You join me at the Living in Hackney Scrutiny Commission, for an investigation into segregated cycle tracks in Hackney. I'm going to suggest the hashtag #safecyclingHackney
We're currently on Cabinet Question Time - safe cycling is second on the agenda.
So far we've done the sale of nitrous oxides, moped snatches and public urinating, now we're on to A boards...
Ok, we're finally ready to go. For some reason there are some pictures of cycle tracks running in the background, without context. #safecyclingHackney
First up is Andy Cunningham, Head of Streetscene, and Cllr Feryal Demirci, Cabinet Member.
Cunningham: highlights that the majority of 'accidents' are on the main roads. There are issues of perceived and real danger for people cycling. Thus far the council have focused on filtered permeability but recognises different infrastructure needed too #safecyclingHackney
Cunningham: No one size fits all approach. Council wishes to see 'clear space for cycling'. Safe space for cyclists is the space needed for cyclists to feel safe. #safecyclingHackney
Cunningham: Borough uses the London Cycle Design Standards. You can see his report here: mginternet.hackney.gov.uk/documents/s594…
Cunningham: 'We do need to provide clear space for cycle safety'. 'It is about finding the right schemes for the right locations.' To encourage greater cycling,
Cllr @feryaldemirci takes over. Hackney has invested lots in cycling and walking: Quietways, Greenways. But there's a lot more we need to do. 'We haven't done very much on our principal' roads.' These routes are desired by cyclists, people will be using them, we need to do more.
Demirci: Transport Strategy sets out the roads which need work. Hackney started investing in cycling before it was cool... 'We need to look at how we improve safety for cycling on main roads. We're beginning.' I'll stop there.
Next up, Mr Huddy, from the RNIB.
Huddy: 1000 people registered severely visual impaired in Hackney. Lots more with 'uncorrectable sight impairment'. Half of the 1000 registered blind, half partially-sighted. Hard for many of them to identify the presence of cyclists, especially in the dark.
Huddy: Best ways for visually-impaired people to cross roads is signal-controlled crossings. Hard to identify cyclists with enough time to cross a road. TfL have done research into bus stop bypasses 'and we're not satisfied with the research'.
Huddy: People with visual impairment have to just 'gamble it' and hope they're not within the impact range of a bicycle. 'We would like to cycle ourselves if we could.' Our concern is the stopping distance of cyclists and uncontrolled crossings.
[Personally I always try not to ride into people, whoever they are, because I assume it will hurt me just as much as it might them. And I'm trying to be careful where I go.]
Huddy: Concern over loss of kerbs. Bicycles may be travelling at 'an average of over 14mph'.
Huddy: 'Can't go into detail now on what are good designs and bad designs'. Need more evidence.
Huddy: 'Not enough is known about the effects it has. It won't be cyclists who come off worse, it will be visually-imparied people: you don't want to come away with another disability from cyclists have no ability to avoid you.'
John Thornton (Hackney Disability Backup): 1 in 5 households in Hackney have at least one person with a disability. Also a keen recumbent cyclists. Lives in a household with four people and five bikes.
Thornton: Concerned about full kerb segregation. Kerbs can cause trip barriers and bad for disabled cyclists. We object to partial separation - sharing pedestrian and cycle space.
Thornton: Bicycles put people off walking in Hackney parks.
Thornton: There's going to be a rise in ebikes and fixies. Cycle lanes are used by moped risers. [Link is not clear]
Thornton: Waltham Forest an 'example of how not to do it. It was almost impossible to catch a bus if you were visually impaired or a wheelchair user.' 'Frightening.'
Thornton: WF is very confusing. 'All the changes in WF have been to the detriment of the cycling environment.'
Thornton: @hackney_cycling has included 'a very dodgy piece of research' in its presentation. Researchers asked people at floating busstops who were using them how satisfied they were. About 80% said they were satisfied. [This is a problem for some reason]
Thornton: We should ignore this data. If 77% of people liked bus stop bypass widths, the remaining 20% must be the 1 in 5 disabled people. [??]
Thornton hands over to Carl (didn't catch his second name). 'Bus stop bypasses have nothing good for it...' They 'add to the problems of the day' of families with children.
Carl: 'I'm going to wait five seconds and then I'm bloody well going to cross.' [Thereby demonstrating that bus stop bypasses maybe aren't so scary after all. I would not do the same trying to cross Cassland Road].
