Local Elections 2026!

 You may have seen us out locally handing out flyers to cyclists in the morning, to get momentum behind London Cycling Campaign's efforts to put cycling front-and-centre of the local elections. We've been busy lobbying local candidates to get them to pledge to build a safe cycle network in Merton.

 We're also working with Merton Active Travel.

 You can help by contacting the party leaders - we've made this super-easy - just visit

https://action.lcc.org.uk/streets 

With the popularity of electric hire bikes (Lime, Forest), no-one can now deny how much suppressed demand there is for cycling. We saw 200,000 Lime journeys last July alone! People want to cycle, but are prevented from doing so by a lack of secure storage for cycles, and primarily by fear of traffic and a lack of safe routes. Enabling more people to cycle gives people so much more freedom to travel. As cyclists we know that cycling is very often the quickest (and almost always the cheapest) way to make short journeys. Plus it enables people to get more exercise as part of their daily routine, without the expense of gym membership. Merton has the worst deterioration in bus speeds of any London borough over the last 10 years (source: London Travelwatch). Getting more people on bikes instead of using cars for short journeys would reduce congestion, speeding up buses, commercial vehicles and other motor traffic.

Furthermore, the funding for a local cycle network comes from Transport for London. If Merton doesn't get the funding, it will go elsewhere - we've seen this over recent years where Merton has failed to bid for funds that could have been used to improve our borough.

 

Over the last couple of years, we've pushed for a Merton to publish a Cycling Strategy, and put a lot of time and effort providing input for it. The document has now been delivered and approved. 

You can read it here (unhelpfully, it's in 2 parts):

 

https://democracy.merton.gov.uk/documents/s58364/Appendix%20A%20-%20Walking%20Wheeling%20Cycling%20Strategy.pdf  

 

https://democracy.merton.gov.uk/documents/s58365/Appendix%20A%20-%20Strategy%20Part%202.pdf 

 

The challenge now becomes how to deliver it on the streets!

 

Winter Solstice Ride CANCELLED

 Regrettably, our Winter Solstice Ride scheduled for Sun Jan 4th is CANCELLED due to expected adverse weather conditions (sub-zero temperatures).

 Sorry folks!  

Merton's Cycling and Walking Strategy - in consultation phase now!

 Merton's Cycling and Walking Strategy has been long (too long) in the making, but it's now in the consultation phase for 6 weeks starting 24th October 2025. 

 Please take a look and complete the consultation survey. We'll be publishing our thoughts on it soon!

The strategy document is here:

 https://merton-walking-cycling.commonplace.is/en-GB/proposals/v3/read-the-walking-and-cycling-strategy?step=step1

 

 The strategy document and consultation can be viewed here:

https://merton-walking-cycling.commonplace.is/ 

 

Support Abbey Road Traffic Reduction scheme today!

 

Merton has been trialing two 'modal filters' in a mini 'Low Traffic Neighbourhood' or LTN in Abbey Road. And the consultation for this scheme ends on Friday. We'd love any Merton residents who live, work and/or cycle or walk through this area to use the survey link below and spend just one minute supporting the scheme. The area has been a ratrun for ages, residents are rightly deeply fed up with it, and more, this is Merton doing something positive for walking, wheeling and cycling and to encourage residents to drive more responsibly. As most of you will be aware, the trial scheme has been met with angry resistance and there's been a lot of myths and 'fake news' circulated about the scheme, LTNs in general etc. But really, the evidence says clearly reducing ratrunning in residential areas has huge benefits for walking & cycling rates, pollution, overall motor traffic volumes, crime. Without bunging up nearby main roads, the result is community streets where neighbours can chat, walk more, cycle, kids can play out etc. We want more of this kind of approach in Merton, and we want to encourage our council to help more people ditch the car when they can, and get cycling. So please, if you do cycle in the area or would like to, take the survey today and say "yes" to supporting the scheme and ask for more like it to give communities back their streets. Merton Abbey Road Survey

Healthy Streets Scorecard - 2025

 The 2025 London Healthy Streets Scorecards have been released, which cover progress during the previous year. What do Merton's results say?

https://www.healthystreetsscorecard.london/results/your_borough/merton/

Sustainable mode share slipped from 62.6 % in 2024 to 61.9 % in 2025. 

People cycling 1x a week fell sharply from 13.7 % to 11.1 %.

Walking rates improved slightly from 34.1 % to 34.9 % people walking 5x a week.

The proportion of households without a car rose from 29.7 % to 31.5 % 

Protected cycle track provision has slipped from 3.6 % to 3.5 % of road length, and Bus priority length stayed at 14.5 %. 

School Streets coverage dipped from 40.5 % to 39.2 % of schools. Merton claims to be committed to school streets, but this result says otherwise.

The number of low-traffic neighbourhoods is unchanged. 

Our view is that over the past few years, Merton's approach to highways has not been working. It has failed to make credible bids for LIP funding (the main source of funding for cycling improvements), hence provision of protected cycle tracks and low-traffic neighbourhoods remaining static. Merton is one of London's most congested boroughs , and has the biggest decline in bus speeds of any London borough over the last decade. It is home to 2 of the top 5 worst bus services in London (93 and 154), based on passenger compaints. Yet there has been no new investment in bus priority (Bus priority length stayed at 14.5 % of road length). We recently enquired what work is being done on Merton bus priority schemes and what schemes Merton may bid for in the next year - and have received no response. 

