Work has recently finished on A1000 cycle lanes in Barnet, spanning from Bishops Avenue in East Finchley to North Finchley. Whilst this has its positives, such as encouraging cycling to help with people’s physical health and perhaps steering people away from only using environmentally harmful means of transport, such as cars, it is arguably even clearer to see the negative impacts on the local area.
Simultaneously, the cycle lanes both manage to negatively impact the experiences of both pedestrians and road users alike. The cycle lanes reduce parking spaces and also reduce the amount of space available on the road, leading to further traffic and congestion, which is bad for air quality and people trying to get from one place to another. Such congestion is extremely visible around the North Finchley Leisure Centre, where hundreds of cars appear stuck in a stagnant queue for many minutes and this can be incredibly dangerous for people in an emergency, or services such as police and ambulances, which will now have to navigate around these cars in an even more confined space.
Pedestrians are also impacted too, with the cycle lanes causing certain islands to be taken away in the road, notably on Summers Lane, which causes even more issues for people to cross the road, perhaps encouraging them to cross in places with worse visibility, endangering them. It is also worth noting that these cycle lanes are generally empty, with the exception of one or two cyclists, however they can also be spotted on pavements and on the main section of the road anyways, so it is worth posing the question of whether the funds and disruption caused in laying down the blue tarmac and bollards was really worth it. Pressure was mounted for the cycle lanes to be extended to High Barnet, yet this level of congestion, pollution and inconvenience is too much for some residents of Barnet.
This cycle lane has been classed as an 18-month trial, however the general outlook from local residents is that these cycle lanes have not managed to achieve anything but congestion and as a local myself, I can only agree. Many cyclists pay no attention of this cycle lane, instead sticking to the pavement or main road and the disruption caused in not only the addition of the cycle lane, but also it’s implementation have been a complete inconvenience to the sound pollution, air pollution and congestion for the area and it’s roads.
