European Cycling: London

[After a long absence, I got the chance to visit Europe again. Having become a cycling advocate in NZ in the meantime, I was keen to look closer at what I had previously taken for granted. In this series, I will talk about cycling in four cities I visited – Berlin, Warsaw, Paris and London.]

LONDON

First impressions: SOME cycleways? Check – SOME cyclists? Check. SOME elements of a “cycle city”? Check… Mmmmh…
.
My first impression of cycling in central London (our hotel was right at the eastern edge of the “City of London”, close to Tower Bridge) was that cycling here was limited, and yet easier than in other places. On one hand there didn’t seem to be many cyclists around, but on the other hand the roads and drivers seemed a bit more controlled, more welcoming, to anyone who decided to chose a bike.
.
Mind you that I had just come Paris’ much more… anarchistic… traffic environment, and that my first impressions were during a weekend – so my experience was obviously rather subjective and would likely not be shared by the typical London cyclist.
.
Perceived mode share: Cyclists are rare, maybe 3% or less (Auckland around 1-2%)
.
Cycling numbers in London were hard to judge, partly because a big part of our time there was during a weekend, and I didn’t get much of a chance to see London during the rush hours (when numbers of bicycles seemed to be a bit higher).
.
Some quick internet research indicates that London had 2% cycle mode share in 2008, which apparently already represented a doubling of their numbers during the last decade. Some more recent works for cyclists also gave massive boosts to the numbers on those routes (over 80% in a single year on one new “cycle superhighway” route – see further below) – showing that “build it and they will come” works well in London.
.
.
Typical cyclists (cycle style): Everyday folks
.
I would be hard-pressed to say whether London cyclists tend to any particular style – there was the occasional guy in a suit cycling to a meeting, but there were also a lot more casual folks, which might have been anything from tourists enjoying the town on the new Barclays hire bikes, or locals just riding their clunker across town.
.
Lycra-clad cyclists were very much absent from the centre of London, and I didn’t see any big numbers of cycle couriers either – but that was probably just because I didn’t spend the working hours in the finance areas…
.
Looking back on the 4 articles and 4 cities I wrote about, I realise that this section was probably the hardest to write something interesting for – and not just because as an engineer, I prefer to concentrate on more tangible things, rather than try and stop random people for a chat on the cycleway 😉 But with only a limited time in a city, it’s much easier to get a handle on my favourite cycling topic, being…
.
Cycle infrastructure: Cycle infrastructure is rare in London – but sometimes quite high quality
.
London still is very sparing with cycle infrastructure – unlike Paris, which really went all-out in building cycleways and cycle lanes. In London, you have the occasional bit of painted lane (see second article photo), but it’s often very unremarkable, and key areas – for example along the River Thames closer to the city centre – hardly provide for cyclists at all (the gentleman in the very first photo of this post is in fact using a “cyclists prohibited” section of the embankment…).
.
The exception is much further out from the city, where pleasant shared paths along the riverside (see photo above) offer themselves to a more suburban and recreational type of ride. In the city itself, there seem to be a few key links, and that’s it.
.
Admittedly, retrofitting something like a high-quality cycleway into one of the densest and most historical city cores of Europe is always going to be a nightmare – the French manage well on the infrastructure side, but then their streets and boulevards tend to be much, much wider.
.
Despite this relative dearth of cycleways and lanes, one of the pleasures of riding in London is trying out the new cycle superhighways that were opened recently with big fanfare. I managed to free up some hours in between shopping and visiting old friends and got to ride on CS3. The route from Barking to Tower Gateway existed in part before the initiative, but has been tweaked and upgraded some more, and received the signature blue paint that identifies London’s new key cycle routes.
.
While I understand that CS3 will not necessarily be representative of all the 12 superhighways that are planned, much of it was nicely separated from vehicle traffic via a standard kerb – though separation from pedestrians was often just via a nominal kerb or markings. Still better than in Auckland, where our off-road cycleways are all shared with pedestrians (which I think may start to limit us as we get more numbers riding, and more cycleways through busier areas).
.
The lack of sharing with pedestrians comes at a cost however, because in many locations, the London cycleways narrow for a while – sometimes to barely more than 2m. This makes two-way traffic during peak hours a bit more problematic, as faster riders have difficulty overtaking. Some existing cyclists have complained that under those circumstances they prefer riding on-road, at their faster pace – especially when you also have to pay extra attention to the risk of pedestrians wandering onto your route.
.
It comes down to one of the key decisions of cycle design – what group do you build your infrastructure for: Those who are already riding, or those who aren’t? I think for a cycle city, you need to aim for the “everybodies” who just won’t ride on-road under the existing circumstances – they will give you the numbers, and the political clout, to eventually build more and better infrastructure. The existing cyclists are your starting point, not your destination – give them the bragging rights of being able to say *I* have been cycling since…” and move on 😉
.
One of the joys of riding the route was the fact that despite the only separation from motor vehicles being a standard kerb, nobody in London seemed to consider the cycleway as free parking! In Paris – used to much harsher separation using bollards and high kerbs – Cycle Superhighway 3 would have been too much of an irresistible temptation to motorists to work. Love the French (and having spent a good chunk of my life in a French family, I know them pretty well), but the Brits win hands down on this one!
.
So will the Cycle Superhighways change London cycling for real? I think so – if they actually build the rest of the 12 routes (I understand four are planned to be completed next year) then this should provide enough riders to kickstart an ongoing virtuous cycle.
.
Public bike hire system: It’s nothing new – but needs not be ashamed of that fact
.
Paris pioneered it, London copied it. Because, really, the “Boris Bikes”, in spirit and practical use, feel pretty much the same as the French Velib. Which works fine.
.
Apparently they are also the only self-funding project in Transport for London’s responsibility – i.e. that does not need any subsidy beyond user charges (which surprised me, seeing that over the first six years, each bike will cost over 17,000 pounds…). In fact, there’s rumours that the actual income / cost ratio may not be so great after all, though this London local article is otherwise quite glowing on the scheme’s first two years.
.
Some of that cost is sponsored by the Barclays Bank by the way – but the naming sponsor actually put up only around a fifth of the total cost (seeing that a month ago they got fined over 290 million pounds for illegally fixing lending rates, they also probably aren’t feeling the civic spirit much at the moment 😉
.
While not quite as everpresent in the London environment as their French counterpart (they have “only” 8,000 bikes and 570 docking stations), the Boris Bikes have become a nice addition to the city’s transport options.
.
Though at the end of my first trip, I immediately hit the snag of not having any empty slot at the rental station to return my bike to! Bummer – OF COURSE people all ride into town in the morning… At least the lending station nicely pointed me to the nearest option with remaining slots – and I hear that smartphone apps that tell you the remaining free locations are the future… still, a higher “slots to bikes” ratio would be nice to keep the system flexible.

