Unfortunately the proposals for the B106 (Alexandra Pk Rd – Albert Rd – Durnsford Rd) will make cycling there even less safe than it is currently and they risk ruling out cycling along there for most people.
The road could potentially be made much safer, but the current plans don’t do that and will actually enable more motor traffic to go faster and unintentionally make it more dangerous – for both cycling and walking.
Although a bus lane and removal of parking spaces sounds like it should be an improvement, the plans don’t follow the good safe active travel principles Haringey Council laid out in its Walking and Cycling Action Plan and in Vision Zero.
And they do nothing to tackle the core problem on the road: too much traffic, mostly cutting through to the North Circular via Brownlow Rd.
Here are some of the pros and very significant cons of the proposals as see them – and some possible alternative approaches:
Pros:
● The bus lane might make bus journeys faster and reduce car traffic.
● A bus lane might make it slightly easier for people who already cycle here
● Formalising pedestrian crossings might make these points safer and easier to use – but only if the lights change to the green man promptly. If the wait is long and prioritise motor traffic over pedestrians, people often lose patience and walk or run across anyway, which increases risk. Otherwise well-built raised zebra crossings are safer (see more below)
Cons:
● The bus lanes are only proposed for 3 hours a day (4-7pm). This will have unintended consequences outside those hours: if the lane is empty, or has only a few cars parked in it, drivers will use the lane to undertake slower traffic to get ahead, making cycling and crossing the road even more dangerous, especially for children. At other times, with more cars parked in them cycling will be unsafe as cyclists will have to pull out into the main traffic lane – just like on Green Lanes.
● There are no protected cycle lanes, so cycling will feel unsafe, even in the bus lanes, especially for children going to the two schools on this road.
● The road is likely to feel more intimidating and even less safe to cycle on than it does now, because the proposals will make the road feel more like a main road than a residential street, encouraging faster ‘main road’ driving behaviour. Most cyclists might be fine riding with light traffic on residential roads, but not main roads, where protected cycle tracks are essential.
● Some key places where people naturally want to cross (at “desire lines”) do not have safe crossings, like the main entrance into Oliver Tambo Rec opposite the Albert Rd junction. Adding a third lane at this exact point where children will want to cross the road seems really outrageously careless. The likely scenario that will happen here is that one person slows to let some school children jog across the road while a following driver undertakes them in the bus lane.
● More
● More drivers might use nearby side roads, increasing traffic and danger – particularly on Crescent Rd.
● Crossings with a green man are generally used to keep motor traffic flowing faster, at the cost of pedestrians having to wait for the green man. Any waiting time tends to risk many people dashing across. Whereas zebra crossings offer continual pedestrian priority and involve the minimum delay for pedestrians (as made clear in Manual for Streets and Active Travel England’s list of critical safety issues). The zebra crossings need to be on well designed raised tables with sinusoidal ramps that slow down approaching vehicles effectively.
● The plans don’t solve many of the critical safety issues on this road, still leaving big wide (“bell mouth”) junctions like Albert Rd.
● It doesn’t move towards building connected routes, leaving crossings like the one near the Ranelagh Pub on Bounds Green Rd an unconnected ‘stranded asset’.
● If the council is not going to make it safe for cycling on this key corridor, despite council policy, then where and when will they make it safe? We cannot see any other viable route – there is no alternative to cycling on Durnsford Rd, at least between Woodfield Way and Wroxham Gdns. Prioritising car parking and an intermittent bus lane over those 200m of road mean that people living in Bowes and Bounds will likely never let their kids cycle to Tambo Rec. A bus is not a practical alternative!
● The core problem is too much traffic on this road: this is why cycling isn’t safe, why the air is polluted, why it’s hard to cross, and why the buses are so slow. The plan doesn’t address the management of traffic, offering only a very partial solution — buses might get to Bounds Green station slightly faster, but they will still be in a jam of drivers using Brownlow Rd as a shortcut to/from the A406.
In Haringey Council’s own Walking and Cycling Action Plan 2022-2032 it says:
Haringey will re-allocate road space to make streets safer for walking and cycling according to the following modal priority:
- Pavement / footway users
- Cycling
- Public Transport
- Electric Vehicles
- Motor Vehicles
Streets should be created with a clear ‘hierarchy of users’ in mind, designed firstly for pedestrians, cyclists, public transport and then private vehicles – as in this diagram below, but instead the current plans seem to invert it by prioritising motor traffic over everyone else.
Possible alternatives:
● One possible option would be to make bus lanes on the approach to the junctions at either end of the road and make the middle bit a low speed environment with several build-outs, trees, side road closures and pedestrian friendly treatments, etc. Then separately work out where the traffic is coming from/going to and mitigate it.
● Not long ago there was a proposal to have a bus gate on Brownlow Rd. That would have stopped Durnsford being an A406 relief road and would significantly speed up the buses.
● Another approach could be to trial making the right turn onto the A406 at the end of Brownlow for buses only – anecdotally 50% of the traffic on Durnsford/Brownlow in rush hour is intending to turn right onto the A406.
● We would strongly urge the council to refer back to its own Walking and Cycling Action Plan and reassess their proposals.