Cycle Hire Parking - BIG CHANGES in Merton

 Merton Council is formalising parking of hire bikes (Lime, Forest, etc.). Soon, users will be forced to park in one of the marked bays around the borough, and cannot simply park the bike in a location convenient to them that is not obstructive to other street users.

We note there's been no consultation on this decision, and we were not asked for our views. There is, however, consultation on the bays (because highway changes require statutory consultation). Materials and email address for comments can be found here:

https://www.merton.gov.uk/streets-parking-transport/cycling/hire/overview 

We tend to think that having formal bays in high-demand locations where there have been problems with bike parking will help ensure a more orderly and less cluttered public realm. But it is important that safety and convenience for hire bike users is not sacrificed unnecessarily. Bays need to cater to demand and be located close to where user journeys end. Bays should be on-carriageway both to avoid additional pavement clutter, and to avoid users having to mount pavements. Restricting users to marked bays in less busy locations seems like an overreach. At this point our recommendation is that, similarly to car parking, parking on the carriageway should generally be permitted in residential areas.

 

Raynes Park centre is a high-demand location with many people using hire bikes to get to the station. Most park in the plaza facing Coombe Lane. Looking at the bays, there are none at all in the plaza. 

 

 

There nearest bays that are planned are: 

1. "Wyke Road" -junction with Pepys Rd - capacity about 8 bikes

2. "Coombe Lane" - by the Skew Arch- capacity about 11 bikes

3. "Grand Drive" - at the Grand Drive/Approach Road junction, opposite the Cattle Arch/station entrance -- capacity about 13 bikes

(We are assuming 600mm of bay width per bike, which assumes bikes are parked quite closely; this may be optomistic).

All these bays are off-carriageway.

The problem with all of these bays is they are in the wrong place for a lot of station users. For #1 and #2, for users coming from the west, they have to cross the very dangerous RP Bridge junction to get to the bays, and then cross again on foot. And they are going a total of 300m out of their way. For a return journey, that's over half a kilometer extra.

#3 is a reasonable location for users coming along Kingston Rd or Grand Dr, but not useful for users approaching on the north side of the station. Cycling isn't permitted through the Cattle Arch, and the alternative - going round via Raynes Park Bridge - is dangerous and involves significant extra time/distance. We note with disappointment that there is still no proposal to fix the road-danger issues with Raynes Park Bridge/Coombe Lane junction (poor sight-lines, no formal crossing, etc.), despite forcing hire-bike users to use this crossing.

 

 

Now let's look at Morden centre:

 

 

There is a SINGLE bay - "London Rd" - which is outside Crown House, requiring users to cross the 3-lane Crown Lane gyratory to access it.

Nothing outside Sainsbury's, or Lidl/Iceland. Nothing on the main part of London Rd where all the shops are, or on Abbotsbury Rd. This really isn't good enough.

Speed Cushions - Dangerous, Costly, Ineffective!

 

"Speed Cushions" are traffic-calming humps that are installed in sets of (usually) two or three across the width of a road.

They have a number of disadvantages compared to full-width road humps:

1. They are ineffective at reducing vehicle speeds.

2. They result in drivers trying to avoid the cushion by positioning their vehicle wheels either side of it. In doing so they often take a road position that endangers oncoming cyclists, pass too close to cyclists and/or swerve dangerously.

3. They tend to break up more frequently, causing road defects that are especially dangerous to cyclists.

In summary, cushions arguably increase road danger rather than reduce it. And they are expensive to install and maintain! Speed cushions are a choice made in willful ignorance of the problems they cause for cyclists.

Looking at speed cushions in Dorset Road SW19, many are in the process of breaking up. In the image below you can see several recent repairs to a cushion (one small patch on the left corner nearest the camera), but these are very temporary and the cushion is already breaking up again.

 

 

An argument often made in favour of speed cushions is that they allow emergency vehicles to travel faster along a traffic-calmed road, compared to other vehicles. However with the increase in delivery van and SUV numbers, and the increase in width of cars in general, they now have little speed-reduction effect on many private vehicles. It should be noted that road traffic collisions make a significant proportion of ambulance service's workload, so compromising safety with ineffective traffic calming is hardly in that service's interest. Furthermore, the concern about emergency response times does not seem to extend to actually doing anything about traffic congestion or obstructive parking on roads like Dorset Road. At Merton Cycling Campaign we are very much in favour of enabling better emergency response times - and that means tackling congestion. Unfortunately, Merton now has the WORST decline in bus speeds of ANY London borough over the last decade - which is a clear indication of how congestion in the borough has been ignored as an issue by both the Council and TfL - to the detriment of both bus and emergency vehicle speeds.

We call on Merton to immediately cease the use of speed cushions, and replace them with standard sinsoidal (cycle-friendly) road humps that are durable and effective at their intended purpose of reducing traffic speeds. This will make the roads safer for all, and will reduce the cost of road maintenance.

Furthermore, the amount of traffic on roads like Dorset Road really needs to be reduced. Rat-running on this type of residential road puts up the cost of road maintenance - and bear in mind the Council is under severe budgetary pressure.