Olympic Park Rides with Sustrans...

[Sustrans Champions]

Hi all,

Sustrans have been working on the Olympic Walking and Cycling rotues with TfL and the ODA for a few years now - and they were finally launched the other day! To celebreate we are leading some riding groups from different points in London, along these routes to the Olympic Park.

Anybody can come, you don't have to register, you can just turn up on the day (but if you can drop us a line to let us know your coming that always helpful). All the details can be found at http://champions.sustrans.org.uk, but a summary is below...

You don't have to be a cycling expert to join us, and if you are a cycling expert, you can always add one of our routes to yours to make a longer ride.

Tottenham Hale to the Olympic Park (5 miles)
A fairly simple, short route, mostly along NCN 1, along the Lea River.
Meeting @ Tottenham Hale Rail station 12noon

Greenwich to the Olympic Park (13 miles)
This route is a mixture of quiet roads, parks and cycle paths and finsihed off along the elevated Greenway.
Meeting @ Cutty Sark, Greenwich 10.45am

Roding Valley, Ilford to the Olympic Park
This takes you along side water on cycle paths, through parks and weaves in and out of quiet residential roads.
Meeting @Roding Valley station, 12noon

If you'd like more info please do give me a call or email me, rebecca.davis@sustrans.org.uk, 0207 780 7201

We'd love to see see some of you there!

Rebecca

 

[snorri]

Saturday 19th November.

 

[subaqua]

TO the park not actually ON the park.

sounds good and maybe people will see how poor the routes to the park actually are, nevermind the fact that bikes won't be allowed on the park because they are a "security risk" unlike all the service vehicles that could be packed full of nasties.

 

[dellzeqq]

subaqua - would you be able to estimate how many of the projected 250,000 daily visitors to the park could comfortably be accommodated on these routes? No minus numbers, please...........

 

[Sustrans Champions]

Yep, saturday November 19th

Thanks!

Saturday 19th November.

 

[frank9755]

While you are doing corrections, the link in your signature is broken. When I click it I get nowhere.
Actually, thinking about it, it's a bit like trying to follow a Sustrans route; maybe it's meant to be like that!

 

[Andrij]

While you are doing corrections, the link in your signature is broken. When I click it I get nowhere.
Actually, thinking about it, it's a bit like trying to follow a Sustrans route; maybe it's meant to be like that!

Ouch.

 

[subaqua]

subaqua - would you be able to estimate how many of the projected 250,000 daily visitors to the park could comfortably be accommodated on these routes? No minus numbers, please...........

is that dodging the dogs**t and broken glass or not


exactly. no provision for one of the most SUStainable TRANSport stystems for getting to/onto the park makes you wonder if the Sustrans and tfl meetings were held just as a numbers game. maybe Sustrans would like to look at the olympic route network "upgrades" and see if they have been made any safer . they may be some time looking for a safety improvement

 

[dellzeqq]

is that dodging the dogs**t and broken glass or not


exactly. no provision for one of the most SUStainable TRANSport stystems for getting to/onto the park makes you wonder if the Sustrans and tfl meetings were held just as a numbers game. maybe Sustrans would like to look at the olympic route network "upgrades" and see if they have been made any safer . they may be some time looking for a safety improvement

hahahahahahaha

I was at those meetings, and I can tell you that numbers were never discussed. Far too vulgar.

 

[subaqua]

hahahahahahaha

I was at those meetings, and I can tell you that numbers were never discussed. Far too vulgar.

so were any discussions made about bikes on the park and access routes ?? being as you is da man on da inside.

 

[Sustrans Champions]

" A fun and friendly cycling forum" hey?

 

[martint235]

" A fun and friendly cycling forum" hey?

It is really!!! There are obviously some strong feelings about cycle access around the Olympic park though!

From my own point of view, I think it is nothing short of scandalous that the Greenway will be closed (along with the cafe) during the Games.

