Background

National Cycle Route 4 (NCR 4) is part of a long-distance continuous cycle route from St. Davids in Wales to the Cutty Sark at Greenwich. It runs through the north of the London Borough of Southwark, where it is known as the ‘Thames Cycle Route’ and is branded as such by local authorities throughout Greater London. There are some excellent examples of shared-use pedestrian/cycling facilities on this route and it is a great local resource for family and leisure cycling. It is also a viable slower commuter route for anyone heading to Greenwich from Central London and wanting to avoid the busy Jamaica Road-Lower Road-Evelyn Street main route. Several schools lie on, or extremely close to NCN 4.

The Problem

Having ridden NCN 4 through other boroughs, it is fair to say that the L.B. Southwark section is designed quite well in the most part, and is an asset to cyclists in the borough. However, this report intends to highlight some problems with the route and to propose some possible solutions to ameliorate NCN 4. These will centre around addressing inadequate signage along the route and the difficulties for a cyclist to follow it easily without getting lost.

Project Area

This report proposes signage improvements to National Cycle Route 4 in the Rotherhithe Community Council area, where Southwark Cyclists were awarded a Cleaner, Greener, Safer bid of £7,500 to improve the route. Included for reference is a map of the portion of the route which falls inside this funding area, along with requested improvements at specific points. The request is that existing metal signage is supplemented with surface markings (as Southwark has done with other cycle routes in the borough) to enable a cyclist to follow NCR 4 through the area without needing to use a map.

Project Stakeholders

This project has been proposed by Southwark Cyclists in partnership collaboration with Sustrans, the civil engineering charity responsible for coordinating with local authorities throughout the UK on the creation and development of the National Cycle Network.

Contact Details

Barry Mason
Coordinator, Southwark Cyclists
barrymasonuk@googlemail.com

Ian McPherson
Sustrans Liaison, Southwark Cyclists
spokenmotion@me.com

Tom Sharland
Sustrans Area Manager, South London
tom.sharland@sustrans.org.uk

PROBLEM

It has been identified that blue metal signs should, where appropriate, be supplemented with cycle markings included on the carriageway and cycle paths (see Fig. 1). These offer the benefits of providing additional reinforcement as to what a cyclist should do at a junction where there is ambiguity as to where they should go. Carriageway markings have a further additional benefit in that they are more robust than metal signs, which can be vandalised, damaged, turned or removed from lamp posts. They also help promote the &squo;profile’ of the route by making it appear as a continuous, well-designed and easy to follow transport corridor.

On the substantial numbers of segregated use cycle paths along NCR 4 they also provide confirmation which ‘half’ of a path is a pavement for pedestrians and which is the cycle path. This reduces ambiguity for both cyclists and pedestrians and therefore the potential for conflict.

As Figure 1 illustrates, the correct format requested for all such carriageway markings is for the DFT cycle symbol to be painted onto the ground with a box underneath it containing the route number (which would be 4 in this case). At junctions, an arrow should also be added pointing either left, right or straight ahead.

Westminster Council have successfully employed carriageway markings on their section of NCR 4 to good effect (see Fig. 2) and Southwark Council have also used this method successfully on Route 22 of the London Cycle Network.

Fig. 1. DFT-approved cycle markings for indicating a numbered cycle route (from the London Cycling Design Standards manual).

NCR4 already has cycle markings painted on segregated use cycle tracks (see Fig. 3) but these are now old and faded. It is proposed that these should now be repainted with the box and route number below.

Fig.2. Belgrave Road, Pimlico

Fig. 3. Faded markings on Albatross Way, SE16