Wandsworth Council plans to waste £83,000 of taxpayers' money (£85,000 inc consultation fees) to remove the white, raised painted lines from the shared use cycle/foot paths from Wandsworth and Tooting Bec Commons (and associated works).
Unsegregated paths should only be used in quiet rural areas. Guide Dogs, RNIB and other groups representing disabled people say clearly that cycle lanes that are not properly separated from footpaths are dangerous. The roads surrounding both Commons have seen cyclists and pedestrians be injured and killed by motor vehicles. Scarce transport funds should be spent where it can save lives.
Wandsworth Council's own policy states that cycle lanes should be segregated where possible. Segregated lanes are safer and more convenient for everyone who uses them. The London Mayor's Cycling Vision and Department for Transport's 'Inclusive Mobility' guidance also state clearly that segregated cycle lanes are preferable.
Even people who support changing the lanes are unhappy about the cost of doing this. Those who claim that removing the white lines will make the paths safer have produced no substantive evidence to support their claims.
The council should leave the painted lines and instead improve the signage on the paths to make it clearer which side is for cyclists and which side is for pedestrians.
Why is this important?
Even the analysis used by the Council to justify the change suggests that cycling speeds will only be reduced by 1 or 2 mph.
In the space of a couple of hours, over 120 users of Wandsworth Common signed a petition to oppose the change. The Council chose to ignore them, to ignore their own policy, to ignore the needs of disabled people and ignore common sense. The Council used money from Transport for London to put the lines in. They now plan to use more money from TfL to take them out!
Doing nothing would be infinitely preferable to this crazy scheme. By spending a fraction of £85,000 on simply improving the existing lanes and signage, the safety of all users could be improved. (NB funding amount was originally stated in this petition to be £82K).
How it will be delivered
It will be delivered on Friday 2 August at around 3 pm in person at Wandsworth Town Hall.