 

[dellzeqq]

so were any discussions made about bikes on the park and access routes ?? being as you is da man on da inside.

yes, there were. And, to be fair, Carl Pittam recognised that routes across parks were not going to deliver anything like the numbers that the 'promise' in the bid had suggested. The trouble was (and is) this

- for security reasons the number of portals to the OP would be limited - at the time we were told there were four plus the Javelin
- the western portal, which would, one imagine, naturally bear a decent proportion of the traffic, was to the southeast of Victoria Park
- given this, the intention was to funnel cyclists in to the western portal
- as any fule kno, if you set aside the Javelin, the biggest entrance will be from the southern side, and that this is the only street entrance capable of being served by public transport and cycling in a big way - accepting that coaches could be coming off the A406 and M25 and would have greater flexibility
- it seemed to me that the only viable way of reducing the queues at the end of the day (note - Sydney's end of day queues were four hours) would be to make the entirety of the A11 from the City to the Olympic Park a bus route, going so far as pushing commercial traffic to out-of-hours. That, we were told, was never going to happen, and the committee (then called the Active Travel Advisory Group) were not going to pursue it. At the back of their minds was the understanding that the ORN would take space on the A11. In fairness the TfL people on the committee knew full well that the A11 was key to getting the numbers to the front door, but red-routeing the entire width of the road was never going to fly at a higher level.
- the problem with the committee was that they, like some people on this forum, think of cycling as an infinitely flexible, seamless flow which occupies zero space. Now experience tells us that, actually, cyclists take up a lot of room - nothing like as much as cars, but more than, say, buses or coaches. As anybody who's stood outside Amsterdam Centraal station at rush hour will know, cyclists take a good deal of space when they get themselves organised (and time, he says with some feeling....) and there was no recognition on the committee that cycles would require a bunch of space. Then again, if I'm honest, I think that all the material generated at that time was about movement within the park - if you look at the constricted street pattern outside the portals you are going to wonder how people are going to get away however (coach, bus, tube, walking, cycling) they travel.

It's pretty obvious that the cycling and walking organisations came from a picturesque perspective - by which I mean they were taken by a romantic picture of happy faces striding or pedalling (on shared surfaces) through greenery. Well, Mr. Subaqua, even allowing for the fact that you follow a Championship team with limited support, you know full well that a football crowd of, say, 35,000 is not about verdant tranquility - it's a whole heap of bodies that makes its way slowly through streets like some viscous chunky mess. Sustrans are not in the crowd business, and it became clear that the 'voluntary' members of ATAG wasn't really interested in the Olympics per se, but, rather, pursuing something called 'legacy' which they could badge up as appropriate - and I think the OP has shown us a glimpse of that badging. (And, yes, we are friendly Rebecca, but we're not silly)

Will transport to the Olympics be a mess? You can bet your buns on it, and the ORN will be seen, rightly, as a disgrace. Will we have a very limited number of cycle paths that cycling and walking organisations can take some pleasure in? Yes, but, then again, they were mostly there anyway.

LOCOG have engaged TfL to tour office premises in London seeking to persuade people to stay at home for the period of the Olympics - as stark an admission of failure as one can imagine.

In the end organisations like Sustrans and CTC (and, in a way, The Fridays) offer people a vision of themselves. That's fine - indeed it's laudable if it increases the general sense of well-being. One means of conveying that vision is by the portrayal of good works, and, fair play to Sustrans, for an organisation that offers very little by way of benefits to its members, it's adept, wonderfully adept at portraying good works, not just to the punters, but also to the people who sign the cheques on the taxpayers' behalf. These cycle routes do not exist simply in the sense of being a physical resource - they are an mediated image that sustains the organisation that does the mediation. Or, as less kindly souls might put it, fluff. It isn't, in any meaningful sense, transport. Now that the LCC has been converted by events to mass cycling on big radial routes we do have a consistent voice in London pointing a realistic way forward. A year from now the newly badged routes will be pretty much as they were last year - a wonderful way for groups of elderly people to walk along, not minding the bell-tinging BSO riders who find that particular part of that particular route convenient at that particular time. As such they are to be treasured.

 

[subaqua]

ta Dell.

not trying to be negative but all the promises that were made in the bid seem to be being broken very quickly ( Yeah I know, it was expected)

and yes Sustrans we are generally fun and friendly , but when we see greenspace , where my eldest learnt to cycle no less , being eaten up in the name of "sport" I do get a bit aggrieved with the come and look at what we did , when a whole lot more should have been done.


its bad management- the sort that forgets a fairly important peice of infrastructure for a flame possibly

 

[robgul]

While you are doing corrections, the link in your signature is broken. When I click it I get nowhere.
Actually, thinking about it, it's a bit like trying to follow a Sustrans route; maybe it's meant to be like that!

The sig line URL needs to get its Rs into gear

Rob