cycling vision for the capital.

The almost three mile section of the East-West Cycle Superhighway, from Parliament Square to Tower Bridge, of the now 12 mile route, to Barking in the East, features the iconic two-way protected bike lane along Victoria Embankment.

The Crossrail for bikes, the Mayor’s flagship scheme of a raft of protected Cycle Superhighways across the capital, was at the heart of a battle between businesses in Canary Wharf, some for, some against the routes, and the subject of a failed judicial review from the taxi trade. The announcement has been welcomed by campaigners.

At the same time, the North-South cycle superhighway from Southwark to Elephant & Castle, soon to be linked to the E-W route at Blackfriars Bridge by a cycle-only slip road, and Cycle Superhighway 2 in East London from Aldgate to Stratford, will be complete.

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The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson MP, said: “In 2013 I stood on this very spot on the [Victoria] Embankment and promised that we would soon behold a magnificent cycle superhighway. Many doubted it would ever get beyond the artist’s impression. A noisy minority fought hard to stop it happening.

“But, in opinion polls and public consultations, large majorities of ordinary Londoners, most of them not cyclists, said they wanted this project and what it represents for a cleaner, safer, greener city.”

Johnson apologised to motorists temporarily inconvenienced by construction, and said he is encouraged by data from the capital’s first protected bike route, CS5 at Vauxhall, where traffic is returning to normal following the route’s completion six months ago. Transport for London (TfL) data says there has been a 73 per cent increase in cycle traffic on the route in that time.

Martin Key, Campaigns Manager at British Cycling, said: "The opening of the east-to-west cycle superhighway is set to be another significant milestone in London's evolution into one of the world's great cycling cities. The commitment towards cycling infrastructure during Mr Johnson's tenure as London mayor has been unprecedented, and the figures showing the increase in the number of cyclists show that this commitment is already reaping rewards as the capital becomes a cleaner, healthier city.

"Last week, British Cycling released figures which revealed that 71% of the population would support the construction of more segregated cycle tracks. These impressive figures should give politicians across the country the confidence to follow Mr Johnson and London's lead."

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On the East-West route the Western section from Parliament Square to Hyde Park Corner, Lancaster Gate and Paddington, is still under construction, and will open “later”, though TfL doesn’t specify when. Agreement was only made on this section of the route, including a section past Buckingham Palace, in August.

The London Cycling Campaign's infrastructure campaigner, Simon Munk, told road.cc: “We’re hugely please to hear that the new Cycle Superhighways, once completed, don’t worsen congestion and are being well-used. If you build international-standard cycling infrastructure, you get lots more people on bikes. And yes, construction in London causes issues for traffic whether you’re talking about a mega-housing development or a Cycle Superhighway. But it’s building Cycle Superhighway that will help make sure London keeps moving.

“Put those together and you’ve got one of the key reasons why we need Londoners to “Sign For Cycling” in our new Mayoral campaign. We want everyone to join us in calling for the next Mayor to: vastly increase the amount of protected space on main roads for cycling and fix the worst junctions – so we finally get a network of safe cycling routes, not just the odd, isolated exemplar; make safer “direct vision” lorries standard on our streets; enable a “mini Holland” town centre scheme in every borough. The current Mayor has shown building cycling infrastructure works – the next one must go far further to keep our growing city moving.”

The existing section of the route, from Tower Bridge to Barking, was one of London’s first generation cycle superhighways, CS3, and features some protected bike tracks and some routes shared with motor traffic. Part of this existing route, along Cable Street, is slated for improvements, following a consultation that ended last month.

Meanwhile, the section of the North-South Cycle Superhighway through Ludgate Circus, where two cyclists have lost their lives, will open in the summer.

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severs1966 | 6 years ago
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"Europe’s longest substantially segregated city bike route"

What is this bollocks? The Netherlands alone has plenty of completely segregated bike routes that are much longer than the entire length of this.

For example, the Velo-City conference this yer is taking place in Arnhem and Nijmegen. Why in two separate cities? Because they are connected by the F325 fast bike route, over 23km, or nearly 15 miles, which went into use in 2015. And that one path is engineered to a vastly higher standard than CS3. And that's just the one path, and just the type designed for fast express-type interurban riding. Plenty of other more mundane routes are longer, and the LF (leisure) routes are generally engineered to a higher standard than CS3 and they go on for dozens of kilometres.

Please don't make such transparently false claims.

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barrymcgee | 8 years ago
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My current commute involves getting on the tailend of CS3 at Shadwell towards the City - I then leave that blissful safety to squeeze through walking speed traffic crossing Tower Bridge, turning right at a very dodgy junction to cycle the length of Tooley street that has a surface like the moon and wayward pedestrians everywhere towards the traffic light clusterfuck that is London Bridge station onwards towards the office in Southwark.

This extension will connect CS3 all the way to Southwark Bridge, which also has segregated CS leading me almost to my office door.

It will make my commute x100 safer. Bravo Boris for bull-headedly pushing this through.

Avatar
bikebot | 8 years ago
1 like

As usual, LBC's Theo Usherwood was rather excited by the news.

http://www.lbc.co.uk/boris-grilled-on-cycle-superhighway-usage--126348

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Dnnnnnn replied to bikebot | 8 years ago
1 like

bikebot wrote:

As usual, LBC's Theo Usherwood was rather excited by the news.

http://www.lbc.co.uk/boris-grilled-on-cycle-superhighway-usage--126348

Usherwood really is pathetic.

Choosing to count Eastbound cyclists is nonsense - it's difficult and dangerous to access the completed parts of the Thames-side route at the moment because it involves crossing several live lanes. 

Conversely, Westbound cyclists merge into the superhighway as soon as they can. Of course they would, it's far better than using the road!

The system will work well once the weak links are removed. Same might be said of LBC.

Avatar
bikebot replied to Dnnnnnn | 8 years ago
1 like

Duncann wrote:

bikebot wrote:

As usual, LBC's Theo Usherwood was rather excited by the news.

http://www.lbc.co.uk/boris-grilled-on-cycle-superhighway-usage--126348

Usherwood really is pathetic.

Choosing to count Eastbound cyclists is nonsense - it's difficult and dangerous to access the completed parts of the Thames-side route at the moment because it involves crossing several live lanes. 

Conversely, Westbound cyclists merge into the superhighway as soon as they can. Of course they would, it's far better than using the road!

The system will work well once the weak links are removed. Same might be said of LBC.

He did exactly the same thing at Vauxhall last year, and then used it as representative of the whole route in both directions.

It's worth nothing that Theo is LBC's political editor and he is ex Press Association. Really bizarre behaviour for a journalist of that background, and I think it's attracted a few remarks from his peers.

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