Cycling at Kings Cross: or £30 Pounds hanging off my backside!

To start I could have pushed my bike on White Lion Street's one-way bit, going up the wrong way on the pedestrian path. Yes alternatively I could have legally used the morning traffic over-loaded four-lane Upper Street (which has no cycle lane in the bid between Liverpool Rd and Pentonville Rd.) and then turning into Pentonville Road (which has fast traffic with no proper cycle lane either) or using the much further distanced Chadwell Street or deviate via Chapel Market on a market day.

Instead, I used my bike on the pedestrian walk! Little did I expect a London Metropolitan Police Traffic Assistant to come my way on his (note!) white bicycle. The encounter resulted in the inevitable £30 Pounds fine on the very same morning on which I also observed pushy motorists exceeding 20 miles in Islington's speed reduced zone, and pedestrians being forgotten as they attempted to cross zebra crossings.

But the fact is that I live at Kings Cross. From where I was that morning at 8.40 am (at Pret-a-Manger on Upper Street), using the one-way street bit of White Lion Street the wrong way up (in a considerate way) on the pedestrian walk, was the safest and quickest option (at least for me).  Please accept my apologies for any offence caused, though!  The area police for rightful and orderly behaviour made sure I would be put in order.  Be assured as you read this now the fine has already been paid!

White Lion Street continues after Baron Street as a two-way street (because that end is not part of the A1 motorway), and feeds into Donegal Street and then Rodney Street and then Penton Rise, which is near to where I live. But its other end is a one-way system to speed up traffic. Some years ago TFL decided to transform this little street into a urban motorway for the A1 and abolished the left turn at Pentonville Road / Upper Street (presumably because it slowed traffic down - it's all about speed you see). Amongst many omissions due to this design, pedestrians still miss a traffic light-crossing at Baron Street if they wish to continue along Pentonville Road, at a spot where cars and buses turn into Baron Street at speed and unexpectedly.  So this traffic is allowed to enter Baron Street and then White Lion Street one-way, all in the name of fast routes for cars and buses. Too bad if you are a pedestrian or cyclist.

Being on the pedestrian path cycling  I was of course breaking the traffic rules. First I went the wrong way up, secondly I used the pedestrian's space!  But I am not a cyclists who is habitually on the pedestrian paths, except at Kings Cross. Kings Cross happens to be my village inside of London. I live here.  Kings Cross finds itself at a time of immense anger about TFL's arrogant style towards cyclists and towards the local community with regard to the way it manages traffic flow.

As he issued the fine the traffic warden asked me why I didn't walk and push my bike? The truth is, that if I would, I would have to walk a hell of a lot around Kings Cross: Swinton, Street, Acton Street,  Gray's Inn Road, Penton Rise, Kings Cross Road, (part of the A201 / A501), Caledonian Rd (A5203) the mentioned Baron Street / White Lion Street axis (an A1-A501 connector), plus Weston Rise, Wicklow Street, Lorenzo Street, Caledonia Street. Balfe Street, Seaford Street, Western Great Percy Street,  Percy Circus, Cruickshank Street,  Great Chapel Street, Lloyd Baker Street, and Argyle Square  are one-way streets (Killick Street, Margery Street and Calshot Street are too but Islington Council and for Argyle Street Camden Council have  permitted two-way cycling in them). 

Did you count that's 20 plus one-way streets located at or in the proximity of Kings Cross. Living right in the middle of this one-way jungle, I and many others could just as well junk our bicycles and always walk instead, if we were to push our bikes along the one-ways needing to go up the wrong way. I appreciate 100 percent that cyclists do not belong on the pedestrian pathway, and if they go fast or encounter insecure pedestrians they can endanger these. 

Residents of Kings Cross who wish to use bicycles whenever possible instead of a motor-vehicle, find themselves highly tempted to break the law due to a design that deliberately favours motorists alone. The street lay-out to and from Kings Cross has changed little since the 1960s, the hey-days of the motor-vehicle (during which there were still less than half of of today's vehicles on the roads). Over and over, residents complained about this system that simply doesn't fit a modern inner urban area any more, or never has.The presence of cyclists has  increased tremendously over the years, with only little amendments made by TFL at Kings Cross (some of the little roads also bear responsibility by the councils Islington and Camden in their one way design).

At their best TFL attempted to rectify a dangerous junction at Penton Rise / Pentonville Street (sadly the results after much money spent were not eliminating the problem there completely), and they built a traffic light crossing at Swinton Street, but the overall lay-out remains a one-way gyratory system. It has injured and killed over its 40 years existence, not the least it is still attracting traffic into the area causing congestion, noise and air-pollution that exceeds any European, and World Health Organisation standard (check London noise map and air pollution maps for verification). It encourages fast speeds, and has, as already said, little to offer to cyclists, except to endanger them and fine them.

In the midst of the protests following the death of cyclists and student Deep Lee, I feel that the £30 fine I received was yet another penalty for living or working within the Kings Cross gyratory / Red Route one-way system, ironically written out by a cycling police assistant. The only way I can make myself feel better about paying the Met this money is, if it would go towards change in the street layout.  I am just another statistic but there must be many like me here.  Why don't you look at those stats, TFL, and change the roads accordingly?

Kings Cross / St Pancras is a place for people to live, it is admittedly also a train hub. But today. as always there are many alternatives to get here. Multiple underground trains go here, just as many bus routes, there are taxis and hire schema bikes, and many cycle bays. But cyclists, (alongside pedestrians at dangerous crossings) are the user of roads at Kings Cross that still get kicked in their backside by the system, and today with a fine hanging off my rear end. 

Tags: Kings Cross This work by Daniel Zylbersztajn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://daniel-zylbersztajn.blogspot.com/.