TfL: Reject St Thomas’s Hospital's crazy proposal for shared bus stop/bike tracks on Westminster Bridge.

Transport for London have proposed modernising Westminster Bridge, following the now established international best practice of protected cycle tracks which eliminate conflicts through clear separation from the carriageway and footway.

St Thomas's Hospital are now making a bizarre bid for these tracks to be built without the standard clear separation between cyclists and bus passengers at bus stops (so-called "bus stop bypasses"), and calling for TfL to "consider the alternative". The "alternative" to separation at bus stops is to mix the cycle track with bus passengers, a recipe for conflict. For obvious reasons this arrangement has rarely been tried, but where it has been tried, we can see the inevitable failure.

This is the shared cycle track and bus stop on Royal College Street in Camden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA9_p_TxzGo

https://departmentfortransport.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/upper-bus-stop.jpg

These designs barely work on quiet Royal College Street, which has just one lightly-used bus route. On busy Westminster Bridge they would be a disaster.

This petition calls on TfL to reject Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust's bizarre calls for such dangerous designs on Westminster Bridge, and implement tried and tested bus stop bypasses with clear separate space for cyclists and bus passengers.