Stratford High Street junctions protest
LCC & Newham Cyclists protest at dangerous junctions along Stratford High Street & Cycleway 2 following fatality at Carpenters Road
LCC & Newham Cyclists protest at dangerous junctions along Stratford High Street & Cycleway 2 following fatality at Carpenters Road
See below for lots more details on why, how, where, when etc. But if you do one thing today, please click the link to email Mayor, TfL & Newham Council along the lines below but using your own words and add your name and address at the bottom:
Recipients: mayor@london.gov.uk; customerservice@tfl.gov.uk; mayor@newham.gov.uk
Subject: Cycleway 2 junctions
A man in his 20s was killed cycling on Stratford High Street by a lorry driver turning at the junction with Carpenters Road on 13 January. On 24 February, 6 weeks later, LCC and Newham Cyclists led a protest of around 100 riders to highlight conditions at four dangerous junctions along a stretch of Cycleway 2 (C2)on Stratford High Street including Carpenters Road.
Cycleway 2 was one of London’s first stretches of protected cycle track, built at the point when Mayor Boris Johnson was switching from ‘blue paint’ Cycle Superhighways to protected tracks and opened just after the Olympics had concluded nearby in 2013.
Even before it was built, LCC and our local groups and other campaigners were already highlighting significant failings of the route – and indeed, the stretch west from Bow roundabout saw significant collision levels after the scheme opened, resulting then in protests from LCC at the roundabout. In essence, all too often at key junctions along the route, the cycle track gives up and those cycling are left utterly unprotected at complex and hostile junctions. As a result of our campaigning, cycle-specific signals and a ‘cycle gate’ were added to the roundabout. However, nothing was done further east of the Bow roundabout towards Stratford.
Much of C2 remains, as a result of its age and the design quality considered by TfL back in 2013 as acceptable, pretty hairy to ride. Indeed, our ‘Dangerous Junction’ mapping shows that currently the stretch west of Bow roundabout in Tower Hamlets has ten of the top 20 most dangerous junction clusters for cycling in the borough, including at Leman and Commercial Streets (3rd most dangerous), Stepney Green (1st with four serious and 16 slight collisions in last 5 years), Bancroft Road (4th) and Grove and Burdett Roads (6th).
Across the border in Newham, and on the stretch of C2 towards Stratford, the 2nd most dangerous junction cluster for cycling is the approach to the flyover and Cook’s Road, Marshgate Lane is 6th, Warton Road is 3rd, and Carpenter’s Road, with two serious collisions and eight ‘slight’ collisions (where emergency services attend) in the last five years of ‘Stats19’ emergency services records, comes in at the 4th most dangerous junction cluster in Newham. Of course, when LCC updates our mapping with 2025 data, it’s likely that it’ll become the most dangerous junction in the list.
Part of the reason why these junctions are so dangerous is down to the cycle tracks – but not in the way some anti-cycling ‘experts’ suggest. The academic evidence suggests that in general, anywhere there’s a protected cycle track, safety increases – even where junction designs are woeful or missing entirely. And this is true in part here probably – in other words, the sheer growth in cycling rates is higher than any concentration of collisions. Cycle tracks, despite some who claim otherwise, are not only good for enabling lots more people and a wider range of people to cycle, but also they increase safety.
However, where junction designs are significantly substandard, obviously there are consequences. In this case, any attempt at separating those cycling from those driving disappears at the approach to the junction. Standing at the junction for the last few weeks as we have assessed conditions and planned a protest, the feeling is remarkably similar to standing at Holborn following Dr Marta Krawiec and Shatha Ali’s deaths in 2021 and 2022 respectively. Within minutes, you’ll see near misses and angry confrontations. It’s simply a matter of time before a collision happens again, it’s utterly clear.
At Carpenters Road and the other junctions along this stretch, the simple reality is the cycle track and any protection gives up 20 metres or more shy of the junction. Construction lorries, buses and cars routinely turn left into the Olympic Park straight across the path of people cycling who also have a green light at the same time, and at the end of the lights phasing, you’ll see the road empty and right-turning traffic turn from their green lit filter lane straight towards people cycling on their green light heading north-east toward Stratford. Similar conditions are also visible on the other side of the road, but to a lesser extent. And the same is visible clearly at Warton Road and the other junctions on this stretch. There’s simply no separation of turning motor traffic – frequently larger vehicles – and people cycling on a green light.
Stratford High Street at this point varies between two and three lanes of motor traffic – it’s fast, it’s noisy and these junctions see people walking and wheeling scurrying across staggered crossings between traffic and beeping – it’s absolutely bizarre that TfL considers this an acceptable level of provision for ‘active travel’ and its ‘Healthy Streets’ programme as is.
Inevitably then, despite a decade of warnings to TfL, the Mayor Of London and Newham Council, we’ve seen another fatal collision – with a young man with his whole life ahead of him. And another protest, where 100 people cycled in the cold and dark to highlight the inaction. LCC are fed up of protesting, we are fed up of anodyne TfL statements saying the organisation cares about safety (with the subtext being only after a fatal collision and only if any changes don’t impact bus journey times), and we are fed up of silence and excuses after the fact. When Dr Krawiec was killed by a lorry driver at Holborn, a similarly notorious junction, temporary changes were made within weeks of the collision. We demand the same for these junctions – that TfL, Newham Council and the Mayor of London stop dithering and act on dangerous junctions before the next fatality, not after it. This is particularly pressing as utilities works for the Greenway mean people cycling are actively being diverted onto C2 and Stratford High Street here at present.
The Mayor’s Transport Strategy and Net Zero ambition means the Mayor and TfL are committed to eliminate fatal and even serious road collisions from our streets – these aren’t largely just ‘bad luck’ or ‘bad behaviour’ – they overwhelmingly happen because of bad vehicle design, lack of enforcement and dangerous street design – particularly at junctions. We want the Mayor, TfL and Newham Council to act on this issue urgently here, but also at every junction where we know with certainty it’s only a matter of time before another person walking, wheeling or cycling is killed.
Acting on the most dangerous junctions, providing temporary then permanent changes, would not only massively improve road safety in London but would also go towards other Mayoral targets such as on climate emissions, inactivity and shifting people out of cars where possible.
What’s particularly striking on this issue is that other cities even inside the UK are learning to fix their most dangerous junctions (see Manchester and its ‘CYCLOPS’ designs), but London is starting to lag badly behind – seemingly dithering between lack of political will to act and internal arguments inside TfL.
Please click this link to email Mayor, TfL & Newham Council along the lines below but using your own words and add your name and address at the bottom:
Recipients: mayor@london.gov.uk; customerservice@tfl.gov.uk; mayor@newham.gov.uk
Subject: Cycleway 2 junctions
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