Ealing Council has published a future cycle network plan of the borough. It is not a map of routes you can ride on now. Some are fine, but others are terrible. Instead, it shows the routes the council will work on improving between now and 2035. The aim is to raise the quality of these routes to the London Cycling Design Standards and the national standards set down in Local Transport Note 1/20. The plan is a requirement of Ealing's Local Plan which has to meet the Mayor of London's target for 40 percent of Londoners to live within 400m of the cycleway network by 2030, and 70 percent by 2041.
Routes in orange are core routes. Purple indicates neighbourhood routes and pink shows key routes that, due to constraints such as narrow width and volume of traffic, it will not be possible to upgrade to the national standards but, where possible, improvements will be made. Green routes are routes through parks and other green spaces.
The map was developed with the help of a wide public consultation. 1,118 residents took part making 1,814 suggestions for improvements. Ealing Cycling Campaign lobbied for high quality routes that cyclists of all abilities could use and for strategic routes not to run in remote, unlit areas. The council has adopted many of our suggestions, and most of the canal towpath is now designated as a green route.
The network is largely a planning tool. It will help planners avoid installing obstructions, such as electric vehicle charging points, where they will later have to be removed to install a cycle lane. It will also indicate where any new developments will need to moved back from the road to create space for protected lanes.
To build the network, priority is likely to be given to routes that are designated as top and high priority on TfL's Strategic Cycling Analysis as these are routes that TfL is most likely to fund (below). The Uxbridge Road is the top potential corridor in Ealing.
To help assess the quality of existing routes and what needs to be done to improve them, ECC has produced a node network of key routes on the new network plan. Completing the core (orange) routes will put over 40 percent of residents within 400m of a cycle route.
Adding the highlighted neighbourhood (purple routes) and completing the node network will put nearly all residents within 400m of a cycle route with good connections across Ealing.
