Great video, as usual. I think it's important to note that Transport for London is a multi-modal agency, which is rare in North America. The US has DOTs (Department of Transportation) but they're almost exclusively responsible for roads. TfL is also responsible for roads, but they are also responsible for running the tube, the buses, and the cycling paths. This is why they're able to take a holistic view of transportation in the city, and not just focusing on, say, "level of service" for car traffic, like many US and Canadian cities do.
Thanks Jason. Great point. It's also important to have an agency with a wholistic view like this to cut through the local borough politics. These inter-jurisdictional squabbles hobble improvements in all kinds of cities in North America.
@@Shifter_Cycling Unfortunately TfL is only responsible for the "main" roads and we do still get squabbles between boroughs on all the other roads. Frequently when you're riding along a nice separated bike lane and it suddenly ends, the reason is that you have just crossed a borough boundary. In fact, that point where you turned off CS3 onto the temporary experimental infrastructure towards CS2 at Tower Gateway is exactly the point where the wide, newly constructed protected cycle lane on a main road gives way to a narrow, decades old cycle lane on a minor backstreet and is also the point at which you travel from the City of London into the borough of Tower Hamlets. Another couple of miles along CS3 it turns into sharrows. Another example is the gap in CS4 where TfL have done their bits but the Borough of Greenwich hasn't and you just have to mix with traffic for a mile or two.
Yes, I experienced some of these in London, and I've seen them here in Canada too where there are abutting jurisdictions. The really sad part is that I live in a city that lacks multiple jurisdictions but we still have these gaps in the network.
The Borough concilshave more power when i comes to roads. As a result you sometimes get odd situation where bike lanes will suddenly stop as you cross the invisible borders.
I visited London last september, as a Dutch guy I found the biking infrastructure quite good for a foreign country, although I saw many intersections and roads that wouldn't fly at all in the Netherlands, but they are improving rapidly I heard from a friend that lives there. I hope the better cycling infrastructure quickly attracts more 'normal biking' instead of everyone on racing bikes cycling like they are in the final sprint of the tour de France, I wasn't relaxed at all and we couldn't keep a normal conversation because of the constant ringing and people wanting to get past us while we were cycling relatively fast already, in the Netherlands you can easily hold a conversation because the cycling culture is way more relaxed.
Referring to your latter point, that's probably because everyone's in a hurry in London and I don't think that's ever gonna change, it's not about cycling culture it's more about the city itself
You don't have any "normal cyclists" in Amsterdam, as a person who rides a "normal" racing bike at a high pace i found it very frustrating riding in amsterdam. There are no cyclists and the city is not cyclist friendly, its made for pedestrians on bicycles, not cyclists. A cyclist is a person who rides a bike while in uniform, helmet and clipless pedals. All others are pedestrians. And if you are talking whilst riding you are one of the most obnoxious types. Talk at home, in the pub or in the park ffs. Road is not a place for conversation, you must be focused and concentrating on the road.
@@MalcolmJameson_1 TBH your whole post sounds pretty obnoxious, so pot kettle black. Your way is not better, it's just different. Some people want to go fast, some people don't. There should be options for all. Not everyone wants to race around like Chris Boardman. London is a working commuting city but it's also a tourist city and a city with families and old people. We all need to find a way to get along somehow.
I lived in London from 2019 - 2021, before moving to Toronto. I felt 5x safer cycling in London than I do in Toronto. In fact, I've stopped cycling in Toronto due to how bad the drivers are. The slow car traffic in London definitely is the top reason for this, as is the fact that there are normal cars there and not trucks with hoods bigger than I am.
Agreed. As a cyclist, London has radically changed since I lived there in the 1980s/90s. Now I wish other UK cities will make some effort to catch up. Long overdue.
If London is getting to be a bit more like central European cycle-friendly cities, I wonder if people are taking to buying more city-type bikes, rather than the usual road bikes and mountain bikes. Being from the UK originally, I am now living in Germany and love my 7 speed hub , upright bike with dynamo lights!
I was surprised at the diversity of cyclists in London. I certainly saw upright, Dutch-style bikes, but there were also a lot of people in Lycra on road bikes, and lots of people on folding bikes. It felt to me like a middle-ground between the athletic cyclists we see in North America and the more casual cyclists of Europe. Maybe that's a sign of a city in transition.
Yes and no there's still a load of lycra clad cyclist in a never ending race bombing around London, but there's slowly getting a good mix of different cyclists the Ebike market is getting very popular along with cargo bikes.
@@Shifter_Cycling I guess if you are commuting from an Outer borough or from just outside London (10-20 miles each way) then a faster road bike is more suitable. Shorter distances where you remain in-borough then a more upright city style bike works well. Obviously with ebikes you can also do those longer commutes without a road bike without a problem.
They are. I live in one of the more cycle friendly boroughs and I've started noticing loads of city/upright/dutch bikes everywhere in my neighbourhood - I've also seen a lot of cargo bikes as well.
I think the Lycra/road bike thing you see is a hangover from when there was no infrastructure. Cyclists had to work hard to keep up with car traffic and the only people riding were the super keen ones. I think that’s why so many people go as fast as possible down the cycle paths, it’s what they’re used to.
I used to ride from Clapton to Ilford (flat journey) on a single speed bike every day in the summer and I used to get to work and then get home buzzing with endorphins. But if you add hills and winter then the fun instantly evaporates.
Nice video: what a change! I was last in London in 2017 and besides the bikeshare, London was essentially sharrow-central. Nice to see they've been doing some thinking, and that they are thinking regionally and trying to build out a network. Like this series. When you're back in Canada you should make a stop in Montreal. South of the border Chicago and NYC would be good places to visit. Safe travels!
I left London 4 years ago and I am currently living in Rome. Before I came to Italy, I lived in the Southern part of Uxbridge (West London), which is about as suburban as you can get in the city of London. Despite that, I had a bike lane that took me directly to my school once I left my road. So, everything considered, London was already quite bike friendly. However, at the time, I saw cycling as more of a sport and so did most people (though there were some people who cycled to school). London has always had a focus away from car dependent infrastructure but nobody really used these lanes for everyday usage (instead using the bus or the underground) and I think it's partially because of the sporty connotation that comes with it. In the UK, cycling is seen as something you do to lose weight, when in reality, you burn more by walking. Here in Rome, there are definitely many more people who do it because they need to but, overall, there are still less cyclists because the cycling infrastructure isn't horrible; it's simply nonexistent. Well, except for a few places downtown. I started cycling as a way to get around once I left the UK and also stopped being a pussy, as it takes quite a lot of balls to cycle around Rome. But, it's nice to hear that cycling infrastructure is getting even better in London. I just hope people actually use it as a way to get around
Come and see Norwich, and what a pox-job of cycling infrastructure we have here. They seem to think that painting a picture of a bicycle on an existing footpath somehow makes it a bike-lane.
That's not just Norwich to be fair, some cycle paths are not even good footpaths (narrow, overgrown and broken surfaces) Might as well just categorize any path outside of a city centre as a shared path.
@@grahambonner508 Yes, I'm completely with you there. In my experience, the cycle-ways which run alongside roads always stop to give way to traffic coming out of side-roads, and they are often covered with gravel which has been flicked-up off the road, broken glass, and bits of old car debris. We are decades behind countries like Denmark and the Netherlands with their cycling infrastructure.
I grew up in London in the 80s & 90s and rarely cycled anywhere. I've returned to the city in my 50s and cycle everywhere now. It's a massive, massive improvement. I can cycle from the suburbs to central london in under and hour with very little stress.
Great video! The term "Cycle Superhighway" is rather misleading. What TfL calls a "Cycle Superhighway" is great infrastructure in Westminster. However, if your travel a little further afield (e.g. South of Elephant and Castle), the "Cycle Superhighway" is actually nothing more than a bicycle logo and a strip of blue paint in a very busy bus and motorcycle lane. During rush hour, you are sharing a lane with buses. Granted, TfL bus drivers are mostly excellent and very considerate, so it's not too bad. But most buslanes are not in operation 24 hours/day, Outside the busiest hours, cars can drive in the bus lane as well. At those times, you're effectively cycling in a painted bicycle gutter in a lane that is too narrow to accommodate a bicycle and a car side by side with sufficient distance between them. Cycling is quite hazardous at that time. Then there is the London borough of Chelsea and Kensington, right next to the location you filmed. There are a few quiet cycle paths, but most of Chelsea and Kensington is a bicycle-hating hellscape where SUVs (the infamous Chelsea tractors) and expensive sportscars rule. I live in zone 3 in south London, and I have a small cargo bike to ferry my child to friends and clubs (just like an American soccer mum, minus the SUV), because it is far too dangerous for my 10-year-old to cycle by himself. Nevertheless, I'm grateful for the London Cycling Campaign for working hard making London a safer place to cycle, despite sometimes very aggressive opposition.
London still has a very long way to go. I remember being a kid in the early 90's and seeing a segregated cycle lane and thinking that if there was just one segregated lane near me I'd use it all the time. I thought it might happen when I was older, especially as we were starting to find out about global warming. Well 30 years later and we've barely made any progress. The cycle superhighways were a really exciting prospect but then they turned out to be just another (unsegregated) cycle lane. Some are now segregated, 15 or so years later but it's crazy that there isn't multiple routes that go uninterupted from the edges of London to the centre. We've got hundreds of roads but nothing for bikes. It'd be nice if it was 50/50 but even 90/10 would be phenomenal.
