London: A ride with the Mayor’s Walking & Cycling Commissioner

Join me for a ride and conversation with Will Norman, London’s Walking & Cycling Commissioner. We’ll be exploring some infrastructure designed to create a safer, more inviting environment for all ages and abilities, from protected and separated bikeways to Low Traffic Neighborhood (LTN) designs, like modal filters and motor vehicle traffic diverters.

Thank you so much for watching! If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs-up, leave a comment below, and share it with a friend. If you’d like more content like this, please Subscribe to the Active Towns Channel, and be sure to “Ring” that notification bell to select your notification preferences.

Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):
– My previous interview with Will: https://youtu.be/ly8xWd1umdc

If you are a fan of the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting the effort as an Active Towns Ambassador in the following ways:
1. Join our Patreon community. Contributions start at just $1 per month: https://www.patreon.com/activetowns
(Note: Patron benefits include early, ad-free access to content and a 15% discount in the Active Towns Merch Store)
2. If you enjoyed this video, you can also “leave a tip” by clicking on the Super Thanks button right here on YouTube or thru “Buy Me a Coffee” https://www.buymeacoffee.com/activetowns
3. Pick up some Active Towns #StreetsAreForPeople Merch at my store: https://bit.ly/ActiveTownsStore

Credits: Video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music via Epidemic Sound: https://bit.ly/3rFLErD

Resources used during the production of this video:
– My recording platform is Ecamm Live: https://bit.ly/3rwsUup
– Editing software Adobe Creative Cloud Suite: https://bit.ly/35DBDDU

For more information about the Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit our links below:
Website: https://www.activetowns.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ActiveTowns
Newsletter: https://bit.ly/SubscribeActiveTownsNewsletter

Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

Since 2010, I’ve been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a “Culture of Activity” for “All Ages & Abilities.”

The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2024

this route which is sort of we’ve made it quieter so it’s a good example of you not and certainly further down how we filtered the street so that’s a good example of how we filtered Street Str actually make it quieter and safer by taking traffic volume down Y and then further up we’ve got a much bigger main road that sort of basically forms one of our spine sort of cycleway networks which is fully segregated and new as well and then maybe we can come back along that um join up here and then maybe we could cross over the river and we go down embankment and you can see we’ll do a bit you know you you haven’t been in London for then I you can show a few sites yeah why don’t we do that by bike yeah let’s do by bike all right hey this is John with the active towns Channel and I’m super delighted to have will Norman with me will hey joh thank you so much for meeting oh absolute pleasure I enjoyed our chat a few months ago really looking forward to it well now now you can see if I was telling the truth or not that’s right the proof is always in the pudding proof is always in the pudding now earlier you had mentioned down this way there were some uh treatments that uh happened during the pandemic right so this was this down here I’ll show you in a minute there got some temporary build outs of um of Paving uh wider Pavements as well as a traffic filter and that was during the pandemic it created more space for people using the shops restaurants but also on the on the footways but one of it was became so popular and actually had big impact on some of those local businesses there was basically a call to keep it yep so I’ll show you where so we made that permanent although we haven’t gone back and done all the re-engineering of everything cuz it’s working quite nicely at the moment at some point when we’ve got a bigger checkbook then that would be the plan brilliant let’s go do it let’s go all right so this is the cut this is a you can see the temporary build footways here so that is using rubber curbs and infill particularly around that station that’s a busy Tube Station in Russia so that was creating more space around the tube station dur P during the pandemic but what you see down here if you look see where these Planters are here you can see how wide the road was right yep we nared that it created this more space the restaurants have delighted cuz they’ve got more foot you know they’ve got all this space is not is not eating out time and it’s raining so you can see it’s not sort of packed but you can see the difference that happened and then from a cycling perspective this is great because we put in what’s here you can stop here and you can see the signs there so basically got a modal filter so that’s except loading so businesses to still get access um but then you’ll essentially created a much quieter Street this used to be really we got a Mainland rail station up here so waterl stations up here and it used to be really busy with um traffic coming through uh doing this sort of cut through right um there plenty of bigger roads around which that traffic can use but the transformation of this Street’s been lovely and you can see you know there there’re many more busy cafes and what have you down there than than they used to be so again this is so this is an example again of where we use you know we can’t we haven’t got the space of the capacity to put bike Lanes