The Camden Cycling Campaign (CCC) is greatly disappointed by the current standards of bicycle facility design that the DETR and most Local Authorities appear to believe sufficient to encourage more people to cycle.

As a Campaigning group, until the late 1990's, whenever we raised serious design/safety issues for cyclists when responding to Camden Council's traffic management consultations, despite offering constructive alternatives, we were usually totally ignored. Fortunately the climate has now changed, and the council is now far more amenable to listening to our views. It does tend to modify schemes to take account of our concerns, and indeed its growing in-house expertise in traffic management design to encourage sustainable transport, now means that far fewer inappropriate schemes are tabled.

Moreover, Camden Council now accepts that higher grade cycle facilities are required, and in March 2000 constructed the Royal College Street cycle track. It is currently implementing its section of the Seven Stations Link, our proposal for a physically segregated cycle route running from Paddington to Liverpool Street stations, right through the heart of London.

At the council's request, we have started submitting a series of outline designs for schemes along the London Cycle Network. We do not pretend to be expert traffic planners, but we hope to show that there are solutions, and that they are sufficiently worthwhile to be progressed. We intend to add our preliminary designs to this site, and welcome constructive feedback. Our aims with these schemes are to provide practical design solutions, which try to find a balance between high-cost and over-engineered solutions, and the current standards which are often low cost and fail to offer adequate safety or attractiveness for cyclists.

This report has the following sections:

• Current Design Practices & Recommendations - a discussion on various types of cycle facility, and CCC's "best practice" recommendations.
• Traffic Management Design Guidelines - cycling issues which should be considered when planning traffic management schemes, including solutions to common design problems.
• Guiding Principles for the London Cycle Network - LCC's key criteria for good cycle route/network design
• Guidelines for Street Works - minimising risk to cyclists when the road is being dug up.
• Cycle Facility Design Examples - designs by the Campaign, which either have been implemented, or we are pushing for.

© Paul Gasson