A video to launch a campaign on upgrading the Tavistock Place Cycle Track. Press release is linked at the end of this page.
The Tavistock Place cycle track is part a key east-west cycle route through Camden between Islington and Westminster. It consists of a two-way segregated cycle track along the entire length of Tavistock Place and Torrington Place, constructed in 2002 in response to Camden Cycling Campaign’s proposal in 1998 for a new cross-borough cycle route, named the Seven Stations Link (or SSL, see The history of the Seven Stations Link for details). The route has become hugely popular but the level of cycle traffic it now carries makes it congested, confusing for pedestrians and dangerous for cyclists, especially at junctions with side roads.
Since it was built cycling in London has doubled and the two-way track is now too narrow and heavily overcrowded. It needs updating to carry the thousands of cyclists who use it and make crossings safer for pedestrians.
The video shows interactions between cyclists, between cyclists and pedestrians and between cyclists and motor vehicles. These interactions illustrate the risk for cyclists of colliding with other cyclists, the difficulties encountered by pedestrians crossing the track and also the ‘near misses’ between cyclists and motor vehicles at Gordon Square.
The final scene depicts streets that suggest two possible design approaches:
- Provide a pair of very wide lightly-segregated cycle tracks, one on each side of the street, as has just been done in Royal College Street (which is used as an illustration). To provide for current and future usage in Tavistock Place, wider tracks than those in RCS would be required.
- Implement strategically placed road closures so that there is no through traffic on any part of the route at any time. There would then be no need to segregate cyclists. This idea is illustrated by some film shot in Whidbourne Street and also by an extract from David Hembrow’s video ‘Nearly car free areas’.
The Tavistock Place Cycle Tracks from Camden Cyclists on Vimeo.
Camden Cyclists August 2013
See our Press Release