Consultation response from Hounslow Cycling

Summary

• Hounslow Cycling strongly supports the plans for C9 between Brentford Town Centre and Syon Park.
• It will link the town centres of Chiswick and Brentford and provide a connection to C40 towards Twickenham
• Brentford High St has a poor record for pedestrian and cyclist casualties as a result of collisions with motor vehicles and the protected cycle lane and improvements to pedestrian crossings will improve safety.
• We have some comments about some junctions in the scheme, but are happy these can be addressed during the detailed design.
• We’d like to see extensive greenery and rain gardens (SUDS) incorporated into the detailed design.

Introduction

Transport for London is consulting on proposals to improve a short section of Brentford High Street and London Road from Hounslow to Brentford. TfL describes these as follows:-

• Building new protected cyclelanes
• Building new pedestrian crossings
• Changing the layout of four bus stops
• Making the area greener

Road Safety

Crashmap shows 35 collisions with a pedal cycle casualty in the ten years 2013-22, 31 slight and 4 serious severity. We have done our own analysis into Police STATS19 collision reports from 2005 to 2022 and can see that there are clusters around the Beehive, Market Place and Brent Lea.

It is a daunting section of road for inexperienced cyclists and those escorting children.

We believe that a protected bike lane will considerably reduce the casualty rate per kilometre cycled. This is directly beneficial in terms of borough health targets and Vision Zero. Moreover, perceived risk is one of the main obstacles to the greater take-up of cycling so addressing that risk also helps to encourage modal shift to Active Travel with consequent benefits for air quality, population health and carbon emissions.

Building on success

C9 forms the trunk of the proposed Hounslow Priority Cycle Network with a branch to Ealing, a branch to Twickenham and nine more branches radiating from Hounslow town centre. Extending C9 as planned will help to achieve the Mayor’s targets for 2041:-

• Londoners make 80% of journeys by active travel or public transport.
• 70% of Londoners live within 400m of a high quality bike lane.
• Nobody is killed, or suffers life changing injury, on London’s roads.
• All Londoners do 20 minutes daily exercise.

We can see that C9 Brentford – Hammersmith is working. From TfL survey data:

• C9 along Chiswick High Road has the largest number of cyclists of over 200 survey locations in Outer London
• Chiswick High Road had the largest increase in cyclists 2019-2023 of over 200 survey locations in Outer London
• After the protected cycle lanes on Chiswick High Road and Boston Manor Road, the locations with the next largest cycle counts in Hounslow are along the proposed route. Brentford – Syon Park is a natural next step in delivery of the overall plan and we expect the plans will further increase the numbers cycling.

Link to C40

The Cycleway through Syon Park and Isleworth to Twickenham is growing in popularity now that the Duke of Northumberland Estate has adjusted the anti-moped gates in Brent Lea. We expect further increases once LBRUT and TfL have improved the A316 crossing just south of the Hounslow borough boundary. C40 also provides a safe, albeit indirect, route for cyclists from Brentford to the West Middlesex Hospital avoiding Busch Corner. Linking C40 to C9 will be beneficial for the Hounslow Priority Cycle Network and help the borough to achieve its Active Travel targets in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy.

Half Moon Close

The proposed conversion of the existing crossing to a Toucan has prompted a variety of comments from our members. On balance, this seems a sensible solution for a junction that has too little motor traffic to be signalised.

We expect more confident cyclists turning from C40 northbound onto C9 eastbound to use the vehicle lanes. Options for making the turn is not a bad thing. The detail of the design, especially the responsiveness of the pedestrian / cyclist green signal, will be critical for less confident cyclists.

Commerce Road

We welcome the use of shared footways to improve access for cyclists to Brentford Dock.

Ronalds Road

We question the provision of loading bays on the N side of the High Street at the Ronalds Road (Morrisons) junction. We believe that these create two problems for little benefit.

Firstly, our members believe that the existing loading bays in that area are all too frequently misused. We believe that the Council’s contractors don’t even attempt to enforce the rules due to the labour intensive evidence requirements. Drivers pulling in or out for a coffee create unnecessary risks for cyclists including car dooring risks.

Secondly, the junction is much busier than the caption on Map 2b suggests. It is already quite heavily used by car drivers getting to/from the Morrison’s car park. We anticipate high demand from cyclists accessing the Morrison’s bike racks. Cyclists tend to shop little and often so that a supermarket near a protected bike lane is very likely to be a popular destination.

We would ideally like to see the so-called loading bays removed and the space used to provide a good cycle and pedestrian crossing from the N side of the High Street to Morrison’s. Reasonable alternatives would be to use the space for blue badge parking or to improve the design to protect cyclists from the risks of car dooring and careless manoeuvres.

Tallow Road

We agree that this junction should not be signalled.

Half Acre

We agree with the proposed use of shared pavements to provide a safe route for C9 westbound cyclists to/from Half Acre at the Beehive. A similar design is already in place at Ealing Road (McDonalds) and coherent design along the route helps with legibility.

Members have concerns about traffic light arrangements at this junction. It appears that the junction will be signalled as a crossroads although the volume of traffic on the southern arm will be very low.

This situation occurs on C9 at the junction of British Grove / Chiswick High Road by the Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham borough boundary. Despite measured peak usage of almost 4000 cyclists per day, cyclists travelling east-west on C9 receive a small proportion of green time because the very small number of vehicles entering British Grove have priority.

We fear the same scenario may occur here if there are signals for the southern arm of the junction and a very low volume of traffic using it. We ask that the detailed design of signals at this junction should consider this.

About Us

Hounslow Cycling is the borough group of the London Cycle Campaign. We have several hundred local members and supporters. We campaign for better cycling facilities in the borough. We offer training and rides for cyclists who are less experienced or less confident. We provide a focus for those interested in improving cycling in the borough.

9th September.