Month: September 2014

Notes from September Meeting

Monthly Meeting 29.09.14

We welcomed new member Thom Sanders who has recently moved to Newham from Camden.

E-W Superhighway & CS2 Bow-Aldgate upgrade

We briefly discussed the proposals and the plans were circulated. Everyone was asked to at least support the principle of the proposals for the E-W Superhighway even if they didn’t have time to comment on them in detail, due to the rather vocal opposition from some businesses (in particular the Canary Wharf group).

Ken mentioned that he knew one of the people responsible for organising the campaign for the Canary Wharf group and has promised to discuss it with him. Much of the concern from them is in connection with increased travel time for people from Heathrow (this particularly relates to the Embankment section of the route).

Bill suggested that there needed to be a link between CS2 & CS3 this is something that could be commented on in the proposals.

Trustee Elections

We discussed the issue of Tony Martin (right wing activist) standing for election to the Board of Trustees. Ken gave some further information on him as he has come across him in the past.
LCC currently have no ability to prevent him from standing and are passing a Special Resolution at the AGM so that this cannot happen in the future.

Aldgate-Hainault Quietway

We discussed that Richard Wadey had not reported back on this following on from last month’s meeting. Sustrans have asked us to have input on the section of the route that comes through Newham, but we have not yet seen confirmed plans or had the chance to give any feedback.
We need to see details on how the route will be signed, how junctions will be dealt with (in particular Chobham Road/Gurney Road), what kind of speed bumps will be used on Capel Road in place of what is currently there etc etc.

Olawale said that local groups need to be actively campaigning for quietways and need to be prepared for opposition. (We need the full information in order to be able to prepare for this). LCC head office can provide support. We also discussed getting the support from some of the local councillors for the wards that the route passes through. The Quietway will provide a route for less confident and new cyclists, as well as families.

We agreed to be proactive on this item and to push for the info from Sustrans/Tfl.

Campaigner Awards

LCC have been chasing local groups for nominations for the Campaigner Awards at the AGM.
It was agreed that we should put our Tour de France ride forward for the ‘Best Ride’ category.

Newham Recorder

Last week Kerena was contacted by the Newham Recorder to comment on the removal of the section of CS2 on the Stratford Gyratory. This made the front page of the Recorder!
This week they have asked for comments on the proposals to change the Gyratory from a one way system to a 2-way road. We have not yet seen the plans for this (which Richard told us at the last meeting were only just being submitted for funding). A brief comment will be given to the paper stating that we have not seen the plans but are generally supportive as long as the proposals meet appropriate standards.

Communications

There was a question about communication/emails. Arnold & Kerena are attending a tutorial at the LCC office on the 8th October on the ‘Engaging Networks’ tool, which will enable us to tailor emails to different sections of the mailing list.

Thom offered help with website (his background is web development).

Leaway etc

Olawale & Bill had attended a meeting with Richard Wadey and TfL regarding the Leaway route, particularly the difficult sections around Silvertown etc. This is one of the strategic North-South routes through Newham. The budget is small, so some thought needs to be given as to whether it is more important to get the junctions right or improve the actual tracks. The consensus was that it was better to focus on the junctions.
The question was raised about routes for children to ride to school. The New City School route developed by Liz with Richard Wadey was discussed. We have not heard anything about this route recently, but it was agreed that this should be a key route as it takes in a large number of schools. We also came back to the 20mph limit and how this links with safer school routes etc.
There was some general discussion about the ward audits, contraflows on one-way streets etc. Bill suggested that these contraflows naturally create ‘quietways’.

LCC Trustee Elections

Any LCC members planning on voting in the Board Trustee elections may want to do a bit of additional research into Tony Martin. It has come to our attention that he is an extreme right wing activist (he has confirmed he is @tonyleemartin on Twitter).

Changes to CS2 at Stratford Broadway

Many of you, like me, will use CS2 on a daily basis to get to work. Over the past few months, there have been a ridiculous number of changes to the start of CS2 at Stratford Broadway, coming full circle back to exactly where we started.  This just isn’t acceptable.  Not only is it hugely dangerous to keep changing the road layout so that no road user has any idea what they’re doing, but the cost of all these changes must be incredible.

Arnold has already emailed Councillors Crawford & Christie and submitted a Freedom of Information request, but it may be that this is something that we really want to push as a group. Please let us have your thoughts by commenting below.

Here are some photos documenting the changes as well as a short video.

CS2 1 Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 17.15.09 CS2 2 CS2 3

 

East-West & North-South Cycle Superhighways

The consultation for both the East-West and North-South Cycle Superhighways are out.  The plans look promising but as always need input from people using the routes.

East-West: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/eastwest

North-South: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/northsouth

Also, Danny at Cyclists in the City has written a good piece on the various consultations and plans going around:

https://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/if-you-want-londons-largest-ever.html

There’s also a good article on the Telegraph website:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/road-safety/11072664/Britains-town-centre-roads-need-more-shared-spaces-expert-says.html

 

Readout from meeting of 1 September

A lot to report:

  • We provided our views on Stratford High Street to Atkins.
  • We decided the committee would pursue a meeting with Councillor Christie.
  • We will take up communication training with a view to creating more targeted communications.
  • East London Hubub rides will be circulated on the Yahoo group.
  • Richard provided a general upbeat update on cycling developments. (1) Consultation has opened on the e-w and n-s Superhighways through Central London; (2) Aldgate to Bow CS2 improvements will go out to consultation , but are likely to include proper protection from left hooks and  (over 30%) segregation.  We need to look out a press for left hook protection in Stratford High St. This has opened today – see  https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/eastwest and https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/northsouth (3) This week Newham will be submitting an application for funding to remove the Stratford Gyratory, for which the ground has been prepared. (4) Proposals are moving forward for remedial improvements to Westfield Avenue in the Olympic Park, to be paid for by the developers of the International Quarter (5) Newham have employed a further person to deal with cycle projects. (6)The cycle permeability project is progressing to the mapping stage and will be incorporated into a draft cycle strategy for the borough which is being written at the moment. (7) the Lea Valley route will also link Canning Town to the Excel Centre/Cablecars via Sivlertown Way.  This links to our ward ask for South Canning Town. (8) 200k has been obtained to improve Gallions roundabout. (9) Newham almost doubled its cycle training delivery; it   is sending all its drivers on  serious cycle awareness training; and its engineers are getting LCDS (London Cycle Design standards) training . (9) A cycle parking audit has almost been completed picking up on historic suggestions for cycle parking, and 25K is available to spend on cycle parking and decluttering; 14 stands have recently been installed..
  • Richard exposed the Sustrans proposals for the Aldgate to Hainault quietway route on which immediate comments were offered.  We will carry out a formal consultation exercise separately.
  • We decided to pursue a response to the river crossings consultation:  https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/river-crossings. A ferry at Gallions Reach to Thamemead will reduce traffic on local roads in the south of the borough and create a slight increase on the A406 and a feeder road to it, and bring environmental benefits over upgrading the existing Woolwich Ferry.  My suggestion is to oppose any new  bridges –  which will  bring traffic too much traffic into the borough bearing in mind the prooposed Silvertown tunnel.   The Gallions Reach ferry appears the most beneficial to cyclists followed by the Woolwich ferry.  Comments to me by close 8th September  for drafting the response and submitting it by 12th September.
Not surprisingly after all this there was not time to look at the Space for Cycling follow up which we will do at our next meeting on 29 September.
See separate posting for forthcoming rides.
Arnold