2023 has been an interesting year: we watched anxiously as the stepped tracks on Prince of Wales Road were gradually rolled out in place of the pop-up flexible bollards; and although we continued to fret about the evils of HS2, many good things were achieved.
We invite you to use the links below to reach the topics we have described.
Click on any image to see an enalargement.
Healthy School Streets
A good year with seven new school streets. These include a scheme for Kingsgate Infants School in Maygrove Road that stops a popular rat-run between West End Lane and Kilburn High Road.
It is good news that last year’s Holmes Road scheme has been made permanent with ambitious plans for extensions.
Camden now has 29 Healthy School Street schemes, covering 34 schools; 21 schemes are permanent and 8 are trials.
The Somerstown area with 4 school streets, seems to have school street signs in virtually every street. The map extract on the right shows their locations.
School Streets in Somerstown – dark blue: trial, green: permanent and light blue: approved.
An extract from our map showing the school streets in Camden.
Permeability
Improving ‘permeability’ for cycling consists mainly of allowing two-way cycling in one-way streets.
We describe two contrasting schemes built in 2023:
- Harrington Square –Lidlington Place
- Falkland Road in Kentish Town
The first is a TfL scheme on the southern end of the Camden Town gyratory and requires segregated cycle infrastructure. The second is through a quiet residential road and only requires entry and exit treatment.
In addition, the new School Street scheme for West Hampstead School sensibly included two-way cycling on Dornfell Road outside the school – who would want to be forced to go in a particular direction outside a school?
You can see our map of permeability in Camden on this web page.
Harrington Square-Lidlington Place
The red line indicates the new kerb-protected contraflow cycle lane on Harrington Square – Lidlington Place.
The southbound route (blue) via Oakley Square East, across Eversholt Street and onto Hampstead Road now has kerb-protected cycle lanes replacing the flexible bollards.
Falkland Road
Falkland Road provides a useful cut-through between Highgate Road and Leighton Road, now that cycling is allowed through the one-way sections.
Dornfell Road
A good year for signage
Camden’s north-south route from Kentish Town down Royal College Street and eventually onto Farringdon Road has been known as C6 for some years, while the route along Tavistock Place was signed as C27 more recently. These and others can be seen on TfL’s cycle route map here.
We note that TfL’s map shows C6 continuing on Prince of Wales Road (PoW) although it is yet to be signed. The map below shows the routes C50, C41, C10 and C52, as well as a spur via Grafton Road to Hampstead Heath (labelled ‘C’ ), all of which were signed recently.
C50 through Camden Square
The Camden Square LTN (2022) produced 2 kms of good quality cycle route between the C6 on Royal College Street and the cycle route on York Way. Our description is here. The signage went in early in 2023.
Hampstead Heath spur
The spur to Hampstead Heath from C6 via Grafton Road is signed (as ‘C’).
C41 Holborn to Euston Station
Who would have thought the cycle network was sufficiently complex to need a sign like this one?
Read our description of C41 here.
C10 via Gower Street
This route is signed from Euston Road down Gordon Street, west along Tavistock Place, then down Gower Street and Bloomsbury Street to Princes Circus and down Endell Street as far as the Westminster borough boundary at Shelton Street. But there are no signs yet from here to Savoy Place where the C10 route joins the C3 route on the Embankment.
C52
We haven’t yet checked the signage on this route which rejoins C10 in Covent Garden
Progress with the protected links in the cycle network
The network of protected cycle routes has expanded rapidly during the last three years, with the total length increasing from 8 km in 2019 to 26 km in 2022. However, almost all of the new cycle lanes are currently protected by flexible bollards – more than half of the total length. Camden has consulted on and approved making them all permanent, mostly with stepped tracks which is their default standard as seen in Pancras Road, Midland Road and Gower Street. See this page.
Work has been completed in Prince of Wales Road eastbound, which now has almost 1 km of stepped tracks between Haverstock Hill and Grafton Road. Constructing stepped tracks (below the footway and above the carriageway) is tricky, involving adjusting the drainage and deploying a special machine to ensure that the final surface is smooth.
And there can be other mishaps such as the lack of a dropped kerb opposite a side road.
New stepped tracks have just been built on both sides of York Way between Wharfdale Road and Copenhagen Street with a new bus stop bypass on the Islington side. The result is another 3/4 km of stepped tracks (3/8 km on each side) – although there is currently a gap around the Goodsway junction and over the canal bridge.
The Tavistock Place westbound cycle lane (installed in 2015) was protected by Orcas. When eventually funding became available for an upgrade, Camden decided to use kerbs.
As mentioned in the section on permeability, TfL has used kerbs to protect the cycle lanes in Oakley Square (E) and Harrington Square – Lidlington Place
Junctions on the cycle routes
Signal controlled
High Holborn Junctions with Procter Street and Kingsway
These dangerous junctions are heavily used by cyclists and are being upgraded. However, most of the necessary protected cycle lanes cannot be built until the gyratory has been removed.
The junction at Theobalds Road/Southampton Row (blue circle) was upgraded in 2022. Work is currently underway on the High Holborn junctions (red circles). See our description here.
Oakley Square/Eversholt Street/Lidlington Place
TfL has upgraded this junction with a cycle gate on Oakley Square to protect westbound cycles from the motor vehicles turning left into Eversholt Street.
On Lidlington Place, contraflow cycles are provided with a dedicated signal enabling them to turn left and then right into the quiet side of Oakley Square, or to use a two-stage turn to head south on Eversholt Street.
Prince of Wales Road/Grafton Road
This eagerly awaited design promises a dedicated cycle stage on PoW – essential to enable the right turn into Castlehaven Road to follow the C6 route.
Side Roads
Blended junctions (with ‘continuous footway’) are good for pedestrians – see photo below.
But when there is a stepped track, that too should be ‘continuous’, as in the photo below (the track is in yellow).
We are pleased to see these being adopted e.g. at Dalby Street/PoW and at Crinan Street/York Way.
Crossings
A recently approved ‘parallel crossing’ structure has enabled Camden to introduce some useful new cycle crossings.
Consider the case where a cycle route on a quiet road crosses a main road. For example, a route runs between the Queen’s Crescent LTN and the Savermake LTN crossing Mansfield Road between Estelle Road and Oak Village.
This parallel crossing was put in during 2021 and is currently being upgraded.
The recently completed crossing into the closed end of Healey Street provides an alternative way to access the C6 route.
This crossing goes via a central island to the cycle contraflow lane in Harrington Square.
Greening and other ‘goodies’
Red Lion Mini LTN
At first, a simple point closure was put on Red Lion Street at the junction with Princeton Street. But more recently it was extended to a tree-lined section of cycle lane. See here.
A larger area of planting has been created at the southern end of Bedford Row
Red Lion Street closure with new trees
Alternatives to car parking
There are now over 200 operational bays in Camden.
According to this map, there are now 313 bike hangars in Camden, 98 having been installed in 2023.
And this map shows the locations of about 20 streateries.
Agar Camley Link
This useful link was built in 2009 but was somewhat spoilt by excessive parking of cars awaiting repairs under the railway bridge. Then suddenly all was clear and cycling is protected in one direction.
Conclusions
2023 was another good year. The rapid deployment of pop-up cycle lanes from 2020-22 established the backbone of a cycle network; and now it is good to see it being upgraded with high-quality lanes, safer junctions and signage. The seven new Healthy School Streets, as always bring additional benefits including bikehangars, road closures or permeability; and when they are made permanent they are often enhanced with greening or with additional modal filtering (as promised for the Holmes Road scheme).