Just take a look at the Netherlands. Everywhere bicycle lanes. Thats why we are so happy, we can ride our bike everywhere. Cheap, fast, being on our bike is fun. Cars are so 1999. Get them out of the Cities everywhere
As you point out the Quietways are really good and there is a pretty decent extensive network where you can pretty much reach anywhere in Zone1-2 in pleasant enough surroundings, the downside is that they are typically difficult to navigate being mostly a hotch potch of connections with faded painted numbers on the road so it's difficult for people to know about beforehand, but the otherside of that coin is that you can find some interesting streets that you wouldnt have known about once you try to find some good routes (worth noting that there are plenty of even better routes that are not offical Quietways and you find yourself mixing and matching when building your own route as you get to know the area). Another problem with Quietways is they arent standardised in what they mean on the ground, some Quietways are still rat runs for traffic and are very intimidating for casual cyclists. The Super Highways, I think they are perhaps good for commuters looking for quickest routes and they are good statement pieces of design but I really doubt they will by themselves become the sort of game changer in modal shift, because they were built on the already too-wide-major-artery-roads (a product of the post war car-economy rebuild) they just arent nice places to cycle along, London never had the pre-car Boulevards typical of European capitals where today heavy traffic and cylce lanes can co-exist on overall pleasant major routes. Vehicle pollution is one thing but which may reduce over time with the switch to Electric vehicles but just riding next to heavy traffic isnt much fun and I dont see families going out with their kids on bikes on them, its just too restricted in space to do that social side-by-side cycling. Another reason why I feel the Quietways are the way forward as you typically have half or the whole street to yourself and only pull in when required. For example I live on the Zone 2-3 border and can cycle into the centre on the hire bikes at average pace in about 40-50 minutes for £120 a year (rides over an hour add additional charges), I much prefer the ambiance of navigating the "Quiet Ways" which take me through parks and Residential side streets some of which are traffic calmed than the Super Highway that also takes me in the same direction. The political/funding/design problem with all this is that the individual Boroughs manage most of the road network inside each Borough, the London transport authority only manages a handful of major roads (surely unique to London). This makes joined up planning, designs, funding and timelines more complex than it should be hence the partial network. However the Super Highways do show that where there is a will there is a way, but politically losing a bit of the space on the wider A roads typical of the Super Highways is a lot easier to sell to partisan Borough councils and populations than trying to implement far more politically toxic "traffic calming" infrastructure required for Quietways which typically are quiet because its in Residential ares and try to restrict access to Residential and delivery vehicle access. But what has happened is that whole political debate about car ownership (perhaps more precisely vehicle owner "freedom") has become toxic, it started with Climate Change conspiricies and hyped further with Covid 19 lockdown conspiricies and it is global, fuelled by right-wing media, wealthy individuals/businesses and hostile state actors, what we see now is external factors directly influencing street traffic calming in local areas where locals are fed misleading claims and organised into local protest groups by people/groups from outside of the area. There is a definite organised backlash and this has negatively impacted fledgling cycling infrastructure in other parts of the UK with less of a critical mass of existing cyclists compared to London. The sort of evangalical marketing boost that Covid 19 provided for Cycling in the wider UK definitely fell flat on its face but lets hope the sheer pragmatism of urban cycling can just steadily keep increasing the numbers.
London was the first time I saw a cyclist in full Lycra riding a Brompton. And I saw several of them! Sadly, my camera was turned elsewhere at the time 😫. Thank you so much for the support!
The cycling gate means two red lights for cyclists, cars still have priority. In the Netherlands this wouldn’t pass, the Dutch would just ignore the first red light.
It’s made for the unconfident cyclist which is a really negative way to build infrastructure. I and other people who use those gates (I’ve used the one in the video lots) always skip them.
@@karter9219 classic vehicular cyclist response. Your thinking, which is wrong is that everyone should learn to be a vehicular cyclist. A person on a bike should be treated as such, not like a pedestrian, not like a motor vehicle. It's own mode, which is what the Dutch do. The cycle gate is just a fudge so it barely impacts motor throughput.
@@David-bi6lf this gate in aldgate just makes cyclists slower and prioritises cars. if/when they make this part permanent the gate will most likely be replaced and a proper cyclist junction will be created which alligns with your 'own mode' theory which i partly agree with
Gradually getting better, Waltham Forest is a great borough for cycling, but some more suburban ish areas slightly further out like Chingford (where I am) and there basically nothing. Just SUV world. We still ride though but primarily towards the areas with better riding facilities. It’s a shame because wealthy areas too tend to be more pro car anti bike and you get local councils ripping out the cycling lanes or LTN, in the more right wing areas in London which are far away from central London.
That's a hire bike from a scheme run by TfL (the same transport authority he mentioned in the video), colloquially known as "Boris bikes" after the mayor who was in charge when they launched. They're OK bikes (heavy but reliable) and you're never far from one in the areas where they operate, however if you're south of the river you're pretty much out of luck. They have recently launched e-bikes and have promised to expand the docking stations out to more of London so it looks like it's getting better. There are also several privately run dockless e-bike hire schemes around London, the biggest of which is Lime bikes (partnering with Uber). You can see several of them in the background in the video as well. They tend to be quite expensive and the app is very frustrating with its various geo zones and undocumented limitations, but it's an e-bike and that is its own attraction and you can park it right outside your destination rather than having to hunt around for a docking station. There are also a couple of e-scooter rental schemes. I haven't tried any of those but they seem to be similar to the e-bike rental schemes, even being run by some of the same companies.
@@Ladadadada I think its pretty good, I basically started to learn to ride in London about 10 years ago because of the scheme, initially the canal tow paths and later the network of quiet streets as I got more confident. Much better than the terrible failed Chinese docking-station free bikes that took over briefly with borrowed investor money that killed off funding for the "Boris" bike expansion for years while everyone waited to see which would last. True though when I moved house I had to adjust my decision on whether I was in the catchment area for the scheme so settled for East London. I pay £120 a year for unlimited access and because the first hour of any ride is free I dont have to pay any more for all of my typical commutes to shops, station or even central London which takes about 50 mins.
Unfortunately there are some pretty dumb things as well, such as turning bus lanes, which bicycles could also use, into cycle only lanes, forcing the buses into the general traffic.
As a Calgarian I enjoy your local content but I also quite like seeing what is happening in other cities around the world. Lots of ideas as to what is possible. Great work! Carry on sir!
I think something to keep in mind about London's public transit is that it's really good at moving people into the centre of the city and back out but it falls short at connecting the outer boroughs to one another. For those kinds of trips often a wonky bus route or driving are your only options (or worse - the 40 min trip into central London, followed by another 40 min trip back out to the neighbouring borough where your friend lives), which is often why you get so many car trips in zone 3+. I'd love to see more cycling accommodation for these kinds of inter-borough trips as the options right now are severely limited.
I think they're not as bad as you think in some areas. It's a mixed bag as different boroughs have put in differing levels of investment but I think even in the last 2 years some boroughs have woken up to this and have started working on it. One issue is just that London is actually pretty big so going from one outer borough to another can feel like going from one city to another! I really notice it when I go to other cities where I can easily get from one side of the city to the other and it feels like crossing just one borough in London!
The quiet streets are probably where London has made the most progress recently. London has been putting in loads of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) especially since the pandemic, which use traffic filters to cut off through routes for cars forcing them onto main roads and discouraging shorter car journeys. These are a really cheap and effective way of creating many routes for cycling especially when combined with strategically placed cycle crossings over main roads to connect LTNs only for bikes, as the traffic levels are reduced so much that they're really pleasant to cycle and walk through.
Definitely. One of the biggest issues of cities that aren't currently prioritizing alternative modes of transport is the insistance (or perhaps 'necessity') for complete car routes to absolutely everywhere. Not does this encourage more car trips, it also encourages the presence of more cars in places that might do better without them. Not only is turning these former car roads into bike/pedestrian exclusive routes a good thing to better delineate the flow of car traffic, but it also gives people a really good excuse to not need a car just to reach every nook and cranny of a city.
A lot of the small roads and shortcuts I used to use when I learned to drive are now shut off to traffic. I now cycle and these small routes are great little shortcuts, I can get all the way up to central London and back from zone 3/4 southeast London without coming into contact with major traffic, then straight up onto the Cycleway. Only crap bit is in the City, that junction at London Bridge is horrible.
Yes! And there a couple of London cycling channels focused on exactly that, I've subscribed to two of them, as in effect, they state: "Yes, it is safe to cycle in London again, and here's how"...I've visited suburbs of London I've never been through before, and you can almost *taste* them on some of these safe *civilized* routes. I was rightly terrified most of the time cycling in London, even being raised there as a youngster, and learning to acclimatize to cycling on the left hand side. I watch some of the vids of cycling through the centre of London (and I have in days of bravado) but I couldn't do it now on the main roads. It's just not worth it. Thank God for Kate's org.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, why are we still building two way bike lanes on one side of the road? Mikael Colville-Anderson, formally of Copenhagenize, wrote about the folly of this back in 2014, mentioning the design had been removed from best practice in the Netherlands more than two decades earlier! Why are we still doing it 30 years on?
You're 100% correct, but I think the answer comes down to space and, ugh, car parking. The optimistic side of me thinks that two-lanes are the bridge between nothing at all and proper lanes. I hope we get there.
@@Shifter_Cycling Yep. You can see this in some of the consultations and design documents where you can see that they often explicitly design and evaluate one-direction-per-side cycle lanes and reject them due to the loss of parking or travel lanes for cars (or occasionally just objecting to a loss of width of the travel lanes). I'm with you on the optimistic side though. Despite CS3 having some annoying compromises due to the both-on-one-side design, it is nonetheless massively popular and a lot of those new cyclists join the LCC and vote in local elections which is what will eventually get us to the best quality designs.
It is worth noting the reason bi-directional cycling lanes are no longer being recommended is safety, with risk at crossings being higher by "a factor of 2" not to mention the difficulty for pedestrians crossing. Surely safety should be the major concern for any such design? Personally I can't see how 1 lane on each side takes up more space than two on one side either. And I do have to quote Mikael from his article, "Another excuse oft heard is, "Well... it's better than nothing" - often spoken in a defensive tone. It is a flawed argument, lacking vision, commitment and experience." 😉
I’ve been to London 3 months ago, first time since the pandemic. The last time I’ve been there in 2019. The improvement in cycling infrastructure and the increase in number of cyclists is massive. It might not be as visible for a local who sees the changes happening gradually, but for an outsider like me, who just sees it every now and then, it’s huge. Also, this last trip really made me want to get a Brompton, many people there are using them and these bikes just seem super fun.
I saw so many Bromptons, and so many different types of people riding them. I had never seen a full Lycra athlete riding a Brompton until I visited London!
@@pbilk I’ve been to London many times, usually I’ve been there about once a year. I only had a bigger gap due to pandemic lately. In terms of cycling there it feels like nothing happened for years and then suddenly it started. Now there are lots of cyclists there, at least in central London. It sadly also seems that London is the only city in the UK that has really upped its cycling game. All the other places Ive been are much worse. Earlier last year I visited Manchester for the first time. I was actually surprised that anybody was cycling there because the cycling infrastructure was either nonexistent or awful. I consider myself an experienced city cyclist and I’m no stranger to cycling in traffic but I wouldn’t feel safe being on a road on a bike there.
Yes, Brompton is a high quality folding bike brand, but there are also Reiss & Müller and Vello, an Austrian brand of high quality folding bike to consider.
@@rabomarc Cardiff in Wales is trying to up it's cycling game. Its started implementing cross-city routes similar to London's superhighway but it leaves much to be desired at junctions. A lot of non traffic light control junctions cross it and drivers are not realising they cross a two way cycle lane before entering into what is a single carriageway. So they'll look right not left... see no cars, see no bikes, and immediately pull out into a cyclist coming from the left. Additionally, there's been an uptick in left hooking by motorists, again not checking their mirrors as they cross the mostly segregated cycle infrastructure. Plus with these routes now in, police have started issuing fines for cyclists failing to dismount when using the wide shopping streets that are pedestrianised and technically cycling is prohibited, but the streets span such a large area the cycle path routing follows the normal car routing, again placing cyclists in conflict with motorised traffic at every junction.
Great to see you in london, it’s definitely improved for cyclists since I lived there. I’m now in Birmingham which as the second city has also been doing pretty well these last few years, cycling has become far more pleasurable as a result. That has resulted in more cyclists on the road and I feel more awareness from car drivers.
