You can cycle from Barnes in south west London to Hammersmith in west London, entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.
The route is 2.5km long (1.5 miles) and makes use of Hammersmith Bridge, which recently opened to cycling, Cycleway 9, and quiet streets leading up to the bridge.
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You can see a digital map of the route and download a GPS/GPX file to use on whatever device or app you want here:
https://www.komoot.com/tour/1449347058?ref=wtd&share_token=aPkRS2OBVr1evYMiWxkewyziqv2mJAHQHFjtR7oywiBfDFYh2J
And you can find a viewer-created and maintained map of all the London Cycle Routes videos here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1h9Hxm57fPvZmcuSXajM_Wu0G0s6f_bs&ll=51.505213496092054%2C-0.1285238120117249&z=12
I also highly recommend the Safe Cycle London map for route planning, which is compiled by @SafeCycleLDN on twitter:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1XlpvN9R-Wg7qZHyezO8y-eVlftr4e0WX&hl=en&ll=51.516975804561284%2C-0.21828576419061996&z=11
Hello and welcome back to London cycle routes today I’ll be showing you how to cycle from barns in Southwest London to Hammersmith in West London this ride takes just 9 minutes and you can do the whole thing on quiet streets and protected cycle Lanes by public transport the same Journey takes
Over twice as long and requires a long walk thanks to Hammersmith Bridge being closed to tr traffic it is however now open to people riding a bike and we’re going to use it today if you find this video useful or you just enjoy watching it then please don’t forget to subscribe
To the channel as I try to post new videos just like it every week I’d also like to say a huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel on patreon if you’re feeling generous and you’d like to contribute as well then you can find a link in the description below the video
All right let’s get going so we’re starting on the corner of Ferry Road and Castle now and we’re going to head straight up Castle now in the direction of Hammersmith bridge if you haven’t been following The Saga of Hammersmith Bridge the short version is that it closed to motor traffic in April 2019
After cracks were found in the pedestal apparently it’s quite a job to repair it and nobody seems to be able to pay for it so it’s remained closed to cars ever since then pedestrians have been able to walk over the bridge but it hasn’t been open to people riding bikes until last
Week that’s good news for us because it creates an incredibly useful link from this part of Southwest London right into Hammersmith which is also pretty well endowed with cycle infrastructure this video from Barnes to Hammersmith Broadway is probably the simplest Journey that the bridge been open to
Bikes enables but it also enables a lot of other Journeys around this part of London some of which you might not expect I’ll be showing those off in the channel over the coming weeks and months so make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss any the effects of the bridge
Being closed aren’t limited to the bridge itself for a start you might notice that this road that we’re on now Castle now looks like it could be a very busy road but there’s also pretty much no traffic on it it’s like this most of the time this video was shot uh late
Morning on a Saturday so not a particularly quiet period the reason it’s so quiet is because we’re actually on a peninsula on the river 10s right now and with the bridge closed there are actually no through routes for cars here there’s no reason for anybody to drive up here unless they’re accessing homes
Or businesses on the peninsula itself as a result the whole thing has turned into a bit of a low traffic neighborhood in this direction we had a bus lane which I think is plenty comfortable considering the very low traffic levels and in the opposite direction there’s a small one
Protected cycle Lane which is also adequate we’re approaching the bridge now and the signs are a little bit confusing but take my word for it you’re allowed to cycle up here it does look a little bit messy and that’s because this is a temporary situation nobody knows
Quite what’s going to happen to the bridge in the future although it doesn’t seem like it’s going to open to motor traffic again anytime soon if you’re on a bike then you have the main carriageway of the bridge to yourself you can see that there’s a pretty nice
Wide bidirectional track in the middle and then there are these pedestrian walkways running either side of the bridge where you can go on foot the whole thing is pretty comfortable if I had any criticism it’s that they’ve gone a bit Overkill with the traffic lights there are for some reason three sets and
They’re not always green despite what we saw in this video given it’s pretty much just a cycle path at the moment that does seem kind of unnecessary now it’s important for me to say for people watching this video in the future that this was filmed in late February
2024 if you’re coming to this bridge at another point in the future the situation will almost certainly have changed so do check before you plan a cycle over here although I would say that the whole time that the bridge has been open to people on foot you have
Been able to wheel your bike on The Pedestrian walkway so the worst that will happen is that you might have to Dismount if the situation does change currently Hammer Smith said that this particular situation will last for 10 weeks so by the summer things will be a little bit different the impression I
