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Old October 24th 07, 07:07 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway
Colin McKenzie Colin McKenzie is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Feb 2004
Posts: 266
Default Crossrail - House of Commons Committee report published today

Roger R wrote:

"Mr Thant" wrote in message
Why are bikes banned on the central tunnels, but allowed in the
Heathrow tunnel? Aren't these planned to be exactly the same in design
(single bore, OHLE, pedestrian walkways)...?


The trains are big enough that bikes don't pose an evacuation risk, so
it looks like they simply don't want them clogging up the passageways
and escalators in the central area underground stations.


This is a classic case of making a decision first and creating reasons
afterwards. The blanket central London ban has no logical basis. All
these stations will need lifts for DDA reasons.

This sounds like the committee speakes with forked tounge when the
introduction says:
" E2 1.2 Increasing emphasis is being placed on ...
alternative modes of transport; cycling is increasingly
recognised as a method of acheiving this policy objective at a
local level."

And then goes on to ban cycles from the central part of the route.
But then what is new about Govenment saying one thing while doing another.


The worst of it is that at present you can take bikes to Liverpool
Street and Paddington. The proposal is that Crossrail will throw you
off at Stratford and Acton Main Line. These stations are enough
further away from Central London to make Crossrail useless for
rail/cycle journeys to Central London.

What with the poor new cycling facilities at St Pancras and prohibitions on
Eurostar reported in another thread here, cyclists are getting a very bad
deal within the new facilities.


At present a certain amount of money is spent on special provision for
cycling, often of low quality. Meanwhile, pots of money are spent on
schemes which fail to consider cyclists or actively make things worse
for them.

Colin McKenzie

--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at
the population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as
walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.