We are bitterly disappointed to announce that, despite our best efforts, Hackney Council have signed off the decision to proceed with their unsafe design for Pembury Circus. For those who want to know more about the design’s flaws, and how it does almost nothing to improve one of the borough’s worst junctions for people on bikes, we have written on the details at length, and even produced a safer alternative, which provides benefits for all users of the junction, including bus users and pedestrians. But we also need to address how we got to this point, and how what is supposedly one of London’s best boroughs for cycling could show so little care for the safety of people on bikes.
Fundamentally, there is a widening gap between the borough’s public statements on the importance of safe cycling, and the reality of what it is prepared to accommodate. Despite all the positive words about Vision Zero, an approach where every road death is seen as avoidable and unacceptable, designs that don’t make cycling safe are justified on grounds of ‘place-making’. A supposedly child-friendly borough doesn’t think that extends to roads that children can cycle to school on. Hackney’s laudable interventions like cycle hangars are undermined by a refusal to apply their own policies on main roads. “Yes, we support cycling – but not here, not like this”. All cycle campaigners have heard this before. We thought Hackney was better than this.
As a group, we are coming to terms with the decline of our borough’s reputation as a leader on cycling, and what it means to participate in co-design when all your warnings on safety go unheeded. The decision on Pembury Circus will cast a long shadow over the council’s standing within the active travel community, because it is precisely at the most dangerous junctions where actions speak the loudest. We haven’t exhausted all our options on opposing this decision, but we also have to look to the future. We hope the appointment of a new transport lead, Cllr Sarah Young, can halt the decline, after several disappointing cycling schemes, and two painful years of inaction on LTNs. A first-class Pembury scheme would have put Hackney back where it belongs and enabled all ability cycling here for generations to come. Now the council has a choice: draw on experts, neighbouring boroughs and government guidance to target the most dangerous parts of our road network; or continue to ignore best practice, prioritise place-making over safety and accept responsibility should a cyclist be harmed.
Hackney Council is planning to begin works later this year on some significant changes in and around Hackney Central, funded through £19m of money from central government. One major project as part of the project will be a full rebuild of “Pembury Circus” junction. If you’re not familiar with the junction, here’s an aerial view of the junction from Google Maps. As you can see, it is currently a sea of tarmac, with cars prioritised above all else:
Pembury Circus deserves a design which:
- Ensures cyclist safety for all ages, on every junction movement
- Delivers a faster route for buses
- Provides more space for pedestrians
- Slows motor vehicles to reduce collisions
- Provides additional greening where possible
- Deliver a space that Hackney can be proud of.
We have presented the Council a design which achieves all these important goals!
We need your help to make the case to the Council that this is the scheme that Hackney needs and deserves.
With our design, we have produced a plan that:
- ensures safe cycling in all directions, transforming a junction which is currently only navigable by strong and confident cyclists, into one which will be approachable for all ages and abilities.
- speeds up buses by increasing the junction’s capacity as compared to the council’s approach. This is because there is no need for advance stop lines, or early release signals, to attempt to mitigate the safety issues inherently caused by requiring cyclists to move through the junction during the same phase as general traffic. The council can then choose whether to use this extra time to speed up bus times, or to prioritise pedestrians and cyclists and reduce waiting times for people travelling using these modes.
- provides an ‘all-green’ traffic light phase, and significantly more pavement space, to provide a better experience for pedestrians.
- retains pedestrian crossings on all arms, whereas the council’s design removes a crossing (more on this below).
Help change the disappointing plans from the Council
Unfortunately, the plans outlined by the Council, are a disappointment. They were only ever shown to the public at a few in-person events on the Narrow Way, and then an updated version (shown below) was included in the decision document. Therefore the opportunities for public scrutiny have been extremely limited.
The Council’s current designs include almost no improvements to make cycling safer, only offering protection for cyclists on a single arm of the junction. This is particularly galling considering the safety record of the current junction, which has seen 5 cyclists seriously injured there since 2017 (data taken from TfL’s road safety data dashboard), so on average we are seeing a serious collision every here once every 17 months. Given that the redesigned junction is still largely optimised for moving large numbers of vehicles above all else, and requires cyclists to mix with general traffic, we believe it would only be a matter of time until a serious incident occurs again if the council proceeds with this approach.
