TfL have been avoiding a 'knee-jerk' reaction after the death of every single one of the 69 Londoners killed on a bike by motorists since Boris Johnson took office as our 'cycling' Mayor in 2008.

Speaking about the tragic, avoidable, and needless death of Alan Neve, the head of Transport for London's (TfL's) Surface Transport, Leon Daniels, said that he wanted to avoid a 'knee-jerk' reaction to make things safer for those cycling.



The thing is, TfL has been avoiding a 'knee-jerk' reaction to make our streets less inhumane ever since it was formally constituted as a government body in 2000.

More shockingly, Boris Johnson, our 'cycling' Mayor, has been avoiding a 'knee-jerk' reaction ever since he first took office five years ago in 2008.

Here is a list of all 69 of the Londoners killed by drivers of motor traffic while choosing to cycle in London since May 2008 (full database here, courtesy of icycleliverpool). After each single one of these Londoners was killed on the road, TfL choose to continue to promote cycling as a mode of transport they wish to encourage, but simultaneously to blindly avoid doing any kind of 'knee-jerk' reaction that might have resulted in the physical segregation of motorists from the cyclists they routinely kill and maim on brutal London roads.

23 Jun 2008 - Lucinda Ferrier - Hackney
09 Aug 2008 - Massimo Pradel - Brent
18 Sep 2008 - Graham Thwaites - Bromley
18 Sep 2008 - Nick Wright - City of London
24 Sep 2008 - Wan-Chen McGuiness - Camden
20 Oct 2008 - Syed Mohammed Sajjad Bilgrami - Wandsworth
17 Nov 2008 - Unknown - Ealing
26 Nov 2008 - Michael Fletcher - Hounslow
24 Dec 2008 - Malcolm Boswell - Enfield
24 Dec 2008 - Natalie Lee - Barking and Dagenham
13 Jan 2009 - Unknown - Newham
05 Feb 2009 - Eilidh Cairns - Kensington and Chelsea
08 Apr 2009 - Meryem Ozekman - Southwark
09 Apr 2009 - Rebecca Goosen - Islington
15 May 2009 - Adrianna Skrzypiec - Greenwich
30 May 2009 - Khaleel Rheman - Newham
12 Jun 2009 - Maria Emma Garcia Fernandez - City of London
29 Jun 2009 - Catriona Patel - Lambeth
05 Jul 2009 - Christopher Durand - Ealing
16 Sep 2009 - Chrystelle Brown - Tower Hamlets
20 Oct 2009 - Tanya Van Der Loo - Westminster
11 Nov 2009 - Dorothy Rose Elder - Camden
05 Dec 2009 - Robert Domienik - Surrey
07 Dec 2009 - Stella Chandler - Greenwich
08 Jan 2010 - Sayit Huseyin - Islington
04 Feb 2010 - Patrick Gorman - Camden
09 Feb 2010 - David Vilaseca - Southwark
09 Mar 2010 - Muhammed Haris Ahmed - Southwark
10 Mar 2010 - Shivon Watson - Hackney
14 Apr 2010 - Jayne Helliwell - Westminster
26 Apr 2010 - Zoe Sheldrake - Barnet
22 May 2010 - Everton Smith - Westminster
20 Jul 2010 - Rajaendran Ramakrishnan - Harrow
05 Aug 2010 - Arina Romanova - Hackney
06 Jan 2011 - Gary Mason - Sutton
02 Feb 2011 - Daniel Cox - Hackney
10 Mar 2011 - Tom Barrett - Hillingdon
22 Mar 2011 - David Poblet - Southwark
05 Apr 2011 - Paula Jurek - Camden
22 Apr 2011 - Gavin Taylor - Islington
28 Apr 2011 - Naoko Miyazaki - Hammersmith and Fulham
17 May 2011 - Thomas Stone - Barking and Dagenham
29 May 2011 - Michael Evans - Bromley
21 Jun 2011 - Peter McGreal - Tower Hamlets
31 Jul 2011 - Johannah Bailey - Lambeth
06 Aug 2011 - Samuel Harding - Islington
03 Oct 2011 - Min Joo Lee - Camden
24 Oct 2011 - Brian Dorling - Tower Hamlets
11 Nov 2011 - Svitlana Tereschenko - Tower Hamlets
02 Dec 2011 - Eleanor Carey - Southwark
07 Jan 2012 - James Darby - Bromley
03 Feb 2012 - Henry Warwick - City of London
05 Mar 2012 - Ali Nasralla - Kingston upon Thames
23 Mar 2012 - Olatunji Adeyanju - Lewisham
27 Mar 2012 - Frank Mugisha - Haringey
29 Apr 2012 - Zakiyuddin Mamujee - Hillingdon
26 Jun 2012 - Redwan Uddin - Newham
05 Jul 2012 - Tarsem Dari - Ealing
10 Jul 2012 - Neil Turner - Croydon
01 Aug 2012 - Dan Harris - Hackney
16 Oct 2012 - Hilary Lee - Barnet
29 Oct 2012 - Sofoklis Kostoulas - Tower Hamlets
19 Nov 2012 - Brian Florey - Barking and Dagenham
06 Dec 2012 - Javed Sumbal - Tower Hamlets
09 Feb 2013 - Edward Orrey - Leytonstone
08 Apr 2013 - Katharine Giles - Westminster
24 Jun 2013 - Paul Hutcheson - Lewisham
05 July 2013 - Phillipine De Gerin-Ricard - Tower Hamlets
15 July 2013 - Alan Neve - Camden

