Forum topic: Cycling in Enfield - the view from the saddle - Episode 1

On the bike going up Fox Lane earlier today, thought I had better pull over given that the car then in the centre of the road and traversing the white line was now drifting into the oncoming lane so very much risking my chances of getting to the top without a detour via North Mid. As it passed I realised the issue; it seems that if you are looking at the mobile phone resting on your lap it's presumably impossible to also watch the road ahead of you. Maybe there's an App for that?

This morning, 12 April, I cycled down to Turnpike Lane mainly to view the new works going on in Wood Green, and to see if there were any messages in the choices to be made for the future of Palmers Green. Well, I thought the jury was still out on whether the money is being well-spent visually and socially, but I was struck by the heaving mass of people out and about on the high street despite all the clutter and disruption.

Which some Palmers Green/Winchmore Hill residents we all know might think is strange given that there is absolutely no parking on the high street, and as far as I could judge the carriageway is being narrowed even more in a few places. Now of course one of two of the big chains have shops there, and a shopping mall is part of the high street, which could be the explanation, but there were throngs around the fruit and other stalls in the mouths of what were once side streets. Could it be that we have an example of a high street thriving without high street parking?

Some may point out that there is car parking associated with the shopping mall. Too true, but then Palmers Green has an equivalent on Lodge Drive.

I used to live near Turnpike lane and from my perspective Wood Green was by far the most convenient place to do your shopping, primarily due to the sheer number of businesses. The car parking seems much larger than Lodge Drive, but even then finding a space was difficult. In any case, the car parking could not accommodate all shoppers, which I guess provides evidence that the majority arrive differently.

Here's a contribution to this series I didn't expect to make - I had one longer and final summary report in mind (hopefully coming shortly).

Today, Friday 29 May, I took a short bike ride towards the end of the afternoon, and I experienced the most hostile traffic conditions I've ever experienced . At was as if drivers had collectively decided to drive as fast, as threateningly, and with as little grace as possible.

Which is a reaction to surprise anyone who has followed this series. Here's what I said in my piece on 22 February: "Well, first of all I have kept to my promise, and drivers have allowed me to keep my promise by their behaviour, to treat it (cycling) as a very ordinary way getting about: no helmet, no 'high viz' clothing. Just get on the bike and go;....... ." Not what I felt today, today I felt the need of all the protection I could get.

What caused this change which I presume was a temporary phenomenon? The Friday flight from work, a crowded Green Lanes, Palmers Green high street crammed with cars, a determination to park right outside the target shop, all of these things? My guess: it was warm in the sun, every bit of road space taken, drivers were probably frustrated by the competition for space and resented other cars/cyclists, walkers in crowed places, and drove like fury when road space opened up. Not a cyclist's paradise, but maybe a warning that cities cannot go on cramming more and larger cars into the same space. Just one more pointer perhaps towards more use of public transport, cycling and walking, and less use of cars, particularly for short journeys.

And the footnote? One 'white-van man' struggling through Palmers Green took the trouble to slow down a shout at me for some real or imagined sin (I certainly didn't consciously break any rule). I didn't hear what he said but the tone was: You're not welcome here." What I see as a common driver sense of entitlement.

This morning I took myself off to Palmers Green to be caught in 'cycling action' by a photographer - Myrna, my wife - and hopefully one or more of the photos will adorn the last contribution to this series. It was a fairly quite time on the roads and drivers were considerate; perhaps they just happened to be a thoughtful lot, but possibly some were ancients like me who remembered what it is like to be among fast and inconsiderate traffic.

Either way it caused me to think - as I often say: not a customary practice - to the effect that cyclists must be considerate to drivers if we are aiming for a new dawn in the era of Cycle Enfield. For example: think hard, unless there is a painted cycle lane on the carriageway, before riding/creeping up from behind on the nearside when traffic is stationary because it may be dangerous (driver turning/moving left without signalling), and as a group we don't want drivers to think we have the same sense of entitlement as many of them have. And why don't we want drivers to think that? Because they is already antipathy on both sides which is destructive to the cyclist's cause.

Other practices which fit into this include: weaving among congested cars at traffic lights and elsewhere, cycling to the front of a line of traffic - weaving or not - and then crossing the 'stop line' to the edge of the traffic crossing the junction at right angles, thus commanding the road unnecessarily.

Keen commuting cyclists will with justice say that they are the slower group on the road, so it's reasonable to make up when bikes have the advantage. OK, I accept that to a point, but we are minority group seeking to make our way in a unsympathetic and much more populous world. We should assert or rights, but politely and considerately.

