Max Sullivan

Update: The Kerbs Have Arrived

An image of a person crossing a zebra crossing on a street corner. A black taxi and another car are visible on the road. The scene is set in an urban area with brick buildings. This photo is credited to Adam Tranter.

Today (11 March) local authorities have been given new powers to install side road zebra crossings at junctions across Wales.

This new legislation will give pedestrians priority at side streets and help support people to walk and wheel more. 

Find out more bitly.livingstreets.org.uk/4lvHEFC

Change you can feel I was proud we'd finally dragged Westminster Council into line with guidance on tactile paving - but I didn't expect the letter I then received from charity Guide Dogs.

Read more here: open.substack.com/pub/movepeop...

2/

Letter from Clive Wood at Guide Dogs to the author, full text: "I was delighted to read that Westminster City Council have approved a scheme that will upgrade the tactile surfaces at crossing points across the City. Bringing these crossing points in line with national tactile guidance. For several years, Guide Dogs and other representative organisations for people with a vision impairment and other groups have raised our concerns with the previous administration around tactile surface inconsistency, poor contrast and design at crossing points. For the estimated 6,640 people living with sight loss and the thousands of vision impaired visitors to Westminster, we know that this landmark decision by the council will make a significant difference to enabling independent mobility with confidence. On behalf of the charity Guide Dogs and those we support, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Westminster City Council for introducing a scheme that will make a real difference. Also from myself who is vision impaired and walks in Westminster on a regular basis."

Powerful from @guidedogsuk.bsky.social on our tactile policy change and £1.5M program to upgrade crossings. For 27 years Westminster Council's conservative admins knowingly disregarded national guidance, but we have changed that.

1/

Work has started on Westbourne Terrace in @citywestminster.bsky.social, the fourth project started by them in the last 6 months:

- C43 (Hyde Pk-Marylebone)
- C51 (Marylebone-St John’s Wood)
- C63 (Cleveland St)

Central London had a good 2025 and is set to have a good 2026 too!

Stack of kerb delineators within construction site on George Street, with trench being dug and workers in high Vis in the background

Kerb delineator visible in foreground marking edge of new cycle track. Digger and other plant visible in background

Stanhope Place facing towards Hyde Park, with two way cycle track in progress. It will reopen to pedestrians and cycles only

Westbourne Terrace closed in one direction for new cycle tracks

I love the smell of kerb delineators in the morning. Crews busy before 9am today installing new protected cycle infrastructure on Westbourne Terrace, George Street and Stanhope Place.

The author and in progress kerb protected cycle tracks construction works on Westbourne Terrace in Westminster, London.

It's not all bad news:
📸 Kerb separated cycle lane and better pedestrian crossings in progress
📍 Westbourne Terrace, City of Westminster, London
🌹 Vote for candidates who support walking and cycling

🌼 🚲 🌼 🚲 🌼 🚲
Sunday 15th March ‘26 is our next big Kidical Mass London kids’ ride! Booking info below, please share with schools, friends and families. #StreetsForKids
With @ibikelondon.bsky.social @zeroemissions.bsky.social @solveschoolrun.bsky.social
www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/lon...

Urban Truth Collective: Straight Talk About The Joy Of Cities In An Age Of Disinformation — Streetsblog USA The Three Tenors of Urbanism explain their latest effort: The Urban Truth Collective.

PLEASE HELP US SHARE THIS: “We’ve let the lies be far too successful, and that’s significantly hurt our cities. No more.”

It’s our blunt NEW @usa.streetsblog.org op-ed sharing why we’ve created @urbantruth.bsky.social. SPOILER: We need to call out the lies and tell the truth much more persuasively!

There are some yellow markings in place for probably the most significant piece of the scheme - a cycle crossing which will allow a northbound connection from the incoming Westbourne Terrace cycle track(s) up to Little Venice and beyond.
www.westminster.gov.uk/place-shapin...

I can confirm it is !

Asked about cycleways supposedly slowing buses. Bus speed data fished out by @maxsullivan.bsky.social (my graph) shows the biggest change to bus speeds was during the pandemic, when people drove their cars less. NB Camden's bike lanes didn't go away too... movepeople.substack.com/p/do-cycle-l...

New modal filter here should be reopened to pedestrians and cyclists by end of April, all being well.

Metal sign on a lamppost which says SWITCH OFF YOUR ENGINE OFF. Vehicle exhausts are toxic. You could be fined £110. There is an illustration of a van's tailpipe with fumes coming from it, and the City of Westminster logo.