Saying that you want to avoid a 'knee-jerk' reaction implies that Alan Neve's death was some kind of freak one-off. It wasn't. Alan Neve's death was only the latest in a grim series of killings that have been going on for the last decade. These deaths have virtually all occurred at notable accident hotspots that TfL have previously been warned by the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) are incredibly dangerous for cyclists.

TfL aren't avoiding a 'knee-jerk' reaction. They're callously letting Londoners continue to be killed on our streets by criminally poor road design that leaves those that choose to cycle defenceless against drivers that habitually make mistakes and kill them.

Leon Daniels should resign. Immediately.

----------

AsEasyAsRidingABike has written an extremely excellent post along similar(ish) lines available here.

Two Londoners killed in two weeks as a direct result of TfL and Boris Johnson's appalling and inhumane management of London's roads. We need dedicated safe cycle lanes and we need them before even more Londoners are killed. #space4cycling

Photo from the scene this morning where a Londoner was killed by a lorry driver while riding a bike through Holborn. Via @BezTweets

This morning another Londoner (later identified as Alan Neve) following TfL's advertising and choosing to go from A to B by bike was crushed to death under the wheels of a lorry; this time it was at Holborn, right in the heart of Central London.

TfL continue to prioritise 'traffic flow' over the safety cyclists, but don't seem to realise that the amount of congestion caused by serious collisions like these clogs up the road by far more than their inhumane 'traffic flow' policies speeds up traffic. The roads would be faster for everyone - including motor traffic - if safe, segregated cycle lanes were built.

Boris Johnson said after Philippine De Gerin-Richard was killed by a lorry driver while riding a Boris Bike at Aldgate earlier this month that instead of separating cyclists from fast-moving motor traffic (especially 20 tonne HGVs) the real way to stop the relentless killing and maiming of Londoners who choose to travel by bike was to simply get more cyclists on the streets:

"the thing that makes cycling safe in London, is when people have the confidence to do it in numbers; the more people [on bikes] you can get on the roads, the safer it's going to be for everybody."

As today's awful fatality shows, Boris Johnson was talking absolute crap.

Encouraging more cycling in London in current conditions will lead to more people like Philippine De Gerin-Ricard (who was a regular and experienced Boris Bike user) being needlessly crushed to death under the wheels of London's motor traffic. Photo via Evening Standard.

If you mix even more cyclists with deadly and irresponsibly driven motor vehicles and you simple find even more Londoners being killed by motorised traffic.

This is what we are seeing now.

Police are already investigating whether the absolutely atrocious road design of Cycle "Superhighway" 2 (on which three cyclists have been killed in the last two years) led to Philippine De Gerin-Richard being killed. This is because rather than building a segregated cycle lane at Aldgate - as is the norm in Tokyo, New York, and countless other major cities - TfL instead force cyclists and traffic to share a 'general traffic lane' which simply results in Londoners being squeezed to death under the wheels of 20 tonne lorries.

In Holborn, TfL have chosen to do exactly the same thing.

The safe (and illegal!) route for cyclists travelling from Theobald's Rd to Oxford Street is to travel down the contra-flow bus lane on Vernon Pl then Bloomsbury Way (pictured on googlemaps below). There is a 20mph limit here, little room to overtake and the buses are often slowing to stop at bus-stops, so cyclists are (by London's laughable standards) relatively safe.


View Larger Map

However, TfL and the Metropolitan Police force those choosing to travel by bike (and thus creating space for others on the tube etc.) to take a four-lane gyratory route through Holborn instead, fining those Londoners (like myself) who put safety first and actively avoid roads on which they could very well be killed.

