Updates

25th June: Minutes of our June meeting online
Topics discussed include Hackney town centre and the London bike hire scheme.

17th June 2009: Our most popular Hackney Cyclists breakfast yet!
This morning's cyclists' breakfast in London Fields was very lively, with hundreds of cyclists passing and a good proportion stopping by. A large number of new members signed up as well. We served organic porridge oats with nuts and dried fruit, croissants baked locally in Stoke Newington, freshly brewed coffee, tea, juice and organic fruit -- all went down a storm and we absolutely ran out of food by 9am. Using no disposable crockery or cutlery, we had a team washing up on site.

London Fields Cycles provided a sterling Dr Bike service as always. Many many thanks to all those who helped -- notably David Withington and Katie Hanson who slogged it out in the kitchen all morning, Sean who ferried the croissants across Hackney in his trailer and flagged down passing cyclists, Helen and Michael Cordy who set up at 6:30am and worked tirelessly throughout, Ben Webster who organised the site end, Ben Edmund, Wheelers Keith, Gillian, Alan Limbrick, Diler, Jean Morris, Bea, Chas, John Ackers, Daryl, Adam from the workshop, Charlie, Marian and Oliver who helped out in one way or another -- and to our treasurer Brenda, who co-ordinated the whole operation. What a team!

Breakfast photos courtesy of Chas Wilshere of the Pressmen.

7th June 2009: Public meeting on 20mph for Hackney
This Wednesday, 10th June, you are invited to join us to review progress on 20mph as the default speed limit for our borough. Organised jointly with the Hackney branch of Living Streets, the meeting will feature a panel including Alan Laing (the cabinet member who has responsibility for streets and transport), Rod King (founder of the 20's Plenty For Us campaign), Josh Hart (Living Streets) Inspector Andy Walker (Hackney borough police), and representatives of other local parties.

>> 7:30 to 9:30pm, at the Hothouse, 274 Richmond Road, London Fields, E8 3QW

1st February 2009: Backing for the Hackney way in Local Transport Today
Transport planner Gary Cummins has written an opinion piece in Local Transport Today, the trade mag for people who work in transport for local authorities. A former Tower Hamlets Wheeler, now living and working in Scotland, Gary is an admirer of the approach we've been taking in Hackney, and was keen to get the message out to the rest of the country that you do not need oceans of green paint and quarries-ful of kerbstones to make a place friendlier for cycling. (Apparently transport professionals around the UK are continuously told that London's boom in cycling is due to 'segregation', which is actually very much a rarity in London).

To read the whole piece you have to subscribe or sign up for a free trial, or get the dead-trees version, but you get a flavour from the first paragraph anyway.

For an example of why Hackney Cyclists almost always counsels against cycle lanes as a solution, you can read our detailed comments on TfL's proposal to put cycle lanes on Old Street (50KB PDF) back in 2005.

TfL withdrew the proposal, to our satisfaction, though it has yet to take up any of the positive suggestions we made in our comments (20mph speed limit, minor kerb realignments etc).

7th January 2009: TfL releases hilariously negative report on Stoke Newington
After months of foot-dragging, Transport for London has finally released a disappointingly poor report (1.3MB PDF) they commissioned on the feasibility of getting rid of the one-way system that has blighted the main streets of Stoke Newington for 40 years. The report takes a transparently unenthusiastic approach from the outset, and concludes by rejecting all options.

Maintaining current levels of through motor traffic is clearly the most important agenda for TfL, though we can't make a serious assessment of that based on this report because, well, no traffic modelling was done for any of the options.

Hilariously, the report even claims that turning the High Street back to two-way working would result in worse conditions for safety and the urban realm, as well as for walking and, wait for it, yes, even for cycling!

Such claims flatly ignore common sense, let alone the evidence of TfL's own flagship gyratory-removal scheme just two miles down the road in Shoreditch, where walking and cycling levels have soared, road danger has been reduced, and business on the high streets has boomed.

It is almost as if the writer of the report was given an outcome, and asked to make the facts fit.

What's next? Perhaps the Shoreditch one-way system should be restored in order to benefit pedestrians, cyclists and the urban realm?