Newsletter December 2023

December’s meeting will be in person at Kentish Town Health Centre, Bartholomew Road from 7:30 till 8:30. We will then adjourn to the Lion & Unicorn pub on Gaisford Street.

Details below

Agenda to include:

• New works starting at Holborn, Mansfield Road, Chalk Farm and Grafton Road                                                   • The Joys of Cycle Touring – it’s easier than you might think, talk by George Coulouris

Note that cycle parking is at the back of the Health Centre: go past the main entrance (from Bartholomew Villas), through the gate and turn left.

Brent proposal for cycleway & walking improvements from Wembley Central to Harlesden stations, to include protected lanes on Harrow Road & junction with N Circular. Brent CC suggest asking for additional measures such as (i) connecting the route with the Wembley triangle to improve access (ii) filtering residential streets on the route

Brent deadline: Thursday 21 December (link below)

Katy Rodda, LCC on Youtube & ‘X’

New design will include:

• Fully protected N-S cycle lane – Proctor St

• Timed traffic light phases to separate cyclists from motor traffic

• New cycle holding spaces & protected filter lanes at junction entries

Shout out to @AdamDKHarrison @CamdenCouncil
@TfL                                                                            Thank you to @camdencyclists and everyone who’s protested here over the past decade

In the run-up to the Highgate ward by-election due to the resignation of Siân Berry, CCC invited the four candidates to discuss issues in the ward and to provide a statement.

Camden and Islington have been recently engaging with residents about creating a Healthy Neighbourhood. The main issue is motor traffic and its impacts on air quality  and active travel.

Report by John Chamberlain – link below

CCC have just started a new series of monthly rides with GP practice. Our NHS partnerships use cycling for physical & mental health @the_cavershamGP in Kentish Town, supported by @camdencyclists & @limebike (on ‘X’)

While a new government report says that obesity now costs Britain nearly £98billion a year (up from £58Billion in 2020)…”A Public Health Disaster”.

Camden New Journal – Charlotte Chambers

Professor Peter Bishop of Bartlett School of architecture, UCL speaking at Camden COP on Sat 9/12 – asked students to “imagine a new future for dysfunctional places like Euston Road ..The ideas were simple: widening & greening footways: how you cross Euston Rd; how side streets work; why can’t we close Judd Street and Fitzroy Streets and connect pocket gardens with crossings?: close the parallel road to UCL hospital to give patients & visitors respite”. 

Professor Bishop contributed to government planning law but talked of “disjuncture” between work towards net zero and what happens in real life.

Next Kentish Town Bike Workshop will be on 8th January 2024, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm 
Drop in for help to check and make minor repairs to your bike. Experienced mechanics will Bookings are no longer needed so just.

Kentish Town Health Centre
2 Bartholomew Road 
Kentish Town, London
NW5 2BX

Tom Haines-Doran – theguardian.com

Manufacturers with international financial institutions have made expensive vehicles easy to attain via personal contract purchase (PCP), now accounting for 90% of all new cars.
PCPs have replaced HP,  where regular monthly payments were made until the HP loan was fully repaid.. and the car was owned outright.

With PCPs, half the car’s value is paid, the rest reserved for a “balloon payment” at contract’s end. Most consumers don’t make this balloon payment as it is usually unaffordable so swap their vehicle for a new one, and a new PCP deal.

Developing driverless cars has been AI’s greatest test. Today we can say it has failed miserably, despite the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars in attempts to produce a viable commercial vehicle.                   Christian Wolmar – theguardian.com

AI is a fancy name for “machine learning”, and involves “teaching” the computer to interpret what is happening in very complex road environments. But so many potential use cases exist, such as a camel wandering down Main Street through to a simple rock in the road, which could be a paper bag.

Humans can instantly assess risks, but how can a computer that knows nothing of camels will not know how to respond. It was the plastic bags hanging on Herzberg’s bike that confused the car’s computer for a fatal six seconds, according to the subsequent analysis.

Tom Stone – traffictechnologytoday.com

TfL’s new data from its Travel in London 2023 Annual Overview shows continued increases in the levels of walking and cycling in London with investment in high-quality infrastructure that allows more people to walk and cycle more often as a reason for this trend.

Daily cycle trips increased in 2023 to hit 1.26 million journeys per day, up by 6.3% from 1.19 million in 2022, and up by 20% since 2019.  This represents a level of growth not seen in the years leading up to the pandemic and suggests that Londoners are continuing to make the most of cycling as a sustainable and affordable way.

Letter – Islington Tribune                                             NEIL CHRISTIE Highbury Place, N5

Islington Council are rolling out red carpet for pedestrians & cyclists by making the Highbury LTN permanent. Latest stats show:

• Cut in traffic: 76% on internal roads; 4% on boundaries

• Cycling up: 52% on internal roads; 6% on boundaries; 

• Islington private-car-ownership fell from 37,372 (2016) to 34,217 (2021)

This is a revolution in how we travel in our neighbourhoods. Islington, let’s keep momentum and let our borough set an example for sustainable urban living.

For young professionals living in cities like London, owning a car no longer makes sense. Melissa Lawford – telegraph.co.uk

“It is getting harder to own and to run a car” says Andrew Smith, CEO, Sixt vehicle rentals thinks driving will fundamentally change with vehicles being shared. A 1/3 of motorists now drive less to cut costs, using months-long subscriptions rather than leasing.

Annual distances driven fell 13% from 2002 to 2019; with distances 40% less in 2021 than 2002 mainly by 40––69 year olds.

EV’s lifetimes are expected to be a million miles––5X that of today’s cars––but “useless if you own a car” says James Arbib, co-founder of think tank, RethinkX. Average person travelled 2,229 miles by car in 2021 so a owners will not benefit from car’s longer lifespan, but they will still pay for it, and driving will be fleet-model”

Camden Cyclists is the local group of the London Cycling Campaign. Our members enable the work we do and receive a whole host of great benefits.

Join as a member today and choose from free lights, lock or a pump!*

Already a member? Refer a friend and you’ll both receive gifts.

*Offer applies to Individual and Household membership purchased via Direct Debit.