Category Archives: News

september 2020 newsletter

The Sands End Low Traffic Neighbourhood continues to draw controversy with many residents from the streets on the opposite side of Wandsworth Bridge Road complaining that it is responsible for increased traffic in their streets and calling for it to be abandoned so traffic can “flow”.

Greg Hands MP and Tony Devenish GLA Member have again taken to campaigning with the local Conservatives, claiming it is a failure and should be scrapped. They are whipping up public opinion in direct opposition to their own party and government’s position on Active Travel.

Please click here to write in to support Low Traffic Neighbourhoods 

See a letter signed by ourselves among 134 organisations supporting Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

LCC guidance on supporting LTNs https://www.lcc.org.uk/pages/beat-the-bikelash

Petition from the climate charity Possible to get SUV adverts banned as harmful to the climate, please sign! https://e-activist.com/page/66459/petition/1

SCHOOL STREETS

As schools reopen the council has announced measures to enable safer journeys to school and advises us they are working on School Streets around 13 local schools. School Streets restrict traffic from the immediate vicinity of schools, making them safer for children to get to and discouraging car parking and trips. It is hoped they will encourage active journeys to schools and are widely supported by children and many parents.

BIKE RIDES

Our next monthly Leisurely Ride is on Sunday 20 September 2020, 10am from Pekoe Mellow Tea House, 22 Aldensley Rd, Hammersmith W6 0DH.

We will have a pick up from outside the Empress Building, Lillie Road, Fulham SW6 1TR. It is next to Pedal Back Cafe, 22 Lillie Road.

We have had some success with shorter easy rides for families, elders and the less confident. These have been on Sundays at 10am starting from the Empress Building. If you would like to join one of these rides please notify us via the WhatsApp group.

Palace to Palace 2020

The physical event has been cancelled for this year but you are encouraged to take part in the virtual event, a DIY version.

WORLD’S BIGGEST BIKE RIDE 12 SEPTEMBER 2020

Cycling UK is giving everyone a great reason to get out on their bikes, show support for a new era of transport and remind us all how awesome cycling is.

When we look around the globe at the effect of the pandemic, the world is experiencing the biggest bike ride in years: many people who haven’t cycled before, or for many years, are enjoying getting in the saddle.

By joining the World’s Biggest Bike Ride on Saturday 12 September, together we can get behind this exciting step change for cycling and realise the benefits for our health and for the future.

August 2020 newsletter

We, together with a host of other organisations, have written an Open Letter asking for Hammersmith Bridge to be opened for cycling while no works are going on and for its future to be designated car free. 

The letter is delivered to Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport; Chris Heaton-Harris, Transport Minister; Stephen Cowan, Leader of the Council; Heidi Alexander, Deputy Mayor for Transport and Will Norman, TfL Walking and Cycling Commissioner. 

READ THE LETTER HERE

We rode from Hammersmith Bridge to the Council offices at 8.30 on Monday to hand deliver the letter. It was received on the council’s behalf by Paul Henry, himself a cycling commuter. 

A petition has been started to ask for the bridge to be opened to cycling. Please click here to support

Last month we rode to Crane Park. Our next ride is on Sunday 16 August 2020. Departure is from Pekoe Mellow Tea House, 22 Aldensley Road Hammersmith W6 0DH from 10am with a pick up in Fulham from outside Pedal Back Café, 24 Lillie Road SW6 1TS at 9.30am. If joining from Fulham text 07878327353 on let us know on the WhatsApp group. 

Death On The Streets by Robert Davis, Chair RDRF

Introducing: Road Danger Reduction Forum  

This month we introduce the Road Danger Reduction Forum. Please see their page to understand this vital resource body.  Click on the link above or the book picture.

Mums for Lungs is running a webinar on (emergency) School Streets in 3 weeks targeted at parents who are getting a School Street at their school in direct response to corona 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mums-for-lungs-school-streets-webinar-registration-115843052689?aff=Email

If you cycle in Richmond Park or you’re fond of walking there – and if you’re on Twitter or Facebook – then please give @TheRoyalParks (Twitter) and https://www.facebook.com/RichmondParkLondon lots of love because they’re under sustained pressure to reopen for through traffic. the current arrangement, with car parks next to the Roehampton, Sheen, Richmond and Kingston gates back open, but roads closed to cars beyond, works. It allows people with reduced mobility access to the park but keeps the roads largely car-free, safe and clean. “Last weekend, I saw more people milling around, cycling, walking, roller skating and so forth in the park than I think I’ve ever seen. Local residents… also seem really happy with the current arrangement.” 