I know a lot of Londoners might disagree, but I also felt that drivers in central London were pretty aware of cyclists. I was quite apprehensive riding in such a busy city on the left side of the road, which I'm unaccustomed to, but drivers were generally pretty patient.
@@Shifter_Cycling It does look like it’s improved a lot over the years. When I used to commute in central london over 10 years ago it was dicey to say the least…remember getting deliberately shunted from the back by an impatient driver and cab drivers especially were a law on to themselves…
Live in Birmingham myself too, and I agree with you it looks like things are getting better especially with the new 'superhighway'-style routes like the A38 and A45 ones, but I dunno I think we still have a long long way to go. In addition for a city our size our public transport network is really not fit for purpose, it's honestly depressing realising that Manchester and Birmingham started rebuilding their tram networks around the same time in the late 90s but Manchester now has a whole network while we still just have one line :(
@@Shifter_Cycling coming from up north, where there is little-to-no infrastructure, drivers in London are far more accommodating. Simple things like the "bike box" aren't well understood outside of London and drivers like to stop in it and will be offended if you decide to filter and actually use it on your bike!
I absolutely love seeing what other cities are doing (and in this case, seeing familiar cycle lanes in my own city). So often when a city first starts building bike lanes you get objectors claiming that it can't possibly work and that no one will cycle, and after pointing out that it works in Amsterdam the inevitable retort "We aren't Amsterdam!". Having lots of examples of cities around the world at various stages in their journey is the best way of pointing out that any city can be a cycling city with just a little bit of work. Another big benefit is being able to visually demonstrate what does and what does not work. Being able to point out to a local councillor in Australia that the bike lane they have designed is identical to one built in London ten years ago that was subsequently ripped out and replaced because it wasn't good enough might just be enough to get the one in Australia built the right way the first time. So thanks! I love it and I'm looking forward to seeing more.
I agree with your comments at the end Tom. What I would also say is that London is pretty much unique in the UK, most towns have very little and poor infrastructure. I often feel like we don't take a long term view, politicians only seem interested in re-election and the UK still appears very car centric. It can be a little depressing when one looks across to our near neighbour NL to see what is possible when there is a real will to make change happen. All this said there is evidence of a slow shift in attitudes, last year changes were made to our highway code to emphasize the importance of protecting more vulnerable road users and this has made a difference. The ultimate goal however should be to separate cyclists from motor vehicles and that looks to be a very long way down the road. I look forward to seeing your analysis of some other European cities.
I recently had to cycle from Paddington to near Tower Bridge, near where you were on the film. The cycle super highway is excellent and I was able to get to my destination very easily. Thanks
I really enjoy your content and as someone who cycles a lot in London I was intrigued by your video. I use the super highway on a daily basis and it is a great piece of infrastructure in a very busy vehicle oriented city. There are plus points but the one major negative point is how vehicles seem to be given priority at traffic lights and indeed there are so many lights from the Tower of London to Westminster that your journey is very stop start. The lane from Tower Hill to Limehouse is painted blue which makes it highly noticeable but the local council (Tower Hamlets) aren’t really taking care of it and therefore a lot of the paint has worn off. In a way it shows how many people actually use the route along Cable Street. London has tried and in some respects it has achieved a pass mark but it is still heavily dominated by motor vehicles. I don’t feel the city is very progressive and with a lot of in fighting and certain boroughs NOT wanting to have cycle paths there is still so much work to do. If you head out east where I live there is no cycling infrastructure apart from a random bike painted on the road. I think the U.K. as a whole is far behind and cycling seems to be a second thought over motor vehicles.
When I saw the title I assumed you were going to be speaking about Fake London (London, Ontario). I guess I've been watching too many @notjustbikes videos.
3:00 -- Junctions and round-abouts can pose a massive risk to cyclists. and where there are some that have been designed really well and clearly a lot of thought has gone through all the routing. There are some designs that were put in that are basically nothing but death traps and you do hear about them quite often -- *'Holborn Gyratory'* probably being one of the most famous ones. things still need improving. 5:29 -- traffic hasnt been _'restricted'_ There is still the same amount of traffic because its the big city, but it serves to piss drivers off even more, or even worse... Force them to use public transport which (a) Is horrendbously bad, very expensive and very poorly run and services are constantly down because staff go on strike. If you want to drive your car through london. Nobody is restricting you. You just have to accept that you'll be paying an _extra tax_ to drive through it. --- also Katy didnt address the *"Us vs them"* attitude that is regularly directed at cyclists and a lot of this is for silly reasons.. reasons such as: 1. Cyclists dont pay road tax/arent taxed - thus they have no right to be on the road 2. Cyclists dont have numberplates or have to register to sites or Government Agency like the DVLA to be allowed to use the road so there is no way to report and track a cyclist should they ride off after they've been involved in an accident/collision of sorts. 3. A lot of drivers see riding a bicycle as something they do when they were kids -- thus adults riding bicycles have no place on 'their' roads. --- You get the gist of it. Its not pretty, it doesnt make any sense but you'd be damned if you approach one of the anti-cycling comittee and try to educate or debate them. For instance... a lot of people who commute to work by bicycle actually do pay road tax, sometimes for multiple vehicles and they are registered on the DVLA but its just easier and cheaper to leave the car at home and cycle 30-45mins to work. Unless you agree with their opinion regarding cyclists, they dont want to hear what you have to say and so long as this poor attitude and animosity remains in place London will never fully turn into a bike city as it will be dominated by people who think cyclists have no right to be on the road. A lot of people are genuinely afraid to commute by bicycle. My experience?? Ive been commuting (by bicycle) to work in central london from North London since 2015.
It’s nice to see a video from an outside perspective. But for me a bit further out from central it feels like they have only made a start to improving cycle infrastructure and never continued with it. Where I am in Merton, the plans to improve cycling finished in 2020 and nothing has been done since.
Thank you for the vid, Im a fan ! 1. In many areas in the South particularly Bromley there is no infrastructure for bicycles except some lines drawn on pedestrian footpaths going through bus stops and ending in fast road traffic. The council is at best described as an idiotic bunch of dinosaurs (tories of course) that resisted any attempts to prompt them to do something.... anything about safer cycling. 2. You cannot really compare the safe road systems in Europe and in other places with the exposed and risky quick fix lanes in London. Many European cities prioritise cycling as no 1 in urban develpoment, car roads come second. You may be encouraged by some developments in London but when you look at them only quiet roads have safe lanes divided by hard physical demarcations. The 4 of us (2 children) still dred going out cycling as a family and most of the time in spite of road cycling training from experts we still take the pedestrian routes, way too unsafe. London has still a long way to go, I feel.
These are fair points, and if you live there you certainly have a better sense of the entire city than what I was able to see. The great cycling cities of Europe have a 40-year head start, and you're absolutely correct that they've built, not just for cycling, but for safety of all kinds, but I heard from a bunch of Londoners who felt the city is on the right track. Let's hope it keeps developing, unlike my city where progress feels like it's completely stalled.
Bromley is shocking for cycling even compared to Lewisham - I live near Grove Park and go between the boroughs a lot, speaks volumes that the road surface gets worse and speed limits go up whenever I cross the border into Bromley
Woo hoo! In our neck of the woods.👍🚴♀️🇬🇧 Keep meaning to cycle up to London for a day out, as only 30 miles away.👍 Great to see your views on London👍🚴♀️🙂
One thing that is good about London is the bus drivers are well trained for cyclists, I do hope that cycling infrastructure improves in SE London though
Good to see these changes, but as a Dutch bike rider I'm struck by the lack of visual cues (mostly done with red asphalt here) where the lanes go. The double traffic light for cyclists is simply done with a no-cars-box near the traffic lights here - but I get as an emerging bike city it's best to not surprise (antagonise?) drivers with cyclists just pulling up in front of you.
Another great video Tom! It is a shame that London is by-and-large the exception in the UK, we are still extremely anti-cycling in most places and increasingly car-dependent. I am hoping that London influence will eventually start to creep to other cities...but my city of Plymouth just widened a 4 lane road to a 6 lane road with zero cycle infrastructure...super dangerous for bikes😒😒
Great to see you on my side of the pond! A good roundup. I live in Maidenhead, 25 miles west of London. Because of the capital's cycleways I often feel safer cycling in London than in my much smaller and quieter home town.
I agree with this. I come from near Maidenhead but I wouldn't cycle there, it is just too dangerous on the A4 main road etc. too many fast and irresponsible drivers and few if any properly segregated cycle lanes. You can't even cycle easily along the Thames because of all the blinking footpath gates. I now live in Dresden, Germany and cycle about happily all the time. I could also, in theory, cycle easily all the way along the Elbe from Dresden to Hamburg (310 miles) and there (probably) wouldn't be any gates!
London is definetly one of the better cities in the UK. I have to spend a lot of time in cities like Birmingham and Sheffield and oh boy, those are truly just carcentric urban wastelands... The volume of traffic alone around Birmingham New Street Station alone makes it impossible to bike without being killed, even if the speeds are slowish.
Interesting. I have just watched your video immediately after cycling home from central London, where people work, to the suburbs (what you called the “outer boroughs”) where people actually live. I live in the middle/outer suburbs 9 miles from my office. A cycle commuter typically would travel between five and 10 miles each way because London is a big place. It also has hills by the way! I’m sure the cycling superhighway is brilliant if you want to go a short flat distance through central London east-west or west-east. However, there is nothing like that going out to the north. and I can see one of the other comments says there’s nothing like it in the south either. London does have the most brilliant public transport system in the world though. So it gets some things right. The cycle superhighway is a nice start, but the rest of London is still a place where cars dominate. The only factor that makes it a little safer than some other places is the relatively slow speed of the traffic because of congestion. Other than that, junctions and road layouts make quite it a dangerous place. Come back in five years’ time, and it would be great to think more progress will have been made by then! I hope you enjoyed your visit , and thanks for the video.
There's a difference in what the words "suburbs" and "big" mean in Europe vs North America. In Canada and the US, a suburb would probably be anywhere from 10 miles to 50 miles away from the central city. London as a city is big, and even when you go to the suburbs it still looks and feels like a slower city connected to the hustle and bustle of Central London. North American cities are small, but the metropolitan area comprising of the city + suburb is absolutely massive and the sprawl just kills any possibility of cycling or public transportation.
I live in Croydon, an outer borough in the south of London. My experience is that cycling around here is still pretty terrifying. It only improves when you get into the centre. I used to cycle from Croydon to Wimbledon, another outer borough, but quickly stopped after a few near death experiences. The only people brave enough to cycle to work seem to be blokes in lycra. There is no comparison with the Dutch system, where you can safely traverse long distances at ease. In the Netherlands there are children and old ladies out on their bikes - totally unthinkable here! I think we have a long way to go, but things are slowly improving, and thankfully buses and trains are pretty good round here. Great video, thanks!
like she said, if you build an awesome safe cycleway but each end is messy and it all falls apart, no one will use it and it ruins the point. I have noticed this A LOT in the great city of Sydney Australia. It is great, great, great and then it turns really bad and as a result only few people end up using it. Great point she stated there.
