The Balls Pond Road cycle lane, how ‘safe’ is it for bicycles?

The cycle lobby has managed to persuade non-cyclists, who make up  the overwhelming majority of the population, that cycle lanes improve road safety. They now call them ‘protected’ cycle lanes. But this is hugely overstating the case for cycle lanes. One such lane is along a short section of Balls Pond Road on the Hackney, Islington border.

Previous coordinators of Hackney Cycling understood the problems of cycle lanes. The  one along the Balls Pond Road would be a bi-directional lane, (which are known to be problematic) and would only cater for cycles crossing the road on Cycle Superhighway 1, north to south via a dog-leg. It would make cycling more complicated for westbound cycles on Balls Pond Road and disadvantage eastbound cycles that had previously used the extant bus lane.

However, the wider London Cycling Campaign lobby and Andrew Gilligan determined that it must be built. The bus lane “wasn't used” said the vociferous cyclists. The effect on bus passengers didn’t count. There were delays in the scheme getting the go-ahead, but years of lobbying led to this 100metre bi-directional lane being built in October 2020 using plastic poles in the carriageway.

Recently, cycle lobbyists have made a fuss about the necessary closure of the Kingsbury Road bridge on the route of Cycle Superhighway 1. Islington Cycling have made a bold statement in a tweet about road safety.

And so I thought I would take a look at the TfL published collision data*

Below is TfL’s mapping of collisions from 2017 to August 2022. So there are 45 months of data before the cycle lane construction and 22 months after. In that time there have been seven injuries to cyclists, three slight injuries before construction and four afterwards (one serious and three slight). This equates to more than double the collisions per year!

Alongside the mapping, TfL publish the dates and other details of the collisions.

There are  multiple factors that might explain this huge increase in cycle injuries. The cyclists will point to some additional cycle journeys. The anti road closure campaigners will cite additional traffic. Both are valid, to a degree, but neither, realistically explains the scale of the increase in casualties.

The reason for the increase in collisions will, in part, be because of the cycle lane, and particularly the two-way nature of its junctions at Kingsbury Road and Culford Road with Balls Pond Road. This, together with the narrowing of the carriageway, (which exposes cyclists westbound on Balls Pond Road to closer passing vehicles), makes a mockery of claims about ‘safer cycling’

If one considers all injuries, not just cyclist, along this short stretch of road, there were 13 in total. 5 before construction of the bike lane, 8 after in the same time period described above. There were two serious injuries. One being the previously observed cyclist and the other a pedestrian, both after construction of the bike lane. So, again, a much worse collision record.

To conclude. This cycle lane may well be linked to there being more collisions than prior to its construction. It may give a sense of protection for cyclists, but in fact is less safe. Traditional data-led interventions would be much more beneficial to cyclists and mean both more and safer cycling.

* https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNzgyZTc0ZmYtMjlmOC00ZGFmLWJmNzMtZWJkMjdhMDU4MGY1IiwidCI6IjFmYmQ2NWJmLTVkZWYtNGVlYS1hNjkyLWEwODljMjU1MzQ2YiIsImMiOjh9