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| Cycling on Vauxhall Bridge: a return visit and some new statistics | |
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| On Monday I stood on Vauxhall Bridge counting cyclists. Sad but true. I did the same thing almost exactly a year ago following a startling radio station row about how many people were using the newly-opened, two-way cycle superhighway, CS5, to cross the bridge and how many weren’t bothering. My return last week was in order to see what might have changed in the ensuing 12 months. Was CS5 being used more or less? Had the overall number of cyclists crossing the bridge increased or reduced? Were cyclists behaving differently? | On Monday I stood on Vauxhall Bridge counting cyclists. Sad but true. I did the same thing almost exactly a year ago following a startling radio station row about how many people were using the newly-opened, two-way cycle superhighway, CS5, to cross the bridge and how many weren’t bothering. My return last week was in order to see what might have changed in the ensuing 12 months. Was CS5 being used more or less? Had the overall number of cyclists crossing the bridge increased or reduced? Were cyclists behaving differently? |
| The cycle superhighway (CS) in question is on the eastern side of the bridge. During the first bitterly cold half hour I spent on the bridge on a Tuesday morning last November, I counted 98 cyclists - a rate of 196 per hour - crossing the bridge on its western side. Almost all were heading north into central London, as you would expect during the morning peak travel period, and made their way through the motorised traffic into the bus lane. During that half hour, hardly any cyclists took advantage of the signalised crossing provided for them on the southern approach to the bridge to get over to CS5 and make use of that bespoke facility for crossing the bridge. | The cycle superhighway (CS) in question is on the eastern side of the bridge. During the first bitterly cold half hour I spent on the bridge on a Tuesday morning last November, I counted 98 cyclists - a rate of 196 per hour - crossing the bridge on its western side. Almost all were heading north into central London, as you would expect during the morning peak travel period, and made their way through the motorised traffic into the bus lane. During that half hour, hardly any cyclists took advantage of the signalised crossing provided for them on the southern approach to the bridge to get over to CS5 and make use of that bespoke facility for crossing the bridge. |
| For the next bitterly cold half hour, still in the morning peak, I counted the cyclists who did use CS5. There were 265 of them - a rate of 530 per hour - again, almost all heading north. This was less than might have been expected in view of a press release issued near that time which said that “in the busiest peak more than 750 cyclists are already using the new dedicated segregated lane”, a number supplied by no less an authority than Boris Johnson’s cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan. Adding up the figures for cycle traffic on both sides of the road made a grand total of 726 cyclists per hour. | For the next bitterly cold half hour, still in the morning peak, I counted the cyclists who did use CS5. There were 265 of them - a rate of 530 per hour - again, almost all heading north. This was less than might have been expected in view of a press release issued near that time which said that “in the busiest peak more than 750 cyclists are already using the new dedicated segregated lane”, a number supplied by no less an authority than Boris Johnson’s cycling commissioner Andrew Gilligan. Adding up the figures for cycle traffic on both sides of the road made a grand total of 726 cyclists per hour. |
| So what about late November 2016? Again, the morning weather was cold, though not as cold as it had been the previous year. The first difference I notice was that the number of cyclists heading north who used the bus lane side of the bridge during my 30-minute count was much smaller - just 27, a rate of 54 per hour compared with 196 per hour in late November 2015. But it quickly became apparent that something else had changed which could partly account for this. The number of cyclists approaching Vauxhall Bridge from the western, Wandsworth side who chose to used the signalised road crossing, make their way over to CS5 and cross the bridge using the segregated lane was much higher. In fact, exactly the same number chose to do that as chose not to - a very different picture from a year before, when almost none crossed the road at that point. | So what about late November 2016? Again, the morning weather was cold, though not as cold as it had been the previous year. The first difference I notice was that the number of cyclists heading north who used the bus lane side of the bridge during my 30-minute count was much smaller - just 27, a rate of 54 per hour compared with 196 per hour in late November 2015. But it quickly became apparent that something else had changed which could partly account for this. The number of cyclists approaching Vauxhall Bridge from the western, Wandsworth side who chose to used the signalised road crossing, make their way over to CS5 and cross the bridge using the segregated lane was much higher. In fact, exactly the same number chose to do that as chose not to - a very different picture from a year before, when almost none crossed the road at that point. |
