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An image showing one layer of the safe cycling in London map

A "Safe London Cycling" map

Helping Londoners navigate the city safely during and after the pandemic

Mapping the safest routes

As we noted in our Review of the Year Blogpost one of the few positives of 2020 was a recognition of the importance of safe cycling facilities and how they will be critical to helping Londoners travel during the COVID19 crisis and during the recovery from it.

We’ve been working with Aydin Crouch (@SafeCycleLDN) to show this visually. These are the new LTNs and new, or upgraded, cycleways that were delivered just in 2020 via the Streetspace programme only. This is years, possibly decades, of progress in months.

An image showing one layer of the safe cycling in London map

New cyclists

One of the questions that keeps coming back to us from new cyclists using our CycleBuddies scheme, which puts new riders in touch with experienced riders in their local area to advise on routes and riding, is how to work out where there is safe and comfortable cycling.

Previous Blogposts highlighted that wayfinding desperately needs work, that current routing apps are poor, and that there is no really good cycling map. TfL’s map shows only the recently signed Cycleway routes that meet their quality criteria. At the moment the OpenCycleMap shows anything that has ever been considered a route, even if there was no infrastructure  or signage is poor (or was never there in the first place).

But the reality is there is lots of safe cycling in London – on the now-quiet roads within the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, in parks, on shared paths and on some sections of old London Cycle Network route as well as on the TfL Cycleways.

Aydin’s “Safe London Cycling” map (bit.ly/SafeLondonCycling)  shows all of this and we think a lot of people might find it useful.  If you see any mistakes or updates get in touch with Aydin via Twitter or email us and we’ll add them.

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People cycling in yellow ponchos