CTC London on knockabout with Boris

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CTC London
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CTC London on knockabout with Boris

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Cycling answers from London Mayor - November update



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBup5U_9Ycw

Go to the link for some good knockabout fun PJB



This update includes all the answers which have arrived since the initial
mayoral response.

Cycling and dangerous roads will dominate Wednesday's plenary meeting of the
London Assembly (10am, 9th Nov) which questions Peter Hendy, Commissioner of
Transport for London and Boris Johnson, as chair of the TfL Board

Two of the four questions from party groups will feature cycling. Jenny Jones
will ask:

Why did TfL apparently ignore key recommendations from the 2008 audit of the
pedestrian environment around Kings Cross produced by TRL Ltd and Living
Streets, and should Londoners


Caroline Pigeon will ask:

Are TfL's roads safe for cyclists?



http://www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/mgCo ... px?ID=6398


Cycle hire costs (2)
Question No: 3026 / 2011
Jenny Jones
Given that cycle hire raised £2.3m in 2010/11, do you still believe it can raise
£18m in 2011/12 (as outlined in answer 3678/2010)? Have TfL now revised their
October 2009 estimate that the scheme would "break even" within three years of
its launch?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.
Written answer received on 20 October 2011:
Income figures for the first financial year of the Barclays Cycle Hire (2010/11)
do not reflect a full year of operation and include less than four months of
casual user income. Income estimates for Barclays Cycle Hire are continually
refined as TfL learns more about user behaviour and, for 2011/12, will be
subject to detailed phase 2 usage modelling which is currently taking place.

The aim has always been to break even on operational costs, which TfL
anticipates achieving over the latter part of the initial five year contract.

Cycle Hire Scheme (3)
Question No: 3095 / 2011
Caroline Pidgeon
Why do casual users of the bike hire scheme have to insert their bank or credit
card on two separate occasions before they can use the bike hire scheme? Are
there plans to make the process simpler?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.
Written answer received on 20 October 2011:
The existing process was designed to meet certain card issuer requirements for
payments. These requirements have changed, allowing TfL to modify the casual
hire process. System changes currently scheduled for later in 2012 will allow
casual users to hire a bike by inserting a payment card once.

Cycle Hire Scheme (4)
Question No: 3096 / 2011
Caroline Pidgeon
How many people to date have tried to hire a bicycle through the casual user
scheme but have given up during the process?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.
Written answer received on 20 October 2011:
Although this specific data is not available, TfL has investigated the total
number of casual hire transactions in September 2011, where a total of 230,652
successful casual hires were made. There were 5,754 transactions which were not
completed (2.4 per cent). This is not the same as the number of customers, as
TfL would not be able to determine whether a single customer had used two
different cards, for instance.

There are a number of reasons why a customer may choose not to complete a
transaction, such as deciding to use a different payment card. For this reason,
it is not possible to calculate and therefore impossible to draw any firm
conclusions as to the reason these transactions were not completed.


Penalty for driving in cycle lanes
Question No: 2773 / 2011
Murad Qureshi
I understand different stretches of cycle lane have distinct levels of
authority; mandatory, advisory and the highly recognisable blue surfacing, but
what is the penalty for a driver that breaches the rules and drives into any
sort of cycle lane? How many drivers have been penalised for such transgressions
in each year of your Mayoralty?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.

Written answer received on 7 November 2011:

Parking or stopping in a mandatory cycle lane is punishable by the Police
through the issuing of a £30 fixed penalty notice (FPN).

Unfortunately, historical records of action by Police in London against drivers
who park or stop on mandatory cycle lanes were not collected in a way that can
enable an accurate answer to your question.

However, more recently, more accurate data is being recorded and, in the year to
date, FPNs issued to drivers are up 45 per cent on the same period last year.

With the advent of Cycle Superhighways (CSH), TfL bolstered the Police numbers
in the MPS Cycle Task Force to tackle road user anti-social behaviour. These
additional officers are dedicated to reducing conflict between road users,
ensuring that everyone abides by the rules of the road. As each new CSH is
rolled out, the Cycle Task Force undertakes a period of intensive patrol on the
route, educating drivers on the penalties for not complying with cycle lanes or
advanced stop lines, and taking enforcement action.*


Blackfriars Bridge
Question No: 2991 / 2011
Valerie Shawcross
How many individual items of communication have your office and TfL received
objecting to the proposed road layout on Blackfriars bridge, specifically
referring to the impact on cyclists and the aspiration for a 20mph speed limit.
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.