Get and their communication on this hasn’t been great is that the bridge will close again to Cycles then they’ll do a bit more stabilization work on it and then it will reopen again permanently to pedestrians and Cycles in the long term the Council wants to reopen it to traffic but but there is
Pretty much no Prospect of that happening in the foreseeable future so it will remain a good cycle route throughout although there may be some disruption where you’re required to Dismount and walk your bike as I do more videos over this bridge I will keep you updated on the latest news about what’s
Happening with it there are also loads and loads of issues surrounding the closure of this bridge that I haven’t discussed in the short video pretty much because we don’t have the time and I will be talking about all that other stuff in future videos so do hit
Subscribe so you can see the roots and we can chat about what you think of the closure uh do let me know in the comments your thoughts on this on the video on the bridge itself and whether you’d like to ever see it open to motor traffic again there are obviously
Positives and negatives there’s no bus service over the bridge currently which is inconvenient for everyone but then there is Al quite a nice cycle route here so is it swings and roundabouts let me know in the comments what you think just a short video today but do give it
A like if you enjoyed it so that other people find it and also hit subscribe if you haven’t already and thank you so much again to all of those of you on the patreon you really do help keep the channel going see you all next time
15 Comments
Brilliant! Have been waiting for this to open properly for bikes. Thanks for making and sharing this video… I used to drive over it in a car for commuting 20 years ago, and Castlenau traffic used to be backed up to where you started in the vid. Biking definitely better!
I think it might be used to get to Richmond Park.
if you look at London pollution maps from 2019 and before – Castlenau was a pollution hell hole !
Opening the bridge to (mounted) cyclists for just 10 weeks feels like a bit of an election gimmick – but hopefully we can pressure H&F council to keep it open for longer. I regularly walk across the bridge, and I have never actually seen work happening on the bridge.
Gosh King St has changed dramatically since when I used to work in the area 10 years ago!
I so wish that this setup is permanent 😍
Hopefully by the time it would be physically possible to reopen H'smith Bridge to cars, London's anti-car revolution will be developed even more and it wouldn't be politically viable.
What a beautiful bridge.
There's no reason they couldn't have done this within days of it shutting to motors. Great to see it open.
👍
Loved it! I'm regaining my confidence to cycle in London again just by watching your vids. If I have one critique, it's that the council put far too many pylons, lights and other detritus on the bridge. That's a huge amount of distraction and waste of space that could be used for much easier cycling.
Fantastic video!
I grew up in the area, the car traffic when the bridge was open it was truely awful, backed up on both sides of bridge by about a mile. I would sometimes cycle instead of taking the bus across but the bridge crossing was too narrow and was only for the brave. I'm seriously happy it has reopened to bikes again as too many people were riding bikes across the pedestrian walkways which make walking across the bridge frustrating.
Ideally they can get some sort of golf cart shuttle service to cross the bridge and link the two bus stops on either bank of the bridge so my elderly relatives can get to Hammersmith via public transport. Unfortunately they are too infirm to cycle and find the walk across the bridge too difficult. The 533 replacement bus service from Barnes to Hammersmith Broadway via Chiswick bridge can take an hour in peak traffic…. Really difficult
Speaking as somewhere grew up there, i remember rhe bridge being closed for a year or so in the late 90's and the lack of traffic was great. The air pollution now is much much less since the closure, to the extent that one of my relatives who lives there no longer needs to take their preventative asthma medication.
Hoping the cycle route stays open permanently as I want to try riding accross it soon!
Life jackets optional – they took the traffic off the bridge because it's condition's reached the point where they'd have buses in the drink. The bridge is beyond repair, so they hope light usage won't cause a problem. Our good colleague Plainly Difficult might be able to tell them otherwise, corrosion at that point means it's only a matter of time. And as a certain alkali-thrower discovered, hitting the river from 20' is remarkably similar to riding into a bus – you don't survive.
It was an ideal opportunity to dismantle it and replace with something modern and far less expensive. I wonder what the cost per user is at this point. (And yes unlike a concrete bridge this could be dismantled and reassembled, or even parts sold off for sculptures, momentos, garden features at higher-than-scrap value.)
I used this bridge mid February two days after it was reopened to cyclist. I remember It being opened to pedestrians and cyclists back in June 2021. I cycled it back then.