Excellent illustration courtesy of Andy Waterman

As Andy Waterman explains about the route which TfL and Boris Johnson currently force cyclists to use:

"Going round involves dropping onto Holborn and negotiating four lanes of traffic. I've done it every day since [almost being fined for taking the safe route] and it makes even me, an experienced cyclist nervous. Motorbikes buzz you, taxis rush red lights to get through and huge trucks obliterate the view. It's hellish."

Today, another Londoner has died because not only have TfL consistently failed to build a safe cycle network through Central London, they have made it against the law to use the only relatively non-lethal route that exists.

I very much hope that TfL are prosecuted for manslaughter, both for the three Londoners killed on the Cycle "SuperHighway" 2, but also for this latest, avoidable, needless, tragic death.

In response, the London Cycling Campaign are holding a Protest Ride tomorrow (Tuesday 16 July) at 6.30pm starting at Russell Square.

If you are reading this, you really should attend.

Current plans for development of both Aldgate, Bayswater, and Haymarket include plans for virtually no segregated cycle lanes whatsoever, despite tens of millions of pounds being spent on each of these schemes and a TfL 'Cycling Vision' budget that is near £1 billion. It's a complete lie to say there isn't the money to make our roads safe for cycling. The authorities just need to stop designing them in ways that freely mix cyclists and lorries.

Unless you want to be the next Londoner to be crushed under the wheels of an HGV, you need to make it clear to the Mayoralty and local authorities that forcing cyclists to share 'general traffic lanes' with lethal and deadly motor traffic is no longer good enough.

2000 Londoners rode through Aldgate last Friday to protest at a lack of #space4cycling.
Boris Johnson's response: absolutely nothing. And another Londoner killed as a direct result of London's road design on Monday morning. Grim.

Please attend London's Protest Flashride this Friday at 6pm, Tower Hill; we need Londoners there to make change happen.

In the wake of two cycling fatalities in recent weeks - one in Lewishman, the other on Cycle "Superhighway" 2 in Aldgate - Londoners are calling on Boris Johnson, TfL, and local councils to actual cycle-only lanes along busy arterial routes to bring London's road design up to the international standard being set by New York, Paris, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Zurich, and Berlin.

This is not in any way 'cycle infrastructure'. This is just blue paint.
This is not a Cycle "SuperHighway". This is a pile of shit, built at incredible expense to the taxpayer (£2-£4million per mile)

There is plenty of space on London's main roads to create dedicated space for cycling. But Boris Johnson and local politicians have so far completely refused to create actual safe cycle infrastructure,  resorting instead to just putting some blue paint on the road.

This is what cycle lanes look like in Germany (picture is from Heidelberg). If the Germans can do it, why can't we?

In 2009, on the launch of the Cycle "SuperHighways" programme, Boris Johnson said:

“I'm not kidding when I say that I'm militant about cycling, and these Superhighways are central to the cycling revolution I'm determined to bring about. No longer will pedal power have to dance and dodge around petrol power - on these routes the bicycle will dominate and that will be clear to all others using them."

Unfortunately, Johnson clearly was kidding.

If you feel that cycling in London is dangerous, please come to Tower Hill at 6pm on Friday 12th July 2013 and make it clear to Boris Johnson and TfL that we need actions (not consultations) to stop the continual killing and maiming of Londoners travelling on a bike by drivers of motorised traffic.

Blackfriars Bridge flashride in 2011.

Flashride details

• Meet 6pm for 6.15pm start at Tower Hill (where it meets Minories) http://goo.gl/maps/8Czme
• The protest ride will last approximately 20-30 minutes, including a brief stop at the junction of A11 Whitechapel Road and A1202 Commercial Street to pay respects at the place where last week's victim died
• The ride will be marshalled by LCC staff and volunteers, and will finish at Altab Ali Park around 6.30pm
• #Space4cycling

There is also a vigil at City Hall from 5.30 pm in memory of recent lorry deaths, including the pedestrian killed by a lorry driver in Fulham on Monday.

Friday's Flashride is also supported by the Evening Standard

I will be attending the vigil at City Hall at 5.30pm, and then the protest ride at Tower Hill 6pm.

Will you be there too?

