Open Letter to Hackney Cycling Campaign

Subject: Open Letter to Hackney Cycling Campaign

From: Mohammed Ahmed

Date: 17 Feb 2016

Dear Hackney Cycling Campaign Committee

We are a group of people who ride bikes in Hackney, who have come together with a common goal of seeing protected space for cycling on main roads and major junctions in Hackney. While acknowledging the previous successes of HCC, including 20mph limits, modal filtering and park access, we are convinced that without separation from motor vehicles on main roads and at junctions,we will never see mass cycling in Hackney, including children, the elderly and those with disabilities.

Several of us have actively avoided joining LCC and HCC due to the local group’s well-known opposition to protected cycle lanes. In addition, some of us have come close to resigning LCC membership due to this, and others have actually done so.

We would like to seek urgent clarification about whether Hackney Cycling Campaign supports the LCC 2013 AGM motion 3:

LCC resolves:

1. We believe ‘safe and inviting’ cycling environments do not compel cyclists to share space with high speed or high volume motor traffic.

2. Cyclists should not be expected to share space with motor vehicles moving above 20mph.

3. If cyclists will share space with motor traffic, volumes must be low. On the core cycle route network this should not exceed the Dutch maximum for main cycle routes, 2,000 Passenger Car Units per day.

4. In assessing schemes where current motor traffic speeds or volumes are too high we will expect to see either (i) specific measures to reduce both motor traffic volumes and speeds to levels acceptable for sharing or (ii) high-quality protected cycle infrastructure.

5. Where schemes are inadequate, and depending on context (e.g. residential streets vs. main roads) we will push for high-quality protected cycle infrastructure and/or measures to reduce both motor traffic volumes and speeds to levels acceptable for sharing.

Also motion 5 from 2013:

This motion commits LCC to campaign for a cycle network with facilities that are suitable for every type of cyclist who might want to use them, from the fastest commuter to the newest cyclist or child.

Specifically, we are concerned that the “Vision for Cycling in Hackney” documents contain no mention of segregation by space or time on any of the main roads or junctions in Hackney, and that the HCC proposals for Old St likewise have no protection for cycling. In addition we would like to see HCC strongly campaigning for a segregated CS1 to run down the A10. Bus lanes do not constitute cycling provision: more cyclists are killed or seriously injured by buses than they are by lorries in London [6 Dec – please see comments below]. The return of one-way systems of main roads to two-way does not constitute cycling provision per se; protected space should be the aim in all circumstances.

We are also concerned about HCC’s active rejection and disparagement of what is, in our opinion, high-quality protected space for cycling, e.g. Waterden Road in the Olympic Park, in this extract from Hackney Cycling Campaign’s Vision for Cycling in Hackney.

“The ‘new’ Waterden Road… is a poorly-constructed street with poor-quality cycle-specific provision alongside and a standard carriageway layout of 3.5m wide lanes which should have no place in Hackney….. Ideally, the street would at some point in the future be upgraded to a shareable width”

We acknowledge that we are all working towards a common goal of increasing cycling in Hackney. To achieve this, we believe Hackney Cycling Campaign must support LCC policy and respond to the wishes of current and future cyclists in the borough for safe, continuous, segregated cycle routes.

Sincerely
Hackney People on Bikes
@HackneyPOB

Mohammed Ahmed, E3

Ross Alexander, N15

David Altheer, E8

Dave Anthony, BR3

Giles Borg, E5

Gemma Champ, N4

Juliet Chard, N16

Ewan Crallan, E5

Alastair Dunn

Davina Ebikeme, E5

Kevin Fallon, E17