| I then made my way over to CS5 and conducted a half hour count there, again still during the morning peak. Between 07:45 and 08:15 I saw 380 cyclists, a rate of 760 per hour - a very substantial 230 more than had used it during my equivalent November 2015 count. Of these, the vast majority were heading north, though a significant 57 were heading south. Adding up the total number of cyclists on both sides of the road during the morning peak produced a grand total of 814 cyclists an hour - 88 more per hour than on a chillier morning a year before, with a larger proportion of them using CS5 and many more taking the time to cross the approach road to the bridge to make use of it. | I then made my way over to CS5 and conducted a half hour count there, again still during the morning peak. Between 07:45 and 08:15 I saw 380 cyclists, a rate of 760 per hour - a very substantial 230 more than had used it during my equivalent November 2015 count. Of these, the vast majority were heading north, though a significant 57 were heading south. Adding up the total number of cyclists on both sides of the road during the morning peak produced a grand total of 814 cyclists an hour - 88 more per hour than on a chillier morning a year before, with a larger proportion of them using CS5 and many more taking the time to cross the approach road to the bridge to make use of it. |
| Late that afternoon, I returned to Vauxhall Bridge and again counted the cyclists using CS5. Between 17:20 and 17:50, which falls into the 16:30-18:30 busiest period for London road traffic at that end of the day, 349 cyclists went by - an hourly rate of 698 per hour - considerably fewer than the 760 per hour that had used CS5 during the morning peak. I didn’t count how many cyclists took the north-bound bus lane option on the other side of the bridge at that time because I had to be somewhere else but, assuming that at that end of day there would have been very few of them (remember, there were only 27 during my 30-minute the morning peak vigil), it means the total number of cyclists on Vauxhall Bridge during that period was a lower than it had been in the morning. | Late that afternoon, I returned to Vauxhall Bridge and again counted the cyclists using CS5. Between 17:20 and 17:50, which falls into the 16:30-18:30 busiest period for London road traffic at that end of the day, 349 cyclists went by - an hourly rate of 698 per hour - considerably fewer than the 760 per hour that had used CS5 during the morning peak. I didn’t count how many cyclists took the north-bound bus lane option on the other side of the bridge at that time because I had to be somewhere else but, assuming that at that end of day there would have been very few of them (remember, there were only 27 during my 30-minute the morning peak vigil), it means the total number of cyclists on Vauxhall Bridge during that period was a lower than it had been in the morning. |
| That might seem odd - it seems reasonable to expect that cyclists heading towards the centre in the morning will commute back by the same route at the end of the day. But, in fact, a Transport for London (TfL) report on the performance of its cycling programmes, considered by its programmes and investment committee on Wednesday, confirms that the evening peak numbers using CS5 on Vauxhall Bridge are indeed lower than the morning peak ones, as they are on the CS routes along Victoria Embankment, and Blackfriars Bridge, according to initial counts (see paragraph 6.30). | That might seem odd - it seems reasonable to expect that cyclists heading towards the centre in the morning will commute back by the same route at the end of the day. But, in fact, a Transport for London (TfL) report on the performance of its cycling programmes, considered by its programmes and investment committee on Wednesday, confirms that the evening peak numbers using CS5 on Vauxhall Bridge are indeed lower than the morning peak ones, as they are on the CS routes along Victoria Embankment, and Blackfriars Bridge, according to initial counts (see paragraph 6.30). |
| The same paper says that the numbers of cyclists using the CS at those three locations have risen by 73% (Vauxhall Bridge), 54% (Victoria Embankment) and 55% (Blackfriars Bridge) compared with “pre-construction figures”. My figures for Vauxhall Bridge should be viewed with circumspection - there would have to be a lot more counting over many more days than I could spare to get a really reliable numerical picture - but they at least indicate that numbers there have continued to go up since CS5 was opened too. | The same paper says that the numbers of cyclists using the CS at those three locations have risen by 73% (Vauxhall Bridge), 54% (Victoria Embankment) and 55% (Blackfriars Bridge) compared with “pre-construction figures”. My figures for Vauxhall Bridge should be viewed with circumspection - there would have to be a lot more counting over many more days than I could spare to get a really reliable numerical picture - but they at least indicate that numbers there have continued to go up since CS5 was opened too. |
| How good is this news? An obvious yardstick is the policy objectives set out in Johnson’s 2013 Vision for Cycling in London, which announced the CS programme and its goals. The third of its four “key outcomes” was: | How good is this news? An obvious yardstick is the policy objectives set out in Johnson’s 2013 Vision for Cycling in London, which announced the CS programme and its goals. The third of its four “key outcomes” was: |