Don't make me tap the sign, from The Simpsons

Drivers, don't make me tap the sign.

Our excellent team have now installed around 800 of these signs at engine idling hot spots and outside schools around the City of Westminster.

@mumsforlungs.bsky.social @solveschoolrun.bsky.social @cleanairlondon.bsky.social @londonls.bsky.social

Westminster Council to freeze council tax for 2026-2027 Westminster City Council is freezing its share of council tax for 2026/27 and using £19.7mn in reserves to balance the budget. The council, which already has one of the lowest council tax rates in the country, said the pause will help residents deal with cost of living pressures. However, the adult social care precept, which funds care for the elderly and disabled, will increase by two per cent, which equals 20p a week extra for Band D payers -- or, £10.54 a year -- according to a council report.

Westminster Council to freeze council tax for 2026-2027

Westminster City Council is freezing its share of council tax for 2026/27 and using £19.7mn in reserves to balance the budget. The council, which already has one of the lowest council tax rates in the country, said the pause will help…

Update: Construction commences on 2nd March and will continue in phases til October.

The new infrastructure will complement nicely the recently installed zebra/cycle crossing where this route meets the canal, and the new cycle contraflows on Delamere Terrace and Blomfield Road.

"Keen cyclists"

"Anyone who lived here in the ’30s or ’40s wouldn’t recognize the car-centric city we have devolved into. LA once had the best transit system in the country... So the city has already reinvented how it gets around multiple times. And we can do it again if a majority of Angelenos want it."

For many years I have been posting little observations online. What you may not know is that for many years, artists have been illustrating them - for no reason other than they wanted to respond. Below is a thread of some of these beautiful drawings because they should be seen 🧵

I wasn't aware of this dimension when I wrote about the Waymo who hit and injured a school girl in Santa Monica. But it certainly tracks with a company making every attempt to justify their existence and approach. open.substack.com/pub/movepeop...

Waymo robotaxi hits child who was previously hidden behind an oversized SUV. Waymo praises its own technology for reacting faster than a human driver. So we need SUV robotaxis. Everything's fine in carbrain countries.

Wow & double Wow 🙏👍👏👏👏

Well Done Westminster City Council for becoming

“Flagship borough of sanctuary” in London for “asylum seekers & Refugees”.

After horrid days of listening to fascists & anti migrant racist Reform & far right morons it’s a welcome news for the long suffering asylum seekers.🙏

Plan to improve rundown street where traders 'no longer feel safe' Harrow Road in North Paddington had 33 vacant shop units last year, according to analysis by Westminster City Council

Harrow Road in North Paddington is looking a bit rough around the edges these days. Adrian Zorzut went down to chat to businesses as Westminster City Council looks to force long-vacant units back into use, to improve the area's fortunes
www.mylondon.news/news/west-lo...

I've just checked our consultation response and the clumsy phrasing was contained within so not @linusrees.bsky.social's fault - it was reported accurately. We do need TfL to more actively fund and help to execute alternative E-W routes but we are leading on the planning and design of those routes.

You said, we did See the results of the consultation here

What's written in the screenshot/report is untrue - multiple E-W alternative cycle routes are in the works led by WCC. North of Oxford St, have a read: marylebonewestend.commonplace.is/en-GB/propos.... And another through Mayfair at an earlier stage.

Westminster's Bayswater Rd scheme would deliver a safer continuous cycling connection linking Cycleways 3 and 27, as well as providing a direct east–west route along the north side of Hyde Park.

Last chance to have your say:
cmsbayswaterroad.commonplace.is

@citywestminster.bsky.social

Train and tube tracks too - always empty. Rip them out.

I’m proud to have played a small part in making the massive undertaking of Thames Tideway a success over the last 10 years. A major UK infrastructure project (almost) on time & budget (bar covid). Bazalgette Embankment is a great public realm legacy & well worth a visit.

Me with a lot of car brained people from Putney listening to fleur Anderson and Simon Hogg repeat baseless claims about delays to emergency services etc

I’m down at Hammersmith Bridge to hear SW London politicians wang on about how hundreds of millions should be spent to bring cars back over here. They’ve gathered down by the river for their “reopen the bridge” rally to avoid embarrassing context of huge numbers of pedestrians & cyclists crossing it

Big Ben photographed by me from a double-decker bus.

Side road zebra crossing photographed by me.

You, a normal person: [visits Westminster to see Big Ben]

Me, a nerd: [visits Westminster to see one of the only side road zebra crossings in the UK]