Chiswick Being 'Used As A Guinea Pig' For Controversial Cycleway

Report from opponents of the scheme raises concerns over safety

With only days to go before Hounslow Council is expected to endorse Transport for London's (TFL) cycleway which passes through Chiswick High Road, opponents are making a final attempt to see the project abandoned or delayed for an independent review.

Local resident and architect Stephen Donnelly has compiled a report, again raising questions about the risk of future increased collisions from a two-track cycleway. He says the current design has been flawed from an early stage.

His report, sent to Hounslow Council, is backed by Redesign CS9 and the nine local Chiswick councillors who are continuing to seek signatures to their petition to stop the cycleway going along Chiswick High Road. So far they have a total of 4,535 signatures.

Pro-cycleway groups and Hounslow Council officers who reviewed the scheme reject the claims.

Mr Donnelly says that there has been no strategic or objective risk assessment by either TfL or Hounslow Council Officers, "both of whom have continually ignored warnings over the past two years that the design is unsafe."

"Both TfL and the Officer's Report ignore the world expert opinion from expert Dutch designers and safety auditors which concludes that the design should be reassessed and the safer option of one-way tracks on each side of the road revisited.

"Many other municipalities, mainly overseas, have made the same mistake when they first start providing segregated cycle lanes. The same type of unanticipated or underestimated collision patterns repeatedly occur, often leading to a sharp increase in the number of serious injuries to cyclists within the first few years, which then necessitate the schemes being ripped out and undergoing significant modification."

Hounslow officer's report stated that "officers would perhaps question whether evidence about risk factors derived from facilities largely located overseas are directly attributable to the west London context."

Mr Donnolly says; "There is very little evidence that either TfL or Hounslow Officers fully understand the two-way track safety issues.... No other high street has a two-way cycle track with cycle priority over multiple side road junctions, of which there are 30 on the CS9 route."

You can read his detailed report here.

Hounslow Council has said it will address all matters at Tuesday's cabinet meeting (Hounslow House 7 pm) when it is expected to support the plan for the cycleway, formerly known as CS9.

The report written by Hounslow Council officers reviewing the scheme, gives detailed counter-arguments to most of the objections put forward by opponents of the project, relating to safety concerns, air quality, using the A4 . You can read their point by point rebuttal to the objections raised by opponents..

The report states, "We have also noted alternative interpretations of the risk factors derived from academic journals that suggests the view that such a facility could lead to more collisions than the current arrangement (that includes little or no dedicated facilities for cyclists) may be incorrect."

The agenda papers for the cabinet meeting on 3 September also include appendices with more detailed reports.

The petition against the cycleway, can be signed up to the start of the cabinet meeting on Tuesday 3rd September. If anyone has forms at home or in the office, they can drop them off at 433 Chiswick High Road (opposite the Clayton Hotel) so they can add them to the total which is currently:

2,770 on paper
1,765 online
4,535 total

http://petitions.hounslow.gov.uk/Stop-cs9/

August 31, 2019