| More people travelling by bike. Cycling across London will double in the next 10 years. We will “normalise” cycling, making it something anyone feels comfortable doing. Hundreds of thousands more people, of all ages, races and backgrounds, and in all parts of London, will discover that the bike has changed their lives. | More people travelling by bike. Cycling across London will double in the next 10 years. We will “normalise” cycling, making it something anyone feels comfortable doing. Hundreds of thousands more people, of all ages, races and backgrounds, and in all parts of London, will discover that the bike has changed their lives. |
| If my Vauxhall Bridge count reflects the true picture, then the total number of cyclists crossing the bridge - including those eschewing CS5 for doing so - has risen by at least 10% in the past year and is therefore on course to double after ten (though, of course, it will have to increase at the same rate everywhere else in the metropolis to live up to the Vision’s assertion). | If my Vauxhall Bridge count reflects the true picture, then the total number of cyclists crossing the bridge - including those eschewing CS5 for doing so - has risen by at least 10% in the past year and is therefore on course to double after ten (though, of course, it will have to increase at the same rate everywhere else in the metropolis to live up to the Vision’s assertion). |
| What about the demographic spread the Vision aspires to? At present, young, white, male professionals predominate in London’s cycling population, for a range of interesting reasons. Of course, my mini-survey couldn’t ascertain what jobs the cyclists do. However, I can report that only about 30% were female, most looked pretty youthful and only a handful were not white, so there looks to still be some work to be done if cycling is to appeal to those groups of Londoners less inclined to take it up. Can this be achieved through infrastructure alone? | What about the demographic spread the Vision aspires to? At present, young, white, male professionals predominate in London’s cycling population, for a range of interesting reasons. Of course, my mini-survey couldn’t ascertain what jobs the cyclists do. However, I can report that only about 30% were female, most looked pretty youthful and only a handful were not white, so there looks to still be some work to be done if cycling is to appeal to those groups of Londoners less inclined to take it up. Can this be achieved through infrastructure alone? |
| That TfL report picks up some further issues too. It notes (paragraph 6:31) an initial survey finding that cycle flows on CS5 as a whole “are around 85% lower outside of the peak periods”. As the report also notes, this huge drop reflects the CS routes covering “key commuter corridors” and also “cycle flows throughout central London” but it raises the value-for-money question of how to increase their use during the heart of the London day. | That TfL report picks up some further issues too. It notes (paragraph 6:31) an initial survey finding that cycle flows on CS5 as a whole “are around 85% lower outside of the peak periods”. As the report also notes, this huge drop reflects the CS routes covering “key commuter corridors” and also “cycle flows throughout central London” but it raises the value-for-money question of how to increase their use during the heart of the London day. |
| Then there is the matter of increased motorised road traffic congestion. The TfL report says (paragraph 6:15) that on the CS5 route, inbound journey times for motor vehicles in the morning peak were 15-20 minutes long before the CS was constructed and that the range has narrowed to approximately 20 minutes, while journey times in the evening peak are now 15 minutes having been “just less” than that prior to the CS works beginning. | Then there is the matter of increased motorised road traffic congestion. The TfL report says (paragraph 6:15) that on the CS5 route, inbound journey times for motor vehicles in the morning peak were 15-20 minutes long before the CS was constructed and that the range has narrowed to approximately 20 minutes, while journey times in the evening peak are now 15 minutes having been “just less” than that prior to the CS works beginning. |
| TfL seem pleased with this, given that a lane for motor traffic has been removed, though the story not so happy eastbound in the evenings on the route of the east-west superhighway, where the report says journey times have risen between five and 15 minutes. The problem with long motor traffic delays it that they are bad for air quality - these may represent a perverse outcome for London, given that promoting cycling is integral to TfL’s ambition to improve Londoners’ health. | TfL seem pleased with this, given that a lane for motor traffic has been removed, though the story not so happy eastbound in the evenings on the route of the east-west superhighway, where the report says journey times have risen between five and 15 minutes. The problem with long motor traffic delays it that they are bad for air quality - these may represent a perverse outcome for London, given that promoting cycling is integral to TfL’s ambition to improve Londoners’ health. |
| The new mayor, Sadiq Khan, says he is committed to making cycling safer and easier and has said he will learn lessons from mistakes he thinks his predecessor made. Me, I’ve pencilled in a date to visit Vauxhall Bridge around this time next year. Still sad. Still true. | The new mayor, Sadiq Khan, says he is committed to making cycling safer and easier and has said he will learn lessons from mistakes he thinks his predecessor made. Me, I’ve pencilled in a date to visit Vauxhall Bridge around this time next year. Still sad. Still true. |