Merton Borough News 2009
October/November latest news here
Cycling is safer than not cycling - one of my favourite mantras. On average, cyclists live ten years longer than non-cyclists. The benefits of cycling outweigh the disbenefits 20:1. These headline outcomes of a 1992 BMA report bear repeating. While tens of thousands die of heart disease and other couch potato ailments, "only" tens die on bikes in London. But don't try telling that to the families of the ten cyclists who have died in the capital so far this year as a result of collisions with lorries, the most recent (as I write) just outside our borough boundary in Tooting High Street on 20th October, the very day that GLA Members unanimously agreed a motion calling on the DfT for all lorries to be fitted with safety mirrors without delay to help prevent serious collisions involving cyclists. LCC is lobbying for the implementation of a European Union directive on full safety mirrors for all HGVs.
As members will be well
aware we are also campaigning for lower speeds. A recent article in the local paper gave cause for optimism here,
though the headline suggested that adopting
20mph zones will be expensive - £500,000 was the figure given. This is a small price to pay! The DfT values the prevention of a road
accident fatality at around the million pound mark. A single saved life in Merton would therefore pay for the
proposed safer streets twice over.
Roads will be safer for cyclists as well as all other road users, and
other benefits will include, paradoxically, quicker journey times for
motorists, because traffic flows will be smoother. Noise, pollution and CO2 emissions will fall with smoother
driving styles, and more people will feel safer about trying cycling for short
journeys around the borough.
To sum up, cycling in London these days is much safer than it looks, but not as safe as we'd like it to be. We can with a clear conscience still campaign to get more people cycling. And we can promote safer cycling with three timely messages: NEVER EVER ride up the left-hand side of a lorry at a junction if there is the remotest chance it may turn left; avoid Martin Way for the time being (still not sorted, more on that next time); and read the new edition of Cyclecraft http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/
No improvements yet on Martin Way
despite our appeals that urgent action is required. MCC is reassured that we will be consulted on the revised scheme,
due to be put in place sometime spring 2009.
The current disastrous scheme has come to the attention of
Warrington Cycle Campaign who every month feature a daft/dangerous "facility
of the month"
We are delighted that our local Cycling Vicar and Chair of
the Merton Sustainable Transport Group the Rev. Andrew Wakefield has picked up
on our beef about the unfinished 20mph zone on the Wimbledon one-way system - a
point we first raised with the council in Dec 2006! The limit is unenforceable
while the signage remains incomplete, apart from, as Andrew says, "other
than by traffic jams during morning and evening rush hours".
In
the light of ten cyclists killed by lorries so far this year in London we are
putting pressure on the council to get all its own lorries fitted with the
latest mirrors and ensure LBM drivers are adequately trained. We're happy to be part of a joint safety
education campaign directed both at lorry drivers and cyclists. Cabinet Member Cllr William Brierly has
promised to discuss the proposal with officers, so watch this space…
BoJo's
decision to allow motorbikes in the bus lanes is crass - they are the fastest
vehicles on the road and kill more cyclists and pedestrians per mile ridden
than cars… This and other cycle-hostile transport policies beginning to emerge
from City Hall have convinced local activists that BoJo is not a friend of
cycling, despite the gloss that he rides himself and is planning a bike hire
scheme. So we have written to the Chair
of the LCC Campaigns sub-committee to suggest it's time for LCC to take the
gloves off - LCC needs to adopt a new more strident campaigning style. Contact me if you want to see our short
paper on this.
A positive note to finish on: we won some new grant funding to provide cycle tuition for children whose health will benefit by learning to cycle. Child obesity has almost doubled in the last decade; we need to get kids riding bikes again as a matter of course to school and for fun. When I were a lad I loved my bike and went everywhere on it. I still do, and I'm not fat yet. So it really works!
No news
MCC
monthly meetings have moved to the All
Saints Centre, All Saints Road, SW19 1BX.
They are still at 8pm on the first Thursday of the month (except
August). This
new venue provides more spacious and more accessible accommodation and has the
added benefit of being just a few yards from possibly the best pub in Merton
(The Sultan in Norman Road).
We
thank Jenny for having so warmly hosted MCC meetings for more years than I care
to remember in her living room, but it was becoming a bit of a tight squeeze to
get in there sometimes!
Our
2009 annual meeting will also be at the All Saints Centre, at 8pm on Thursday
9th July. I am planning (once again) to
stand down as borough co-ordinator - it's been 16 years now - so if anyone here
feels like taking over the role please do get in touch.
Our wrestling with TfL and the London Borough
continue, and one epic, Martin Way, leads to another, this time Green Lane.
Martin Way's dangerous traffic-calming is still in the throes of an Ombudsman's
inquiry, carefully crafted replies taking up a lot of time and talent, refuting
and rebutting TfL's wild assertions and presumptions; the Borough have however
shown us preliminary drawings of the remedial measures.
At Green Lane we minuted more than once the Borough's declared intention to
provide a marked door-zone, for which there was ample room - it has not been
provided.
It would seem that our monthly meetings with Councillors and Engineers are as
nothing; advice from experienced cyclists, TfL's and national design
standards ignored with even-handed thoroughness, presaging yet more wastage of
public money. We are very fortunate that we have necessary skills to call on from
within our membership.
Richard Evans, who has been our Borough Coordinator for 16 years, stepped down
at the Annual Meeting. We are very grateful to him for taking the handle-bars
so willingly for so long. Fortunately for the Borough Group and his
successor Charles Barraball, Richard is going to remain a source of knowledge
and inspiration; and wicked wit. Thanks from all of us, Richard!
Bike Week was a busy time, and we had events most days, culminating in our
carriage-like tricycle-rickshaw providing a popular photo opportunity at
Wimbledon Fair.
The Mayor
of Merton is going to attend and get cycling in Morden Hall Park at the 'Mayor
of Merton Charity Cycle Ride' on Sunday 11 October, which lasts for about four
hours in the afternoon.
Perhaps by
then we shall all know the future of Martin Way; strange how authorities can deliberately
put up something that does not meet their standards, and at the same time fret
over the health and safety aspects of a Charity Cycle Ride route.
We have
had a flurry of activity over the A3/A24 Cycle Superhighway proposals which has
been the subject of 'consultations' between TfL and LCC, our Hugh Morgan
bearing the brunt of the work for Merton Cycling Campaign. But at least MCC
were at the scenes of the CRIM (Cycle Route Inspection Meetings).
Not much sign of the new sinusoidal speed cushions, but they do make cycling over traffic humps (and maintaining an assertive position) much more comfortable.