“No money for Hammersmith Bridge in £1.3bn ‘shovel-ready’ fund” 

Petition from the climate charity Possible to get SUV adverts banned as harmful to the climate, please sign! https://actions.wearepossible.org/a/petition-ban-polluting-suv-advertising 

We’ll Build Thousands Of Miles Of Protected Cycleways, Pledges Boris Johnson  

Residents to get new decision-making powers in England cycling ‘revolution’  Measures include watchdog to ensure quality and safety of walking and cycling routes  

The Moffitt family cycled from London to Brighton to raise money for the London Cycling Campaign (since the annual London to Amsterdam ride is cancelled this year). Please support and donate via their Just Giving page.

Union Canal works closure 

We worked with London Cables, Martin Barratt of TfL and Ealing and Brent Cycling to look at options to the closure of sections of the canal towpath and cycling route while work is underway to renew cables by the National Grid. In order to avoid lengthy detours, we looked at options that could include a short ferry stretch. We are also asking them to include maintenance as part of the works. See observations written by Peter Mynors of Ealing CC  here

Thames Path cycling 

We are looking for clarification on the position as confusion seems to be arising due to old guidance and posters and confusion over the current state of restrictions. 

Why the A315 is the best route for CS9

There’s been some talk about routing CS9 down the A4 instead of Chiswick High Road and King Street (aka the A315). Fans of this idea have touted it as a perfect pain-free solution, given the existence of a cycle track of sorts on it (in reality, legalised cycling on the pavement), and its distance from residential areas. But there are downsides to this route that its proponents haven’t mentioned. We really wish people pushing the A4 route were willing to look into the details. We also think the local political parties who have been advocating the A4 for CS9 without any consideration of the issues it raises, especially to the residents who would be most directly affected, have been particularly negligent in this regard.

Let’s look at the four big reasons why the A315 is the best route, and the things that proponents of the A4 route don’t want you to hear.

1. A significant majority of people prefer the A315

Firstly, look at the number of people cycling down the A4 as opposed to the A315. Department for Transport traffic counts show between three to six times more people cycling along the A315 compared to the A4.

Source: https://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/
People who cycle have already voted for their choice of route. Protected cycle infrastructure along the A315 is therefore a considerably better investment in terms of the number of people who will use the route.
To emphasise this, the TfL consultation showed 60% support for the A315 route.

Advocates for alternative routes need to show evidence they are better used than the A315, and are supported by the public.

2. Because cyclist and pedestrian safety along the A315 needs to be improved

The A315 has a poor record for pedestrian and cyclist safety and has been claimed to the “fourth most dangerous road in Britain” based upon collisions per distance travelled. The collision rate along Chiswick High Rd and King St is representative of the overall road. Each star represents a collision involving a cycle or pedestrian between 2005 and 2016. It’s not pretty.


Source: https://bikedata.cyclestreets.net/#17/51.49257/-0.25328/opencyclemap

Advocates for alternative routes need to explain their proposals to improve cyclist and pedestrian safety along the A315.

3. Because it will be used for ALL types of journeys

Transport for London research has identified 8.17 million daily trips made by motorised modes that could be cycled. Of these, 6.47 million trips could be cycled by most people in less than 20 minutes.
Over half (53%) of potentially cyclable trips are for shopping and leisure while 17% are for commuting.
Even for current cycling trips in London, over half (51%) are for shopping and leisure while 28% are for commuting. That demonstrates huge potential for increased cycling in London.


Cycle superhighways being “only for commuters” is a myth. To be used by the maximum number of people, the routes must cater for people using them for shopping and leisure purposes as well as going to work. That means the routes must go through the main town centres of Hammersmith, Chiswick, Brentford and Hounslow and not bypass them, as a route along the A4 would do.
Like any mode of transport, the purpose of people using the route will change by time of day and day of week. At 8am on a weekday, CS9 will have mainly people going to work. During other times however, it will be people going shopping or visiting the other amenities along the route.
There is substantial evidence that cycling improves the local economy. Research on London shopping streets has found people coming by car visit less often and spend less per month than people using other modes of transport. We understand the concerns of businesses to any possible downsides, but the it is wrong to claim that these concerns confirm a loss in trade will occur, when in fact quite the opposite will most likely occur if past schemes are any guide.

Advocates for alternative routes need to show why they would be used for people shopping and visiting other amenities.