-----------

BBC News reporting on the first person on a Boris Bike to be killed by motorised traffic in London (and the third person to be killed by Cycle "SuperHighway" 2):

Boris Johnson's Cycle KillerHighways

Yesterday the Evening Standard asked me to write a comment piece for them in response to a lorry driver killing (another) female on a bike in London. ES doesn't publish the content online, so here's my edit of what I wrote for them:

-----------------------

We already know that junctions like Aldgate are incredibly dangerous for cyclists. This is because Boris Johnson has simply put blue paint on the road in the middle of a traffic lane being used by high volumes of heavy, fast moving vehicles, like the lorry that was responsible for the French student’s death. Handing out leaflets about Advance Stop Boxes or trying to put a higher volume of cyclists on the road (Boris’s “solution”) is going to do nothing to make this safer for those on a bike. As the three deaths so far on CS2 show, accidents can, and do, happen. When our roads are designed badly these accidents result in deaths. The humane option, and the one used to make cycling safer world-wide in cities such as New York, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, is to physically segregate lethal motor traffic from cyclists, so that tragic deaths like Friday’s become near-impossible. A physical barrier separating cycle lanes means that it’s simply not possible for HGVs and cyclists to collide with each other. At junctions with large amounts of traffic turning left a second cycle lane for cyclists going straight on can be used to prevent bikes and buses coming into conflict, or a separate cycle-only traffic light phase can be created. Unsurprisingly, 20mph limits also help a great deal, and are the norm in Berlin, Paris and Zurich.

However, all of these measures involve reallocating road-space from motor traffic to cycles-only, leading to the possible contraction or removal of a traffic lane. Similarly, 20mph limits and cycle-only traffic light phases will slightly slow down traffic. Up till now, TfL have prioritized motor traffic capacity and speed over cycle safety (while hypocritically spending large sums of money encouraging Londoners to cycle in unimproved conditions). The result has been an appallingly high number of cycle deaths in our capital – a number which is continually rising – including three deaths on Cycle “SuperHighway” 2 alone.

The question TfL, the boroughs, and Londoners need to ask themselves is are we willing to see a 30 second increase in traffic journey times in order to prevent further tragedy on our streets, where a Darwinian road environment means that those who obey the law are the most likely to die? Are we willing to see a slight reduction in traffic capacity in order to create a city which is unpolluted, quiet, cleaner, greener, and no longer the capital of the fattest nation in Western Europe? Are we willing to partially reduce the number of empty taxis that sit needlessly in traffic choking our streets with exhaust in order to bring London’s road safety up to the mark set by international rivals like New York and Tokyo?

Unfortunately, the current City of London plans for redesigning Aldgate show they are spending £12million to create a mere 70m of segregated cycle lane, despite the fact the average distance between the buildings on either side of the street is 22m. This is not only a colossal waste of money (as the Cycle “SuperHighways” were), but it’s not going to do anything to make this dangerous area safer for cyclists, despite the fact with 22m to play with there is ample room for cycle-only lanes.

Our city planners are stuck in the 1970s, designing inhospitable streets that kill French students. They need to join us in 2013 and make tough decisions about motor traffic capacity in order to create a London that is actually safe to cycle in. Not a London where Boris Johnson tells us we just need to ‘keep our wits about us’ and then Londoner’s like Dr Katherine Giles (killed by an HGV in April) lose their lives on the way to work.

Space for cyclists physically separated from motorised traffic is *not* hard to provide. This photo is from  Heidelberg, Germany. We need this sort of street design all over London. And we need it now.

Article printed as a letter in Tuesday's Evening Standard (9/7/2013)

--------------------

On a side note, it is telling how nervous and worried Boris Johnson looks in the video of BBC's recent report on this needless tragedy. Johnson gave the BBC some absolute crap about 'safety in numbers'. Put more cyclists sharing 'general traffic lanes' with HGVs and lorries on Cycle "SuperHighway" 2, and you are going to have even more cycle deaths, not fewer. The Mayor needs to get his act together. He doesn't even look like he believes in what he's saying as he says it...

Cycling is now the dominant mode of travel on Central London's roads, yet still idiotically ignored by Westminster Council in new Bayswater plans.

The Evening Standard published an article a few days ago with some rather stunning figures about bike travel in London:

• On Theobald's Road 64% of vehicles in the morning peak are bikes.
• On Kennington Park Road 57% of vehicles in the morning peak are bikes.
• On Old Street 49% of vehicles in morning peak are bikes.
• In Central London 24% of all traffic are bikes during the morning peak; 16% acros the whole day.
• On Blackfriars, Waterloo and London bridges cyclists make up 42% of traffic and 15% of people, though they take up only 12% of road space
• By contrast: taxis on Oxford Street take up 37% of road space but only carry 1% of passengers!

As Andrew Gilligan says "These extraordinary figures disprove any claim that cycling is marginal and that investing in it is indulgent." I believe it's importnat to make that clear, especially to members of the general public that may not cycle themselves. In fact, I think Gilligan's approach of securing approval for his £1 billion cycle plan by stressing the benefits to those that don't cycle is extremely intelligent.

