CS7 Upgrade Phase 3 - Balham to Alderbrook Road

Overview

As London continues to emerge from the lockdown we will need to help people to walk and cycle more often, to reduce demand for public and private transport to essential trips only.  

We are temporarily upgrading Cycle Superhighway 7, as part of our plan to create a cycle corridor to follow the Northern line from Colliers Wood to Elephant & Castle. The next phase of our work will focus on the section from Balham to Alderbrook Road.   

The map below gives an overview of the changes we will be making.  

CS7 Balham - Alderbrook Road overview map (PDF 2.14MB)

These temporary improvements will help reduce pressure on the Northern line and local bus services. There have been a number of collisions involving cyclists along the A24, and these improvements will also help to improve road safety.  

The temporary changes we will be making are:  

Improvements for cyclists  

• New lightly segregated cycle lanes using flexible wands
• Bus stop bypasses for cycles wherever possible which will also provide further space on the pavement for pedestrians   

Changes to local access and parking, to support the improvements for cyclists, pedestrians and bus passengers
 
Across London, a large number of collisions which result in cyclists becoming hurt are caused by traffic turning left or right at a junction. We want to encourage as many people who can do so to cycle; very often the main reason people give for not cycling is because they do not feel safe doing so.  We will therefore temporarily restrict left or right turns at the following junctions to reduce the potential for collisions in which people could be hurt, and to encourage everyone who could reasonably do so to cycle.   

• Left turn into Dinsmore Road (except cycles) banned. There have been four serious collisions at this junction which have caused injury to cyclists: two people were seriously injured 
• Left turn into Balham Station Road (except buses and cycles) banned
• Right turn into Bedford Hill (except buses) banned due to the recent collision record. There have been three collisions at this junction which have cause injury to cyclists: one person was seriously injured
• Alderbrook Road to become no entry (except cycles). This would improve road safety and provide a safe connection to Cycleway 5
• All off-peak parking bays removed from this section of the A24
• Loading bays relocated to nearby side roads wherever possible   

These are described in more detail in the pack of maps below.

CS7 Balham - Alderbrook Road layout maps (PDF 288KB) 

Although we are not undertaking a formal consultation on any Streetspace schemes, we would like to know about your experiences of them. If you have any comments about the effects of our scheme, or suggestions for changes or improvements we might make, please let us know at: streetspacelondon@tfl.gov.uk 

We will continue to monitor the effects of these temporary changes over the coming months. This includes their effects on traffic flow, road safety and cycling and walking rates. We have written to local people, businesses and other stakeholders to explain what changes we have made and encouraged them to provide us their views and experiences of the changes. We will listen carefully to the feedback we receive.

Where we believe that there is a need to amend the highway to address an immediate danger or risk to people from the COVID-19 pandemic, we will do so. In line with guidance from the Department for Transport, we are using a Temporary Traffic Order to do so.   

We are hereby publishing notice of our intention to make a Temporary Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) to implement the changes we described above. The TRO itself explains in summary what changes we intend to make and provides a legal basis for them to be made temporarily, for a maximum of 18 months. Download notice of our intention to make the TRO by selecting the link below.  

Traffic Order GLA-2020-0530

TfL is required to publish the made TRO within 14 days. Once the ‘Made TRO’ has been published we will make it available for download here.