In Praise of Quietways

I like the Quietway idea. I understand the complaints - that we are still sharing the road with vans and trucks, that there is nothing to prevent double-parking, that they’re used as rat-runs by school run cars; and really they are no substitute for fully segregated cycle lanes.  But they are a remarkably efficient way to make roads more pleasant for normal people to ride bicycles with minimal disruption to everyone else. Because being on two wheels doesn’t make us better than everyone on four wheels or two feet, not all of us anyway, and we have to collectively learn to share the limited space that London offers us while it gradually shifts into a more cycle-Friendly City.

I was contemplating this when doing a relatively unfamiliar route: from the City near London Bridge, up to the other side of Mare Street in Hackney. My mission was to return a hired Cargo Bike to the marvellous CarryMe Bikes, of which more later - save to say that they are conveniently situated close to Quietway 2. I took CS1 Northwards out of the City, picking up the Quietway where is crosses CS1 in De Beauvoir Town. But first, I briefly deviated over Bank Junction, simply because it’s a delight to ride across it now that it’s closed to all except buses and bikes.

One of my bugbears of cycling round London is the difficulty in finding the right route in an unfamiliar area. When I first started riding around London in the early 1990’s, any amount of advance route planning was of limited use as minor roads lead naturally to major roads, just as small streams lead into large rivers. This makes sense for cars, as do signs indicating the major roads to your destination which are generally not great for cycling.

Quietways get round this by providing a simple parallel network of trunk routes for bicycles. These are made inconvenient for cars by the inclusion of things like bollards blocking one end of a street, or cuts through narrow alleyways. As long as the signage for the Quietway is clear, it becomes a very easy route to follow. However miss a critical sign (as I had on my earlier journey in the opposite direction) and its rather easy to get lost without a fairly encyclopaedic knowledge of London streets.

No such ambiguity where the North-South CS1 crosses the East-West Quietway 2. Neither are on segregated cycle paths at that route, but the various traffic calming measures at the crossroads, in particular prioritising cyclists at the traffic lights, means that this is distinctly a cycling route rather than a vehicle rat-run. And so I swung right following Quietway 2 through Hackney’s fine Georgian residential streets. It was a beautiful cool and sunny afternoon, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t passed through this part of London for over 20 years. Back then many of the houses were either derelict or occupied as squats. But now the boards had come off the windows, the brickwork repointed and the splendour of the architecture was restored.

The Quietway crossed Kingsland High Road, a Street where I remembered returning to our college minibus to find every single window smashed, but now quite a chic high street. The signing led clearly on through Hackney Fields, a lovely park with children playing and their adults sipping coffee, which I don’t think I was ever aware of before. This is one of the magic things about London cycling, the sights that you’d miss from a train or, god forbid, a car, and the way they all change over time, and lead seamlessly from one to another.

I was pretty alert to the signage here, as this is where I had gone wrong coming in the opposite direction a few days earlier. This is a problem with Quietways. It’s easy to inadvertently deviate from it, whether through a missing or damaged sign, or just day-dreaming, which I am rather prone to when cycling. Suddenly there is nothing to indicate where the Quietway might be, and picking up where you left it is not always easy. 

However this time round I managed to follow the signage through a series of calm roads and shared paths to the rather oddly placed selection of Designer Outlet stores. There’s a few that I think it’s safe to say are not really aimed at me, but there is a Nike Outlet. I was alert enough to remember that at least one of my children wanted something from here, but not sufficiently attentive to have a clue which child or garment was required. 

So I pottered on, on shared paths this time, behind a school party dawdling slowly, but then I’m hardly speedy... and on past Clapton Square. This is yet another delightful quiet London space that other forms of transport would miss altogether.

And then I was at my destination. Just under 30 minutes from one bike shed to another. A healthier chap on a speedier bike would probably manage it in half the time, public transport would take considerably more, and smell worse.

Quietways aren’t a perfect piece of cycling Infrastructure, particularly if you’re in anything of a hurry, or during busy times of the day. But they are an effective way of enabling more people to use bicycles to get from one place to another. That in itself enables normal people to think outside an assumption of jumping into a car, and feeling much better for it. And the next stage, that London may slowly be getting to, is a full network of segregated cycle lanes. Until then, join me in celebrating Quietways.