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news
Holland Park roundabout improvements (Transport for London)MP opposes plan to improve cyclist safety at "one of the most dangerous junctions" — because "main beneficiaries" will be non-local cyclists "looking to cycle in a straight line"
An ambitious proposal to transform a London roundabout described as "one of the most dangerous junctions on the road network" and the scene of 56 collisions in the last three years has been criticised by a Conservative MP who claims it will "lead to increased traffic congestion, increased pollution and rat-running", and "the main cycling beneficiaries will be those out of borough looking to cycle in a straight line".
Kensington MP Felicity Buchan was reacting to Transport for London's (TfL) proposals for Holland Park roundabout, a junction where six people have been seriously injured in collisions in the three years to last May, the Evening Standard reports, with 59 people, including 14 cyclists and pedestrians, injured in total during the same time period.
Consequently, TfL wants to build more protected cycleways at the junction and install separate traffic lights for cyclists to help create a safe environment for riders to cross. And despite the government body's modelling predicting the scheme would not have "significant impacts" on motorists or buses, Buchan has expressed her opposition to the proposals and claims it will increase congestion, worsen air pollution and increase the number of drivers rat-running on residential streets elsewhere.
"While I am supportive of cycling and improving cycling safety, this scheme is ill-thought through. It will lead to increased traffic congestion, increased pollution and rat-running," she claimed.
"Cycling infrastructure already exists so the main cycling beneficiaries will be those out of borough looking to cycle in a straight line. I therefore oppose the scheme."
Buchan says her views reflect those of Kensington and Chelsea council and London Assembly member Tony Devenish, the political figures previously outspoken in their opposition to the Kensington High Street cycle lanes that were abruptly ripped out in November 2020 as the Tory-controlled council claimed the scheme was "not working".
TfL's proposal, which can be seen in full in the video below, shows how the planned improvements would connect to earlier Cycleway 34 works, while at Holland Park roundabout a new 45-metre section of bus lane would be built, along with new signal-controlled cycle crossings, new protected two-way cycleways, and a new signal-controlled cycle crossing to Holland Road and C39.
TfL says at one section of the roundabout the outside traffic lane could be removed to "make space for a new protected two-way cycle lane". The junction is one of the 73 most dangerous that TfL is hoping to upgrade, London's walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman saying it is "one of the most dangerous junctions on the TfL road network, and has seen 56 collisions in the last three years".
"This scheme will make it safer for people walking and cycling and will help improve journey times for bus users without any significant impacts on general traffic, building a better, safer city for all Londoners," he added.
And addressing Buchan's congestion concerns, TfL has said its modelling had suggested there would be no "significant impacts" on motorists or buses, with journey times in fact expected to be cut during peak morning and evening times "due to traffic reassignment away from Shepherd's Bush Green, West Cross Route and Holland Park Roundabout".
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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52 comments
Her line to take seems to be that cyclists and thorough traffic should not use Notting Hill gate rather than any of the concerns on paper.
Pathetic but certainly a great way to buy votes
Looked up her biography and sadly, unsurprisingly, it turns out she was awarded a degree by Oxford University! We have two premier (probably overprestigious) undergraduate teaching institutions, why is it that only one of them seems to gift us dunces of such a tall order?
I've just finished a book "Chumocracy" all about how Oxford students got into government and promoted their mates, not because they were competent, but because they were their mates.
It's interesting that none of her many online biographies mentions the class of her degree: she studied law but went straight into the finance industry rather than qualifying as a lawyer. To read for the bar one needs at least a Desmond, the fact that she didn't become a barrister (a traditional route for aspirant MPs) leads one to speculate that she may have been awarded a Douglas.
A third class degree but a second class politician; that's personal growth for you.
What you learn in school is probably vastly less important than who you meet in school (so yeah, overall - what school you went to).
Mind you only a quarter of the PMs in the last century went to Eton and only most attended either Oxford or Cambridge so you can overstate these things...