4. Because the people who are proposing the A4 don’t understand the problems it would cause

Now for the elephant in the room. Invariably we find that people proposing the A4 have done no investigation into what would be required to turn it into a proper cycle route rather than the current situation, which is cycling on a pavement shared with pedestrians.
With the A4 option, CS9 would either be two segregated tracks on either side of the A4, or a two-way segregated track on one side. On the north side, the subway tunnels produce pinch points, leaving only room for one lane of CS9. That would require removing pedestrian access from one direction to the subways. On the south side there are also pinch points, leaving room for only a single lane of CS9, for example between Sutton Court Road and Eastbourne Road, in this case with complete loss of the pedestrian access. Therefore CS9 would have to be one lane on each side the A4, and it would require losing portions of pedestrian access along both sides.
If we want a dedicated cycleway and not just the current shared use provision, this would also require closing down pedestrian access to the existing tunnels, removing parking in front of people’s homes on the A4, compulsory purchase of strips of front gardens and cutting down scores of trees, like the current row of approximately 68 trees in the Chiswick section of the A4.
• What would you do here, where there’s not space to put in CS9 and keep any pavement for pedestrians?
• Maybe there’s more room on the south side?
• And after cutting off chunks of pedestrian access to make the space for CS9, you then have to start on the trees, and then finish with the parking!
We certainly don’t think that TfL would be up for rejigging the A4 a few feet first one way and then the other to allow CS9 to snake around the subway entrances, trees and and parking, and it actually gets more challenging towards Hammersmith with several subways built right up to the side of the road.
However, there are residential properties on the A4 which require access, thus making it impossible to take any more pavement space. So now a lane of the A4 is required, displacing traffic to Chiswick High Road and King Street. If we’re going to build a “proper superhighway” along the A4, closing down a lane would lead to considerable traffic displacement to the High Road. Not great for anyone. The A4 carries six times the traffic of the High Road (90,000 vehicles per day vs. 15,000 on the A315), so even if only 10% were displaced from a one third cut in capacity for a lane closure, that would add more than 50% to the traffic along the High Road.
As they say, where there’s a will there’s a way. Just maybe not in this case, hopefully.

People proposing the A4 have different motivations for doing so. It is the most convenient route for some people, and they would like to see the cycling facilities improved there, as do we. For others, proposing the A4 seems to be a coded way of saying “get those cyclists away from me”, and others may genuinely think it is a better solution but without actually having to look the detail. Whatever their motivations, advocates of the A4 route really need to provide more than the most basic of evidence for why their proposal is the better option, rather than relying on guesswork and gut feelings for their case.

In conclusion, we see no other route but to place CS9 along the route that has received clear majority backing in the consultation. With the growth of cycling as a mode of everyday transport in London, doing nothing is not an option, and although it’s fine to suggest alternatives, we need to hear clear, evidence-based reasoning for these options.

20mph

LBHF are conducting a consultation on a 20mph speed limit in the Borough.  The main question is will it extend to most main roads or not, The cluster map below shows the location of cyclist fatalities and seriously injured from 2005 until recently.

clusterMapLBHF

When we combine the Pedestrian and Cyclist casualties the  results show a similar cluster around main roads, where people are going about there business. The cluster map below shows casualties from 2005 to 2014 from the police’s STATS19 data

HandF_Ped_CylistsCasualties500

The LBHF consultation is live until 31 July 2015. Whether you are a pedestrian or cyclist or motorist we urge you to make all main roads 20mph to produce a civilised Borough. Each household should receive a printed version of the questionnaire in the post.

But to make sure further Information and an online version of the questionnaire can be found here:

http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/directory/news/20mph_consultation.asp

Please go there and fill in the questionnaire now. Say YES to the first question.

Ride London 2017

Prudential Ride London is the Mayor of London festival of cycling that will take place on July 29th and 30th

On Saturday 29 July 2017 we will be leading feeder rides to and from the Central London FREECYCLE. The ride will leave from Brook Green in the Morning. Join us for a spectacular day and make lots of new friends.

We will be meeting on Brook Green by the corner of Dunsany Road. Meeting from 10am for a 10.30am departure.

The ride Leader will be John Griffiths.  truefeelings@gmail.com

07789 095 748

 

 

 

Our Nitrogen Dioxide Project

OUR POLLUTION TESTS – JOINT PROJECT WITH CLIENT EARTH

Alex Ingram has uploaded an ITV News piece on our work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntk3hkEQKEA
Download Summary Report  and Detailed Results as PDFs

 Summary report  at —  http://hfcyclists.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NO2_hfcyclists_ClientEarth_Report.pdf

Detailed Results and analysis Download at  http://hfcyclists.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NO2_hfcyclists_ClientEarth_results.pdf

 

NO2graphic

OUR PROJECT

Nitrogen dioxide is a noxious gas given out by petrol and diesel engines, but particularly by diesel engines. It aggravates asthma and leads to many early deaths.

DSCF3482

Andrea Lee on left with Paul Saunderson and Susie Gretz

On 4 February four members of hfcyclists, joined by Andrea Lee from Client Earth set off to place 33 small NO2 detection tubes around Hammersmith Gyratory and Shepherds Bush Green. They were collected and replaced on 4 March, and the fresh tubes will be collected a month later. We hope to get the results sometime in April.

