A Labour council is planning to install a cycle lane on one of the most congested main roads in the country, it can be revealed.
The London Borough of Haringey wants to halve a stretch of the road’s existing capacity by installing a two-way cycle lane on an A-road that passes by Hornsey railway station.
Yet official Department for Transport (DfT) statistics published this month and analysed by The Sunday Telegraph show that the road in question, the A103 in Haringey, is the fourth slowest council-managed highway in the whole of the UK.
Average speeds along the part of the A103 that runs through Haringey last year were just 5.9mph, making it the fastest-growing road for congestion in the country – and now council planners want to halve the road’s traffic capacity along a 500yd stretch serving a key public transport link.
“The Councils [sic] approved Walking and Cycling Action Plan indicates an ambition to provide a number of key strategic cycle routes through the borough providing safe cycling in both the East-West and North-South directions,” said Haringey’s public consultation document issued in August.
“This will help connect to local amenities and link routes to adjacent boroughs allowing cyclists to travel longer distances beyond the borough boundary.”
Graphics published by Haringey show that planners intend to turn one of the A103’s two lanes into a dedicated cycle track.
Officials also want to install a controversial “floating bus stop”, meaning passengers will be dropped off in the middle of the road between traffic and cyclists. Such bus stops have been heavily criticised elsewhere in London by blind and disabled campaigners.
Locals are unhappy about the council’s plans, One, Tasmine Akunjee, a solicitor, claimed the cycle lane would worsen pollution by concentrating harmful traffic emissions into the one lane.
“It’s just a open air gas chamber, isn’t it, really, for anyone who’s on that road?” he said.
“Because you have buildings on either side, you get an inversion effect where the atmosphere at road level is pretty much kept in place because there isn’t a lot of air movement there, comparative to the amount of fumes being generated,” he claimed.
Another pointed out that the Hornsey School for Girls was likely to be affected by worsened traffic congestion caused by the new cycle lane. With 775 pupils aged 11-16, the school is just off the A103 and lies a few hundred yards south of the proposed cycle lane’s southern end.
The London Cycling Campaign, however, claimed the cycle path would make little difference to local congestion.
Simon Munk, its head of campaigns and community development, said: “The A103 even just in Haringey is a road with several markedly different sections. Given where the short section of cycle track is proposed, it seems unlikely it would have further impact on congestion on the A103 overall.
“But that’s for TfL and Haringey Council to consider – and they’ve almost certainly either already looked at it or will look at if/when this scheme goes into construction.”
He added: “It’s often claimed cycle tracks are a significant cause of congestion in London – but this rarely turns out to be the case, and far more often such tracks add capacity to the road in terms of overall journeys made.”
DfT road statisticians said: “At its simplest, congestion can be explained in physical terms as the way in which vehicles interact to impede each other’s progress. These interactions and their influence on individual journeys usually increase as demand for the available road space approaches capacity or when capacity itself is reduced through roadworks or closures for example.”
Keith Prince, the City Hall Conservatives’ transport spokesman, said: “This proposed cycle lane, on a notoriously slow part of road, will have significant knock-on effects for residents and commuters with far-reaching repercussions.
“Something has clearly gone very wrong on the A103 and finding a solution should mean listening to residents, not ignoring them.
He added: “Ultimately, it is for the residents of Haringey to have their say, and if the consultation shows that residents don’t support this then I hope that local authorities take note. Infrastructure is vital, but so is local support.”
The Sunday Telegraph asked Haringey council if local residents supported the introduction of a new cycle lane on the A103, and if it wished to make a statement about its plans.
The council failed to respond.
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