As part of our campaign towards the local elections next year in May, we are asking everyone to take some time to look at the areas of London they know and how they might change them to make them and make cycling more pleasant.

There are six key themes or questions we’d ask you to think about:

• Is there a main road or major junction that needs protected lanes?
• Do your local schools have safe cycling routes for children?
• Would your neighbourhood benefit from a 20mph speed limit?
• Is your residential street used as a rat-run by motorists?
• Is riding through your local town centre a total nightmare?
• Does your local park or green space need more cycle paths?

We have a survey for you to complete to let us know where you would like to see changes. We will then collate these responses and through a meeting likely in January but perhaps February we will focus in on particular issues and combine your responses to create our local demands. These will be put to local candidates throughout London next year.

Obviously we would like people to focus on Hammersmith and Fulham, but most people’s experience will range over more than just this borough. Choose where you feel is most important. It doesn’t matter if you cycle a lot, barely at all or never – what we want is to know what concerns you.

There is an overview of the themes available for all of London which you may find useful. To give some local context, here’s a quick overview of the status of Hammersmith and Fulham on each of the themes, these may help you if you aren’t sure of the kind of things each theme or question is thinking of.

Is there a main road or major junction that needs protected lanes?

There is some protected space on King Street for the contraflow cycle lane, and there are the (shared) paths inside Shepherd’s Bush Green. By protected we mean a lane separated such that no mishap might easily lead to conflict with motor vehicles, usually protected by a kerb or other separation. No major road in the borough currently has protected space on it as part of a major through route. As to major junctions, the gyratories at Shepherd’s Bush Green and Hammersmith Broadway loom large, but even a T-junction can be dangerous with the wrong design.

Do your local schools have safe cycling routes for children?

Given that the main roads haven’t been dealt with as above, this is a problem. The council has placed a bid for a project to link 7 schools around Wormholt Park. This is relatively cheap (£180,000) but could be successful and could be repeated. We have written up details of it in our overview of the funding bid for next year. 

Would your neighbourhood benefit from a 20mph speed limit?

Note that 20mph limits are distinct from zones. A limit requires no specific traffic calming to self-enforce it, but rather signage and awareness. Police are moving towards enforcing 20mph zones. There is a map of 20mph areas in the borough on the council website which is mostly up to date, which shows school locations.

Is your residential street used as a rat-run by motorists?

There are a limited number of locations in the borough where restrictions have been used to reduce through traffic. There are many locations such as Trussley Road where narrow quieter streets remain used as through routes which can even totally block the road for cycling.

Is riding through your local town centre a total nightmare?

We have three town centres in the borough – Fulham, Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush but there are many smaller high-streets and continuous lines of shops and commercial development. This is different from thinking about main roads as we are also thinking of things that make destinations work – parking for example. Measures to make the town centre more pleasant most certainly would not just be for cyclists so also think of issues for walking around once you’ve parked. Although it is a shopping centre, making Westfield permeable to cyclists seems a reasonable ask here as well.

Does your local park or green space need more cycle paths?

Here the borough scores quite well, with shared use paths permitted in most parks. However, if there is a green space where either an extra route might make it more useful for training youngsters, or if a simple link could join up a longer route into a network.

The survey is live until midnight on Thursday December 12th, and if you need extra motivation you might win a bike.

Please use the survey to list your demands, but do feel free to ask us questions in the comments below.