Great episode, thanks for coming to the UK and covering London. As a former London resident, it is good to see the cycling infrastructure improvements. Hopefully these improvements will start to prolificate to other UK towns soon.
I love to watch the videos put up by Londoncycleroutes. He has been showcasing all the different cycles routes around London and the suburbs from suggestions by his viewers. I am going to London for the next few months and hope to ride some of the more scenic routes he has put up.
The brilliant London Cycle Routes channel ua-cam.com/channels/GACjprwPEV2cmcTLooxXvg.html is run by one of our long-term members and volunteers. He does a simply brilliant job picking out ways that people can connect up places safely.
London DID turn over too much space to motorised vehicles. Archway Road is a case in point- widened to six lanes to accommodate the M1 entering London, it runs straight through residential neighbourhoods. Some changes have taken place but not before serious incidents - a friend of mine was crushed by an articulated lorry and another survived being thrown into the air by a commuting driver. These are two of my childhood memories. I am sure other Londoners have similar.
That's so awful, sorry for your loss and your poor friend. Too many of our most ardent campaigners and activists also come from tragedy. As a city and society we should never let it get to this point. We normalise road violence to a shocking degree. The incidents you describe are NOT accidents. They are predictable outcomes of a poorly designed system. We refuse to accept this system.
Awesome to see you here in London Tom. As a cyclist born and bred in this city, it's refreshing to see an outside perspective on how far our infrastructure has come in recent years, but also how much better it can be! Totally agree that the nicest bike lanes are always the "Q" Quiet routes on back streets. Hope you enjoyed your stay and will be back again soon :)
Totally agree - pootling on the back roads and finding routes that connect across in quiet ways is such a lovely way to go. Also you find things you never knew were there! The LTNs we've been campaigning for massively help with creating the quiet roads needed for this sort of transport cycling - some of the roads assigned as 'quietways' in outer London are much too busy to deserve the name.
I agree with many comments here, London has come a long way in the last 4 years, but we need to go further, much further to catch up with the Netherlands. I look forward to a time when the majority vehicles will be bikes of all types ,and descriptions
In the true outer boroughs (Croydon, Bromley, Harrow, etc.) where tourists don't go, cycling infrastructure is frankly pathetic and requires massive improvement.
Great video! I’ve been living in London for 8 years, cycling in it for 4, and absolutely love it! Definitely the best way to explore the city’s nooks and crannies, loved seeing those quiet routes between London Bridge and Blackfriars here! Have to say that for me even the non-cycling-infrastructure sections are still enjoyable to ride on, the average speed of cars is quite slow so I rarely feel uncomfortable. Definitely agree that the Victoria Embankment bike lane is a standout, always a pleasure!
Ayeee welcome to London! Looks like you went in November, right before the cold snap, lucky and glad you enjoyed our lovely little town! Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are a point of contention here with the Nimbys, but as gift to mankind. A city I can recommend that has undergone an pretty crazy almost overnight shift in cycling infrastructure is Tel Aviv. Check out Livable City's video titled "The urban transformation of Tel Aviv" 🔥
We were glad the snow held off for sure! We will cycle in the snow, but it's not ideal for introductory touring with our current infrastructure and cycle lane gritting levels...
Cycling needs to be an “as well” option NOT an “instead of” option. I love cycle lanes, but they need to carry all pedestrian vehicles…cycles, scooters, ebikes, skateboards etc to get them separated from cars motorbikes and trucks. THAT reduces danger of collision for everyone. The problem is…if you look at cyclists 90% of them fall into the fairly fit 20-35 age group…energetic and capable. They campaign for their cause as if it is a perfect solution that everyone MUST comply with. SO what is everyone else supposed to do if cars are made untenable. The old, the obese and the incapable are simply ignored. How about food shopping? Getting granny to the specialist? Picking up the kids? I hate this “cycle mania” and “everyone is a commuter” ethos and it is not the universal answer to transport - even for London.
Having lived in london for a year (just before covid hit) the regular commute was alright, where I was in SW London it wasn't great, and the stuff they were working on to improve things was pretty poorly thought through (adding lots of mixed cycle and footpaths, even where it wasn't appropriate, like on steep downhills). The issue I had was with central London was junctions and navigation. Signage for a relatively convoluted cycle network was basically non-existant.
Love the international content. Would like to get more of a feel for what it's like riding the bicycle super-highway -- is it a great way to bang out 10 miles, just as a suburban driver would go 2 more freeway exits to get to their favorite drive-thru Arby's -- or is it a slow, tedious, and dangerous path, like cutting through a parking lot ?
Rest of UK is far behind in both public transport and active travel infrastructure. And in places outside London where there has been attempts made to improve said infrastructure, the keyword ( as also mentioned in this video ) is "piece meal / broken". And the letters to editor section in local newspapers are filled with the usual complaints against setting up such infra ( I don't see cyclists using it / cyclists don't pay road tax / etc etc ). What is even more ridiculous is that pavement parking is allowed in most places, and people don't even realise they are doing something wrong when they block the entire footpath with their massive SUVs.
#1: your delivery in these vids has skyrocketed to pro commentator status #2: yes to vids anywhere you travel, I'll be happy to show you our infrastructure here in NYC, there are some serious growing pains, but again like other urban areas, we're trying?
Denmark was right from the beginning. They made Copenhagen a bycyling City. Secondly they got it right with wind Energy before the current energy crisis.
It's funny to hear them being a "victim of their own success". What it really tells you though is that they need to build more...much more. The Netherlands has very few "busiest cycleways" because they just have so much infrastructure that it spreads people out to a reasonable level. Funnelling everyone through just a few high quality routes is great for headlines but bad for cyclists. What it also tells you though is how much latent demand there is, and how unreasonable the anti-cyclist crowd is. But as I said on another platform...the biggest fear of drivers is that they will be treated the way they have treated all other modalities.
Great video, London has come a long way, unfortunately the rest of the UK has a lot of catching up to do. There is far too much car is king in other towns and cities attitude, we must do better!
Living in London for 10 years and I can say cycling changed my experience of the city. All of a sudden your connecting all these areas which you would have only associated to a tube station.
What I find frustrating about London cycle planners is that they prevent cyclists from filtering through each other and instead slow down a junction with separate light phases for each direction - just for cycles. At the Westminster end of the East-West route you were on the cyclists could all go together if the entrances were opened up. Bicycles are not cars and don't need car infrastructure. Watch the Dutch filtering here. We can do it too! ua-cam.com/video/JheHe8yj31I/v-deo.html
I live on the border of London at the very end of the tube train line. I applaud the increase of cycling infrastructure in the city centre - it makes sense - facilities and housing are densely packed as are people. However, the recent moves by City based politicians to extend the low emissions zones to the edges of London and enforce cycling do not make sense. Out here, the public transport is woeful and being on the city edge, we are more likely to want to travel outwards to the countryside not inwards to the city. I have a bike and use it when I can but I also need a car to visit my relatives, shops and services because public transport is so woeful. There is never a one size fits all solution however much the politicians and activists might like one.
On the subject, I suggest following the channel "London cycle routes" where he takes a bike ride every week showing the best way to get around, not only in central London but also in the other boroughs youtube.com/@Londoncycleroutes
Ha... did you experience the Cycling Superhighway at rush hour? It's absolutely mental. It's almost impossible to make a right turn from it. Ah katie does mention it :) phew. It's like the only bad thing, there's not enough space to carry the traffic they attract.
Great video. So glad to see London making great strides as a bike friendly city. Pls visit NYC for a judicious critique. Very hit and miss for cyclists, as there’s too much congestion and a paucity of protected bicycle lanes.
welcome to my home town, I'm in my mid fifty's and have been cycling in London most of my life, it's been great seeing the changes to cycling in and around London and it's looking very promising in the near future.
Good to see Tom in the UK and looking at the positive active travel developments in the capital. If you are in or going to London could I possibly recommend the London Cycle Routes youtube channel? Every week it demonstrates a jolly good cycle route from one part of the city to another using quiet streets and cycle lanes. www.youtube.com/@Londoncycleroutes
I would love to see you do something similar to this is Sydney Australia! Sydney has had great infrastructure for many years but has slowed down drastically and now many politicians are trying there best for better safer bicycle infrastructure. There are many campaign groups out there as well helping with this cause. Sydney is very different to London and more like Canada or USA in road design and idea so maybe it might be a bit easier to navigate. Thanks Tom, great video
Great video, as usual. I think it's important to note that Transport for London is a multi-modal agency, which is rare in North America. The US has DOTs (Department of Transportation) but they're almost exclusively responsible for roads. TfL is also responsible for roads, but they are also responsible for running the tube, the buses, and the cycling paths. This is why they're able to take a holistic view of transportation in the city, and not just focusing on, say, "level of service" for car traffic, like many US and Canadian cities do.
Fun fact, TfL have only built one road since it was formed in 2000 (the A23 Coulsdon Relief road on the edge of the city).
Thanks Jason. Great point. It's also important to have an agency with a wholistic view like this to cut through the local borough politics. These inter-jurisdictional squabbles hobble improvements in all kinds of cities in North America.
@@Shifter_Cycling Unfortunately TfL is only responsible for the "main" roads and we do still get squabbles between boroughs on all the other roads. Frequently when you're riding along a nice separated bike lane and it suddenly ends, the reason is that you have just crossed a borough boundary. In fact, that point where you turned off CS3 onto the temporary experimental infrastructure towards CS2 at Tower Gateway is exactly the point where the wide, newly constructed protected cycle lane on a main road gives way to a narrow, decades old cycle lane on a minor backstreet and is also the point at which you travel from the City of London into the borough of Tower Hamlets. Another couple of miles along CS3 it turns into sharrows.
Another example is the gap in CS4 where TfL have done their bits but the Borough of Greenwich hasn't and you just have to mix with traffic for a mile or two.
Yes, I experienced some of these in London, and I've seen them here in Canada too where there are abutting jurisdictions. The really sad part is that I live in a city that lacks multiple jurisdictions but we still have these gaps in the network.
The Borough concilshave more power when i comes to roads. As a result you sometimes get odd situation where bike lanes will suddenly stop as you cross the invisible borders.
I visited London last september, as a Dutch guy I found the biking infrastructure quite good for a foreign country, although I saw many intersections and roads that wouldn't fly at all in the Netherlands, but they are improving rapidly I heard from a friend that lives there. I hope the better cycling infrastructure quickly attracts more 'normal biking' instead of everyone on racing bikes cycling like they are in the final sprint of the tour de France, I wasn't relaxed at all and we couldn't keep a normal conversation because of the constant ringing and people wanting to get past us while we were cycling relatively fast already, in the Netherlands you can easily hold a conversation because the cycling culture is way more relaxed.
its awful compared to even germany
Referring to your latter point, that's probably because everyone's in a hurry in London and I don't think that's ever gonna change, it's not about cycling culture it's more about the city itself
You don't have any "normal cyclists" in Amsterdam, as a person who rides a "normal" racing bike at a high pace i found it very frustrating riding in amsterdam. There are no cyclists and the city is not cyclist friendly, its made for pedestrians on bicycles, not cyclists. A cyclist is a person who rides a bike while in uniform, helmet and clipless pedals. All others are pedestrians.
