Stop Killing Cyclists “10 by 2020”- London Mayoral Cycle Safety Challenge
Stop Killing Cyclists have today issued their “10 by 2020” London Mayoral Cycle Safety Challenge to all mayoral candidates and political parties.
At the core of Stop Killing Cyclists’ ten London mayoral cycling safety challenges is a demand that 10% of the TfL budget must be allocated to cycling infrastructure by 2020, with a view that the current 1.4% of the budget being spent on cycling safety is an insult to those dying every day from collisions, pollution and inactivity diseases, a view shared by us all. Ashok Sinha, CEO at LCC wrote a fantastic piece to put the paltry budget into perspective, which I am trying to locate in the archives!
To follow the progress of the challenge and the responses of each of the mayoral candidates you can visit Stop Killing Cyclist’s Launch Event Page here.
The Challenge is as follows:
STOP KILLING CYCLISTS “10 BY 2020” LONDON MAYORAL SAFER CYCLING CHALLENGE
1. 10% BY 2020
Will you commit to investing 10% of TfL budget on cycling infrastructure by 2020, building up each year from current minuscule 1.4%?
The Dutch spend £24 per person per year on cycling infrastructure, compared to TfL’s current spend of approximately £82 million per year, which equates to £9.90 per person. The ten year cycling plan announced a budget of £913 million which, due to London’s rapidly increasing population, means that spending per person will basically remain frozen.
If we spent at Dutch levels per person, the expenditure would be £200 million but the Dutch already have been investing in a safety infrastructure since the 1970s. Thus to deliver Dutch standards across the TfL and Borough networks, investment needs to be at least triple their current budget or 10% of TfL budget.
2. END HGV/BUS BLIND SPOTS
Will you require full blind-spot safety equipment to be installed in all existing and new HGVs, buses, coaches and Tipper Trucks entering London?
Seven out of the eight people killed on bicycles in 2015 in London, were killed by Tipper Trucks and HGVs. 9 out of 14 were killed in 2014. A positive first step in making these trucks safer is being introduced on September 1st, when all trucks entering London will have to have modern safety mirrors which reduce the size of the blind-spot. But this only takes us half-way. Trucks and buses should all have full complement of safety equipment, to reduce these awful cruel killings, whilst encouraging the speeding up the introduction of fully safety re-designed Tipper Trucks to reform the fleet.
Indeed this is something that we are passionate about too, we don’t think the Safer Lorries Scheme goes far enough and should be extended to include further technologies to reduce blind-spots.
3. MINI-HOLLANDS FOR ALL
Will you fund a Mini-Holland Programme for all London Boroughs within your first term?
Research by Stop Killing Cyclists in 2014 revealed that:
13 London Boroughs have ZERO segregated cycle-lanes
24 London Boroughs installed ZERO cycle lanes since the previous London elections in 2010.
Only 3 boroughs installed any segregated cycle lanes since the last election (Ealing (£400,000), Camden (£320,000), Waltham Forest (£400,000).
The sum total spent by all boroughs over previous 4 years on segregated cycle lanes was a tiny £0.795 million. This equated to a miniscule £7,000 per borough per year since last election.
4. PHYSICALLY PROTECTED CYCLE-LANES
Will you support a comprehensive grid of Go-Dutch standard physically protected cycle-routes across the TfL road network to enable people of all ages and abilities to cycle safely?
A segregated cycle network alongside major or busy roads, combined with filtered permeability (Quietways) on minor roads, would go a long way in increasing cycle accessibility to those currently excluded in London. It would increase both actual and perceived safety, thus eliminating one of the biggest barriers to cycling in London.
Perceived safety is very important in getting people onto bikes. Perceived risk associated with cycling on busy roads was one of the main reasons given in the UK for not using one’s bike more often (Pooley et al., 2011). Furthermore, it is exactly the groups mentioned – children, the elderly, as well as women – who are most risk averse, and this risk aversion is likely the main reason for the under-representation of these groups cycling in London (Steinbach et al., 2011; Garrard, Rose, and Lo, 2008).
5. LONDON 20 MPH ZONE
Will you support a 20mph speed limit across London (excluding motorways)?