Cycling is important. Those that choose to travel by bike not only help the environment and reduce road congestion, they also work all manner of jobs and contribute significantly to London's (and Britain's) GDP.

This idea that only those that drive actually have jobs, and so to promote economic growth we need to build more roads, is absolutely crap, as Evening Standard's latest figures show.

These guys are clearly adding nothing to London's economy.... Photo from Standard article.

If we want London to grow economically we need to make its workforce safer. Therefore, since 24% of all vehicles during the morning peak are bikes, we logically need to make those that choose to cycle safer.

And yet cycling is still being designed out of London's roads by awful new schemes such as Westminster Council's proposals for the Bayswater area.

These plans are, frankly, atrocious. Cycle parking is being removed since it is 'clutter' (yes, 'clutter'!). Car parking spaces will be increased leading to more congestion, more fumes, more noise, more road traffic accidents, and more road traffic deaths.

Photo from PDF of Westminster's proposed 'improvements'.

You can see in the photo of the proposed 'improvements' for Queensway North a couple of things:

• No cycle lanes of any kind. This is simply idiotic. Plenty of space for segregated lanes in each direction on this Queensway.
• Cyclists positioned in a 'death zone' between opening car doors from stationary vehicles and oncoming taxis and private cars that are driving dangerously close to them. The Highway Code, by contrast, states motorists should "give cyclists at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car".

Notice a difference between this photo (courtesy of The Highway Code) and the last one?

Moreover, these plans are also bad economics. Westminster Council note that "Queensway is a busy shopping street at the heart of Bayswater." They want to improve its qualities as "a shopping and leisure destination". Yet, in their efforts to achieve this Westminster Council are pretending they're in the 1970s, lagging embarrassingly far behind New York City's Department for Transport that has long recognised the economic benefits that increased cycle traffic brings:

Photo courtesy NYC Department of Transportation. The figures speak for themselves.

Westminster Council may not be much bothered about achieving a 58% decrease in injuries to all street users. Perhaps they aren't... That's very sad if it's the case....

But, if they want to be "encouraging people to stay and use the streets shops and eateries" in Bayswater they might just take note of the 49% increase in retail sales. (Yes, 49%!)

What is shocking about these plans is not just that they demonstrate little or no concern for preventing traffic accidents and deaths, but they are also bad, bad economics.

Westminster Council have also tried to contextualise their improvements within the surrounding area, but again they are dangerously off-track.

Map from consultation document showing Bayswater and surrounding areas.

There are a few crucial bits of information left off this map:

• Portobello Market is a 5 minute cycle away.
• Later in 2013 the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme will be expanding to encompass the entirety of Portobello Market (it already covers Westbourne Grove and Paddington Station).
• Hyde Park, and particularly 'Broad Walk', a long, wide path located next to Queensway, accounts for a huge proportion of the total Boris Bike trips made every year, as this video shows:

Therefore, there might be a significant commercial advantage to be gained if a safe cycle network were created linking Portobello, Westbourne Grove, Paddington, Hyde Park, and of course, Bayswater.

But are Westminster at all interested in this? No. 

Are they even aware of the potentially enormous economic benefits to be had if tourists on Boris Bikes could be lured out of Hyde Park to spend money in Bayswater? No.

Are Westminster Council even considering that most token of gestures to make pedestrians and cyclists safer, something that the City of London recently wrote had "little or no disbenefit", a 20mph speed limit? No, no chance (at present...). 

Do they want their pedestrians and cyclists to be safer? Not if it slows down motor traffic...

We are left with: more car parking; more motor cars; more road traffic accidents and deaths.

That's all we're getting in Bayswater, despite the fact 24% of morning peak vehicles are now bicycles. Appalling.

But something can be done - if you take a similar view to these plans then please:

A) Fill in the consultation online: http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/environment/planning/majorprojects/queensway/

The feedback form includes a specific section "cycle parking and provision", so it's well worth filling in. Perhaps these plans can be improved on. I certainly hope so.

B) Write an email suggesting that cycle lanes and a 20mph zone (among other improvements for cyclists such as more cycle parking) could be very profitably integrated into the Bayswater plans to:

Councillor Edward Argar

Cabinet Member for City Management, Transport and the Environment

Westminster City Council

eargar@westminster.gov.uk

Since Councillor Argar is also Cabinet Member for 'the Environment' there should be an added incentive for him to embrace cycle and pedestrian safety by promoting cycling as an environmentally friendly form of travel...

Plenty of space on Queensway for proper segregated cycle lanes like this example from Montreal, Canada. Trouble is, Westminster won't build them... Image courtesy of StreetsBlog.org