Carl: Very concerned about people cycling at up to 14mph up to a place where people might want to cross. [Wait till he hears about how fast cars go].
Carl: 'Streets for wheeled vehicles. Pavements for people.' Heard someone once say he didn't stop at traffic lights.
Age UK couldn't make it. Next up Alex Longdon from Transport for London.
Longdon: Dense evidence pack available. Here: mginternet.hackney.gov.uk/documents/s594…
Longdon: He's a strategic planner not a design engineer. Goal is 80% journeys by walking/cycling and public transport. Need streets which prioritise this.
Longdon: Trips could be cycled, but lots of barriers. Half of Londoners fear traffic. Addressing the safety barriers are key. Added infrastructure has added dramatic numbers of people cycling. 54% up on superhighways.
[Longdon is arguing the wrong case - he's saying that traffic impacts are OK and they increase cycling. No one has disputed that here (Hackney is unusuall), they just think other things are far, far more important than making cycling safe].
Longdon closes. Over to Jon Little, from Bespoke Transport Consulting. Has been working in Waltham Forest. [Has decided to answer specific claims, which should make this much more interesting]
Little: easy to make a 2m wide bus stop island, especially if you get rid of parking.
Little: If no bus stop bypass, you have to cycle round the bus in traffic. Whilst there are concerns about people cycling, 'if you think about relative risk', are you suggesting a 12 year old child who we want to cycle to school in Hackney to cycle inside or outside the bus?
Little: 50x more likely to die from a motor vehicle than a cyclist on the footway [This feels like an underestimate]. How should segregated cycle ways end? They shouldn't end.
Little: Truth is we've only done one major junction so far in WF. There'll be separate times for people walking and on bikes. New pedestrian crossings.
Over to @hackney_cycling.
Hopefully the time it is taking to set up @Jono_Kenyon's laptop won't count to his total.
Kenyon: We want to see protection on main roads to more people feel safe cycling. Our policy mirrors Hackney Council's.
Kenyon: Promoting cycling infrastructure has a positive effect for the pedestrian environment. Safety concern and fear is what means large numbers aren't cycling in Hackney. Overall cycling modal share is only 6%. Ambitious targets: we need to unlock more journeys.
Kenyon: If fear is what's holding people back, that's what has to change.
Kenyon: Quotes this committee four years ago finding that the roads weren't safe enough.
Kenyon: Notes that big hospitals are supporting cycle tracks.
Kenyon: 
Kenyon: Hackney residents and ordinary Londoners want to see this.
Kenyon hands over to @RachelAldred. Hackney doing better than average. But this means 3/4 of people never cycle in Hackney.
Aldred: Women and old people cycle more in the Netherlands. Why is this?
Aldred: Women and older people, in study after study, are more likely to say that they need protected space. Women more likely to make trips with children. Even if people are confident cycling with buses (they're not), they won't cycle with their eight-year old in a bus lane.
Aldred: Otherwise it's a discriminatory environment...
Aldred hands over to @alison_heard. Heard has cerebral palsy, walking is incredibly painful. She cycles an electronic recumbent cycle. 'Cycling was incredibly liberating for me.'
Heard: Cycling makes a massive difference. She never saw the Embankment on foot because she couldn't. She has seen it on the bike.
Heard: Cycling is inclusive - it takes her door-to-door.
Heard: You can provide as much cycle training as you like, but it won't stop drivers from intimidating me.
Heard: I lived next to Victoria Park for ten years, I never walked around it on foot, I do on a bike.
Heard: It's the same for her sister - she's able bodied scared too. Very supportive of more segregated cycle lanes. It will enable more people like Heard to explore, not to be dependent on cars.
[Unbelievably, we're now moving to four questions with invitations for every speaker to respond. For a meeting due to finish in two minutes, I can't wait to see how this ends...]
[The worst thing about local campaigning is the meetings in my view].
Demirci: You can reduce conflict at bus stops. Far greater danger from motor vehicles than from cyclists, but we need to reduce conflict with new infrastructure. New generation of infrastructure does this.
Thornton: Repeats claim that WF is 'dreadful', increases conflict. 'Most dreadful bad example.' Back to Carl... 'Those modern ideas about getting rid of the kerbs completely are a bit of a cop-out.' [Glad that we agree with Carl that separation is good]
Carl: Wants pedestrian crossings to have a ten-second wait to cross. [I wait 2 minutes at some local ones, so again, we agree].
