“This is what we need to see”: Council officer shuts down businesses’ concerns about replacing parking spaces with cycle stands with “facts and logic”; Remco Evenepoel asked Tadej Pogačar to share his power data after Il Lombardia + more on the live blog

It’s not very often that we get to see concerns aimed at traffic calming schemes such as cycle lanes and pedestrianisations, especially those which have been debunked time and time again and are not well-founded in the first place, be quelled this efficiently and succinctly.

But at least that’s what happened in Camden. The north London borough council undertook a public consultation earlier this year on the proposed pedestrian and cycling improvements on Clerkenwell Road, some of the changes also including included improvements to public realm in the area, as well as changes to parking and loading.

The consultation report which has recently been made available to the public, includes a list of concerns and the council officers’ responses to those. One of those concerns came from a business owner, who claimed that the reduced parking space on Warner Street would have a negative impact on their business.

The council officer’s response, originally shared on Twitter by Politico correspondent Jon Stone, is what has grabbed a lot of cyclists’ attention, and we’d say, rightly so.

The officer replied, first noting that only the proposed changes meant that the parking space would only be reduced by 15 metres, still leaving 47 metres of paid parking space on Warner Street.

They added: “There is evidence that businesses often overestimate the proportion of their business that comes from people who come by car. For example, a survey conducted by the London Borough of Waltham Forest found that businesses on Lea Bridge Road in Walthamstow thought that 63% of customers were travelling to their businesses by car. In reality, only 20% of customers travelled by car to the area. This is just as likely to be the case in Zone 1 (Camden) as it is in Zone 3 (Waltham Forest).

“In London, as well as other cities, up to 80% of shoppers go to town centres by modes other than a car: walking is the most important mode for accessing local town centres.

“Evidence from TfL, in fact, shows that just 7% of Londoners’ shopping trips to destinations in Camden, including in the Clerkenwell Road area, are made by car. Conversely, more than a quarter of such trips are made by public transport, and two thirds by walking and cycling. In addition and as described in the preceding chapter, 85% of Camden residents’ trips are not made by car. It is, therefore, unlikely that a significant volume of people visiting businesses in the Clerkenwell Road area are arriving by car.

“Officers, therefore, consider that the proportion of people travelling to the Clerkenwell Road area by car is low and that the proposed paid for parking facilities, would be sufficient to accommodate those who do choose to travel by car. The Clerkenwell Road area is well served by bus routes and a railway and tube station, providing a high level of public transport accessibility for those who are able/need to use those services. The proposed changes include the addition of new cycle parking stands to make it easier for cyclists to access local businesses. There are also multiple “shared transport” facilities in the area including Santander cycle hire, and e-scooter/e-bike hire parking bays.

“The measures make it easier for people to walk and cycle to businesses along the Clerkenwell Road corridor and surrounding area. This means that visitors to local businesses have an opportunity to choose to travel by a more sustainable mode of travel and that the corridor can be reached easily and safely without using a car.”

And as mentioned before, cyclists on social media can’t get enough of it.

“Can that be extended to the waltham forest team that spent weeks on lea bridge road asking businesses and their customers to get the evidence?”

“Not surprising at all. Studies concluded business owners tend to hugely overestimate how many of their customers drive to their shops.”

“But Jon, that’s just facts and figures, why should we believe that above anecdatal evidence?”

The post was retweeted by Tower Hamlets Living Street, who captioned it: “This is what we need to see!”, as well as Westminster Cycling Campaign.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Velon CC (@veloncc)

Turns out, we are not the only ones in constant awe of Tadej Pogačar’s superhuman feats on the bike. In fact, double Olympic gold medallist Remco Evenepoel was so nonplussed after the front row seat to Pogačar’s fireworks in the season-ending monument Il Lombardia, that he asked him to share his power meter data.

In the interview with Het Nieuwsblad, the 24-year-old Belgian rider was asked what was his last message with Pogačar, to which he replied: “It was about an Instagram post from Velon with his average wattage of the last hour and a half in Lombardy. That couldn’t be right, because I had the same wattage and was three minutes behind.

“So I sent him: ‘I want to know what you really pedalled.’ Tadej didn’t tell me, but it was a joking and even a bit sarcastic question. We send jovial messages every now and then, for example, when one of us has a birthday. He’s not my best friend, but he is a good colleague friend.”

Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogačar, 2024 Giro dell’Emilia (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

The last hour and half of the race would mean the section beginning after the descent of Madonna del Ghisallo, followed by the highest and most difficult mountain of the Italian monument, Colma di Sormano, surrounded on both sides by Lako Como and Lake Lecco.