And if you are talking whilst riding you are one of the most obnoxious types. Talk at home, in the pub or in the park ffs. Road is not a place for conversation, you must be focused and concentrating on the road.
@@MalcolmJameson_1 TBH your whole post sounds pretty obnoxious, so pot kettle black. Your way is not better, it's just different. Some people want to go fast, some people don't. There should be options for all. Not everyone wants to race around like Chris Boardman. London is a working commuting city but it's also a tourist city and a city with families and old people. We all need to find a way to get along somehow.
@@MalcolmJameson_1 ofc you have a fuckin ukip pfp
I lived in London from 2019 - 2021, before moving to Toronto. I felt 5x safer cycling in London than I do in Toronto. In fact, I've stopped cycling in Toronto due to how bad the drivers are. The slow car traffic in London definitely is the top reason for this, as is the fact that there are normal cars there and not trucks with hoods bigger than I am.
I hear what you're saying about the trucks. God, I hate those things.
Agreed. As a cyclist, London has radically changed since I lived there in the 1980s/90s. Now I wish other UK cities will make some effort to catch up. Long overdue.
Other cities just don't have the funding to be able to, north-south divide etc
If London is getting to be a bit more like central European cycle-friendly cities, I wonder if people are taking to buying more city-type bikes, rather than the usual road bikes and mountain bikes. Being from the UK originally, I am now living in Germany and love my 7 speed hub , upright bike with dynamo lights!
I was surprised at the diversity of cyclists in London. I certainly saw upright, Dutch-style bikes, but there were also a lot of people in Lycra on road bikes, and lots of people on folding bikes. It felt to me like a middle-ground between the athletic cyclists we see in North America and the more casual cyclists of Europe. Maybe that's a sign of a city in transition.
Yes and no there's still a load of lycra clad cyclist in a never ending race bombing around London, but there's slowly getting a good mix of different cyclists the Ebike market is getting very popular along with cargo bikes.
@@Shifter_Cycling I guess if you are commuting from an Outer borough or from just outside London (10-20 miles each way) then a faster road bike is more suitable. Shorter distances where you remain in-borough then a more upright city style bike works well. Obviously with ebikes you can also do those longer commutes without a road bike without a problem.
They are. I live in one of the more cycle friendly boroughs and I've started noticing loads of city/upright/dutch bikes everywhere in my neighbourhood - I've also seen a lot of cargo bikes as well.
I think the Lycra/road bike thing you see is a hangover from when there was no infrastructure. Cyclists had to work hard to keep up with car traffic and the only people riding were the super keen ones. I think that’s why so many people go as fast as possible down the cycle paths, it’s what they’re used to.
I used to ride from Clapton to Ilford (flat journey) on a single speed bike every day in the summer and I used to get to work and then get home buzzing with endorphins. But if you add hills and winter then the fun instantly evaporates.
That guy flying onto the pavement at 1:23 😂😂😂 sums up cycling in London for me. Cool video!
Nice video: what a change! I was last in London in 2017 and besides the bikeshare, London was essentially sharrow-central. Nice to see they've been doing some thinking, and that they are thinking regionally and trying to build out a network.
Like this series. When you're back in Canada you should make a stop in Montreal. South of the border Chicago and NYC would be good places to visit. Safe travels!
I love what you're doing and I hope that you will keep doing it. Stay safe during your travels and keep preaching the gospel of the bicycle.
Thank you! You too!
I left London 4 years ago and I am currently living in Rome. Before I came to Italy, I lived in the Southern part of Uxbridge (West London), which is about as suburban as you can get in the city of London. Despite that, I had a bike lane that took me directly to my school once I left my road. So, everything considered, London was already quite bike friendly. However, at the time, I saw cycling as more of a sport and so did most people (though there were some people who cycled to school). London has always had a focus away from car dependent infrastructure but nobody really used these lanes for everyday usage (instead using the bus or the underground) and I think it's partially because of the sporty connotation that comes with it. In the UK, cycling is seen as something you do to lose weight, when in reality, you burn more by walking. Here in Rome, there are definitely many more people who do it because they need to but, overall, there are still less cyclists because the cycling infrastructure isn't horrible; it's simply nonexistent. Well, except for a few places downtown. I started cycling as a way to get around once I left the UK and also stopped being a pussy, as it takes quite a lot of balls to cycle around Rome. But, it's nice to hear that cycling infrastructure is getting even better in London. I just hope people actually use it as a way to get around
Come and see Norwich, and what a pox-job of cycling infrastructure we have here.
They seem to think that painting a picture of a bicycle on an existing footpath somehow makes it a bike-lane.
That's not just Norwich to be fair, some cycle paths are not even good footpaths (narrow, overgrown and broken surfaces)
Might as well just categorize any path outside of a city centre as a shared path.
@@grahambonner508 Yes, I'm completely with you there.
In my experience, the cycle-ways which run alongside roads always stop to give way to traffic coming out of side-roads, and they are often covered with gravel which has been flicked-up off the road, broken glass, and bits of old car debris.
We are decades behind countries like Denmark and the Netherlands with their cycling infrastructure.
Glad to see you doing stuff outside of Canada. As a former Saskatonian, I suggest you come to Christchurch, NZ sometime :)
I grew up in London in the 80s & 90s and rarely cycled anywhere. I've returned to the city in my 50s and cycle everywhere now. It's a massive, massive improvement. I can cycle from the suburbs to central london in under and hour with very little stress.
Hey, I'm planning on starting making videos on Paris!
Fascinating. Great to see so many innovative experiments.
The UK needs to increase the speed limit for electric bikes to 20mph which is the lowest speed limit for cars in the UK.
Im envious of your place, that kind of project is kind of impossible at my country due to how our roads are designed
Great video - as others have said, lots packed in! What camera are you using, and is it on some sort of selfie stick? Wonderfully crisp - love it.
Nice video on London, didn't spot anyone ridding a Brompton?
Saw hordes of them!
Nice. Where else do you plan on making videos?
Would like to see how other areas in Europe handles bike commuters.
Great video!
The term "Cycle Superhighway" is rather misleading. What TfL calls a "Cycle Superhighway" is great infrastructure in Westminster. However, if your travel a little further afield (e.g. South of Elephant and Castle), the "Cycle Superhighway" is actually nothing more than a bicycle logo and a strip of blue paint in a very busy bus and motorcycle lane. During rush hour, you are sharing a lane with buses. Granted, TfL bus drivers are mostly excellent and very considerate, so it's not too bad. But most buslanes are not in operation 24 hours/day, Outside the busiest hours, cars can drive in the bus lane as well. At those times, you're effectively cycling in a painted bicycle gutter in a lane that is too narrow to accommodate a bicycle and a car side by side with sufficient distance between them. Cycling is quite hazardous at that time.
Then there is the London borough of Chelsea and Kensington, right next to the location you filmed. There are a few quiet cycle paths, but most of Chelsea and Kensington is a bicycle-hating hellscape where SUVs (the infamous Chelsea tractors) and expensive sportscars rule.
I live in zone 3 in south London, and I have a small cargo bike to ferry my child to friends and clubs (just like an American soccer mum, minus the SUV), because it is far too dangerous for my 10-year-old to cycle by himself. Nevertheless, I'm grateful for the London Cycling Campaign for working hard making London a safer place to cycle, despite sometimes very aggressive opposition.
London still has a very long way to go. I remember being a kid in the early 90's and seeing a segregated cycle lane and thinking that if there was just one segregated lane near me I'd use it all the time. I thought it might happen when I was older, especially as we were starting to find out about global warming. Well 30 years later and we've barely made any progress. The cycle superhighways were a really exciting prospect but then they turned out to be just another (unsegregated) cycle lane. Some are now segregated, 15 or so years later but it's crazy that there isn't multiple routes that go uninterupted from the edges of London to the centre. We've got hundreds of roads but nothing for bikes. It'd be nice if it was 50/50 but even 90/10 would be phenomenal.
Just take a look at the Netherlands. Everywhere bicycle lanes. Thats why we are so happy, we can ride our bike everywhere. Cheap, fast, being on our bike is fun. Cars are so 1999. Get them out of the Cities everywhere
As you point out the Quietways are really good and there is a pretty decent extensive network where you can pretty much reach anywhere in Zone1-2 in pleasant enough surroundings, the downside is that they are typically difficult to navigate being mostly a hotch potch of connections with faded painted numbers on the road so it's difficult for people to know about beforehand, but the otherside of that coin is that you can find some interesting streets that you wouldnt have known about once you try to find some good routes (worth noting that there are plenty of even better routes that are not offical Quietways and you find yourself mixing and matching when building your own route as you get to know the area). Another problem with Quietways is they arent standardised in what they mean on the ground, some Quietways are still rat runs for traffic and are very intimidating for casual cyclists. The Super Highways, I think they are perhaps good for commuters looking for quickest routes and they are good statement pieces of design but I really doubt they will by themselves become the sort of game changer in modal shift, because they were built on the already too-wide-major-artery-roads (a product of the post war car-economy rebuild) they just arent nice places to cycle along, London never had the pre-car Boulevards typical of European capitals where today heavy traffic and cylce lanes can co-exist on overall pleasant major routes. Vehicle pollution is one thing but which may reduce over time with the switch to Electric vehicles but just riding next to heavy traffic isnt much fun and I dont see families going out with their kids on bikes on them, its just too restricted in space to do that social side-by-side cycling. Another reason why I feel the Quietways are the way forward as you typically have half or the whole street to yourself and only pull in when required. For example I live on the Zone 2-3 border and can cycle into the centre on the hire bikes at average pace in about 40-50 minutes for £120 a year (rides over an hour add additional charges), I much prefer the ambiance of navigating the "Quiet Ways" which take me through parks and Residential side streets some of which are traffic calmed than the Super Highway that also takes me in the same direction.