Written answer received on 7 November 2011:

The junction outside Blackfriars Station has had to be redesigned to accommodate
the 24,000 pedestrians who will enter and exit the station during the morning
peak, once the station reopens. TfL undertook an engagement on its plans for
Blackfriars junction between 21 March and 15 April 2011. It received 560
responses from members of the public with views about the proposals. Many of the
points raised were incorporated into the revised junction design. However, the
GLA and TfL correspondence management systems do not allow for a report to be
generated showing the number of complaints received with the specific concerns
you mention.

London Greenways
Question No: 3102 / 2011
Caroline Pidgeon
Further to MQ (2499/2011), whilst I welcome your acknowledgement of support for
London Greenways, why has funding dropped from around £4 million in 2009-2010 to
around £2.3 million for 2010-2011?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.

Written answer received on 25 October 2011:

As I have said, I am a strong supporter of Greenways and other ways of
encouraging more cycling and walking. Overall investment in cycling and walking
has gone from £71.1m in 2009/10, to £99m in 2011/12.

In fact, investment in Greenways has increased. Whilst the direct funding from
TfL for Greenways has reduced since 2009/10, this does not show the overall
picture of investment in Greenways. The new Local Implementation Plan (LIP)
funding arrangements I have put in place, which provide the boroughs with
greater flexibility to invest in local priorities, has resulted in an additional
£2.5m LIP funding being spent on 22 Greenways schemes this year.

In addition, since 2009, a further £9m has been devoted to delivering the 2012
Games Walking and Cycling Routes. This has enabled the delivery of eight
exemplary routes that provide opportunities for spectators to travel on foot, or
by bike, through parks, towpaths and other open spaces, whilst also providing a
lasting legacy for London.

Cycle Hire Scheme (2)
Question No: 3094 / 2011
Caroline Pidgeon
Do you have any plans to introduce more information and signage at cycle hire
docking stations to assist people who wish to be casual users of the cycle hire
scheme?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.

Written answer received on 7 November 2011:

TfL is currently reviewing the information presented on both the touch screens
and panels at docking stations. This information will be refreshed as part of
the work being undertaken to expand the scheme in 2012.

In addition, TfL has posted a video on their website as well as YouTube, which
shows customers how to take advantage of casual hire. This short video walks
customers through the process step by step in an engaging and informative way
and can be viewed at: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/15025.aspx.

I am very pleased that more than 1.5 million journeys have been taken by casual
users to date, and TfL will continue to look for opportunities to update and
refine customer information.
TfL staff travel allowances (1)
Question No: 3017 / 2011
Jenny Jones
Can you tell me the number of miles travelled by car that TfL staff were
reimbursed for last year, and confirm that approximately 20% of the journeys
were less than 7 miles?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.

Written answer received on 25 October 2011

TfL's policies state staff must consider the options of walking, cycling, bus
and tube first, and the use of car can only be made as a last resort.

The vast majority of these journeys are claimed by Tube night workers,
travelling between sites when no Tube trains are running and buses are running
infrequently on night service schedules. Many of these are operational locations
not served by the bus network.

During 2010/11, TfL staff were reimbursed for 294,714 miles of travel by car.
Eighteen per cent of these journeys were less than seven miles.

Blackfriars Bridge
Question No: 2802 / 2011
John Biggs
Further to your response to my question 1750/2011, is it true that the
"modelling" on which so much is based rates a cyclist as 0.2 Passenger Car Units
(PCU's), in other words 20% of a PCU?
Written response from the Mayor
Officers are drafting a response which will be sent shortly.

Written answer received on 20 October 2011:

Passenger Car Unit (PCU) is a metric used across the transport industry in
traffic modelling to assess traffic flow. PCU values are a way of equally
equating all traffic flows through a junction to ensure that the impact that
each mode of transport has on the junction is weighted equally. It is not a
measure of their "worth". The concept of the PCU was not developed by TfL; it is
an industry-wide way of giving a common currency to capacity analysis. In the
UK, standard PCU values are recommended by the Department for Transport (DfT).

The whole idea is not to say that cyclists are worth 20 per cent of a car and
the application of the PCU does not work like this. What the PCU factors do is
account for the different headways generated between different vehicles. For
example, large lorries are slower to start up, take longer and further to brake
and so are afforded a higher PCU factor. The standard PCU value of 0.2 that is
recommended (by the DfT) for pedal cyclists, actually represents their better
utilisation of road space at junctions compared to a standard car with average
occupancy.
Philip Benstead
Secretary
CTC London – Working to promote the use of the cycle as a means of utility, transport or leisure for ALL.
Email to ctclondon@yahoogroups.co.uk
CTC London Twitter: @CTCLondon)
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