🚲 The best way to cycle from Westminster to Stratford without traffic

You can cycle from Westminster in central London to Stratford in east London entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.

The route is 11.7km long (7.3 miles) and makes use of Cycleway 3, the Mansell Street cycle link, and Cycleway 2.

If you find this video useful or you just enjoy watching it please remember to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon so you’re alerted to new videos, as I try to post new ones like it every week.

And if you like what the channel is doing and want to support it, you can also contribute to the London Cycle Routes Patreon below. It really helps keep the channel going:

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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/2343070383?share_token=aEyV81CGlM8taOdpwvtyQrfEiPpdrx4XctlOR4y3sHG3xqqeTc&ref=wtd

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=51.50521349609208%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=0%2C0&z=12

hello and welcome back to London Cycle Roots today I’ll be showing you how to cycle from Westminster in central London to Stratford in East London this ride takes about 40 minutes and you can do the whole thing on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes by public transport the same journey takes around 30 to 35 minutes so cycling is still a great option even though there’s a fast tube link between these two places 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’d like to contribute too then you can find a link in the description below the video all right let’s get going so we’re starting on Parliament Square and we’re going to turn right around and use the protected cycle lane up towards the embankment one thing you might notice about this video is that it was shot in the winter and it was also shot pretty early in the morning so it’s still not quite daylight yet i know that in the winter some people like it when I publish summer videos in the sun so they can get that hit of vitamin D likewise I thought that this nice crisp winter video would help some people cool down a bit during this sweaty heat wave that we’re having at the time of publication for anyone unfamiliar with the embankment cycle wave which is also known as cycleway 3 it is a two-way protected lane running alongside the river and it’s really good running by a river is the perfect place to put a cycle way like this as it doesn’t have to interact with any side roads and you can just ride along it continuously more or less without interruption that’s why you do see similar riverside cycleways in other cities paris has one on either side of the Sen for example on our right coming up here is Cleopatra’s Needle an ancient Egyptian obelisk which actually has very little to do with Cleopatra uh it’s actually much older one of the oldest things in the city in fact about 3,500 years old and it would have already been about 1,500 years old when the famous Cleopatra II was around it was actually given as a gift by the prime minister of Egypt in 1819 but it wasn’t actually bought to the UK until 1877 believe it or not because of concerns about shipping costs it’s certainly nice to have something to look at while you cycle down the river although I can’t help but think that considering how ancient it is it maybe deserves a slightly more prominent position than this forgotten bit of the embankment but uh yeah let me know what you think of that in the comments because of my schedule I don’t often manage to get out and shoot videos during weekday commuter times but I think I’m going to try and do my best to do it more often i really like how there are more people around cycling and it makes the city feel very lively and the sunrise on the horizon as you can see from this shot is a really nice bonus too i also think that shooting at this time of day paints a slightly more representative picture of what commuting by bike in the rush hour is like which I’d guess is more helpful for more people who are tuning into this channel you’re almost never doing it without lots of people cycling around you which I think makes it feel less daunting if you’re just starting out or thinking of getting into going to work by bike in a moment we’re going to be turning into Castle Bayard Street which is very quiet and feels like a big cycle lane most of the time it isn’t a cycle lane though it’s a street and that’s an important distinction as you will occasionally get the odd vehicle going down here so just make sure that you’re prepared for that i think the city of London actually has plans to partly demolish and redevelop Bayard House which is the big brutalist office block which this tunnel is integrated into it’s not clear to me from the plans that I’ve seen what will happen to the cycle route here so I guess that’s definitely something worth keeping an eye on over the coming months and years as those plans develop bayard House by the way was the site of the British Telecoms Museum from 1982 until 1997 that sounds like a really interesting museum and that doesn’t seem to be an equivalent now which is a shame as I would like to visit all the Bayard references there by the way are because it was the site of a Norman fortification called Bayard’s Castle and later a TUDA palace on the same site of the same name uh they found lots of remains of both buildings whilst building the current brutalist office block which is on the site there there is another cool change planned for this