These facts are all inter-related. Congestion affects bus service speed and reliability, and the failure to tackle traffic in residential areas with school streets or low-traffic neighbourhoods, coupled with the failure to expand protected cycle tracks, means cycling is less attractive.

While the proportion of car-free households is going in the right direction, this may be due to financial pressures rather than the quality of sustainable transport options. Thus if cost-of-living pressures reduce, this progress could easily reverse. 

Poor bus services and a failure to make cycling safer means the car remains the default transport mode for many people. This in turn drives up traffic, making bus services worse and cycling less attractive. And of course more traffic and more congestion is bad for everyone: cyclists, bus users, car users, and businesses. Yet there seems no sense of urgency at Merton Council to address a transport situation that is clearly getting worse as a consequence of them sitting on their hands. This really cannot continue. And it need not: funding is available from TfL to invest in the cycle network, traffic reduction and bus priority.

Merton actually has a lot going for it in terms of historical legacy. It has a significant number of very popular low-traffic neighbourhoods and it was an early adopter of School Streets. Parts of it have very good public transport: Tramlink, great connections from Wimbledon mainline station, and 2 tube lines. It wouldn't take that much to leverage those assets better so that areas with lower public transport access level (PTAL) are better-connected with the light-rail, heavy-rail and underground networks. Such connections would include cycling (including the increasingly popular hire bikes), and a faster and more reliable bus network. Why should good transport options be the sole preserve of the west of the borough?

 

New Martin Way Crossing

 

There's a new zebra crossing on Martin Way at the junction with Mostyn Road. Normally more crossings is a good thing, but not when they are designed like this.

Martin Way has a long history of poor design putting cyclists at risk. This is the latest example.

The crossing is on the crest of a hill, so cyclists coming from both directions will have been slowed by the gradient. This encourages motorists to overtake, into the pinch point caused by the central island. Many motorists "tailgate" each other, driving too close to the vehicle in front to have a clear view of the whole road in front. Their vision thus impaired, they are unlikely to see either a cyclist to the left of the vehicle in front or the island. When the vehicle in front of them overtakes the cyclist, they just follow, and don't see the island until too late, at which point they cut in dangerously. 

As a cyclist, you can "take primary" and ride in the centre of the lane, but be prepared to be honked at. Many cyclists are conditioned - very understandably - to riding too far left in the lane by motorist intimidation, even though this position is less safe.

Why is there a central island? There is no need, and it just makes the crossing more complex and expensive, as well as making it less safe for cyclists. The central island, the extra belisha beacon and the keep-left signs add a lot of cost.  (Yes there was an island there before but it's been completely replaced: widened, dot-paving added, one lamp standard removed, a belisha added, and both keep-left signs relocated.)

Previously, there was an informal crossing with a perch-point too narrow for buggies, wheelchairs etc.The council have been forced to upgrade it. If they'd put in a zebra in the first place, we would've been safer and would not be paying twice for one crossing. Informal crossings are little use for children, partially-sighted, older, less mobile and many disabled people. There's no requirement on motorists to give way, and on a busy road like Martin Way, you can guess what happens - few actually do, and users are given a choice between chancing crossing when they can dance between vehicles, or waiting significant time at the polluted roadside for an adequate gap in the traffic.

So an informal crossing on this road was always the wrong choice. But the new 2-stage crossing is also the wrong choice, being more expensive and less safe than a single-stage crossing. 

TfL LIP funding allocations 2025

The  Transport for London (TfL) Local Implementation Plan (LIP) program is the mechanism by which local boroughs including Merton receive funding from TfL

 The LIP funding allocations from Transport for London for 2025-2026 have been issued.

 Here's the letter TfL sent to Merton: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/merton-lip-letter-2025-26.pdf

Unfortunately the allocation received by Merton is disappointingly small. 

Only £90K for  Cycleways Network Development (CND). This indicates a failure to bid for any major schemes.

£0 for Safer Streets

£0 for  Liveable Neighbourhoods

£100K for Bus Priority. We are not aware of any planned schemes so it seems likely this is just for feasibility/design. Bear in mind that according to London Travelwatch's report The Next Step: Making London's Buses Better, Merton has the WORST deterioration in bus speeds of ANY London borough.

This is not that surprising given Merton's failure to invest in cycling and failure to address congestion or motor traffic domination. Bus journeys get slower and less reliable as congestion rises, meaning more people opt to use a car, which makes congestion worse still. You would think that being bottom of the table would shake Merton out of its complacency, but the lack of planned schemes or any real strategy suggests Merton has been asleep at the wheel.

£929K for Safer Corridors and Neighbourhoods (SCN) 

This might look like a success but in fact the amounts for this funding stream are calculated using a formula, rather than being discretionary. In principle this stream can include modal filters, school streets and other traffic-reduction measures, but we're not aware of any such schemes being proposed in 25/26. As traffic reduction is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to improve streets for cycling, this absence is very disappointing.

There is funding for parking ( Micromobility Parking £94K, Cycle Parking £65K) which is welcome, but alone these won't drive increased cycling,  and putting inexperienced cyclists onto a dangerous cycle network is a recipe for casualties and near misses, which means new cyclists are more likely to quit.

 In summary the failure of Merton to secure discretionary funding from TfL to improve the cycle network is not acceptable. Other boroughs are doing much better - Merton received half the average allocation. And this is part of a pattern: Merton fails year after year to put credible bids together.