on every main road but this is an example of again making one of the quieter streets quieter right so you know for me and you this is this is ideal it’s you know it’s a nice bike rout it’s not it’s not you know it connects it up it joins part of the network and you can see how yeah you can see people using it so what we’ll do is we’ll take a left up here okay and you can see so of slightly different infrastructure that we’ve got here these should give us early releases um so obviously for from a cycling perspective it’s nice just to get ahead of the traffic yep there it is but we’re going to turn left here and here you go see as I was saying here on the busier roads having this um having these protected bike lades are essential right do you think we should put on our rain coats yeah we might I reckon this might should we pause under these trees okay we had an a a wardrobe change Pit Stop yep got our got our rain jackets on and and in typical fashion as soon as we put the rain jackets on it stops raining it stops raining what are you going to do again that combination of that filter back there right which has stopped a lot of the Rat running traffic that would use this as a cut through it’s got a filter back there on the next street and there’s another filter up here by these traffic lights yeah and the combination of those has actually made this largely access only for most people again you know pretty easy cheap way of um of making it you know feel pretty safe for cyclists yeah now that two-way cycle track that we were just on looks like it’s been around for a little while yes so that was introduced that one got put in in 2015 okay um and so there were two I think two major pieces of infrastructure that’s cycleway six and then there’s cycleway 3 that’s East West Long embankment right uh that those two were really the sort of kickstarted the changes in London uh to actually takey cycle infrastructure seriously um and and that’s sort of been the some of the building blocks from now on yeah I see uh the uh Bike Share station here yep we have uh so these are the Santa be Cycles this is run by the city uh we have just we’ve been a bit slow on the uptake on this largely because of the infrastructure costs and financial challenges post pandemic but we’ve got ebikes as part of that scheme now oh fa it’s been around well 12 years I think that scheme and and it’s got the the normal bikes right um oh they’re digging up the street at the moment so we might have to just walk walk our bikes through this bit the ebikes are being used five times more than the um the usual bikes yeah and uh so we’ve just bought another sort of I think 1,400 of those yeah yeah um and we’ve just I think one of the things we’re learning is that you put in the infrastructure and you know that old film build it and they’ll come but not everybody comes and so we’re doing quite a lot of work on how do we how do we Pro do more promotion and encouragement that sits alongside the infrastructure exactly um and so we’ve just done a launch of thing cycle Sundays which is an idea of how do you so get people to people all those bus DP all those bikes that of hibernating in the sheds or on balconies yeah how do you get people to dust them off and go for a bike ride yeah and so we got this program working with partners and one of the things is you can get free use of the bike hire on a Sunday at the moment so uh yeah uh so hopefully that’s proven pretty popular but look this this this interesting this is this is an older bike brout where we’ve made some modifications by putting in this this was largely one of the old ones which was largely lines y but you can see where we started putting in some of the temporary uh or sort of not temporary but light uh light compared with what we were on before right you can see the sort of uh you know this is much cheaper much easier to put in a quick build exactly yeah and certainly robust in the sense bricks and concrete but but it’s not the same as having a whole scheme it doesn’t quite add that same level of complexity but you can see you know there’s a gas station or petrol station there as we call it you know there’s loading here it’s a bit more of a to do a sort of full scheme here would be would be more costly and expensive so that’s you know one on the list at the moment right right and this is uh quite the little Plaza area we’re rolling through right now exactly again the change from changing the bike lane but you know you can’t just um we can’t just do it as bike Lanes you got to look at the whole public realm aren’t you you got to make it nice for everybody um and when you do stuff you want to make it you want to do things like that too yeah so this is a bit different this has got a you’re with traffic going this way but you got a a rais track going the other you can see the some of the space constraints we’re dealing with and while this this bit isn’t quite medieval London is a medieval city and its stops and uh you know those sort of Parisian boulevards that Napoleon knocked down and uh put up we don’t we don’t have them well this is brilliant I love that little treatment you’ve got the contraflow lane with the Rays curb to it just makes it you know exactly exactly and it’s just think it’s it’s been using it rather than a one size fits all it’s actually what works for that space you know and again up here this was part of the same cut through one Ballard yep and the sign again makes a difference yeah yeah and you know I always hear comments about oh ballards you know in the way you know cyclists are going to hit it but my point is always you know from a North American perspective if you don’t put a baller there the car