Quick read: come along to York House on April 18th to find out the latest on cycling in the borough – we need your input!
The Cycling Liaison Group meets next week and everyone can come! This is your chance to ask the council about cycling and cycling facilities in your area.
There’a a lot on the agenda, so we’ve put together some notes, to show why you should come, and what you can find out …
Contraflow Report
Contraflows are about allowing cylists to travel both ways on a one way street, so that we can make journeys by bike easier, and potentially move cycling from some of the less attractive routes through the borough. We’re hoping to hear about which roads will be included in this proposal, and when.
Filtered Permeability
“Filtering” means filtering out one or more types of transport. Throughout the borough there are a number of roads whee bollards or pavements prevent you from driving all the way along a road – usually to prevent it being used as a rat run. We’d like to see more of this in the borough, and we are going to hear about proposals for this.
Cycling to school grants update
There’s some money around for encouraging cycling to school, and we’re going to find out where it is being spent, and how. Getting more families riding to school is a sure fire way of sorting out the hideous morning congestion in the borough, but we know people need to feel teir route is safe before they stop using a car. Our hope is that there’s a real plan for how to spend this money.
Cycle events this year
Normally the council supports Bikefest in the summer, but it isn’t happening this year because of over-reliance on volunteers. So we’re interested to know what else the borough has planned.
Heart of Twickenham / Village Plans
Village plans are a great place to talk about cycling, and about things that can be done in local areas to make it better. However, they invariably offer nothing, or just platitudes. We want proper active transport options – i.e. Walking and cycling – “baked in” to all these proposals. The recent ‘Heart of Twickenham’ plans are a case in point – despite a number of contributors asking about being able to cycle in the area, and being able to park a bicycle, the consultation documents seem able only to plan for lots of car parking.
Towpaths
The council approached us about towpaths a while ago – which towpaths to do? – and asked which towpaths we wanted them to look at, given limited funds. Hopefully this will be an update on what’s happening here.
Quietways / Quietway 2
We’ve had the consultation for quietway 1, and now it looks like we’re going to hear about another one – possibly this one.
Cycling Strategy
We’re likely to hear about any final changes to the cycling strategy, and when it might be adopted. Which is good, because it will need to tie in closely with …
Healthy Streets / Corridors Update
The corridots are the latest wheeze for having proper routes around the borough. You can see a potential map of them here. And now we know the council needs to set up a clean air strategy, and needs – by law – to actually think harder avbout active travel – we’re hoping that they can get themselves organised. That’s what this item will tell us …
Crossdeep Junction
We’re waiting with anticipation. This is a terrible ijunction for cycling, and a major barrier. Does the council have a new plan?
Richmond Cycling Campaign Items
We asked about a number of items, detailed below:
- Brompton docks. We’d like to hear more about these – schedule, finance, etc.
These are due to turn up in Twickenham, and wed like to understand the economics here: Especially as we think the station needs more bike parking. We like the idea, and support it, but it has come out of the blue a bit… - Roadworks signage. We want the council to prevent all use of ‘cyclists dismount’ signs in the borough. No roadworks should use these, and there should always be a cycling alternative. This is something we’ve raised before: The council should be instructing contractors to use the most up to date guidance here as it isn’t acceptable to just be putting up signage with little concern for how people will get around. (See here for some council info …)
- Tiger/walking and cycling zebra crossings. Can we have these everywhere? They’re now national guidance, so should be under consideration. See this article for bit of discussion.
- Richmond Strategic Cycle Network? We need to be planning for routes linking all Villages in the borough that can be made suitable for all 8-80 (and beyond!) The map in the Borough Cycling Strategy fails to identify sensible routes ( the A308 in Hampton is an extreme example of a route that cannot be made suitable but Cross Deep and King Street are also far from an acceptable standard.)
- As a related issue Fulwell Park link. Carole suggested raising this. It links Hampton (via Dean Rd) , Fulwell (via Burtons Rd) and Hanworth (via a cyclable bridge over the A316) . On the 2007 Cycling in Richmond leaflet is is marked as “Proposed” and a toucan crossing (of A305) was actually made.
- What happened regarding Water and Wharf lanes and surrounds in Twickenham. This was raised at a previous CLG and an email exchange followed. Cllr Loveland mentioned it at the start of the last meeting and suggested it had ‘been done’, without ever saying what had been done. Then there wasn’t any opportunity to ask further.
- A review of the Cyclehoop activity – we know some have gone up, and we need to understand better how to publicise these / how well they’re going.
- A single place where we can see and understand what is going on in the borough. We’d like one place where we can actually see all the plans for transport.
- Mortlake Brewery and St Mary’s. There’s no obvious indication that anyone thinks much about cycling to and from these places – for Mortlake, the only real change I can see is the entry onto Chalkers Corner being made more grim and traffic-choked than it already is.