| Topic: | Is Chiswick High Road wide enough for the new CS9 design? | Forum Home |
| Posted by: | Paul Corcoran | |
| Date/Time: | 27/07/19 10:19:00 |
| I went down to Chiswick High Road earlier today to have a look at the junction of Dukes Avenue with regard to the latest design for CS9 at this spot. Like many people including ChiswickW4.com when I saw that they were abandoning plans to ditch the right hand turn into Dukes Avenue I made the assumption that this necessarily meant the cycle path had to return to the pavement outside the Church. The information released by TfL was ambiguous so I think it was an understandable reaction. TfL don't actually make it explicit that they intend to keep the cycle path on the road rather than the pavement until page 43 of the report which is bizarre for such a key point. There is also no map provided showing the new layout. I'm not sure if this is definitive but as far as I could find on the internet the Department for transport mandates a minimum width for a highway along which buses run of 6.9m plus an additional 3.75 for an additional lane. Add to that the 2.5m width of the cycle path, rounding that down and assuming that the 2.5mn includes raised kerbs necessary for segregation you get a width of 13 metres. I took 13 paces across the road at this point as an approximation of a metre which was probably an underestimate and got to close to touching distance for the bank on the opposite side of the road. I don't know whether pavement widths are mandatory but the 2m recommended for wheelchair access doesn't seem feasible. It would be great if someone with a digital tape measure could confirm these distances accurately. It won't be possible to steal back some extra centimetres by moving the kerb on the southern side of the road closer to the trees as they are already right up against them and there is evidence of displacement from routes which will be a problem for for the cycle path. To me it doesn't seem feasible to fit in the new design as described and I still think my first take on this was right. However, TfL's qualified traffic engineers will have looked at this in detail, measured it out scientifically, checked what is and isn't allowed within current legislation and submitted the plan accordingly. This begs the question why in a very detailed 53 page report on the outcome of the consultation was a map of the layout at this junction not provided? Ultimately this was what all the time and expense was about and people need to be reassured that this is not a frying pan and fire situation. The irony is that whatever pain has to be taken to implement this new design is actually pretty pointless. Most cyclists will stay with general traffic at this point both eastbound and westbound to avoid the pedestrian phase at Dukes Avenue and the likely pinchpoint where the cycle path narrows. The far simpler solution would have been to make the section in front of the Church a shared pedestrian cyclist space with pedestrian priority as others have suggested on this forum. |