DSCF3489crop

John Griffiths, Chair of hfcyclists, placing an NO2 tube

London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham measures NO2 / pollution in a few locations around the Borough, but at a height of 3m. Our tests are to show if NO2 pollution levels are higher in places where the NO2 may be concentrated because of the local geometry and prevailing winds. We also want to see if the levels are  higher at breathing height and push-chair height.

We hope to use the results to inform and influence those making traffic decisions at Hammersmith Gyratory and Shepherds Bush Green. If the results turn out to be of general interest we will consider how to broadcast them more widely.

A LITTLE MORE DETAIL

Several tubes will be used at each site, so there are not 30 separate sites. We are looking at places where there are a lot of people crowded together with a lot of traffic. The local geometry and prevailing winds can concentrate the pollution in certain areas.

HamBwyDots

 

 

 

Because of the potential for interference when tubes are placed at a lower height LBHF only place tubes at a height of 3m. Pollution levels lower down and closer to the source are expected to be higher, but we do not know by how much. We will be measuring at two heights, 3.0m and 2.25m at the same location. We hope that by extrapolating, this will give us an indication of the NO2 levels at 1.5m,  approximately breathing height.

DSCF3472crop

An NO2 monitoring tube in situ

At a couple of places where we do not expect any interference to the tubes we will be measuring at heights of 3.0m, 2,25m, 1.5m and 0.5m. This may give us an indication as to whether children in pushchairs are exposed to greater levels of pollution, and by how much.

It should be pointed out that NO2 diffusion tubes are not considered a very exact method, and measuring for only two  months out of a year will not lead to very robust results, and they may be described as “indicative”.

We will use statistics on our results to see how much reliance can be placed upon them. However we do hope to  extract useful information from these tests that may be used to inform people making traffic [and health] decisions.

POLLUTION LEVELS

The level found for 2013 at the Hammersmith Broadway NO2 diffusion tube site was 89.5 microgram / cubic metre. The EU guideline  for the maximum value is 40μg/m3 . Levels above 60μg/m3 could lead to a potential exceedence of the NO2 hourly mean Air Quality Strategy objective.

This is an important consideration that traffic planners must take into account when deciding whether to give space to pedestrians and cyclists or to motor traffic.

OUR RESULTS

We did not find any consistent difference between the values at 3.0m and at 2.25m. We were surprised that at some places the values were higher at 3.0m than at 2.25m. In the circumstances we combined the values at the two levels to give an average for that location.

This also meant that we could not extrapolate to estimate the NO2 concentrations at normal breathing height. However we were able to find how the NO2 values varied around our locations and how they compared to the NO2 value at the LBHF reference point.

At the two locations where we measured at 4 different heights we found a gradual increase in NO2 as we descended to pushchair height.

It is possible that the proximity of the Hammersmith flyover may have affected the height distribution of NO2.

We applied corrections

a] for the difference between our reference tubes and the readings from the Automatic Monitoring Station at Shepherds Bush Green.

b] to estimate an Annual Mean by taking into account how our months compared to the general trend over the last year.

On the following pages are charts showing the adjusted values. The EU limit is 40μg / m^3 [40 microgram per cubic metre].

NO2 results Chart

NO2 values compared to the EU limit of 40μg / m^3

Pushchair Chart

Graphic showing the relative NO2 pollution at different heights

NO2graphic

Graphic showing relative NO2 values at different heights

Conclusions

1] The NO2 values were all well over the EU limit of 40μg / m^3 [40 microgram per cubic metre]. Most were more than 2x the EU limit.

2] In Hammersmith all the values apart from the one in Beadon Rd were greater than at the LBHF reference location by St Paul’s Church. This may be due to the Canyon Effect where in enclosed places the pollution is concentrated.

3] At Shepherds Bush Green there is an Automatic Monitoring Station. Around the area all the values are higher than at the monitoring station. The closest LBHF tube is on the Uxbridge road and does not have a very high reading.

4] At present LBHF uses indications of the NO2 pollution levels that are below those that actually exist in some of the busiest spots. To bring these values down to the EU limit some extraordinary measures must be taken. One such would be to encourage a massive modal shift towards cycling for shorter journeys. This would involve using the road space to encourage cycling.

5] Whilst we only measured NO2 values in two locations at pushchair height, we found the values at 0.5m to be about 30% greater than at 3.0m where LBHF makes its measurements. At a buggy height of 0.8m the NO2 value is about 25% greater than at 3m. Young children with developing lungs are especially vulnerable to the effects of NO2 pollution.

Contacts

John Griffiths Chair hfcyclists

122c Edith road, West Kensington, W14 9AP

020 7371 1290 / 07789 095 748

john@truefeelings.com

www.hfcyclists.org.uk

Andrea Lee ClientEarth

Community Engagement Officer (Healthy Air London)

t. +44 207 749 5979

e. alee@clientearth.org

www.clientearth.org