A Campaigning tour of south Dagenham

I spent a few hours on 8 July out with the council's cycling officer looking at recent and on going works mainly in the A13/A1306 area to the south of the borough. Thanks to him for finding the time in his busy schedule. There are photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/cardinal1962/CycleFacilityTour8July09. Apologies for those that are out of focus.

The emphasis in the borough does seem to be on off-road facilities at the moment, with Council initiatives, TfL initiatives (being delivered by Sustrans) and Sustrans' own initiatives all having this focus. What we saw, therefore, was either paths in parks and green spaces or tracks alongside roads that lead between parks and green spaces. It must be said that riding in green spaces - and in particular the Beam Valley path - brings pleasant respite in an area like south Dagenham that is dominated by the A13/A1306 and industry / industrial sites, and the new pathway parallel to Goresbrook Road at Castle Green does provide a pleasant alternative to part of Goresbrook Road, which is narrow and dominated by parked cars, but greenways should be an aid to and not substitute for permeabilty - easy access for cycling down roads and paths everywhere.

Though I understand the attraction of off road facilities for less confident cyclists and children, cycling must not be sidelined into being purely a leisure activity - it is a form of transport too. Neither must off road cycle facilities be used as a tool to keep carriageways freer for motor vehicles. Motorists cannot expect full segregation and should not be led to believe that the roads are their exclusive domain or right. That said, as you know, cycle lanes and tracks are often abused by motorists parking their vehicles in/on them, but it was particularly galling to see a council vehicle parked on the pavement blocking a council provided cycle track. Seeing cycling as mainly a leisure activity can lead to decreased permeability in town centres, with the current fashion apparently seeing them as the domain of pedestrians, public transport and car parks, with cycling not being properly accounted for, even if cycle storage is now more commonly provided in homes.

We discussed the problems of cycle signing. It should be integrated with other signing where possible (not assuming cycling doesn't exist or that it must have dedicated signs) and there should not be too much emphasis on route networks. people will not want to cycle out of their way to use a route network if a more direct route exists. Signs should not direct them to do this by always pointing down network routes.

We spent some time at The Chequers junction a 6 way junction formed by Chequers Lane, Goresbrook Road, Heathway, Marsh Green Road, New Road, Ripple Road. Despite being "detrunked" this is still a busy junction, especially when the A13 is busy and drivers seek an alternative route. Progress on the junction is hard to see as much work is subsurface - 17 ducts cross under it, but eventually sustainable modes will be able to cross carriageways using Toucan crossings if they wish to avoid the carriageway.

London Cycle Network (Plus)

Following my entry http://stibasa.blogspot.com/2009/03/london-cycle-network-plus.html a few days ago I have discovered that the project did not allocate funding to upgrade the Thames venue / A1306 to LCDS standards.

London Cycle Network (Plus)

Maybe I'm a bit of an old cynic, but the LCN+ seems to generate a lot of paper and not so much on the ground. Every so often I'm sent an extract from one of the project documents showing me what £ has been spent or is being asked for, plus what's been done on the ground or is programmed, so I thought I'd decode it and show it here. I mean decode fairly literally - the item I'm looking at, for example, has a 'scheme code' and a 'barrier reference' - meaningless outside the project.

The LCN+ project has identified "barriers" to completion of the network. In B&D one of these is Barking's Northern Relief Road, the issue being how you cross it. There are two "grade separated" crossings at Wakering Rd and Linton Rd. The one at Linton Rd is in a pickle because of the redevelopment there, but as the report I'm looking at says, "Redevelopment in the area will contribute to necessary changes". Put another way, the route has been designed in to the redevelopment. Something of a breakthrough if it works.

The route to/from Wakering Rd ("Link 2") has suffered from rather bad "legibility" since the "Costa del Barking" development in the Church Road area was built. With new roads and flow restrictions it took a full strength Sat Nav to find one's way through, but I notice new signs are appearing to confirm that one is heading for Barking. I have to investigate fully, but thanks to our Cycling Officer for this long overdue work.

Link 3 includes "Goresbrook Road and A13 (Heathway to Havering Boundary). This is the first bit of the A13[06] route that we audited back in 'o3 in what is called a CRIM. The report says "Design and Implementation of improvements following review of CRISP recommendations." The CRISP recommendations are the ideas generated during the CRIM (which was a bike ride down the route taking notes and photos) or submitted at around the same time for the same purpose. I'm guessing the "review" was a look through to cross out which ones there are no plans to do.

The junction of Heathway and the A1306 is also part of link 3. The report says "upgrade of four arm ATS junction and installation of ASLs. It's actually a 5 arm junction - Goresbrook Road, Heathway, A1306 (east), Chequers Lane, and A1306 (west), but I suppose blocked off Goresbrook Road hasn't been counted. ASLs = Advance(d) Stop Lines. Not High Tech, just forward of the motor vehicle ones.

The third bit oflink 3 in the report is the junction of the A1306 with Thames Avenue - just our side of the A1306 Beam Bridge. This junction is to be upgraded to conform to the London Cycle Design Standards.I'm not sure exactly what that entails