Following Terry Farrel's schematic proposals, urban design specialists Burns and Nice have been commissioned to develop proposals for improvements to "the physical environment" of Bloomsbury in the following "key locations"

• Byng Place - Malet Street - Montague Place - Great Russell Street Map location

Members discussed the implications for cycling on the CCC mailing list and at the members meeting on 14th April 2008.

Summary of CCC position on the Bloomsbury Vision

following Members Meeting on 14th April and further committee disciussion

• we note that little has been said about "shared space"
• we should aim to protect what we already have, that is, to take the line suggested by Meade : " but why should Byng Place determine the entire length of the SSL. This is a daft way of proceeding".
• we should ask what is wrong with the current arrangements for cycling in Byng Place (we suspect it is due to interactions with pedestrians)
• that any change made at Byng Place must consider the whole route and that should be up to the standard proposed by James - " keep the existing two way cycle track for eastbound cyclists, so as to increase capacity and implement something with equal capacity for westbound cyclists"
• the integrity of the entire route should be considered
• we will not accept small changes or substandard changes based on the current road capacity (e.g. re-use the 3m available from the two-way tracks by distributing it on two sides of the road primarily because it will not increase capacity.
• we do strongly support reduction of traffic

Specifically regarding the options reached at a meeting with Camden Officers Report on meeting with Officers

• we do not support "Option 2" (Stefano's proposal for 1.5 m cycle tracks (on pavement level or almost) on both side of the road, because they should be 2 m wide,they would be hazardous at junctions, pedestrians would walk in them and cyclists might ride off them;
• we do not support "Option 3" (mandatory 1.5 m cycle lanes). We were not clear about wider ones which would require traffic reductions.

Report on the Bloomsbury Vision Steering Group Meeting 1

JD and Paul Braithwaite went to the first Steering Group meeting with the above position to maintain. We wrote Notes on the first Steering Group Meeting, emphasising mainly the points relevant to cycling.