will go there exactly and so it’s it’s a trade-off yes the person on the bike needs to pay attention y but and not hit the Ballard but but frankly sometimes even if you do put a Ballard there the car will still try and go there so I put money on the fact that some point down this roid we’ll find one that’s been hit by a truck yes but you know we we still need our businesses to work you know every four for every you know what would BR London be without the pubs if pubs were no beer delivery right there and look how narrow this is this is wonderful yeah exactly so the the deliveries can get there and yep was that Ballard that we passed was that one a removable one you could you can remove it if you I’m not sure actually that one wasn’t the previous one was where the Gas Works those were removable yeah and the fire guys have the key you know to to be able to get through things need to right frankly some of those those fire trucks will take out one of those bs anyway if they really need to if they really need to get to it yes they’re not shy they should they I hope not if if they were coming and put my house a fire out of my house I’d be happy so we got a big hospital here so there’s a lot of sort of ambulance and patient traffic here yeah um but again you can see the sort of the B the the directional track here yeah and I’m noticing a lot of signage for the the routes yes well that if you without the sign you want on street oh here we’re going here so you can see here you want on Street like the theory and I I I hope we normally get it right but I can’t vou for everywhere is that every time there’s a turn yeah you get a pretty clear indication and then every so often you’ve got a sort of a bit of a confirmation you’re on the white right way so you can see these ones I’m going to turn down here so this is the old you can see this is the you know the river just up there this is old docks area you can see a lot of the architecture old warehouses now conver largely converted into housing and Offices here we go going to go down this way ah and here’s the leather hide and wool Exchange Building no longer exchanging wool Le or hides I don’t think but uh Lea exchange there are leather exchanges there I don’t know every I grew up on I grew up on a sheep farm so I used to raise W you’re ancestors might well have ended up here actually you but look you can see the sort of buildings that we’ve got again using the choir to back streets yeah um so this is we’ll stop here for a second so we previously we we um we had a chat about the docked um bike high that we’ve got so that’s the city’s uh that’s run by the city managed by the city it’s the traditional docked system right it works pretty well in central London where there massive constraints on you know you can see the constraints on space and we but there’s no we’ve got a ebikes we got various e Dockers ebike schemes and Dockers EC scooter schemes one of the challenges we have here and I don’t know it’s the same other countries presumably the same but quite often the technology advances quickly but there’s a lag between the technological advance and the regulatory uh Pace yes and one of the challenges we have is that cities don’t have the powers to really regulate the dogless bikes and I love ebikes and I love Dogers e bikes I think are really great as well but not when they’re scattered all over the Pavements and getting in people’s way so one of things we’re doing at the moment is putting in these painted uh areas and then are getting a GPS system yep in so they almost create virtual docking bays and uh fortuitously it looks like this one’s working yeah yeah for sure yeah um and then here is the other thing that we’re bringing in is that as cycling’s booming if you think about living in some of these apartments that we’re around now there isn’t necessarily the space for people to securely store their bikes and so that’s why the residential bike hangers are so important and I think they been the first one of those came in about 2013 2014 we’ve seen a massive growth in those now I think they’re enough got something like enough space for 29,000 bikes parked across London in those but we need so many more the may have set us a target for another 42,000 spaces um uh and um you frankly we can’t keep up with demand um they are they’re not without they’re very popular but they’re not without controversy because for every time you put one of those in you take out parking space but my argument is one of those will s fit six bikes yep and that means these these apartments here have got a whole load of bikes uh easily available off the street yeah yeah yeah that’s a good return on investment right there yeah exactly it’s you know the numbers speak for themselves and they’re just with the endless wait waiting lists our struggle is keeping up with the demand yeah one of the things that I’m noticing too I have noticed these all around the city already today um is we’re starting to see the demand for uh larger such structures to be able to handle some of the bigger cargo bikes yeah cargo bikes and family bikes we and family bikes yeah so I’m really pleased we’ve got two things going on um we’ve now launched the first on Street uh sort of residential hangers for cargo bikes and uh family bikes so there aren’t many around at the moment but there’s first one’s just across the river in Westminster bit actually bit further in land um but then what we’ve also got is a couple of barers have started doing rental uh cargo bikes so you basically you log in on an app uh the there got a fancy Machinery on the on the thing you can rent it for a couple of hours and uh and and cuz quite often I think these you know