I have done a rough and ready video of Green Lanes showing some of the new bits of infrastructure and how to negotiate parts of it.

See the video here

There is a huge difference to the feel of that road depending on whether you are in the cycle lane or not. The bits without it are horrible. Plenty of speeding drivers and one unnecessary close pass that I won’t dwell on. I have done most of the A105 from Palmers Green to almost Enfield town. There are some more bits of lanes going into the south of Palmers Green but they are at an early stage. Some bits of the video worth mentioning:

At 20 seconds in you can see how the separate cycle lane and advance green for cyclists work. It felt very safe considering I then had to negotiate a lorry straight away – nice to get a head start in this situation. The sensor seemed to work as it knew a cyclist was in the lane (I think I got lucky with the timing).

At 1 min 05 safely negotiating Green Dragon Lane.

At 2 min 10 how the new infra works at Ridge Avenue/Bush Hill Road.

Heading back south – at 4 min 30 there is a bus bypass when a bus pulled in. All fine and no interaction with passengers. Then I cross Park Av with a car interaction. Bearing in mind this is a new layout it was nice to meet the driver at 90 degrees as we were both aware of each other – it was my priority and he gave way and I thanked him anyway. (If he had ignored me there was plenty of room to stop).

At 5 min 20 the same bus at the next bus bypass. This time the interaction was with a bus passenger. All fine as we can make eye contact and talk, wave etc. I waved her through but she was happy to let me pass – she said something like she was “getting used to the new layout”. Absolutely no conflict here.. I then go on through the junction at Bush Hill Road. I get my green and as there is pedestrian and I get the road to myself I go out of the lane before re-joining it a few metres later. If I was with young children I may have taken a different route but this felt pretty safe.

At 7 min 10 we have the new public realm improvements at Winchmore Hill  – easy to use but it runs out too quickly. There was lots of traffic around Winchmore Hill – these were not caused by the new traffic lights but by a construction lorry with a couple of men with lolly pop stop/go signs. To a certain extent the additional temporary pedestrian crossings are also causing some congestion. No excessive queues getting out of Sainsbury’s though.

 Hal Haines