Saturday 25 September 2010

Cycling provision in Tottenham Hale

I travelled through Tottenham Hale to Seven Sisters today. Which involves either negotiating the nightmare that is the Tottenham Hale Gyratory - or taking the "quiet roads" through the backstreets.

Yes - There is cycle provision around the gyratory. Unfortunately it is less like this....

Amsterdam

... and more like this...
Arse end of Tottenham Hale
The cycle bypass for Tottenham Hale goes on quite badly maintained roads through an industrial estate which includes a large recycling plant and therefore large numbers of lorries. But this is OK since large lorries rarely cause issues for cyclists....

This road is on the TfL cycle maps as a route, yet there is nothing on the road to indicate a cycling road, there are virtually no signs (the one that I did see was pointing in the wrong direction), and it goes through a park where I have no idea if you can cycle on the footpath. You could end up really lost around here if you didn't know the area.

And once this is all negotiated you come along to the A10 which you need to cross (with no supporting cycle lights) and then divert through the back of a housing estate to get onto Seven Sisters Road. Again, this is all on the TfL map, but absolutely no signage at all, and some of the journey appears to go along the pavement.

But then it is probably better than the racetrack that is Broad Lane...


Interestingly enough, I passed complete gridlock from just past Blackhorse Station to Tottenham Hale retail park, probably a mile of crawling traffic. This appears standard for Saturday and Sunday as too many people try to park in too few spaces. One might decide the problem is too few car parking spaces, but this is an area that has many bus routes, an overground and underground station opposite, and actually quite a number of good quality cycling stands. So if you decide to take your car, unless you are buying something big, there is no real need. Perhaps more people may cycle if they didn't have to meander through industrial estates and fight across busy traffic or stick to cycle paths full of pedestrians (mainly because the council situated a bus stop right on top of it).

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