Much has been documented on the potentially life-saving benefits of reducing speed limits to 20 mph, highlighted and campaigned for tirelessly by our partner,Brake, was part of their flagship GO 20 campaign, and TfL also needs to lobby ACPO for enforcement of 20 mph speed limits. This is because a shocking 48% of drivers regularly exceed legal speed limits. Recent research revealed that there are three classifications of drivers:
• Compliant drivers who usually observe speed limits (52% of drivers)
• Moderate speeders who occasionally exceed speed limits (33% of drivers)
• Excessive speeders who routinely exceed speed limits (14% of drivers)
However, even the moderate speeders exceed 30 mph limits fairly regularly. Excessive speeders normally ignore the 30 mph limit, and often by a wide margin. This shows the need for the Mayor to instruct the Metropolitan Police to increase their speed enforcement levels.
The need for “Go 20” to be implemented beyond signage was recently documented in The Guardian.
6. SAFER LEFT HAND TURNS:
EMERGENCY PROGRAMME + IDAHO LAW
Will you support the introduction of the Idaho law, allowing cyclists to turn left when traffic is free at junctions, with full legal priority for pedestrians, when doing so and support an emergency programme of installing safe protected left-hand turns at a minimum of the 500 junctions that were originally promised to be reviewed by Boris Johnson by the end of your first term? (NB These were subsequently cut to 33!)
The Idaho law would allow cyclists to turn left when traffic is free at junctions, with full legal priority for pedestrians.
This will no doubt be a contentious issue for some, and in order to implement it there will need to be a great deal of education amongst drivers and cyclists alike in order that the law is understood by both parties and doesn’t add to animosity fuelled by lack of understanding on the road.
All dangerous junctions need to be redesigned to Dutch standards as soon as possible.
The current Mayor promised to address the 500 most dangerous junctions, then reduced this to 50 and then to 33, of which only a handful actually have started being made safer.
7. END LETHAL TIME PRESSURES ON BUSES/TIPPER TRUCKS
Will you end the lethal paid by timed delivery regimes for HGVs in the construction industry and end dangerous system of paying for bus performance by contracted Excess Waiting Time Targets?”
Contracts based on strict adherence to strictly-measured (usually time-based) performance regimes are common to the construction industry and TfL Bus Contracts and are particularly onerous. These contracts provide incentives for operators to deliver a specific number of loads or, in the case of TfL buses, maintain a predictable pattern of arrivals at bus stops within a certain time period - but at the expense of other road users’ safety, as drivers are placed under enormous amounts of pressure to deliver on time which in turn can lead to drivers partaking in risky behaviour.
8. SQUARES AND STREETS FIT FOR HUMANS
Will you support a programme of making our beautiful major squares and shopping streets fit for humans, by closing them to motorised transport, including:
Oxford Street,
Trafalgar Square,
Piccadilly,
Parliament Square,
Bank Junction, etc
Oxford Street is Europe’s ‘busiest shopping street’ (Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2010), yet is also the most dangerous in the London in terms of collisions (35 times higher than the average London Street according to the GLA’s “Streets Ahead” Report) resulting in, since April 2010, an average of over four vehicle-pedestrian reported collisions per month, around two of which involve buses, and a pedestrian is seriously injured about every month-and-a-half. Since April 2010, buses have been involved in sixty percent of the collisions resulting serious injury on Oxford Street.
Where provision for traffic and space for safe walking and cycling are in conflict, TfL must change its current lethal policy to one of prioritising vulnerable road users.
Besides, taking Oxford Street as the example mentioned here, it’s near-on impossible to move in the motorised traffic. In the words, it is utterly pointless! Londoners already know that; their purpose is surely only to catch unassuming tourists which is wrong?!
Making streets safe and friendly for pedestrians and cyclists is good for business and tourism and helps promote an atmosphere of socialising and easy mobility rather than one of fear and negative emotions where people do not want to spend time (Mehta, 2013).
9. TWO TfL BOARD PLACES FOR CYCLISTS
Will you appoint two cycling representatives to the TfL Board, nominated by cycling groups and change its name to the London Cycling, Walking and Transport Authority?
Stop Killing Cyclists go on to say:
The active participation of cycling and pedestrian organisation representatives in TfL board meetings would help ensure that cycling/pedestrian issues become a priority in decision-making. More informed decisions will be possible with regards to projects ranging from train station upgrades through to roadwork management, keeping cycle provision in mind at all stages.
