Happy Cycling

The “Go Dutch” campaign seeks to make Greater London as cycle friendly as the Netherlands, while recognising the constraints of our historic road network. Essentially it is calling for the Go Dutch principles to be adopted wherever possible so as to encourage more people to cycle and to make the roads safer for everyone, especially cyclists and pedestrians.

The Times newspaper is currently running a campaign to improve cyclist safety in the UK’s cities, especially London, where one of their journalists was seriously injured in a cycling accident recently.

Sutton Council has done a lot to promote cycling, especially in recent years as part of the Smarter Travel Sutton project, which saw a 75% increase in cycle trips in the borough over three years. However, cycling rates in Sutton remain low (2% of journeys) compared to other European countries such as the Netherlands, where significant investment is made in cycle facilities.

The Go Dutch campaign is aimed primarily at making main roads safer for cycling, so it is essential that Transport for London or TfL also take steps to make their ‘red routes’ safer, together with the council on borough roads. However the Go Dutch principles can also be applied to quieter roads where most of Sutton’s cycle routes are, and to new developments through the planning process. Some of the measures are not necessarily expensive to implement and simply require attention to be given to the needs of cyclists in the design of all traffic schemes and new developments, and changes to be made to the relative priority between motor vehicles and cyclists / pedestrians in order to create more ‘liveable’ streets.

Encouraging and facilitating more cycling (and walking) in the borough will support many of the councils policy objectives, including its new public health responsibilities, as well as the objectives and targets of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy which we are required to meet through our Local Implementation Plan.

It is recommended that some of these principles to promote cycling and walking are incorporated into plans for the next Integrated Transport Package in Worcester Park and North Cheam and also the Hackbridge sustainable suburb Outer London Fund project.  

One of the key demands of The Times’ campaign is for the wider introduction of 20mph zones in cities and urban areas. This is something that is within the council’s control for borough roads. There is also currently a campaign called ‘City of 20’ which is supported by a number of national and regional transport organisations including Sustrans, Living Streets and the London Cycling Campaign, aimed at reducing motor traffic speeds on our streets in order to make them safe, vibrant and social places.  It is calling on boroughs to adopt a borough-wide 20mph limit on residential roads and is also lobbying the future mayor to make London’s streets safer and friendlier. More details can be found at City of 20

Sutton has already introduced quite a few 20mph zones and limits, and large parts of the borough are traffic calmed, so now may be the time to consider ‘joining them up’ to create a borough-wide 20mph zone (on non-classified roads) as other councils such as Islington have done recently.