Follow-up email to Andrew Gilligan

We asked Andrew Gilligan for an update on the petition demands & to comment on recent developments but unfortunately he didn't reply. The email we sent him is below:

Dear Andrew,

Save our Cyclists Petition - Update

Last winter 36'000 people signed the 'Save our cyclists' petition, and it was handed to you on the 10th of December. On the 12th of February Rhiannon shared your response with the signatories. This email is to give you an update on the petition and our next steps. We are planning to email our supporters about progress in late August and would like to give you the opportunity to comment before we send it.

We believe there is a lot more we can achieve with the petition to improve cycling in London.

• In March we ran a poll which found over half of the respondents wanted us to focus on segregated lanes. In second approximately a fifth prioritised action on HGVs. 
• In both your response to us and in your speech at the Big Ride you highlighted the need for support to win the debates on a borough level. 

We will be pressing for delivery of segregated & high quality lanes across London, identifying those boroughs which appear to be obstructing cycling infrastructure & the schemes which fall short of the standard identified in the Vision for Cycling.

Below this email I've identified the main developments since February to share with the petition. If you have anything to add or respond to please could you send that to me by Monday 25th August.

Kind regards,


Fred Smith


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Petition progress since February

I have worked through the demands (bold italics) and identified progress since your email to Rhiannon. We've referred to your speech at the LCC Big Ride [1] and consultations which have been published by TfL.

We would appreciate any comments or updates you can give us. If you prefer to submit a formal response, we will send that to our supporters. We will need to receive any response by the 25th of August to include it in the email.

We call on Boris Johnson and Andrew Gilligan to vastly accelerate their plan for expenditure of the £913 million cycling fund, by releasing an accurate, costed and time-bound plan for how the fund will address cycle safety over the next 12 months, from the end of December 2013.

Your speech to the Big Ride [1] included announcements on:

• Central London Cycling grid & quietway pilots [2] 
• Mini-Hollands 
• Junction improvements [3] 
• Segregated cycle routes through the centre, proposals to come September & October.
• There have also been TfL consultations on Vauxhall, CS5, Oval, Kings Cross and the Elephant & Castle northern roundabout.

We would be interested to hear the latest progress. Has there been any progress agreeing suitable routes for the 'Bike Grid' with the boroughs since the online map was published, or is this still ongoing?

- Cycle Superhighway 2
In your response to Rhiannon you said that you would "publish detailed designs in June and begin work in the second half of this year". At the Big Ride you said the consultation would start in September. Are you still targeting a start in 2014?

- Heavy Goods Vehicles
We welcome the Safer Lorries proposal which is currently being consulted upon [4] and you hope to implement early next year.

Are there any updates on banning HGVs during peak times or the ongoing enforcement against HGVs you also mentioned?

- Training for motorists, including TFL staff
No further announcements.

- Training for cyclists No further announcements.

- Further investment in the cycling fund
No further announcements.

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Link to the petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-cyclists

References:
[1] http://hfcyclists.org.uk/andrew-gilligan-speech-space-cycling-big-ride-saturday-17th-may-2014/
[2] https://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/planning-for-the-future/vision-for-cycling/central-london-cycling-grid
[3] http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/290m-plan-to-make-london-roundabouts-safer-and-less-threatening-to-cyclists-9154064.html
[4] https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/safer-lorries

Note: I have edited out the part where I introduce & tell him a little about myself.

Gilligan's speech at LLC's Big Ride

Andrew Gilligan's speech - LCC's Space for Cycling Big Ride - Saturday 17th May, 2014.

Andrew Gilligan's speech at the Big Ride provides an update on his response to the petition issued in February. It covers many of the same topics, in fact parts of the speech appear to be a re-edit of his response in February.

The text of the speech can be found here:

http://hfcyclists.org.uk/andrew-gilligan-speech-space-cycling-big-ride-saturday-17th-may-2014/

Gilligan's Response

[Andrew Gilligan's response in full]

Dear all,

Thank you very much for the petition. We share all your objectives. We have made an unprecedented financial commitment to cycling - £913 million over ten years, more than three times our previously-proposed level, and more than twice what the Government is spending, over the next few years, on the whole of the rest of the country put together.

Because the standards required in the Mayor’s Cycling Vision are more ambitious than before, and the programme is much larger than before, the programme has had to be extensively redesigned. We have had to enlarge our capacity and recruit extra staff to design the new facilities.

Nor do we own or have powers over the vast majority of the roads and land which we will need to deliver the programme. So we have also had to proceed by agreement with the people who do own them – the 32 London boroughs, Network Rail, the Royal Parks, and others.

Both of these things are enormous and time-consuming tasks. But over the last ten months, significant progress has been made.

Therefore, we agree with your demand to accelerate expenditure on the programme. As we move from a planning, design and consent-gathering phase to a delivery phase, spending will sharply increase. Underspends from the planning phase will not be lost to the programme; they will be carried forward to cover likely overspends in future years.

However, spending money is only the means. Achieving high-quality cycle facilities is the end. We will not spend money for its own sake, or without an agreed high-quality scheme to spend it on, or for the sake of being seen to spend it quickly. That would invite waste and failure. Many of the problems with previous cycling facilities are because they were done too quickly.

We have already published for consultation our proposed map of central London cycle routes, the Central London Grid. By next month, we will have announced the revised Superhighways network, the first Quietway routes, the winners of the mini-Hollands grants and the 33 major junctions to be transformed under the better junctions programme.

We will also give delivery dates, but will stress that these are not entirely within our control. They depend on the boroughs and on how easy a ride the schemes have with local communities. We hope the signatories of this petition will add their voices to win those local debates rather than just to the debate at City Hall, which you have won already.

We understand the impatience some feel at the sometimes grinding processes of negotiation, agreement and consultation with others which we must go through. It is, however, the price of living in a democratic society and of making changes to what are busy and contested spaces. It is usually also, in practice, quicker than trying to bulldoze through change, which risks causing backlash and delay.

On the specific items you mentioned, CS2 will be comprehensively upgraded with segregation or semi-segregation over its full length and five new cycle-segregated junctions. We will start stakeholder engagement this week, publish detailed designs in June and begin work in the second half of this year.

On HGVs, we last week strengthened our proposals to charge lorries which were not fitted with safety equipment to protect cyclists. We now propose to ban such lorries entirely. Subject to statutory consultation, the ban would take effect in the second half of this year.

We are also studying the possibility of banning all lorries in the morning rush hour. We are also studying more targeted time and place-specific restrictions. We are trialling electronic measures, such as proximity sensors and camera systems, to see whether they can overcome drivers’ blind spots. We are strongly lobbying for new EU rules to require redesigned cabs with fewer blind spots.

We have substantially increased enforcement against HGVs. We have found striking levels of non-compliance with existing regulations and can already see that enforcing greater compliance is making a noticeable difference to cyclist safety.

We have also substantially increased enforcement against law-breaking by motorists and cyclists, including Operation Safeway last year. This, too, has made and is making a substantial difference to cyclist safety and will be continued, with similar operations to Safeway.

We are lobbying the Government to require greater cycle awareness and training in the driving (and HGV) tests, but this is not within our power. Over the period of the Business Plan, we will spend £60 million on cycle training, offering it to every London child at some point in their school career and every adult in London who wants it. We are reviewing the cycle training programme to ensure that it is relevant to children’s real needs. We will invest a further £33 million in cycle to school partnerships to create safe cycling routes to schools.

We thank the signatories of this petition again for their commitment to improving cycling.

Mayor's Office, City Hall, London SE1 2AA