This design also removes a pedestrian crossing over Amhurst Road (on the eastern arm of the junction) which will force people on foot to walk further and use two crossings. Of course many people will just take the shortest path, even though there is now no crossing here and no protected signals for pedestrians.
The Council’s plan will not provide safe cycling to the cyclists who brave this junction, and will certainly not lead to more people choosing to cycle journeys that pass through Hackney Central. It is just not the modern junction design that we deserve and need.
What comes next?
Last year we held a vigil at the town hall, to remember Harry Webb and Gao Gao, who were tragically killed while cycling on the borough’s roads. On that evening we were grateful to have the mayor, Caroline Woodley, in attendance. We believe she is sincere when she has said in the past that she wants to make cycling in Hackney safer. We now need to see action to back up those words.
If you agree, here are some ways you can help:
- Please write to Mayor Caroline Woodley (easiest way to do this would be to use the contact form we have provided below) asking her to ensure that the final design achieves these important points, which the current design does not fulfil:
- Safe cycling for all
- The fastest junction for buses
- Increased space for pedestrians.
- Please also copy your local councillors, especially if you live in/near Hackney Central – find which ward you are in here and your councillor details here.
- Attend your councillor surgeries to ask whether they are happy to support a design that does not achieve safe cycling (without compromising on bus times or pedestrian safety)
- Sign up to our newsletter to hear other campaigning plans.
- Follow us on X / Twitter for updates on our plans.
- Come along to our monthly meetings
- Join LCC to support improved cycling infrastructure throughout London.
The Pembury Pedestrian and Cycle Junction
Why is our design an improvement?
The proposed addition of segregated cycle facilities has been designed using the existing kerblines proposed by Hackney’s consultants. It will have no negative impact on capacity or performance and will actually improve the flow of vehicles through the junction:
- Cycles will move during the same phase as pedestrians in an all-round signal phase, requiring no additional time for cycle movements.
- Removing cyclists from the carriageway will benefit motor vehicles, as their acceleration will no longer be dictated by the slowest bike in front of them. This will allow more vehicles to pass through during each signal phase.
- The Advance Stop Line (ASL) box, where cycles wait ahead of motor vehicles, will no longer be necessary. Motor vehicles will be able to move closer to the junction, effectively making the junction smaller and improving overall performance.
- Without cyclists in the lane, there will be no need for the 4-second early release previously required for bikes. While this may seem minor, even a few seconds can make a significant difference at heavily congested junctions like this one.
Will it cost more?
No, adding cycle facilities to a project of this size will not significantly increase costs.
Is it too late to look at now?
No, the design will not require additional modelling work. Because it takes the council’s design as a starting point, it doesn’t change the junction’s capacity or lane widths and only improves performance. The changes to TfL’s proposed signal drawing could be completed in just a few days.
Will it impact pedestrians?
Studies from neighbouring Waltham Forest and TfL’s reports on bus stop bypasses show clear evidence that segregation works. When cyclists feel unsafe or frustrated with signal timings, they often use footways, which can lead to conflicts. Providing segregated facilities reduces the likelihood of these conflicts.
Will it really be that much safer, and will cyclists use it?
Yes, similar junctions have shown high uptake by cyclists and have effectively removed conflicts between vulnerable road users and motor vehicles. With TfL and the borough committed to Vision Zero, not providing infrastructure that supports these safety goals would, we believe, be negligent.
Why is Pembury important?
Hackney has a larger cycling population than most London boroughs, and the number of cyclists is expected to grow steadily across London. A junction as large and complex as Pembury Circus doesn’t get redesigned often, and the opportunity to provide necessary cycle facilities that meet current and future demand must not be missed.
If proper cycle facilities are not provided, the junction’s performance will worsen as more and more cyclists fill the ASL, leading to driver frustration and, realistically, the potential for a death or serious injury of someone simply trying to travel through the borough safely and sustainably.