The verdict: Surgical improvement – better than widespread scattering?
.
The two key improvements for cycling in London during recent years – cycle superhighways and a public bike hire system – are both high-profile, high-cost improvements that provide a relatively targeted benefit. They (presumably) come at the cost of less attention to other cycling initiatives and projects, because Britain is feeling the money squeeze like most countries the world over, right now. So is this the right way to go?
.
Like Auckland, London’s starting point is a cycling-hostile environment, “closed” to normal people who just don’t want to dice with (perceived) death risk every day. Such large “flagship projects” therefore offer a way to weaken those preconceived notions, to break  up the “cycling is too dangerous” and “cycling is a subculture thing” notions. Traffic calming and smaller cycleway improvements can also do that, but risk doing so more slowly, being less noticeable to the public.
.
It’s obvious that improvement via big-ticket projects could stall out at some point – with cycling having become more common, but remaining straight-jacketed into a small number of routes and places. Neither Auckland nor London has yet started the next paradigm change after that, the step from a “city with cycling” to a “cycle city” where bikes are welcome almost everywhere – but I feel that a network of key high-quality cycleways (and a public bike hire system) will make it easier to take that step, not harder.
.
After all, building lots of motorways didn’t exactly limit the spread of cars in Auckland – instead, cars ended up everywhere, including every last quiet cul-de-sac. Cycling highways can do the same for cycling, becoming the backbones and the start of a new city.
.

Join us

Bike Auckland is the non-profit organisation working to improve things for people on bikes. We’re a people-powered movement for a better region. We speak up for you – and the more of us there are, the stronger our voice!

Suggest a new ride