these are often sort of gateway drugs aren’t they you have a go on some of this stuff you have a go on a bik you get used to it yeah we find that with our higher system people try it out on the on the on the rental bikes and then think actually I I want to get my own bike yeah exactly and we’re finding the same thing with the cargo bikes yeah yeah I love it it’s great turn turning right and then so straight over here you can see the signs this again so this is an example where this again is um a this is a pre a CO infrastructure actually um you can see how sort of but again it’s a simple Ballard but this is a really busy shopping street and the weekends they have markets here after work this place is really busy with people having drinks and hanging out after work so this is a good example of another one of the sort of it’s not so much a formal cycle route people use it and it’s good for cycling but it’s actually just designed as a uh you know as a a street for people I suppose yeah yeah absolutely yeah it’s it’s wonderful to see especially in the heart of the big city here you know some of these traffic calm streets you know and like you said cargo bike’s being used so that’s that store’s got its own cargo bike there a greate um sorry I’ve interrupted you but I was just going to say that I know where that’s come from so there’s a um the businesses in this area formed together what’s called a business Improvement District where the business is basically club together and Lobby fund do a whole load of different activities we’re going to switch over onto this little track here to get through the junction um uh and so one of the initiatives the London Bridge Business improvement district has focused on is Cargo bikes yep and pushing that and making the case for those for businesses and it’s brilliant seeing how many have actually taken them up on that uh you know on the on the idea yeah I think that’s a really brilliant point that you made there was that with the business Improvement districts pushing to have the cargo bikes you know adopting that that really takes some of that pressure off of the street space having those large delivery Vans um or if the the larger delivery Vans still need to come you know you you shorten that window of of delivery time it gives you much more flexibility yeah so we reckon the study that we did we did a a cargo bike strategy actually to help push this out and one of the bit of the research on that show that actually in some parts of 14% of the Vans could very easily be replaced by cargo bikes and you know big this is no longer the world of little niche operators the big boys you know DHL Amazon all the all the big logistics companies um are are showing up in numbers now not two reasons one you know it it helps it add to their environmental credentials but ultimately it’s down to money it’s cheaper you know the one of the big challenges for delivery drivers around here is finding space to park yep and A Cargo bike you can just tuck it in y so it makes it much easier and just saves an awful lot of time let alone the traffic and everything else you see it seems to me that uh the business Improvement districts and the city itself could also you know help facilitate that by having uh designated uh cargo bike delivery parking zones you know when you you get to that level of you know spaces of premium and uh making sure that the cargo bikes aren’t yeah aren’t uh gumming up the cycle tracks and all that y that’s that’s right the but I think the other thing that is really important in that is actually having the um the mo sort of little Mobility hubs uh because you obviously you know the cargo bikes don’t get their their good they’re not magic L down but you know are they they come in on trucks yep and those trucks need the hubs to unload and sort it out EXA and that makes a huge difference um we talked about the hospital I mentioned that hospital back there which is guys in s Thomas’ we had a good chat with them um and they were having you know dozens of Vans bringing their gear in to the hospital and I was I saying from my perspective that adds to traffic congestion yeah and pressure and also we all know big vehicles are a a bigger danger to to vulnerable Road uses exactly let’s not create more patience please exactly this is all about saving the NHS um uh we’re going this way um so but what they did was a bit of a sort of old school time and motion study and what they found was a number of nursing staff that were being taken up by um basically helping unload these fans and moving the stuff to the right bit of the hospital so they bought buil an outside of Lun toown Distribution Center yeah basically that does all that sorts it all out into the right trolleys yeah massively reduced the number of uh Vans coming in yeah and save from their perspective save really valuable nursing time so people could actually get on with their jobs yeah we’ll come back to the hospital cuz I want to mention something else but I want to address the uh facility that we’re on now this is a rather nice obviously a busier Street here and a nice wide generous uh two-way cycle track uh looks like it’s been around for a little while this one this one’s newer uh so when did we put this in 20 18 20 2018 just yet and so this is but this is part of an ongoing project so there’s actually a bit of this that’s being in into construction now or just might just finished that bit of construction it goes a long way down all the way down to Greenwich and Beyond so this is you know we’re talking going all the way out to the edge of um you know the edge of well certainly the sort of uh sort of sent well way out into the out of London along