The political/funding/design problem with all this is that the individual Boroughs manage most of the road network inside each Borough, the London transport authority only manages a handful of major roads (surely unique to London). This makes joined up planning, designs, funding and timelines more complex than it should be hence the partial network. However the Super Highways do show that where there is a will there is a way, but politically losing a bit of the space on the wider A roads typical of the Super Highways is a lot easier to sell to partisan Borough councils and populations than trying to implement far more politically toxic "traffic calming" infrastructure required for Quietways which typically are quiet because its in Residential ares and try to restrict access to Residential and delivery vehicle access. But what has happened is that whole political debate about car ownership (perhaps more precisely vehicle owner "freedom") has become toxic, it started with Climate Change conspiricies and hyped further with Covid 19 lockdown conspiricies and it is global, fuelled by right-wing media, wealthy individuals/businesses and hostile state actors, what we see now is external factors directly influencing street traffic calming in local areas where locals are fed misleading claims and organised into local protest groups by people/groups from outside of the area. There is a definite organised backlash and this has negatively impacted fledgling cycling infrastructure in other parts of the UK with less of a critical mass of existing cyclists compared to London. The sort of evangalical marketing boost that Covid 19 provided for Cycling in the wider UK definitely fell flat on its face but lets hope the sheer pragmatism of urban cycling can just steadily keep increasing the numbers.
Question, if it was up to you would you take away my cars?
Great vid! All the way to (real) London and no Brompton footage though?!? 😭
London was the first time I saw a cyclist in full Lycra riding a Brompton. And I saw several of them! Sadly, my camera was turned elsewhere at the time 😫. Thank you so much for the support!
The cycling gate means two red lights for cyclists, cars still have priority. In the Netherlands this wouldn’t pass, the Dutch would just ignore the first red light.
It’s made for the unconfident cyclist which is a really negative way to build infrastructure. I and other people who use those gates (I’ve used the one in the video lots) always skip them.
@@karter9219 classic vehicular cyclist response. Your thinking, which is wrong is that everyone should learn to be a vehicular cyclist. A person on a bike should be treated as such, not like a pedestrian, not like a motor vehicle. It's own mode, which is what the Dutch do. The cycle gate is just a fudge so it barely impacts motor throughput.
@@David-bi6lf this gate in aldgate just makes cyclists slower and prioritises cars. if/when they make this part permanent the gate will most likely be replaced and a proper cyclist junction will be created which alligns with your 'own mode' theory which i partly agree with
Gradually getting better, Waltham Forest is a great borough for cycling, but some more suburban ish areas slightly further out like Chingford (where I am) and there basically nothing. Just SUV world. We still ride though but primarily towards the areas with better riding facilities. It’s a shame because wealthy areas too tend to be more pro car anti bike and you get local councils ripping out the cycling lanes or LTN, in the more right wing areas in London which are far away from central London.
Is that a bike rental you used? How is the UK bike rental situation?
That's a hire bike from a scheme run by TfL (the same transport authority he mentioned in the video), colloquially known as "Boris bikes" after the mayor who was in charge when they launched. They're OK bikes (heavy but reliable) and you're never far from one in the areas where they operate, however if you're south of the river you're pretty much out of luck. They have recently launched e-bikes and have promised to expand the docking stations out to more of London so it looks like it's getting better.
There are also several privately run dockless e-bike hire schemes around London, the biggest of which is Lime bikes (partnering with Uber). You can see several of them in the background in the video as well. They tend to be quite expensive and the app is very frustrating with its various geo zones and undocumented limitations, but it's an e-bike and that is its own attraction and you can park it right outside your destination rather than having to hunt around for a docking station.
There are also a couple of e-scooter rental schemes. I haven't tried any of those but they seem to be similar to the e-bike rental schemes, even being run by some of the same companies.
@@Ladadadada I think its pretty good, I basically started to learn to ride in London about 10 years ago because of the scheme, initially the canal tow paths and later the network of quiet streets as I got more confident. Much better than the terrible failed Chinese docking-station free bikes that took over briefly with borrowed investor money that killed off funding for the "Boris" bike expansion for years while everyone waited to see which would last. True though when I moved house I had to adjust my decision on whether I was in the catchment area for the scheme so settled for East London. I pay £120 a year for unlimited access and because the first hour of any ride is free I dont have to pay any more for all of my typical commutes to shops, station or even central London which takes about 50 mins.
Unfortunately there are some pretty dumb things as well, such as turning bus lanes, which bicycles could also use, into cycle only lanes, forcing the buses into the general traffic.
As a Calgarian I enjoy your local content but I also quite like seeing what is happening in other cities around the world. Lots of ideas as to what is possible. Great work! Carry on sir!
Thank you! It's good to hear what you enjoy watching.
Ready to see a review of how horrible it is in windsor.
If I remember right, It was recently rated the most unfriendly city for bikes in Canada.
@@clarkwatson9721Hi
I think something to keep in mind about London's public transit is that it's really good at moving people into the centre of the city and back out but it falls short at connecting the outer boroughs to one another. For those kinds of trips often a wonky bus route or driving are your only options (or worse - the 40 min trip into central London, followed by another 40 min trip back out to the neighbouring borough where your friend lives), which is often why you get so many car trips in zone 3+. I'd love to see more cycling accommodation for these kinds of inter-borough trips as the options right now are severely limited.
I think they're not as bad as you think in some areas. It's a mixed bag as different boroughs have put in differing levels of investment but I think even in the last 2 years some boroughs have woken up to this and have started working on it. One issue is just that London is actually pretty big so going from one outer borough to another can feel like going from one city to another! I really notice it when I go to other cities where I can easily get from one side of the city to the other and it feels like crossing just one borough in London!
The quiet streets are probably where London has made the most progress recently. London has been putting in loads of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) especially since the pandemic, which use traffic filters to cut off through routes for cars forcing them onto main roads and discouraging shorter car journeys. These are a really cheap and effective way of creating many routes for cycling especially when combined with strategically placed cycle crossings over main roads to connect LTNs only for bikes, as the traffic levels are reduced so much that they're really pleasant to cycle and walk through.
Definitely. One of the biggest issues of cities that aren't currently prioritizing alternative modes of transport is the insistance (or perhaps 'necessity') for complete car routes to absolutely everywhere. Not does this encourage more car trips, it also encourages the presence of more cars in places that might do better without them. Not only is turning these former car roads into bike/pedestrian exclusive routes a good thing to better delineate the flow of car traffic, but it also gives people a really good excuse to not need a car just to reach every nook and cranny of a city.
A lot of the small roads and shortcuts I used to use when I learned to drive are now shut off to traffic. I now cycle and these small routes are great little shortcuts, I can get all the way up to central London and back from zone 3/4 southeast London without coming into contact with major traffic, then straight up onto the Cycleway. Only crap bit is in the City, that junction at London Bridge is horrible.
@c0wqu3u31at3r I used to go out of my way to cross over Southwark bridge instead of London Bridge because it's a much less stressful cycle
@@ruth649 I go all the way to Blackfriars on the Quietway, it's a great route as I work near farringdon anyways
Yes! And there a couple of London cycling channels focused on exactly that, I've subscribed to two of them, as in effect, they state: "Yes, it is safe to cycle in London again, and here's how"...I've visited suburbs of London I've never been through before, and you can almost *taste* them on some of these safe *civilized* routes. I was rightly terrified most of the time cycling in London, even being raised there as a youngster, and learning to acclimatize to cycling on the left hand side. I watch some of the vids of cycling through the centre of London (and I have in days of bravado) but I couldn't do it now on the main roads. It's just not worth it. Thank God for Kate's org.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, why are we still building two way bike lanes on one side of the road? Mikael Colville-Anderson, formally of Copenhagenize, wrote about the folly of this back in 2014, mentioning the design had been removed from best practice in the Netherlands more than two decades earlier! Why are we still doing it 30 years on?
You're 100% correct, but I think the answer comes down to space and, ugh, car parking. The optimistic side of me thinks that two-lanes are the bridge between nothing at all and proper lanes. I hope we get there.
@@Shifter_Cycling Yep. You can see this in some of the consultations and design documents where you can see that they often explicitly design and evaluate one-direction-per-side cycle lanes and reject them due to the loss of parking or travel lanes for cars (or occasionally just objecting to a loss of width of the travel lanes).
I'm with you on the optimistic side though. Despite CS3 having some annoying compromises due to the both-on-one-side design, it is nonetheless massively popular and a lot of those new cyclists join the LCC and vote in local elections which is what will eventually get us to the best quality designs.
It is worth noting the reason bi-directional cycling lanes are no longer being recommended is safety, with risk at crossings being higher by "a factor of 2" not to mention the difficulty for pedestrians crossing. Surely safety should be the major concern for any such design?
Personally I can't see how 1 lane on each side takes up more space than two on one side either. And I do have to quote Mikael from his article, "Another excuse oft heard is, "Well... it's better than nothing" - often spoken in a defensive tone. It is a flawed argument, lacking vision, commitment and experience." 😉
I was a little bit confused by seeing a Canadian talking about London and meaning actually London and not Fake London … *scnr*
Real London, lol!
The takeaway to cities should be try anything over trying nothing.
Love this.
Apart from sharrows, anything is better than nothing.
Am I the only one who was expecting London, Ontario (AKA Fake London)?
At least they're trying, unlike Jason's hometown of Fake London (I saw it on Google Maps recently and it was horrible).
Totally. You have to start somewhere.
I’ve been to London 3 months ago, first time since the pandemic. The last time I’ve been there in 2019. The improvement in cycling infrastructure and the increase in number of cyclists is massive. It might not be as visible for a local who sees the changes happening gradually, but for an outsider like me, who just sees it every now and then, it’s huge.
Also, this last trip really made me want to get a Brompton, many people there are using them and these bikes just seem super fun.
I saw so many Bromptons, and so many different types of people riding them. I had never seen a full Lycra athlete riding a Brompton until I visited London!
That's great you get to see that quick improvement from 2019.
I was last in London in 2018 and I don't recall that much bike infrastructure.
@@pbilk I’ve been to London many times, usually I’ve been there about once a year. I only had a bigger gap due to pandemic lately. In terms of cycling there it feels like nothing happened for years and then suddenly it started. Now there are lots of cyclists there, at least in central London.
It sadly also seems that London is the only city in the UK that has really upped its cycling game. All the other places Ive been are much worse. Earlier last year I visited Manchester for the first time. I was actually surprised that anybody was cycling there because the cycling infrastructure was either nonexistent or awful. I consider myself an experienced city cyclist and I’m no stranger to cycling in traffic but I wouldn’t feel safe being on a road on a bike there.
Yes, Brompton is a high quality folding bike brand, but there are also Reiss & Müller and Vello, an Austrian brand of high quality folding bike to consider.
@@rabomarc Cardiff in Wales is trying to up it's cycling game. Its started implementing cross-city routes similar to London's superhighway but it leaves much to be desired at junctions. A lot of non traffic light control junctions cross it and drivers are not realising they cross a two way cycle lane before entering into what is a single carriageway.
So they'll look right not left... see no cars, see no bikes, and immediately pull out into a cyclist coming from the left.
Additionally, there's been an uptick in left hooking by motorists, again not checking their mirrors as they cross the mostly segregated cycle infrastructure. Plus with these routes now in, police have started issuing fines for cyclists failing to dismount when using the wide shopping streets that are pedestrianised and technically cycling is prohibited, but the streets span such a large area the cycle path routing follows the normal car routing, again placing cyclists in conflict with motorised traffic at every junction.
