Concern among London cyclists as anti-terrorism barriers on bridges take space from cycle lanes

...and if any cycling body raises this issue, several national newspapers will brand them terrorist sympathisers.

If only government acted this quickly when innocent people were killed by being knocked off their bikes at dangerous junctions.

What a time to be alive.

One comment to all the complainers. Timing people. It's very important if you want to have your point taken sympathetically. This will only damage how cyclists are perceived.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

This is a very quick fix to make people feel secure. Works for me. Whilst I don't live and cycle in London I totally get what they have done. Cyclists are still Road users and not pedestrians, how would one overtake another if it were on the roadside. Think the point is missed here, the attack is on pedestrians not cyclists. Get off your self righteous commuter bikes and back our countries police force for attempting to protect against the unknown

Just for context, there were 13,000 KSIs on London roads, 2010-2014.

This is a knee jerk reaction to a single type of attack, this is pure theatre in order to make people feel safer whilst not doing anything to increase their safety.

What will they do when someone decides to mow down pedestrians walking along Oxford Street in a van? Will they hem in all pedestrians by metal barriers again?

I'm obviously looking at this wrong because, as I see it, if the barrier was put on the outside of the cycle lane that would allow enough room for a vehicle to mount the pavement, rendering the barriers in effective.

I don't live in London, thank the gods, but aren't the pavements in areas such as this jammed with pedestrians at peak times and any loss of width would be detrimental to ped movements?

When will we start addressing the real cause of these attacks: radicalised drivers.

Aside from the issues relating to safety of cyclists, if barriers are put in place on bridges, individuals who want to ram vehicles into pedestrians will just do it somewhere else - i.e. somewhere else along a street.  For instance, this solution would not have worked against the lunatic who went mad ramming pedestrians on Bourke street in Melbourne.  The tram line makes it all but impossible to make the Bourke street mall inaccessible to motor vehicles.

While bridges do concentrate vehicles and pedestrians, there are plenty of other places that would invite an attacker.

As a temporary fix it is excusable.

Hopefully the authorities will install metal bollards on the pavement every 1.5m or so including some at the ends of the pavements. This would keep the cycle lane, protect pedestrians and should ideally be rolled out across all major pavements (over time of course). It would also be less of an eyesore in future (London needs tourism)

If cyclists genuinely feel unsafe cycling there, you can always walk across the bridge on the pavement before rejoining the road later on.

Knee-jerk reaction and just shows the lack of consideration and protection for cyclists.

Really looking forward to people getting more abuse because their not using the cycle lane that's full of barriers. The problem is ideots (ideological idiots), not cars/vans going on the pavement. Massive face-palm moment.

Not sure we'd get the same protection if the ideots had run over cyclists rather than peds?

Just stick the barrier on the pavement? Pedestrians will find their own level.

The other glaring thing rom the photo, it has taken none of the 'road space designated for cars' so why are they all in the cycling lane?

Please tell me the following from Sustrans is a typo;

"A small change to the barriers so that they protect people on bikes as well as pedestrians would ensure the brides are safer for cycling too." 

I can not stop chuckling at the images this conjures up. 

Would have made more sense to protect the cycle lane instead of taking space from it.

While cycling I would be more afraid of these bars, rather than any kind of terrorist attack, at least if they are so rare as they are now. Don't forget that cyclists and pedestrian are still less annually killed than the ones killed by such lunatics, yet no such extreme measures are taken in order to protect them. Should a guy gets driven over by a maniac in London, the whole world will know it, but if he gets driven over by a speeding and distracted driver there is no problem.

Cyclists are just as vulnerable as pedestrians to crazy people in vehicles (as we know).  Barriers should be on the main carriageway not the cycle lane.

Even more reason to just take primary.

"Understabnable"?

I know that London cyclists are used to people driving cars, vans, lorries etc at them just because they object to cyclists' presence on the road, but positioning those barriers in the cycle lane is a grim example of blinkered thinking and taking advantage of urban cyclists' general stoicism.  Given the relative width of the two areas, surely the pavement rather than the path would have been the place to put them.

A better design would be to copy Southwark bridge where the barrier protects both cycle lane and pavement.

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They would have to make the ends of the bridge better than Southwalk bridge (where the barrier just ends and there is parking and a bus stop) but it would be a start.

I know the barriers were orginally put in to stop parking on the bridge, but used the cycling budget.

Surely it would make more sense to close the roads to cars, none of these attacks have seen people mowed down by bikes...