this on and so we’re going head Southeast across along the city as we go now fabulous so getting back to the hospital one of the other things that I was going to mention to you is that uh one of the pet peeves that I have about hospitals and medical centers and zones like that is too often they’re so incredibly car Centric yeah and so you know seeing one that features you know a nice quiet street and some cycle facilities going right up to the door is another brilliant brilliant thing because it’s so good and not everybody is going to arrive by car or ambulance many people including workers might want to arrive by bike exactly um and you know that why recognize Central London is a bit different to bits of outer London which have’ got bit more of a Suburban feel but where you have got those Central areas yeah it’s really key there’s a children’s hospital great Alman Street Children Hospital very Central but they’ve been doing some brilliant work their doctors have been really really advocating for the um ultra low emission Zone cleaning up the air in London because they were seeing just how many kids have got uh got asthma and the impact that that has on their lungs and stunted growth in their lungs and one of the things they’ve done is done a sort of post using the using some of that big data they’ve done a postcode analysis so it will show up on the P patients notes now what from their postcode what the air quality is like in that NEC of the woods prompting the Physicians to actually engage in a conversation with the parents about some of the issues isues that we’re facing cuz I think all too often if we’re really preachy yeah and it’s the usual Brigade of people sort of talking about why all this stuff matters y it it becomes you know it becomes very easy to not to ignore but to sort of pigeon hole that group whereas actually having un you know having doctors talking about it having business people talk about it having teachers talk about it having a raft of different people championing this stuff across the community I think it it’s needed isn’t it to get that uh to get the sort of message you know to help communicate that message really I think to your point is it’s more than just you know quote unquote the health benefits and it’s more than just oh this is good for for people walking and biking it’s also just delightful for you know people living there and people who have businesses there yeah because the quality of life is just so but I think that’s kind of I totally agree one of the pieces I think that we all too often miss we get so get as campaigners or deliverers of this work or champions of it we can get very sort of um bugged down in in some of the detail here yeah um but ultimately what are we actually trying to work towards and you know from a May the mayor’s perspective all those things are vitally important but they add up to a bigger picture and that that bigger picture is how do we keep London to be a successful city a city where people want to come and work people want to come and study people want to come and raise their family cuz that will drive Drive investment that will drive which again will then make it more impressive improve it you know if you’ve got jobs here you’re going to invest money in a city in a business you want to do it somewhere where people feel safe and secure and and happy let’s let’s pause and talk about this little area right here okay yeah look at this this is just delightful so this is the ro hi High roundabout this is an old tunnel down there you can see just behind the trees behind that cyclist in the in the tree you can see that that goes under the tunnel it’s piece of Victorian infrastructure um but this roundabout used to be awful for cyclists you know it was a collision hotspot sadly fatalities in this space yep but now you got the cycle Lanes working all the way through here but also vitally you know this is something that’s really high up on our agenda now is how do we keep our city from uh how do we protect our city from the impact of climate change you know it’s no longer we can’t just stop climate change it’s happening it’s too late for that how do we make sure that it is um that that it is this idea of creating a sponge City I love all this stuff it’s sort of you know it’s it we should probably get out of the cycle route shouldn’t we but you can see if we get off to the side we’re not Amsterdam level yet here we’ll get there yeah um but you know the the whole idea underneath here you’ve got all that drainage space and it collects that water it stores it and and then ultimately keeps the rivers cleaner because it’s it saves it it increases that lag time for the water to access there and that’s exactly what uh impressed me as we were rolling ping up to this space was seeing all of this Greenery that was in in in place because you know too often cities would just be like oh yeah all right maybe put some pavers over the top or concrete over the top the ability to soak all this up is well I think that’s one of the things that’s changed you know I’d be I won’t lie you when we start when I started out on this this stuff would be the first thing that would be value engineered out of a scheme you know how can we how can we save some money oh let’s not do this stuff yeah now the ethos is well rather than should we put this stuff in it’s like well why isn’t this stuff going in why isn’t there more going in how do we put it in you know and setting targets for the teams etc etc means that this is again at Forefront of people’s minds yeah yeah I love it so re remind the audience how long have you been in your position so I so I’ve been uh doing this job for a little over s years now