I enjoy seeing what other cities are doing regarding cycling. The intersection where cyclists went all directions before cars is genius. Thanks Tom.
Great to see you in london, it’s definitely improved for cyclists since I lived there. I’m now in Birmingham which as the second city has also been doing pretty well these last few years, cycling has become far more pleasurable as a result. That has resulted in more cyclists on the road and I feel more awareness from car drivers.
I know a lot of Londoners might disagree, but I also felt that drivers in central London were pretty aware of cyclists. I was quite apprehensive riding in such a busy city on the left side of the road, which I'm unaccustomed to, but drivers were generally pretty patient.
@@Shifter_Cycling It does look like it’s improved a lot over the years. When I used to commute in central london over 10 years ago it was dicey to say the least…remember getting deliberately shunted from the back by an impatient driver and cab drivers especially were a law on to themselves…
Live in Birmingham myself too, and I agree with you it looks like things are getting better especially with the new 'superhighway'-style routes like the A38 and A45 ones, but I dunno I think we still have a long long way to go. In addition for a city our size our public transport network is really not fit for purpose, it's honestly depressing realising that Manchester and Birmingham started rebuilding their tram networks around the same time in the late 90s but Manchester now has a whole network while we still just have one line :(
Same stands for the Ontario equivalent.
@@Shifter_Cycling coming from up north, where there is little-to-no infrastructure, drivers in London are far more accommodating. Simple things like the "bike box" aren't well understood outside of London and drivers like to stop in it and will be offended if you decide to filter and actually use it on your bike!
Things are improving...but the moped degenerates frequently use the cycle lanes to speed past traffic.
I absolutely love seeing what other cities are doing (and in this case, seeing familiar cycle lanes in my own city). So often when a city first starts building bike lanes you get objectors claiming that it can't possibly work and that no one will cycle, and after pointing out that it works in Amsterdam the inevitable retort "We aren't Amsterdam!". Having lots of examples of cities around the world at various stages in their journey is the best way of pointing out that any city can be a cycling city with just a little bit of work.
Another big benefit is being able to visually demonstrate what does and what does not work. Being able to point out to a local councillor in Australia that the bike lane they have designed is identical to one built in London ten years ago that was subsequently ripped out and replaced because it wasn't good enough might just be enough to get the one in Australia built the right way the first time.
So thanks! I love it and I'm looking forward to seeing more.
I agree with your comments at the end Tom. What I would also say is that London is pretty much unique in the UK, most towns have very little and poor infrastructure.
I often feel like we don't take a long term view, politicians only seem interested in re-election and the UK still appears very car centric. It can be a little depressing when one looks across to our near neighbour NL to see what is possible when there is a real will to make change happen.
All this said there is evidence of a slow shift in attitudes, last year changes were made to our highway code to emphasize the importance of protecting more vulnerable road users and this has made a difference. The ultimate goal however should be to separate cyclists from motor vehicles and that looks to be a very long way down the road.
I look forward to seeing your analysis of some other European cities.
I recently had to cycle from Paddington to near Tower Bridge, near where you were on the film. The cycle super highway is excellent and I was able to get to my destination very easily. Thanks
To be fair, that stretch of infrastructure is one of the best in London!
I really enjoy your content and as someone who cycles a lot in London I was intrigued by your video. I use the super highway on a daily basis and it is a great piece of infrastructure in a very busy vehicle oriented city. There are plus points but the one major negative point is how vehicles seem to be given priority at traffic lights and indeed there are so many lights from the Tower of London to Westminster that your journey is very stop start.
The lane from Tower Hill to Limehouse is painted blue which makes it highly noticeable but the local council (Tower Hamlets) aren’t really taking care of it and therefore a lot of the paint has worn off. In a way it shows how many people actually use the route along Cable Street.
London has tried and in some respects it has achieved a pass mark but it is still heavily dominated by motor vehicles. I don’t feel the city is very progressive and with a lot of in fighting and certain boroughs NOT wanting to have cycle paths there is still so much work to do. If you head out east where I live there is no cycling infrastructure apart from a random bike painted on the road. I think the U.K. as a whole is far behind and cycling seems to be a second thought over motor vehicles.
When I saw the title I assumed you were going to be speaking about Fake London (London, Ontario). I guess I've been watching too many @notjustbikes videos.
3:00 -- Junctions and round-abouts can pose a massive risk to cyclists. and where there are some that have been designed really well and clearly a lot of thought has gone through all the routing. There are some designs that were put in that are basically nothing but death traps and you do hear about them quite often -- *'Holborn Gyratory'* probably being one of the most famous ones. things still need improving.
5:29 -- traffic hasnt been _'restricted'_ There is still the same amount of traffic because its the big city, but it serves to piss drivers off even more, or even worse... Force them to use public transport which (a) Is horrendbously bad, very expensive and very poorly run and services are constantly down because staff go on strike. If you want to drive your car through london. Nobody is restricting you. You just have to accept that you'll be paying an _extra tax_ to drive through it.
--- also Katy didnt address the *"Us vs them"* attitude that is regularly directed at cyclists and a lot of this is for silly reasons..
reasons such as:
1. Cyclists dont pay road tax/arent taxed - thus they have no right to be on the road
2. Cyclists dont have numberplates or have to register to sites or Government Agency like the DVLA to be allowed to use the road so there is no way to report and track a cyclist should they ride off after they've been involved in an accident/collision of sorts.
3. A lot of drivers see riding a bicycle as something they do when they were kids -- thus adults riding bicycles have no place on 'their' roads.
--- You get the gist of it. Its not pretty, it doesnt make any sense but you'd be damned if you approach one of the anti-cycling comittee and try to educate or debate them. For instance... a lot of people who commute to work by bicycle actually do pay road tax, sometimes for multiple vehicles and they are registered on the DVLA but its just easier and cheaper to leave the car at home and cycle 30-45mins to work. Unless you agree with their opinion regarding cyclists, they dont want to hear what you have to say and so long as this poor attitude and animosity remains in place London will never fully turn into a bike city as it will be dominated by people who think cyclists have no right to be on the road. A lot of people are genuinely afraid to commute by bicycle.
My experience?? Ive been commuting (by bicycle) to work in central london from North London since 2015.
It’s nice to see a video from an outside perspective. But for me a bit further out from central it feels like they have only made a start to improving cycle infrastructure and never continued with it. Where I am in Merton, the plans to improve cycling finished in 2020 and nothing has been done since.
Thank you for the vid, Im a fan !
1. In many areas in the South particularly Bromley there is no infrastructure for bicycles except some lines drawn on pedestrian footpaths going through bus stops and ending in fast road traffic. The council is at best described as an idiotic bunch of dinosaurs (tories of course) that resisted any attempts to prompt them to do something.... anything about safer cycling.
2. You cannot really compare the safe road systems in Europe and in other places with the exposed and risky quick fix lanes in London. Many European cities prioritise cycling as no 1 in urban develpoment, car roads come second. You may be encouraged by some developments in London but when you look at them only quiet roads have safe lanes divided by hard physical demarcations. The 4 of us (2 children) still dred going out cycling as a family and most of the time in spite of road cycling training from experts we still take the pedestrian routes, way too unsafe. London has still a long way to go, I feel.
These are fair points, and if you live there you certainly have a better sense of the entire city than what I was able to see. The great cycling cities of Europe have a 40-year head start, and you're absolutely correct that they've built, not just for cycling, but for safety of all kinds, but I heard from a bunch of Londoners who felt the city is on the right track. Let's hope it keeps developing, unlike my city where progress feels like it's completely stalled.
Bromley is shocking for cycling even compared to Lewisham - I live near Grove Park and go between the boroughs a lot, speaks volumes that the road surface gets worse and speed limits go up whenever I cross the border into Bromley
I think if I ran into you in London I'd have been star struck 😅 Great video and fun to see some of that infra I've used
Woo hoo! In our neck of the woods.👍🚴♀️🇬🇧 Keep meaning to cycle up to London for a day out, as only 30 miles away.👍 Great to see your views on London👍🚴♀️🙂
Also remember public transit is expensive in London. So cycling can also provide economic relief.
One thing that is good about London is the bus drivers are well trained for cyclists, I do hope that cycling infrastructure improves in SE London though
Good to see these changes, but as a Dutch bike rider I'm struck by the lack of visual cues (mostly done with red asphalt here) where the lanes go. The double traffic light for cyclists is simply done with a no-cars-box near the traffic lights here - but I get as an emerging bike city it's best to not surprise (antagonise?) drivers with cyclists just pulling up in front of you.
Another great video Tom! It is a shame that London is by-and-large the exception in the UK, we are still extremely anti-cycling in most places and increasingly car-dependent. I am hoping that London influence will eventually start to creep to other cities...but my city of Plymouth just widened a 4 lane road to a 6 lane road with zero cycle infrastructure...super dangerous for bikes😒😒
Pretty shocking to hear about that!
Great to see you on my side of the pond! A good roundup. I live in Maidenhead, 25 miles west of London. Because of the capital's cycleways I often feel safer cycling in London than in my much smaller and quieter home town.
I heard this a few times, which is the opposite of some other places. Hopefully those safe lanes will continue to spread beyond the central city
I agree with this. I come from near Maidenhead but I wouldn't cycle there, it is just too dangerous on the A4 main road etc. too many fast and irresponsible drivers and few if any properly segregated cycle lanes. You can't even cycle easily along the Thames because of all the blinking footpath gates. I now live in Dresden, Germany and cycle about happily all the time. I could also, in theory, cycle easily all the way along the Elbe from Dresden to Hamburg (310 miles) and there (probably) wouldn't be any gates!
London is definetly one of the better cities in the UK. I have to spend a lot of time in cities like Birmingham and Sheffield and oh boy, those are truly just carcentric urban wastelands... The volume of traffic alone around Birmingham New Street Station alone makes it impossible to bike without being killed, even if the speeds are slowish.
Interesting. I have just watched your video immediately after cycling home from central London, where people work, to the suburbs (what you called the “outer boroughs”) where people actually live. I live in the middle/outer suburbs 9 miles from my office. A cycle commuter typically would travel between five and 10 miles each way because London is a big place. It also has hills by the way!
I’m sure the cycling superhighway is brilliant if you want to go a short flat distance through central London east-west or west-east.
However, there is nothing like that going out to the north. and I can see one of the other comments says there’s nothing like it in the south either.
London does have the most brilliant public transport system in the world though. So it gets some things right.
The cycle superhighway is a nice start, but the rest of London is still a place where cars dominate. The only factor that makes it a little safer than some other places is the relatively slow speed of the traffic because of congestion. Other than that, junctions and road layouts make quite it a dangerous place.
Come back in five years’ time, and it would be great to think more progress will have been made by then!
I hope you enjoyed your visit , and thanks for the video.
