Cycle lanes for undertaking buses

Bus stops are to be redesigned to prevent cyclists being forced into traffic as they ride past buses picking up passengers.

The designs are to be tested on one of Boris Johnson’s “cycle superhighways” during its extension to the Olympic Park, to improve safety at one of London’s busiest gyratory systems.

Cycle lanes will be cut into pavements to allow cyclists to pass to the left of stationary buses rather than having to move into the car lane.

The scheme, which is expected to be installed from late spring after public consultation, extends the superhighway 1.5 miles east from Bow roundabout, where cyclists Brian Dorling and Svitlana Tereschenko were killed by lorries last year.

However, David Kent, London engagement officer of Guide Dogs for the Blind, said the design would put visually impaired people at risk.

He said: “Cyclists are impossible to hear — they are the silent menace. Where it puts our particular client group at risk is exactly with designs like this.” The arrival of the superhighway in Stratford marks a U-turn for Newham council after the borough refused to allow it to be built before the Olympics. Six of the new bus stops will be installed, and Transport for London will place more elsewhere if the design proves effective.

Segregated cycle lanes will be created along the A11 between the Bow roundabout and the Stratford gyratory, notorious for its fast-moving traffic. The plans including traffic lights to give cyclists an early start at the south-eastern side of the roundabout, where Ms Tereschenko, 34, was killed in November last year. Such lights have already been installed on the northern side, where Mr Dorling, 58, was killed a month earlier as he cycled to work at the Olympic park.

TfL said the number of cyclists using the existing superhighway had increased by 28 per cent since it was installed in September 2010, with a 55 per cent rise in the Bow Road section.

A cyclist was fighting for her life today after an accident in east London. The woman was in collision with a car in Aldersgate Street at about 4.15pm yesterday and was taken to the Royal London hospital with life-threatening injuries.