so I came in in 20 as appointed in 2016 um yeah in that time you have had to have just seen such an amazing transformation in not only the infrastructure just but just the excitement uh in the energy around using the bicycle for everyday trips yeah well I think those two reflect each other you know it’s a bit of a virtuous circle isn’t it the when you’ve got that energy there’s more pressure for people to deliver the safe infrastructure and the more safe infrastructure you get the more people have want to cycle therefore the more people have got that energy and the more demand there is for the infrastructure so you know I supp what we need to do is create that sort of that system that sort of drives the political support demonstrates just the change and you know yeah we all know that everyone feels better when they’re biking it’s hard putting this stuff into existing cities you know everybody who involved in this knows that you know technically we’ve just come across a busy Junction if that Junction if the timings of those lights are too long then the traffic backs up too far you get safety problems somewhere else and you spread pollution and and and people sort of if these schemes don’t work from a traffic Network perspective then it’s even harder to win that war that sort of Battle of convincing people that this stuff is is so important yeah and so it is you know from a technical and political perspective none of this stuff is easy I one of the things I loved I took a visit over to Amsterdam a while ago in a moment when you know there was quite a lot of backlash and uh and normal nonsense happen yeah went over to Amsterdam and the guy showed me around in Amsterdam and it was very reassuring that even Amsterdam gets the backlash and you know in the arguments and I I just felt a little better about myself what time is rush hour typically uh it’ll kick in around 5:00 I reckon okay depends three different different parts of the city I think where you’re in W and Forest you’ll see quite a lot of um see the traffic’s beginning to build at the moment yeah yeah um the car traffic is not yet really the the bicycle traffic no not yet the bike traffic after car traffic tends to be a earlier because one of the challenges you know a lot of people come in early if they’re you know driving early if they’re to avoid rushia what have you do their day and then go go back go back a bit earlier too yeah obviously one of the challenges as you had just mentioned is is that uncomfortable sort of transitionary period when you get your infrastructure in but people still have that habit of driving into the city um and hopefully with improved infrastructure like this uh that is is safer for all ages and abilities we’ll see some people who have that choice start to say you know what it’s a beautiful day why not give it a ride you know and and not have to drive today yeah def I think actually but there there’s the infrastructure but there also needs to be a few sticks as well you got the carrots you got the sticks up here you’ll see a big c on the blue sign up here yeah that’s a c for the congestion charge y so that was the congestion charge which London implemented go what 20 years ago now New York just failed to implement um but you know that was a was a seismic moment in terms of uh traffic in the city and exactly to your point that was largely around shifting people from cars coming into the center of the city to public transport right uh and it made it you know as a as was a student at the time and you could tell the difference on the day it came in it you know it just changed the city right so those those measures are really important as well as the the of the carrots um of of of the of the decent infrastructure but now we got things like this in yeah what’s wonderful is then as I mentioned the cycle Sundays last last a couple of weeks ago we had ride London which ride London big cycle event we had 50 60,000 families doing a traffic free route to bit like a you know big so they go you know people went B Big Ben past Buckingham Palace all that sort of stuff yeah and um one of the things for that is is like it’s encouraging they they laid rides from all the different parts of London so for people who are unfamiliar with the roots they can give them a go and then have a reason for getting there and show up to sort of traffic free Central London right and you know the one of the love EST conversations I heard over here there was like someone just going go so easy I’m just going to do this on Monday yeah and thankfully Monday was a sunny day yeah hopefully the day after was and hopefully that person is now thinking actually I might as well just biking yeah well and I get that’s the the big point right of having these special events is to you know help people sort of reimagine what their city is for and what the streets are for ex yeah exactly exactly it so of you know the events are important themselves but it’s part of an overall it’s that conversation that needs to change yeah around how do we how do we want to live yeah must take ages to uh to um to edit all this stuff it’s a good it’s a good good thing this is my full-time job I don’t make any money at it but it’s a good thing you make change though you know that as we go back to that point around storytelling it’s just so important no you’re absolutely right I mean this is this hear from people from all around the world that they’re inspired by the conversations by the conversations that I’m having yeah and the the videos that I shoot it really you know people talk about it it really matters I think it’s like and and we all have a responsibility you got to do the stuff but you got to tell