Upwards of 200 cyclists gathered at London’s Battersea Bridge yesterday evening to call for it to be made safer for people on bikes after a woman was killed last month when a lorry driver, who failed to stop after the crash, struck her as she was riding across it.

Organised by London Cycling Campaign (LCC), the meeting point for yesterday’s protest was in a small park on the southwest corner of the bridge, with participants riding across the bridge and past the scene of the fatal crash.

Close to where the 27-year-old, whose identity has not been revealed, lost her life, members of LCC’s Women’s Network stood holding a banner calling for Battersea Bridge to be made safer for cycling, before placing flowers in memory of the victim.

Transport for London (TfL) held a consultation from November 2022 to January this year on proposed safety measures at either end of the bridge, and said in a report published in June that “Unfortunately, due to the physical constraints of this listed structure, it is not possible to provide cycle lanes on Battersea Bridge.

“The priority is to ensure cyclists can safely navigate the junctions as this is where collisions are most likely to occur,” the report added.

Those proposals are inadequate, according to LCC CEO Tom Fryans, who following yesterday’s ride addressed participants who had gathered in Cremorne Gardens, close to the World’s End Estate in Chelsea on the north side of the bridge.

“Transport for London, Wandsworth Council and particularly Kensington & Chelsea Council have dragged their heels on safety for cycling, including over the latest scheme, for far too long,” he said.

“The scheme proposed is too little, too late, especially for the young woman who lost her life recently, and for her friends and family.

“We are calling for urgent action to make cycling and walking safe here – and across other river crossings – not only to save lives, but also to make a cleaner, healthier, greener city.

“We need rapid action now, not kind words, and we need a strategic look at river crossings across London,” he added.

Eilidh Murray, LCC Women’s Network Coordinator, commented: “We’re devastated that yet another woman has been killed cycling in London.

“It’s not only an avoidable tragedy for this young woman, her family, friends and colleagues – it’s also a deterrent for more woman to take up cycling in our city, where already less than a third of cycle trips are by women. Cycling in London should be safe and convenient for everyone."

In February last year, five residents’ groups representing people living close to Battersea Bridge demanded “immediate” action to make it safe for people cycling or walking across the bridge and said that failure to do so would result in more deaths there.

The appeal was made after a cyclist aged in her 30s sustained life-changing injuries in a crash involving a lorry, one year to the day after 29-year-old Jack Ryan was killed when he was struck by a driver as he was jogging close to the northern end of the bridge.

Research commissioned by the residents’ groups found that that in the five years to December 2020, 72 people, 31 of whom were cyclists, had been killed or injured in road traffic collisions in the area around the bridge.

“Local residents are therefore deeply concerned that fatalities and serious injuries will continue to occur at the Junction in the absence of adequate interventions,” they said.

“The junction performs extremely poorly with an average of over 12 injury collisions recorded each year of which on average two are killed or seriously injured (KSI) collisions,” they added.

https://road.cc/content/news/protest-calls-battersea-bridge-be-made-safer-303743

swldx...@gmail.com <swldxer1958@gmail.com> wrote:

> Research commissioned by the residents’ groups found that that in the
> five years to December 2020, 72 people, 31 of whom were cyclists, had
> been killed or injured in road traffic collisions in the area around the bridge.

> https://road.cc/content/news/protest-calls-battersea-bridge-be-made-safer-303743

This is what happens when cyclist numbers increase, as has been posted many
times, e.g.[1]- there’s a concomitant rise in cyclist casualties. This
would happen even if there were only cyclists on the road.

[1]
<https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-dont-need-bike-vigilantes-cyclists-already-own-the-roads/>

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Spike

Rendel Harris | 5322 posts | 4 hours ago
5 likes

There is a very simple solution, make Battersea Bridge southbound only and Albert Bridge northbound only or vice versa, that will leave plenty of room for a two-way cycle lane. Add this to reintroducing the western expansion of the congestion charge zone, which Johnson removed when Mayor because it was upsetting his power base in Kensington and Chelsea, to discourage ratrunning over the bridge