What kind of London cycle network?

Sustrans, the National Cycle Network charity, have started a petition to persuade the Mayor of [Greater] London to create the world's biggest cycle network by 2020, which they have called the London Cycle Network - a name I think they'll find is already taken. It's a nice headline, and the concept of spending less than the cost of a new Underground train is attractive.

I don't think the cycling advocacy community in London is particularly impressed by Sustrans' independent move - apparently there was no consulatation with LCC or CTC, but I'm looking here about what kind of cycle network Sustrans favours, and the pros and cons.

Sustrans favours off-road and quiet routes. The advantage of these is that they encourage new and less confident cyclists. They can, being quiet, be attractive to experienced cyclists too, if they are prepared at a given time to put up with the disadvantages.New off road links can be valid additions to a cycle route network if they shorten journeys (that is do not parallel other routes/links) and ublocking quiet roads is also perfectly valid. These improvememts really come under 'permeability'.

The disadvantages of quiet routes are several. They could be to the exclusion of improving all roads for cycling, they can take people to secluded areas where they may not feel / be socially safe, especially after dark, and they don't equip cyclists with the skills to ride in mixed traffic on ordinary roads.

Intellectually, the 'answer' to this dilemma really depends on how much weight is given to the individual pros and cons of quiet route networks, but I want to make some empirical - anecdotal really - observations. The approach of training people to cycle in general traffic is a good one, but how do you get to people who are not confident, and are (probably as a result) very resistant to cycling on any but the quietest roads? I dis some volunteering with such novices over the summer, and is does seem to me that carefully and slowly conducting them over the quietest of roads to the local park for a less inhibited cycle does have its merits. The location of the participants homes does constrain the scope of rides (severance by A13, A406 and surface railway lines) and this is exacerbated by the fact that some participants had trailers to carry non cycling children.

To see some of the participants in the saddle at these events is to see people that are far off from day to day cycling in mixed traffic. This is based on their self-perception as well as my observation. Many participants were on bikes borrowed from the organisers (Sustrans), so they get to ride basically once a week. Improving vehicle control, strength and stamina is genuinely a high priority for such people, and more than enough to be going on with in the short amount of time that they have available. From these people's perspective, the Sustrans approach of increasing the network of quiet routes makes perfect sense. They are unlikely to go out cycling unaccompanied at all, let alone in the dark. They perceive cycling as a day-time leisure activity.

Who knows if these people might develop into utility cyclists, cycling for transport as they commute or go about their personal business, or do the school run? The cycling they are attracted to is off-road leisure cycling, and Sustrans may well be right to try to tap into that particular vein. It may be the one way into cycling that is most widely possible/available.