people about it and explain why and the challenges and it’s not easy right we’re going to should we pull over to the side just here okay by this Pub and I’ll explain what we’ll do next okay right we’ got Tower Bridge up here oh yeah which is an absolute nightmare for cyclist yeah it is really really hard and it’s very narrow um and you can see the thing so we’re going to we’re going to if you’re right with you we’re going to Brave it y all right so there you can see there’s the city yeah Tower of London got a par London the river temps HMS Belfast down there you know all the sites all the sites all available by bike I was just in Cincinnati yeah uh filming and they had a couple historic Bridges there yeah nowhere near as old as this of course but um one of them has been transformed into a bike cud yeah facility uh several others have uh bike lanes that have been added to it yeah yeah so we’ve got so we’ve got a real challenge is that from here Westward through London they’re increasingly more bridges yeah cuz the the it’s the older City the river is narrower it’s not a working Port right whereas from this area up to going up to the river it’s wider it’s tidal it’s a working Port putting bridges in in East London is very expensive and technically challenging cuz you still got to let the ships come through yeah yeah um so that means that whereas most of the growth in London has happened in East London yeah sort of relatively recently so there’s a dir of river Crossings for for everybody so this bridge is particularly busy because it’s the last of decent river crossing right on as a bridge for for for London basically a couple of tunnels further down yeah further that way there’s more opportunity to actually look at some of the bridges again still a constraint it’s the biggest sort of Separation barrier in the city so at the moment looking at how do we put more bike Lanes in rather than necessarily make them more uh walking cycling only right um but I think there’s an inevitability that some of them particularly as they get older yeah you know trucks get bigger and heavier yeah you know they were built for another era right yeah head straight over so we want to move slightly right follow me okay here we go you can breathe a side relief now we’re going to turn left down here um but we’re seeing that’s one of the challenges we face as a city is that we’ve got a challenge with big trucks the you know big things like this thing up up ahead yeah um but uh you know that that’s a big problem um but where we’re getting the biggest grow is on the small Light commercial vehicles the Vans yeah um and that’s where you know that’s that’s where you get getting a lot of people using those more not just for goods but servicing so people going to fix elevators and you all all the the maintenance that needs to happen yeah as we pause due to the L loud motorcycles roaring of the motorcycles um talk a little bit about noise pollution and the city I know in the Netherlands they’re really being intentional about trying to bring motor vehicle noise down within the cities and there’s all sorts of regulations uh to ensure that if they do any New Roads or if they do any changes to the roadways um those types of things are being taken into consideration and obviously loud Vehicles like those motorcycles and occasionally loud trucks and other vehicles is there anything like that in London that so one of the there are regulations I think one of the challenges enforcing those regulations um one of the things we have a network of uh traffic cameras that sort of uh enforce speed limits or or no turns or areas where you know you can’t stop and that sort of things um the uh the other thing we have we’ve just they’ve just started coming in is um noise cameras well noise they’re not cameras they are cameras they monitor the noise and take a c picture of the things so where you’ve got uh loud Vehicles there are exceeding L noise pollution levels there is now mechanism of actually enforcing that there are a couple in the city at the moment this is something that we need more oh have a look here this is interesting we’ve just put in have move forward a bit see there’s a wheelchair and there’s one on the oh it’s just switches so there’s a g we green men yeah we’ve now got green women and now we’ve got green wheelchairs you know part of our a symbolic commitment to you know a symbol of our commitment to uh that’s what we mean when we say all ages and abilities exactly and hopefully you know making sure that it’s it’s more than just lip service oh without doubt with you know the the little green symbol it’s it’s also additional time to be able to make it across yep time across the road and uh and then also the drop curbs making sure that people can access those whole rafter meod because we know that you know it needs to be accessible for everybody yeah right this we’re going to go down the hill here [Music] [Music] so you can see in this space really where whole Lane of traffic has been taken out yeah uh to install this the sort of the main East West what we used to call super super highways but they’re the sort of you know they do some this this will do some pretty heavy lifting in the morning and the evening in terms of the number of cyclists but just as we go under this building on the other side the other side of the building and pull over on the right okay I want to show you something there let’s just um stop here a second we’ll just stop by this the other side of this print here so while that bridge um the tower bridge can’t take the trucks over this a newer bridge where all the trucks come over yeah but you can see you might I don’t know if you quite make it out