Langdon: TfL has seen no evidence of any dangerrs of bus stop bypasses. Same in other countrires where they are common.
Back to @bespokejon [my favourite]. Some don't want kerbs, some do - you can't win. My preference would be not to put a rabbit in a cage with a rhino.
Aldred: London and Copenhagen have similar numbers of cyclists. 4x the number of cycle deaths in London compared to CPH. Walking way safer in the Netherlands and CPH.
Chair interrupts: We're not in Copenhagen or the Netherlands, have you got any suggestions for London? Aldred: Maybe we can still learn from these countries...?
[Onto Question 2... hopefully security will come to chuck us out soon. I'd be astonished if anything new comes up now.]
Demirci: Been cycling for ten years. Have to treat junctions not just main roads.
Thornton: Claims Tfl have not collected data on collisions between people walking and cycling. Langdon (TfL): That's absolutely untrue. Data shows no trend in dangerous interactions.
Thornton: We can prove it...
Aldred: 87% of injuries to cyclists at junctions. Notes the vast array of ways we can design to protect pedestrians and cyclists at junctions.
Chair: Apologises for running the meeting this way then gives us the third question...
Cunningham: Clear transport hierarchy in Hackney, need to reallocate roadspace. @Hackneycyclist will be delighted.
Thornton: In NL and DK, the attitudes towards disabled people and their ability to go out freely to walk is very different. Dsiabled people are expected to be at home
Carl: Quiet routes are better. If I were a cyclist who was cautious I would stick to quiet routes.
Little: The network changes so much when the sun goes down: when Victoria Park closes, myself and my children are cut off from their friends.
[As I was losing the will to live I realised @hackney_cycling's last slide was still up. Then someone took it down].
Kenyon: Main roads are where the schools and the shops are - protection is vital.
Members questions: councillor - I've just checked: 2016 61 pedestrians died, 8 died. 'Pedestrians as well as cyclists are dying.' We need to not make disabled people scared to go out.'
Cllr: Would like to see disabled groups consulted with. [Which they are, by law...]
Little: Presented to visually-impaired people; the school for autistic children; would have liked to do more - trying to engage with everyone.
Chair: Takes us back to bus stop bypasses again...
Cllr Stops: Agrees he wants to see more cycling, and even that under some circumstnaces it might be nice not to do it with vehciles [!!!]
Stops: Complains about some areas where there are less than 2m wide pavements.
Little: Buses are 2.5m wide but TfL insists on 3.2m width for bus lanes, which takes up space.
Little: Markhouse Road - pavements were always narrow, we've not taken from them.
Little: Not a fan of blue paint, don't want to scar the streets, but better that than blood.
Chair: Pedestrian and bus user, I've tried cycling, due to disability, I fall off. Heard suggests a trike. I'm sure @hackney_cycling would be happy to take her out.
Chair: 'Cyclists don't stop for pedestrians anywhere. Cyclists cycle on the pavement. They're rude. How are we going to protect pedestrians?'
Chair: 'We need more cyclists... this council has a proud policy of this'.
Chair: 'Not sure how you're going to protect pedestrians. Not everyone will want to cycle with a child on a bike. You can't carry lots of shopping on a bike. The council can't keep up with the demand for bike hangars. You seem to be discriminating against cycylists & pedestrians.
Chair: Now angry about the buses being cut on Oxford Street and can't use the 242 which she likes.
[Not sure what the point is in listening to three hours' of evidence if decisions are going to be made on grounds like this].
Kenyon: Disappointing to hear this. Chair: Most disabled people don't cycle. Heard: That's not correct. Kenyon: What evidence do you have from health professionals? We don't have young people's voices in the room.
Back to Cllr Stops: If every road with 2000pcu is to have safe cycle tracks, that's every bus route in Hackney, right? Cunningham: We're prioritising some of them, targeting busy roads, also looking for traffic flow reduction.
[Is anyone in the room getting paid overtime?]
Cunningham: Taking things case by case.
Demirci: Points out that all the groups in the room are stakeholders and were consulted on for the council's transport strategy. 'Really disappointing that we're in a room with the two most vulnerable groups - we should be looking at making our roads safer for both.'
Demirci: We should not be put in a position where we're having to choose between making things safer for cycling and safer for pedestrians.
Demirci: The way to tackle road safety isn't to say we shouldn't do anything more for cyclists.
[It's finally over. Council members have to stay for more items as a punishment for letting the meeting drag out so unnecessarily and unproductively].
