Disability campaigners are seeking to close Bus Stop M because it's too dangerous. And not just Bus Stop M but all floating bus stops, that's those with a cycle lane between the main pavement and the kerb.
The government sort-of listened last year, announcing that construction of the most dangerous type of floating bus stop should be paused and no more built, then in January released updated design guidance. But last week's petitioners still weren't content, instead demanding that all bus stops changed to accommodate cycle lanes should be changed back to ensure direct access to the bus stop for all passengers. It's a big ask.
At Bus Stop M a segregated blue lane bends round the rear of the bus stop, keeping hundreds of cyclists daily out of the path of passing traffic. It took two months to create, and presumably would take a similar time to remove. Four years after it was built TfL realised the step-free access was insufficiently signposted so came back and painted zebra stripes on the crossing and also substantially increased the amount of tactile paving leading to it. This was deemed sufficient in 2019, but today's campaigners still aren't happy mainly because the crossings are piddly and cyclists don't always stop.
This is a different kind of floating bus stop, officially called a "cycle track with bus boarding island", as seen on Lea Bridge Road. Here the cycle track runs between the bus stop and the road, with a very thin supposedly-safe boarding area on the nearside. A third type of floating bus stop is the "shared use bus boarder" where the cycle track goes right up to the kerb, thus getting in or out of a bus requires standing directly in a cycle lane. These are the most dangerous of all, not just for the disabled but for anyone stepping off a bus who could walk straight in front of a bicycle without either party realising, and it's these the government has paused.
Which type of floating bus stop gets built depends on circumstance and location. Bus Stop M, for example, had sufficient spare pavement to carve out a separate cycle lane behind but not every street is wide enough to accommodate this. Also some boroughs are keener on the cheaper "stepping into a cycle lane" option, notably Camden, Greenwich and Waltham Forest, whereas TfL only ever build proper bus stop bypasses on their roads. Bus Stop M, like all 32 floating bus stops in Tower Hamlets, is on a red route and goes round the back.
One intractable is that when a cycle lane meets a bus stop, either it has to interfere with bus passengers or cyclists have to pull out into traffic. Both are dangerous, but the number of recorded collisions between cyclists and pedestrians is much smaller than collisions where cyclists are hit by vehicles. TfL say they recorded just five pedestrian casualties involving cyclists at floating bus stops over a three-year period. That doesn't help the visually-impaired with an understandable reticence to use floating bus stops for fear of an accident, but it does seem an over-reaction to demand their widespread withdrawal endangering many more cyclists instead.
The real issue is that many cyclists don't stop at piddly zebras, and the design of floating bus stops throws them into the path of pedestrians who may not see them coming. But not everyone on two wheels is a fearsome hurtling menace. Alas a lot of people rant about cyclists, over-generalising wildly, when the true issue is confined to a small minority. In an ideal world everyone would look out for everyone else, but not everyone does and not everyone can.
By all means get rid of the so-called shared use bus boarders, because waiting for a bus in a cycle lane always seemed ridiculous. But a bus stop innovation that makes cycling massively safer shouldn't be outweighed by the fact some cyclists don't deserve to use it. The priority should be to improve behaviours and minimise the risk, not to rip out floating bus stops that help far more than they hinder.
