We’ve heard a lot about this over the last few months with many arguing against the introduction of this speed limit. Against this backdrop Redbridge, we think to its credit, has nonetheless
consulted on proposals to introduce a 20mph zone in the Gants Hill area. We hope the scheme goes ahead.

Here’s a link to a good article making the case for 20mph speed limits. Maybe it gets a bit political at the end but there is plenty of good stuff here for interested people and politicians of all stripes.

The deadline for all the consultations is 23.59 on December 3^rd.2023.  The schemes the Council are consulting on are:

• Gants Hill to Redbridge Road Safety and Cycling Improvements
• Cambridge Park Cycle and Road Safety Improvements
• 7 new school street schemes

In the posts below you can see what our thoughts on the schemes and on what you might like to say, especially about how the schemes could be improved.  The School Streets post is a bit of a way down, below the South Woodford Design code post.

Thankyou in advance for taking the time to respond to some or all the consultations.

20 mph zones are a good thing. 

In 2019 the National Institute for Health and Care research carried out a review of studies into the effectiveness of 20mph zones and found that ‘introducing 20mph zones appeared effective at reducing the number and severity of collisions and casualties (nine studies, six from the UK)’. 

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents ‘strongly supports the use of 20mph zones as they are an effective means of reducing road crashes and casualties.  They are very effective at protecting our most vulnerable road users, including children, pedestrians and cyclists, and significantly decrease the risk of being injured in a collision. RoSPA encourages their greater use, especially in residential areas’.

Road Safety Factsheet, 20mph Zones and Speed Limits Factsheet. November 2020

More anecdotally any cyclist will tell you that they feel safer when traffic is moving at 20 rather than 30 mph.  And we know from talking to cyclists who come on our marshalled rides, feeling unsafe in traffic puts them off using their bikes to go about their daily business. 

Will drivers suffer?  Not really.  In urban areas at least the impact on car journey times is minimal – because what slows our journeys down is heavy traffic and waiting at junctions and traffic lights. 

Cycle friendly speed humps

We are pleased to see that LBR are planning to install speed humps rather than speed cushions.  If you want to find out why cushions are bad for cyclists, you can here.

FINAL RCC response to Wanstead cycling and road safety improvements – Redbridge Cycling Campaign

We are also pleased to see that the humps will be ‘cycle friendly’.  This means that the humps will have a sinusoidal profile. 

These humps are much more comfortable to cycle over than ones with other profiles.  If you want to ride over this style of hump, try Capel Road on C16. 

The way forward

Schemes like this feel like the way forward.  It is just not possible to entirely segregate cyclists and motorists (it doesn’t happen in the Netherlands or Germany) so what we need to do is to create streets on which cyclists and motorist can safely co-exist (this does happen in the Netherlands and Germany).  And a 20 mph speed zone is one way of doing this.

What would improve the scheme?  Make the zone bigger!

Update 28.11.2023 – Rat Running

Get it right first time and if a job is worth doing it’s worth doing well …

The consultation letter acknowledges a problem with rat running but says that:

‘The Council are also developing further proposals to reduce rat running in the area which would be subject to a separate consultation.’

Rather than deal with rat running at a later date, we think the Council should extend the scope of the scheme to include the necessary measures to reduce rat running now. We have three reasons for this and these are:

1. If rat running is reduced then there will be less motorised traffic in the area and of itself this will reduce accidents
   
   
2. Measures to reduce rat running – which are likely to involve planters in the road – otherwise known as modal filters – and/or point no entries, may reduce the need for speed tables and humps thus reducing the overall cost of the scheme.
   
   
3. There must be a risk that a (second) funding bid to TFL for adaptions to a scheme which it has already funded will be rejected in favour of new schemes.

The position with regard to the Aldersbrook schemes may be pertinent: LBR has recognised the shortcomings of the Aldersbrook scheme and, we understand, has plans to remedy them but there is no prospect of the work being done because there is no prospect of funding for the works (unless something has changed recently).

This is not a reason for opposing the scheme but we think this is an improvement worth pushing for.

Gants Hill to Redbridge Road Safety and Cycling Improvements, further thoughts.

An LCC member, who knows more about this stuff than the rest of us put together, has described the scheme as 1990’s and reckons it fails to address what is the problem of rat running.  They have got a point. 

Capel Road in Forest Gate has speed humps.  But some (lots don’t) drivers still squeeze past us between humps and then slow down in front of us as they approach the next hump – often scraping their vehicle’s front bumper on the hump in the process. 

In contrast the traffic has evaporated from the new-ish Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) centred around West Ham Cemetery on the west side of Wanstead Flats.  Cars don’t push past us and there is not much need for speed humps as the vehicles aren’t there. 

So, is the proposed scheme as good as establishing an LTN?  No, but, given current attitudes towards LTNs and given LBR’s history with LTNs, an LTN scheme was never on the cards. 

And I wouldn’t have minded cycling around those streets with speed humps and tables since 1990. 

So we think it’s a scheme still worth supporting. 

It’s definitely a step forward. 

We think this is a good scheme that deserves our and your support: it should make cycling that stretch of road safer and more accessible to more people. 

The scheme involves building out the pavements on either side of Cambridge Park to provide room for 2m cycle tracks that are at the height of, and flush with the pavement.  So, no riding in the gutter.  At 2m, the tracks should be wide enough to accommodate bicycles with trailers, trikes and the like. 

There are a couple of short sections of shared use paths, but we think these are unavoidable. 

There are bus stops along the route.  A cycle track either needs to go in front of the bus stop or behind it.  Each option has advantages and disadvantages.  The Department for Transport recommends that a cycle track goes behind a bus stop if the stop is a busy one and if front of the stop if it is not.  LBR seem to have followed this guidance. 

The scheme is well connected at its western end where it leads into the existing route that goes under the Green Man Roundabout and on to Leytonstone High Road. 

Things are not so good at the eastern end where Cambridge Park meets Wanstead High Street. 

The survey

The survey is open until 3^rd December.  It’s straightforward to fill in. 

Question 7 and 8 ask if you have any concerns about road and cycling safety in this area.  We can probably all fill that one in ourselves.  Question 15, the last question, asks: What improvements can you suggest to the proposals made?  This is where you can mention any of the improvements below – if you agree with them.  To be completely fair, improvements 2 and 3 are outside the scope of the scheme but we think would improve it considerably. 

If you have any other suggestions for improvements, please send a message to us and we will look to incorporate them into our final response.

Improvement 1

Have a look at the plan at the top of this post.  The dropped kerbs at the junction of Cambridge Park and Blake Hall Road look as if they will take cyclists onto the carriageway before/after the tracks on Blake Hall Road start/end.  It would be better if the dropped kerbs were placed at the start/end of the tracks to provide continuous segregated cycling. 

Improvement 2

At the junction of Cambridge Park and Wanstead High Street we think that diagonal toucan crossings would help cyclists get from the High Street into the cycle track that goes towards Leytonstone and to get from Cambridge Park onto the Green. 

It is true that cyclists wanting to go from Cambridge Park into the Green can turn into Draycott Road (opposite Spratt Hall Road) and then go along the edge of George Green.  But crossing the Green/St Marys Avenue to go down Redbridge Lane West is tricky.  Maybe Redbridge  could look at this crossing point in the near future. 

Improvement 3

The High Street is not cycle friendly: we wonder if something could be done to help cyclists get to the High Street from the new cycle tracks.  For example, by installing a point no-entry at the junction of Spratt Hall Road and Woodbine Place to turn it from a rat run into a quiet street and by creating a shared use path across Christchurch Green to the High Street.