Mayoral press release:
http://london.gov.uk/view_press_rele...eleaseid=22318

Excerpts...
---quote---
London's Cycle Superhighways - First two routes unveiled
5-6-2009

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today unveiled proposed routes for
the first two of London’s twelve Cycle Superhighways - the corridors
for cyclists that are a key part of his policy to stimulate a cycling
revolution in the capital.

The two pilot routes, which will be up and running in May 2010, are
from South Wimbledon to Bank via the A24 and A3, and Barking to Tower
Hill via the A13 and Cable Street. The Mayor and TfL are consulting
closely with the eight boroughs that the routes will run through.

The aim of the Cycle Superhighways is to provide safe, direct and
continuous routes into central London from the outer boroughs, making
life easier for cyclists and encouraging those who travel into work by
other modes of transport to commute by bike, helping to cut
congestion, relieve overcrowding, and cutting emissions.

Another ten routes, spanning across London and greatly improving the
capital’s cycling infrastructure, are being developed ahead of 2012,
with each route covering between 10 and 15km.
[...]
Each route will be given its own identity with consistent and easy to
follow road markings and signs. Safety issues will be addressed
through specific measures such as the provision of advance stop boxes
and providing continuous lanes through junctions as appropriate.

In addition, obstructions will be minimised and improvements made to
road surfaces to ensure a smoother ride.
[...]

Notes to Editors

The first two Cycle Superhighways are planned for delivery in May 2010
and will run along the following routes:

For the South Wimbledon to Bank route: A24, A3 and Southwark Bridge
Road passing through the boroughs of Merton, Wandsworth, Lambeth,
Southwark and City of London.

For the Barking to Tower Hill route: A13, Poplar High Street, Narrow
Street and Cable Street passing through the boroughs of Barking and
Dagenham, Newham, Tower Hamlets and City of London.
---/quote---

There's also a link to a PDF map of the 12 indicative routes:
http://london.gov.uk/news/docs/cycle...ghways-map.pdf


I haven't been following this as closely as I might have - I think the
hyperbole inherent in the phrase "Cycle Superhighway" rather made me
somewhat dismissive of early talk of the idea as being just some Boris-
esque babble - but it is for real, as a real project has grown from
that somewhat unlikely sounding germ of an idea.

We're not going to get actual cycle only highways, with grade
separated junctions, slow medium and fast lanes (yes yes you're not
supposed to call them that - lanes 1,2, and 3 then), a hard shoulder
and dot-matrix displays that tell warn you of a long-gone fog patch.
Instead this is, as the press release says, about providing direct
routes from the suburbs into central London along existing road
corridors - we're not about to get a cycle highway building scheme to
match the road building schemes of the past! Cyclists won't get a
segregated route, at least not all the way (and I'm not counting
mandatory cycle lanes on the same carriageway as a properly segregated
route), but various measures are apparently to be taken to improve
these routes for cyclists.

I'm now going to take a look at each of the two routes in a bit more
detail...

* South Wimbledon to Bank, route 7

One of the first routes (route 7 on the map) is from South Wimbledon
to Bank - this is basically the 'Northern line route' as it shadows
the line (more historically accurately, the line was built under the
road on purpose so as to get round wayleave issues when going under
private property). This relatively straight A23 and A3 route is
already very well used by cycle commuters, many of whom are likely to
have opted for it instead of the ultra-busy Northern line - this is
helped by the fact that there isn't an obvious parallel route on
quieter side streets to follow.

In a sense the critical mass of cyclists using this route (at peak
times at least) could be said to already make it a 'cycle highway'
anyway - in that sense choosing it as one of the first routes is
perhaps a bit of an 'easy win'. Nonetheless it'll be interesting to
see what changes are made. Presumably at Elephant & Castle the route
will be signed to direct people around the pre-existing LCN [1] 'cycle
bypass' on the side streets as opposed to through the main road
junction - the big plan is for both the roundabouts to go eventually
(the southern one should be gone much sooner), so perhaps the cycle
route would eventually go direct through the Elephant.

* Barking to Tower Hill, route 3

The other of the first routes (route 3 on the map) is from Barking to
Tower Hill. This goes along the A13 for a considerable distance - if
I'm not much mistaken, for much if not all of the stretch of the A13
from Barking to Poplar there is already a cycle pathway adjacent to
the road, albeit perhaps a shared use path with pedestrians.
Significant upgrades took place on this stretch of the A13 only a few
years ago [1] - remodelled carriageways and grade separated junctions
were one outcome, and I believe the provision of an adjacent cycle
pathway was another (not sure this existed as such beforehand). So
actually there's the essence of a fairly ready-made route there -
that's not to say that it's necessarily kitted out as well as it could
be.

From Poplar, Poplar High Street, Narrow Street and Cable Street are
fairly common sense ways to take the route on into central London -
indeed they are all I think already designated as part of the existing
London Cycle Network. It seems that this side-street route won out
over trying to make East India Dock Road and Commercial Road more
cycle friendly - but there is heavy motor traffic on these roads,
especially what with them serving the Blackwall Tunnel and Rotherhithe
Tunnel. And I don't think you could make the Highway E1 into a "Cycle
Superhighway" however hard you tried!

Narrow Street was of course where Bozza and Co had there near miss
with a lorry and it's flailing doors, which illustrates well the
inherent issues in sharing road space between cyclists and motor
vehicles, specifically great big heavy lorries that are being driven
too fast. I'm interested to see what restrictions if any are put on
traffic down Narrow Street, given that it's an obvious rat-run used by
motorists to escape the traffic of the parallel A13.


So the whole "Cycle Superhighway" project looks interesting, but the
real test of it is of course what actually happens on the ground. The
"Cycle Superhighways" project has led to Boris shelving the completion
of the LCN+, which I think is a shame. The "Cycle Superhighways" are
based on commuter cycling into central London - but there are so many
other potential cycle journeys that don't involve that. The plotting
of decent routes along quiet back streets, signing them properly and
connecting them up appropriately undoubtedly suits other types of
cyclists, or indeed just styles of cycling (and a 'straight to the
point' cycle commuter might well like a somewhat more meandering but
pleasant route when making a leisure trip). And of course LCN+ routes
also suit other inter-urban cycle journeys. However it is perhaps true
to say that LCN+ is not ideal for working out longer cycle commute
routes into town.

Which I think shows that a good part of this "Cycle Superhighway"
scheme is actually in the branding, i.e. in making the route
information easily and instantly available whether on the ground or on
paper/the web. I still think the actual name's a bit dodgy though!

I am encouraged to read in the press release Boris saying that he's
"militant about cycling", and talking about bringing about a "cycling
revolution" - we shall see how these new "Cycle Superhighways" turn
out. Nonetheless, it's perhaps worth bearing in mind that this is the
same Boris who has cut cycle funding elsewhere - see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...-boris-johnson


-----
[1] SABRE on the A13:
http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=A13

[2] LCN being the London Cycle Network - more accurately it's the LCN
+, which is what the initial LCN morphed into - see:
http://www.londoncyclenetwork.org.uk/