I repeat we should assert or rights, but let's also win friends

This is the third in my series of reports from the (bike)saddle which I said I wouldn't be writing. Worse, it's not even an experience acquired on a bike saddle, but a train of thought prompted by an incident involving bikes right outside my front gate.

I live on a wide, mainly straight residential road with long sight lines. Cars are often driven along it at frightening speeds, sometimes even when very young kids are being escorted to the nearby school, and sometimes, unbelievably, when the driver is a parent taking their kids to the school. It's certainly not a road where, unlike the street where I lived as a child, parents can feel comfortable about young children travelling to school without adult supervision.

But there I was standing outside my gate when a group - perhaps six or seven - of pre-teen/teenage boys came along in the middle of the carriageway larking about on three or four bikes (there were no cars about); just the sort of thing I did at their age when cars were few and far between. And personally I think that's a key function of residential streets: providing play space for children and social space for parents - all it needs is cars calmed to 30kph (18mph) so that kids have time to get out of the way, and drivers have time to stop if necessary.

And that of course is the underlying principle of Quieter Neighbourhoods (QNs), or was until the council decided to back away from a rigorous application of what was described in its Mini-Holland bid, and is already widely applied in The Netherlands: 30kph, no rat-running, Shared Space road rules.

Clearly this time round QNs are not going to stimulate a move to more independence and exercise for children, nor create social space for adults, nor facilitate the mobility of the aged. But I'm a dreamer, I remember the laughter of those kids enjoying their independence, foreign to most children in British cities. However I'm sure change will come as city populations rise and the space needed for speeding cars, indeed cars not speeding, is no longer there.

It's a little over a year since I took the plunge and began biking again: a really excellent decision but not without mini-crises and moments of danger or anger. Here are two stories from the past week.

Last Thursday I cycled there and back from Palmers Green to Crouch End via Wood Green and Turnpike Lane, therefore crossing the multi-lane junction with Hornsey Park Road which runs behind Shopping City; very unpleasant among the heavy traffic and inhaling air that you could smell, but not dangerous (other than from the poor air quality) if you and the traffic keep to the rules. But as I was pulling up for a red light two cars swept by at high speed in a scissor movement, one to the left correctly in the lane for Hornsey Park Road, but the other to right right as is if going straight on but actually to cut tightly in front of me for Hornsey Park Road. It was a close run thing.

And the moral of this story? Traffic on city streets should at 30kph (or rather the current default 30mph should be replaced by a default 30kph), and it is a scandal that little or nothing is done to prevent treating city streets as a personal race track.

And the constant threat? The air quality at such a junction must be dreadful for cyclists, but many times more threatening for drivers stuck in a cubicle which sucks in and concentrates emissions very considerably.

Second incident.

This morning I went on a cycle ride which had no point other than to maintain my fitness. As I left Enfield on the W9 bus route I was peddling up a steep incline when a so-called 'people carrier' swept by at about 60kph (40mph) under very high revs. Usual enough if outside the law, but as it flew past a head - under 20 years of age I'd say - emerged from a window and shouted: "Bike on the pavement; see the traffic."

This was a case of a car-centred sense of entitlement probably stimulatet in this instance by a few cars - of which this one was the last - unable to pass me due to oncoming traffic, very unusual at this spot. Car-centred entitlement? Of course; time and past planning practice over a hundred years has coached drivers into believing that their journeys are more important than the journeys of anyone else using the road or street.

Of course on this day the vehicle's journey may have been more important than mine, but nine times out ten that wouldn't be the case. This sort of attitude must be persuaded out of drivers, and prevented in cyclists when they get a highway of their own.....................which will be very difficult as Copenhagen and Stockholm illustrate.

Today I cycled when traffic was light. As I've noticed on previous occasions the experience - air quality apart - was much less pleasant than when there is a lot of traffic holding down speed, risk-taking and aggression. Which of course contrasts sharply with the experience within a car where 60kph on a conventional carriageway surface feels slow in a modern, beautifully sprung vehicle.

We should remember that I was cycling in a city, largely in residential or social areas even if on roads like Green Lanes. This was not the A10 or the North Circular Road; people live and socialize in places like this - indeed people other than me cycle through places like this - so traffic should not be permitted to informally set and enforce behaviour as it does at the moment.

Solutions? Hard on bus routes and anywhere where ambulances and fire services need to travel, so cameras on residential stretches seem inevitable. In social areas like high streets Shared Space will often be a valid alternative until a different driver/national mindset has been established.

Change in this direction is not 'pie in the sky'. Urban populations are moving upwards sharply, and if per capita ownership/use remained as now gridlock would soon be inevitable. Furthermore on a planet of finite size other considerations apply: cars too wasteful of finite fuels, to greedy for scarce space, too polluting, and contribute too much to climate change, to be a long-term choice.