There's a difference in what the words "suburbs" and "big" mean in Europe vs North America. In Canada and the US, a suburb would probably be anywhere from 10 miles to 50 miles away from the central city. London as a city is big, and even when you go to the suburbs it still looks and feels like a slower city connected to the hustle and bustle of Central London. North American cities are small, but the metropolitan area comprising of the city + suburb is absolutely massive and the sprawl just kills any possibility of cycling or public transportation.
I live in Croydon, an outer borough in the south of London.
My experience is that cycling around here is still pretty terrifying. It only improves when you get into the centre.
I used to cycle from Croydon to Wimbledon, another outer borough, but quickly stopped after a few near death experiences. The only people brave enough to cycle to work seem to be blokes in lycra.
There is no comparison with the Dutch system, where you can safely traverse long distances at ease. In the Netherlands there are children and old ladies out on their bikes - totally unthinkable here!
I think we have a long way to go, but things are slowly improving, and thankfully buses and trains are pretty good round here.
Great video, thanks!
I find most of London is too scary to cycle.
like she said, if you build an awesome safe cycleway but each end is messy and it all falls apart, no one will use it and it ruins the point. I have noticed this A LOT in the great city of Sydney Australia. It is great, great, great and then it turns really bad and as a result only few people end up using it. Great point she stated there.
Great episode, thanks for coming to the UK and covering London. As a former London resident, it is good to see the cycling infrastructure improvements. Hopefully these improvements will start to prolificate to other UK towns soon.
I love to watch the videos put up by Londoncycleroutes. He has been showcasing all the different cycles routes around London and the suburbs from suggestions by his viewers. I am going to London for the next few months and hope to ride some of the more scenic routes he has put up.
The brilliant London Cycle Routes channel ua-cam.com/channels/GACjprwPEV2cmcTLooxXvg.html is run by one of our long-term members and volunteers. He does a simply brilliant job picking out ways that people can connect up places safely.
No way! I know Katie from when I used to work in Amsterdammers bike shop in Brighton! She's a wonderful cycling advocate.
Those London temporary lanes are like 57x nicer than the permanent lanes that my city was boasting about painting down lol
@shifter_cycling, come and check out cycling around in Sydney in NSW, Australia. Maybe check out Canberra too.
Oh yeah, it’s summer here.
Worth checking out BicycleDutch's videos on Sydney and Perth before you go.
London DID turn over too much space to motorised vehicles. Archway Road is a case in point- widened to six lanes to accommodate the M1 entering London, it runs straight through residential neighbourhoods.
Some changes have taken place but not before serious incidents - a friend of mine was crushed by an articulated lorry and another survived being thrown into the air by a commuting driver. These are two of my childhood memories. I am sure other Londoners have similar.
That's so awful, sorry for your loss and your poor friend. Too many of our most ardent campaigners and activists also come from tragedy. As a city and society we should never let it get to this point. We normalise road violence to a shocking degree. The incidents you describe are NOT accidents. They are predictable outcomes of a poorly designed system. We refuse to accept this system.
Awesome to see you here in London Tom. As a cyclist born and bred in this city, it's refreshing to see an outside perspective on how far our infrastructure has come in recent years, but also how much better it can be! Totally agree that the nicest bike lanes are always the "Q" Quiet routes on back streets. Hope you enjoyed your stay and will be back again soon :)
Totally agree - pootling on the back roads and finding routes that connect across in quiet ways is such a lovely way to go. Also you find things you never knew were there!
The LTNs we've been campaigning for massively help with creating the quiet roads needed for this sort of transport cycling - some of the roads assigned as 'quietways' in outer London are much too busy to deserve the name.
I agree with many comments here, London has come a long way in the last 4 years, but we need to go further, much further to catch up with the Netherlands. I look forward to a time when the majority vehicles will be bikes of all types ,and descriptions
In the true outer boroughs (Croydon, Bromley, Harrow, etc.) where tourists don't go, cycling infrastructure is frankly pathetic and requires massive improvement.
Great video! I’ve been living in London for 8 years, cycling in it for 4, and absolutely love it! Definitely the best way to explore the city’s nooks and crannies, loved seeing those quiet routes between London Bridge and Blackfriars here! Have to say that for me even the non-cycling-infrastructure sections are still enjoyable to ride on, the average speed of cars is quite slow so I rarely feel uncomfortable.
Definitely agree that the Victoria Embankment bike lane is a standout, always a pleasure!
Trying out temporary bike lanes to see how they work for all transport users is a responsible planning process that all cities should implement.
London and Paris could easily become bike paradises. High population density, relatively flat, and mild weather
Thanks! London Ontario; I've always wanted to ride my bicycle there. Just kidding, fantastic as usual.
Lol. It's amazing how popular Fake London has gotten 😂. Thanks again for the support Philip!
Ayeee welcome to London! Looks like you went in November, right before the cold snap, lucky and glad you enjoyed our lovely little town! Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are a point of contention here with the Nimbys, but as gift to mankind.
A city I can recommend that has undergone an pretty crazy almost overnight shift in cycling infrastructure is Tel Aviv. Check out Livable City's video titled "The urban transformation of Tel Aviv" 🔥
We were glad the snow held off for sure! We will cycle in the snow, but it's not ideal for introductory touring with our current infrastructure and cycle lane gritting levels...
Fantastic video. Indeed, it is informative how bicycling is accommodated in other places.
Cycling needs to be an “as well” option NOT an “instead of” option. I love cycle lanes, but they need to carry all pedestrian vehicles…cycles, scooters, ebikes, skateboards etc to get them separated from cars motorbikes and trucks. THAT reduces danger of collision for everyone. The problem is…if you look at cyclists 90% of them fall into the fairly fit 20-35 age group…energetic and capable. They campaign for their cause as if it is a perfect solution that everyone MUST comply with. SO what is everyone else supposed to do if cars are made untenable. The old, the obese and the incapable are simply ignored. How about food shopping? Getting granny to the specialist? Picking up the kids? I hate this “cycle mania” and “everyone is a commuter” ethos and it is not the universal answer to transport - even for London.
Greetings from Berlin, Germany. Will you visit the Netherlands and meet @notjustbikes? Maybe a video together?
Having lived in london for a year (just before covid hit) the regular commute was alright, where I was in SW London it wasn't great, and the stuff they were working on to improve things was pretty poorly thought through (adding lots of mixed cycle and footpaths, even where it wasn't appropriate, like on steep downhills).
The issue I had was with central London was junctions and navigation. Signage for a relatively convoluted cycle network was basically non-existant.
Love the international content. Would like to get more of a feel for what it's like riding the bicycle super-highway -- is it a great way to bang out 10 miles, just as a suburban driver would go 2 more freeway exits to get to their favorite drive-thru Arby's -- or is it a slow, tedious, and dangerous path, like cutting through a parking lot ?
Rest of UK is far behind in both public transport and active travel infrastructure. And in places outside London where there has been attempts made to improve said infrastructure, the keyword ( as also mentioned in this video ) is "piece meal / broken". And the letters to editor section in local newspapers are filled with the usual complaints against setting up such infra ( I don't see cyclists using it / cyclists don't pay road tax / etc etc ). What is even more ridiculous is that pavement parking is allowed in most places, and people don't even realise they are doing something wrong when they block the entire footpath with their massive SUVs.
#1: your delivery in these vids has skyrocketed to pro commentator status
#2: yes to vids anywhere you travel, I'll be happy to show you our infrastructure here in NYC, there are some serious growing pains, but again like other urban areas, we're trying?
Amazing, thank you!
Denmark was right from the beginning. They made Copenhagen a bycyling City. Secondly they got it right with wind Energy before the current energy crisis.
It's funny to hear them being a "victim of their own success". What it really tells you though is that they need to build more...much more. The Netherlands has very few "busiest cycleways" because they just have so much infrastructure that it spreads people out to a reasonable level. Funnelling everyone through just a few high quality routes is great for headlines but bad for cyclists.
What it also tells you though is how much latent demand there is, and how unreasonable the anti-cyclist crowd is. But as I said on another platform...the biggest fear of drivers is that they will be treated the way they have treated all other modalities.
Great video, London has come a long way, unfortunately the rest of the UK has a lot of catching up to do. There is far too much car is king in other towns and cities attitude, we must do better!
Living in London for 10 years and I can say cycling changed my experience of the city.
All of a sudden your connecting all these areas which you would have only associated to a tube station.
If you drop by the Netherlands please don't do Amsterdam, it's the worst representation of biking in the netherlands.
What I find frustrating about London cycle planners is that they prevent cyclists from filtering through each other and instead slow down a junction with separate light phases for each direction - just for cycles. At the Westminster end of the East-West route you were on the cyclists could all go together if the entrances were opened up. Bicycles are not cars and don't need car infrastructure.
Watch the Dutch filtering here. We can do it too!
ua-cam.com/video/JheHe8yj31I/v-deo.html
I live on the border of London at the very end of the tube train line. I applaud the increase of cycling infrastructure in the city centre - it makes sense - facilities and housing are densely packed as are people. However, the recent moves by City based politicians to extend the low emissions zones to the edges of London and enforce cycling do not make sense. Out here, the public transport is woeful and being on the city edge, we are more likely to want to travel outwards to the countryside not inwards to the city. I have a bike and use it when I can but I also need a car to visit my relatives, shops and services because public transport is so woeful. There is never a one size fits all solution however much the politicians and activists might like one.
London is getting better at cycling
On the subject, I suggest following the channel "London cycle routes" where he takes a bike ride every week showing the best way to get around, not only in central London but also in the other boroughs youtube.com/@Londoncycleroutes
Ha... did you experience the Cycling Superhighway at rush hour? It's absolutely mental. It's almost impossible to make a right turn from it.
Ah katie does mention it :) phew. It's like the only bad thing, there's not enough space to carry the traffic they attract.
Yes, these videos are very helpful and informative! Motivates me to talk to my elected leaders about what is possible if prioritized.
I was expecting this to be a video on Fake London. Well color me surprised!
Infrastructure and cycle paths in London are actually pretty good
Great video. So glad to see London making great strides as a bike friendly city. Pls visit NYC for a judicious critique. Very hit and miss for cyclists, as there’s too much congestion and a paucity of protected bicycle lanes.
welcome to my home town, I'm in my mid fifty's and have been cycling in London most of my life, it's been great seeing the changes to cycling in and around London and it's looking very promising in the near future.
Good to see Tom in the UK and looking at the positive active travel developments in the capital. If you are in or going to London could I possibly recommend the London Cycle Routes youtube channel? Every week it demonstrates a jolly good cycle route from one part of the city to another using quiet streets and cycle lanes. www.youtube.com/@Londoncycleroutes
When I read the title, I expected a video about fake London but it is about real London.
Bit of an update: Bicycles are the most used form of transport in london.
I would love to see you do something similar to this is Sydney Australia! Sydney has had great infrastructure for many years but has slowed down drastically and now many politicians are trying there best for better safer bicycle infrastructure. There are many campaign groups out there as well helping with this cause. Sydney is very different to London and more like Canada or USA in road design and idea so maybe it might be a bit easier to navigate.
Thanks Tom, great video