bike Lanes there have got very sort of very high curvs yeah to protect the cyclist way from where you’ve got those big big uh big trucks because we all know the dangers associated with them the the slower speed limits you know it’s again it’s controversial but it’s it stack it Stacks up so well like in an urban area if you slow your speed from 30 mph to 20 mph yeah you don’t you all you do you don’t slow down Journey time you just get to the next set of jun the next Junction next like slightly you know you’re not slightly slower it actually eases traffic because you got less braking distances so it’s it’s smooth so that’s no the the data shows that actually reduces emissions right but most importantly where we’ve done it on our main roads we’ve seen a 25% fall in fatal collisions yeah 63% fall in pedestrian collisions yep in Wales they’ve done they did it as a sort of default so instead of arguing why is that road got to be 30 uh that 20 you say well all roads are got to be 20 unless you can make a case yep so it’s not saying they’re all 20 obviously that would be crazy right but you got to make the case for it not to be 20 rather than making it the case to be 20 and that pivot has resulted so far and I think a what my memory is Subs great 32% fall in collisions and a um 30 2% fall in collisions and uh even the the insurance companies were reporting today a 20% fall in their costs so actually it Sav you money on hopefully in the long run it save money on car insurance too yeah really is it’s a no-brainer in my view this is there’s a massive super sewer being dug through London you know we we were really fortunate that back in the Victorian era Joseph baselet I think his name was put in the sewage system that stopped everyone getting col but as the city’s grow we need to put in a new uh you know new thing so there’s a big tunnel being dug massive super SE through the city which is so far I think it been about six or seven years of work yeah this is one of the main drilling sites and um because of that the bike Lanes have been it’s taken out the space you can see it’s taken out the space so for the last but we’ve worked with them when you’re doing these major major construction projects that you can do is actually how can we it’s got to be some flexibility cuz they move boards things come in digging machines come in ETC but you can see what’s happened is the bike Lanes all this is temporary infrastructure but it’s been here for seven years so the buses go the bikes go up that way but very soon we’ll reopen up the lane the lane goes all the way along uh the the front of the river here down to Big Ben uh and then back up this way um and then that will then join up and connect up on the on the on the top side I was wondering about that I rode to Big Ben and I rode down the mall and I so I had to do this this uh exactly little DET it’s annoying but they’ve done a good job in actually working with us I mean this is this is a really high quality alternative exactly with lights with labeled and uh and you know it’s it’s really helped the safety because you know you there’s no point having this bike lane it just stops ditches you out here where you’ve got big vehicles coming left right and Center yeah yeah brilliant you see on there there’s the little Crest y yeah that and then you look behind you and you see here they’re the red lines y so the uh the crest indicates that this is part of the city of London yep because that’s the crest of the city of London one of the 3 32 different local authorities we’ve got in London that that Red Road is a tfl Marl control Road yep so one of the challenges we face in London is the fact that there are over 33 different Highway authorities all responsible for the road Network so to make any changes on these roads it’s down to the city of London so they’re down to it if you do do it over there it’s Hackney if you do it down there it’s Westminster and then the roads that we control are only 5% of London’s roads which is yeah which is the the the main strategic highways y so to mesh together the sort of network that we’ve just been riding some of those have been the burrow roads some of them have been tfl roads yep and so there’s this you know to do all of this it’s it it requires negotiation and the diplomacy and the politics because one of the borers has got a different locally elected government yeah have got their own political views their own needs to serve their communities different budgetary Financial aspects Etc so that makes you know it’s a it’s a it’s a it certainly adds to the challenge this job well it sounds like that this is as good a spot as any to say goodbye uh because we’re right at the the cusp of uh going into the city of London exact London we’ve got the little red marking there for TF and will Norman thank you so much for taking me on this ride it is just an absolute absolute pleasure really nice to see you John I’m so glad I could actually show you some of the stuff we talked about last time yeah yeah yeah always better fantastic yeah yeah yeah well hey everybody hope you enjoyed this ride with Will Norman and if you did please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment share it with a friend and if you’re not already subscribed to the Channel please hit that subscription button down below and again will Norman thank you so much thanks John all right cheers everyone and again sending a huge thank you out to all my active towns ambassadors supporting the channel on patreon buy me a coffee YouTube super thanks as well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active Town store every little bit adds up and it’s much appreciated thank you all so much [Music]