And from Pogačar’s Strava post, we can see that Pogačar basically has a KOM through most of the segments, with Evenepoel, who eventually finished second behind the all-conquering Slovenian, falling just short of his time in quite a few of those segments.

Besides, Evenepoel also revealed that he’s eyeing up a possible tilt at a Giro-Tour double for 2025, saying that he wants to regain that “feeling of winning a Grand Tour”, just a few weeks after the idea was tabled by his team boss, Patrick Lefevere.

> Remco Evenepoel wants the “feeling of winning a Grand Tour again” as he eyes possible Giro-Tour double attempt for 2025 – but rules out “Paris-Roubaix idea” after getting “taste” for the Tour

“[In 2024], the Giro-Tour combination wasn’t possible if you wanted to be in top form for the Olympics. Now we can consider it, but we will first wait and see what the course is like,” the Soudal Quick-Step star told the Belgian paper.

“If I ride the Giro, I will not ride Ardennes classics such as La Flèche Wallonne or Amstel Gold Race. I will never skip Liège-Bastogne-Liège if I am healthy. [Paris-Roubaix] was an idea. But that was before I had tasted the Tour. I won’t be riding the Tour of Flanders next season. Milan-San Remo is still an option, depending on whether you choose Tirreno-Adriatico or Paris-Nice.

“We haven’t actually talked about specific programmes yet. We have talked about ideas and goals.”

Are we finally about to have a crackdown on the sea of blue jerseys in the peloton?

According to the new UCI guidelines, teams will now have to submit any ‘alternative’ jersey designs, usually reserved for Grand Tours at least 60 days prior to the race for approval. Meanwhile, the teams may also be forced to make tweaks to their kits so that it’s easily distinguishable from the race-specific jerseys, such as the general classification, points, mountain classification and best young rider.

The new rule has been announced so that it’s easier for race commissaries and UCI officials to easily identify riders and avoid mistakes in race results and penalties, Cyclingnews reports.

The UCI states that "Applications may be rejected for reasons considered valid, including without being limited to similarity to other team’s clothing, similarity to leaders’ jerseys, ill-compliance with UCI regulations pertaining to jerseys, potential harm to image of cycling, the events or the UCI."

The UCI rules that "The name, company logo or trademark of the principal partner shall be preponderant (thicker characters) and placed in the upper part of the jersey, both on the front and the back."

Two sponsor names can be inverted, while other sponsors and logos can be added and changed from one race or country to another.

The news comes after there had been a rise in jerseys that were predominantly blue, with many teams such as Soudal Quick-Step, Movistar, Alpecin-Deceuninck, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale and FDJ-Groupama — all donning shades of the same colour.

Add in the odd special jerseys for teams like Visma-Lease a Bike during the 2024 Tour de France, it meant that close to almost ten teams which had riders wearing blue.

Meanwhile, Bora-Hansgrohe’s dark green jersey also come under scrutiny from fans for being too similar to the points leaders jersey at the Tour de France, meanwhile UAE Team Emirates also had to tweak their kits, adding some black lines to the front and the back to differentiate from the young rider’s jersey.

Earlier this year, Daily Mail and Telegraph (yes, both of them) sent out a few camera persons to shoot videos of cyclists coming into conflict with pedestrians crossing over the ‘mini-zebra crossings’ to get to and back from the buses — a cycle path design tidbit commonly known as “floating bus stops” which has become something of a battleground for many.

However, a Twitter account called ‘Cycling in London’ has now shared a video showing the floating bus stops working, with cyclists giving way to pedestrians crossing over the cycle lane — and the video has garnered a lot of reaction from cyclists, who posed the question: “They work fine in Europe, so why not here?”

The reality of floating bus stops pic.twitter.com/ikPuJxOHqo

— Cycling in London (@Cycling_In_LDN) November 7, 2024

And true enough, most major European cities have some variation of the ‘floating bus stop’ to provide segregated infrastructure for cyclists and avoid them from mixing with buses and other motor traffic.

So do you think that these floating bus stops are a “non-issue”, or is there scope for improvement in their design to better accommodate the elderly and disabled people? Leave your thoughts in the comments below…

A cyclist in Oregon has filed a $997,000 lawsuit against an ambulance service after he was charged $1,800 to be taken to the hospital… after the driver of the ambulance hit him and smashed his bike, leaving him with a broken nose and bruises all over his body.

> Cyclist charged $1,800 for journey to hospital… in ambulance whose driver crashed into him