Good news! Westminster City Council is consulting on a new cycleway on Abingdon Street and Millbank, plugging a gap that has existed for far too long in Westminster’s cycle network - between Cycleway 3 at Parliament Square and Cycleway 8 at Lambeth Bridge. This scheme ties in nicely with the imminent removal of the Lambeth Bridge roundabout and its upgrade to a safer junction for walking and cycling.

The scheme includes a stepped track for northbound cycling (interrupted in a few places), three continuous footways over side streets, and a 24/7 bus lane for southbound cycling. You can see detailed designs here.

Please take a few minutes to give your thoughts via the consultation survey. Here are a few pointers from our own response.

We like…

• The northbound cycle track will make cycling feel much safer for people of all ages and backgrounds, and at a minimum of 2 metres is wide enough for the large number of people cycling here daily

• The continuous footways across Great Peter Street, Great College Street & Dean Stanley Street will make it much clearer to drivers that people walking across or cycling past have priority

• Making the bus lane 24/7 is an improvement for southbound cycling, but see our suggestion below

What could be better…

• There are no proposals to keep people cycling safe as they turn south off Parliament Square and before they reach the bus lane

• If a protected cycle track is not possible southbound, we would like to see a timed ‘bus gate’ restriction on all traffic except buses and bikes, enforced with a camera. This would significantly reduce traffic and increase safety for cycling, including at the north end where no safety measures are proposed

• A lot of drivers turn in and out of Great Peter Street and Great College Street. Stopping motor traffic from using these junctions as a cut through would make walking and cycling across them much safer

Our group’s response can be found here.