This is explicitly recognised in most places ... one to file under "human nature" and how we naturally tend to organise ourselves in societies.
Console yourself with this and ignore her mindless bleatings.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?postcode=W8+7NX
There's a laser at the end of that tunnel.
The odds from the bookies are astounding
Such a shame.
It's an interesting new stupidity isn;t it? Tax money can only be spent locally to where it's raised and may not benefit anyone from somewhere else... On that basis, London would get a lot of money spent, but couldn't get fresh water from reservoirs maintained outside of London, Or electricity other than generated inside London, or dump sewage outside London, or have a motorway / road crossing the boundary. This stratospheric level of stupidity in an MP is only outshone by the stupidity of those voting for said MP.
It's an interesting take on the 15 minute city rubbish that the swivel eyed lions are spouting.
Or is it just a variation on the banjo playing "you're not from round here, are you...?" brigade.
Prior to her political career, Buchan worked in investment banking for JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Compared to TfL highway planners, she knows f all about highway infra, so why has she got this airtime? Is it because the banker mindset is 'we are experts at everything because we are rich by legally stealing money' or is it because this personality type, so suited to banking, is so arrogant from the start?
I've worked at both those banks. Stereotyping people who work in investment banks as arrogant thieves is ignorant at best. You do realise that your pension is an investment don't you? How would you feel if your savings account paid no interest for the money you put in it? Or are you so against Investment banks that you deliberately dont have a personal pension and are going to wait for the state pension to see you through retirement?
She is an arrogant pillock, but that is unrelated to her previous line of work. It's her personality.
A pillock, a tory MP, a former investment banker and spouting nonsense about cycling... too many coincidences...
For a moment there I thought you were listing a new cast of Top Gear...
Trying to appeal to the driving constituency seems rather futile, as just like the cyclists whose lives she doesn't care about as they are just riding through, those drivers are likewise driving through. So you're vote counts if you're driving, but not if you're cycling.
They've had this pro-car policy for some time, and they've lost almost every bye election since by a landslide, and the only one that they didn't lose, they lied massively about ULEZ. Not very good at reading the runes, tories: or anything really. The defining trait of tories over the past fifty years, apart from lying of course, is incompetence.
And yet - people seem to favour them over the others... is the issue they're not playing by the rules, or the other parties are less competent / single-minded, or ... perhaps the issue is the voters?
In a system that induces and exacerbates individualism and competition over working together, is it any wonder people tend to favour parties that embody the I'm-alright-Jack attitude?
UK "national character" - another rabbit hole! In our (arguably not-quite-post-) imperial nation there are still systematic biases.
I also suspect that this may have been one strand inspiring Douglas Adams' point on democracy.
I can't quite get over the idea that cyclists "wanting to cycle in a straight line" is in some way a bad thing.
Come to Leith and say that...
These Tory MPs are quite happy to vote against a ceasefire and a stop to the brutal genocide in Palestine - so I doubt a cycle lane will bother their conscience.
A Tory MP against a safety measure for vulnerable road users, who would have guessed?
Have they all signed a pact with the devil?
Thay all seem intent on killing everyone who doesn't drive a Wankpanzer, either through poverty or under the wheels of a motor vehicle.
Why can't some people see how evil these bastards are?
It seems to be all about being selfish and cruel. It's like using a ladder to climb up and then pulling up the ladder so that no-one else can use it.
Definitely a case of "well I'm okay so I think we should stop helping anyone else".
You mean like the previous two home secretaries' attitudes on immigration?
I thought Teresa May was responsible for introducing the "hostile environment" policy which was a key part of the Windrush scandal and we've had a few home secretaries since then (five not counting Grant Shapps)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/17/theresa-mays-hostile-environment-policy-at-heart-of-windrush-scandal
Or nine if you count Grant Shapps and his alternative names.
I'd meant more that Braverman and Patel were both children of immigrants, who were then trying very hard to pull up the drawbridge after them.
Considering the amount of drivers who use the roundabout to go straight ahead, may as well just demolish the whole thing entirely then
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