Site icon Inside Croydon

Has the Mayor ordered the cyclists’ magic wands to disappear?

insidecroydon

Just three days before the Brighton Road “Cycle Corridor” from Purley to the town centre, part of a £5million TfL-funded scheme, is due to be formally unveiled, contractors for Croydon Council were out on the road last night, removing many of the protective wands which they had only installed earlier this week.

Road up: newly installed cycling infrastructure was being dug up all over Croydon last night

Cyclists fear that the wands have been hurriedly removed because the borough’s Conservative Mayor, Jason Perry, has caved in to pressure from the motoring lobby.

Some sections of social media have been overflowing this week with near-hysterical rants from motorists complaining about the creation of this piece of improved cycling infrastructure which, as the “before and after” video above, posted this week, has long been in great need of an upgrade to the standard of safer cycle lane provided in other London boroughs.

Perry, in his time as a councillor for South Croydon ward, which includes some of the cycle corridor route, was vehemently anti-cycle lane. The plastic guttering salesman claimed, somewhat bizarrely, that having cycle lanes somehow stops shops and other businesses along the road from trading.

In his first months in office, the £82,000 per year Tory Mayor also scuppered a safe school street scheme opposite Lloyd Park, in case it diverted motor traffic down the street where he owns a £1million house.

Wand-ered off: Brighton Road this morning, stripped of most of the cycle lane’s protective wands

A spokesperson for Croydon Council this afternoon denied that the cycle lane was being dismantled in any way. They were unable to provide any comment from the usually voluble part-time Mayor.

But first observations of the changes made overnight by contractors Conway have prompted some highways specialists to suggest that they may have made the road more dangerous, not only for cyclists but for drivers of motor vehicles who may now be in greater risk of collision with the defender bases to which the wands were fixed.

“I can assure you that the cycle lane in Brighton Road remains in place,” the council spokesperson told Inside Croydon.

“The contractor removed the wands that were no longer required, as the scheme has alternate wands and defender bases.”

Which not only doesn’t make much sense – as the wands were only put in earlier this week – but also contradicts what eyewitnesses have observed along the mile-long length of the route.

Observation of the Brighton Road “cycle corridor” shows that the wands were fixed to the defender bases, not supplementary to them, as the council tried to suggest.

“It doesn’t make sense at all,” according to one member of the Croydon Cycling Campaign who had been shocked to see the removal of the vital safety equipment this morning.

Didn’t last long: the almost wand-less Brighton Road cycle corridor today

“Almost all of the wands have been removed. They only left the ones next to junctions as far as I can see.”

And another cyclist said, “The same kerbs and wand solution exists on the stretch of road outside Mayday Hospital, and obviously that sees a lot of ambulance traffic. No bollards have been removed from there.”

An official at the London Cycling Campaign said, “Removing the wands makes the bases they were attached to less visible, and therefore more dangerous to all road users.”

Read more: Council’s ‘new’ cycle corridor to Purley doesn’t go far enough


Exit mobile version