Pedestrians likewise deserve representation.
Stop Killing Cyclists’ 2014 analysis of the current TfL board composition revealed:
5 bankers/big business, 2 taxi reps, 2 aviation industry, 1 HGV, 3 Conservative Politicians, 1 trade unionist and 1 disabled person.
We need cyclist board members in order to press for the ending of TfL’s disastrous policy of prioritising smooth flow and speed of traffic and instead adopt policy of placing safety of vulnerable road users – cyclists, pedestrians and children at the top of the Mayor’s transport hierarchy.
Given the huge benefits of walking and cycling in terms of reducing obesity, lessening air pollution, improving mental health, increasing social equality, reducing congestion, and even improving sales for local businesses that lie along cycle routes, the idea of continuing a traffic-engineering based approach that focuses solely on maximising hourly PCUs through an intersection, and reducing travel time for motorists, is akin to trying to put out a fire with petrol.
Priorities must be stated, and goals must be set – a transport department in a city that has its priorities focussed on the movement of motor traffic, rather than the movement of people, is one that is in dereliction of duty in adequately performing its role. The focus of enabling mobility in a city must be on active and public transport. While the latter has been achieved well in London, the former is sorely lacking.
Preach!!!
10. TIPPER TRUCK BAN
Will you ban tipper trucks at rush hour and introduce a scheme whereby electric delivery trucks to bring in goods from HGVs parked in outer London, into central London and promote cargo bikes for last mile deliveries.
I do have some reservations on a rush hour tipper truck ban, but please read Stop Killing Cyclists notes, they’re extremely important to the debate. Notes as follows:
Tipper trucks due to the high-danger they present to cyclists should be banned at rush hour and the Mayor should introduce a scheme whereby electric delivery trucks to bring in goods from HGVs parked in outer London, into central London and promote cargo bikes for last mile deliveries
Stop Killing Cyclists want a ban on any vehicles whose drivers cannot see adjacent road-users. Children, pensioners and inexperienced adults should not be forced to share space with HGVs.
There are two very good reasons for this, as well as some proven steps to prevent such interaction from occurring. The main concern is that the sharing of road space between HGVs, buses, and cyclists results in negative impacts upon both actual and perceived safety.
The London rate of cycle deaths (2.2 deaths per 100 million km cycled) greatly exceeds that of the national rate in the Netherlands (1.1 deaths per 100 million km) or Germany (1.6 deaths per 100 million km) (Department of Transport UK, Buehler and Pucher, 2012).
London has the highest KSI rates (70/100 million km cycled) in the country for cyclists, with it being 35% higher than the South-West. (UK Department of Transport).
HGVs and Buses are also responsible for 25 percent of serious injuries to cyclists in London each year (RoSPA 2013).
The use of side detection technologies (cameras, radar) in the blind spot of large vehicles must become compulsory. We need also to reduce unnecessary transport e.g. returning waste transport to barges.
It is crucial to crack down on the shocking levels of trucks being driven illegally or in an illegally dangerous condition on London’s streets. A recent Metropolitan Police action found over 70% of trucks stopped to be breaking the safety laws. The estimated total figure is about 30%.
This urgently needs to be prioritised with a target of 99% found to be compliant with existing safety laws.
I worry that moving the tipper traffic, for example, out of peak hours just moves the problem onto a different set of vulnerable road users. I also question why the tippers need to be moving around in peak hours traffic in the first place? I can only assume that it is to satisfy the demands of the client and, if that is the case, does a move out of peak hours result in increased time pressures, as highlighted in point 7 in the manifesto.
What Stop Killing Cyclists is saying is correct - vulnerable road users shouldn’t have to share road space with vehicles that cannot see them. However, I do believe that there are the technologies, the cab designs, the infrastructural means in which we can allow these vehicles to see, we just need to implement them. It goes back in some ways to point 2 of the manifesto - the Safer Lorries Scheme does not go far enough in its legislation of collision preventative measures, and to this end I believe that the Department for Transport should be looking at a technological set of safety standards that move beyond mirrors and side-skirts to legislate.