area in the next few years the city has actually proposed cycle lanes on Queen Victoria Street between Black Friars and Mansion House which would run parallel to the route we just took and create a new route into the city plus connections to the traffic calm streets around Bank Junction you can of course get to Bank by taking this route and then taking a left at any of the streets along here really now I’m really enjoying the early morning sun low in the sky ambiencece of this ride so far and probably the coolest visual is just around the corner coming up and that’s the reflection of all hallows by the tower church spire in the glass facade of this building up ahead doesn’t that look cool that church was founded in the year 675 and it survived the great fire of London in 1666 but was then badly damaged later in the blitz during the Second World War it was notably the wedding venue of John Quincy Adams the sixth president of the United States of America who got married there in 1797 john Quincy Adams was actually born in Massachusetts but he was over in Europe because his dad John Adams the second president of the United States worked as a diplomat over here now in a moment we’re going to turn off Cycleway 3 down Manel Street manel Street is a safe link between Cycleway 3 and Cycleway 2 it’s a great little scheme because it filled one of the biggest missing links in London with just a small bit of protected track but which made a huge difference i think transport for London doesn’t really have much cash at the moment and if it’s focusing its cycle investment anywhere I think it should be on missing links like this where it creates safe continuous routes for the minimum expenditure it’s a bit rough and ready as you can see there are times where you have to use touan crossings shared with pedestrians so do be sensible on those but it’s certainly a lot better than the situation before and the link between C3 and C2 is really welcome and creates a really really long safe continuous route now coming up at the end of the street there’s an unusual arrangement to help you turn right it’s called a cycle gate and I’ll show you how it works here as the lane approaches the cycle gate you’ll get a red light but that light will turn green and let you in front of the other cars but you’ll get another red light and you’ll have to wait then when that turns green you’ll always have a guaranteed head start over the other traffic the benefit of that is that it’s safer than mixing with the traffic you’re always in front but the downside of it is that you will always basically one way or another hit a red light so it is a little bit slow i think the reason that TfL uses that system is to try and make these routes safe whilst also preserving traffic capacity through junctions which is something that they’re quite preoccupied with i have also seen those dates including that one go wrong at rush hour they do tend to overload so if a car just stops in the waiting area then it causes a big problem or maybe the junction hasn’t cleared so they’re not foolproof at all but it’s a useful way of allowing people to make that right turn at what is quite a busy and uh can be quite intimidating junction otherwise now we’re on cycle way 2 here and we’re currently heading east through White Chapel the big design difference between C2 and C3 is that while C3 is a two-way cycle track on one side of the street cycleway 2 has separate lanes for each direction so eastbound now we’re on this side of the street but westbound you’d be in a protected lane on the other side i say protected lane but actually there are points like this one coming up where you are not in a protected lane unfortunately when Cycleway 2 was built the traders at White Chapel Market kicked up a big fuss pulled some political strings and made sure that there was no protection alongside the market uh the result was that you have to share a bus lane here it’s a relatively short stretch and it’s not awful if you’re a confident cyclist uh but it does need sourcing I think so that can be made comfortable for all users not just people who are already comfortable using a bike fortunately after we cross the street here and we go on to Mileand Road which is the continuation of this street after White Chapel we do get protected lanes again and there are also protected lanes in the opposite direction going through White Chapel Market on the side that the market isn’t parts of Cycleway 2 can sometimes feel rather hectic when it’s at its busiest but it certainly didn’t feel hectic on the morning that I filmed this and it was actually a really lovely ride with the sun low in the sky but you should watch out for certain things that happen along here one of those is like we just saw with that minivan cars turning into side roads and also cars poking out of side roads without checking for bikes are a hazard and really quite dangerous that isn’t something that’s specific to this cycle way though or even specific to cycleways of this design it’s just a good time to remind yourself that you do need to be aware of those hazards when you’re cycling especially when you’re cycling on cycle lanes now today’s route is relatively straightforward it’s mostly got good way finding and because it’s on the main roads you don’t really need to worry about getting lost but if you do need a bit of extra help following this route or any other route that I do on this channel then you can always download the free map that I’ve done of it this is uploaded to a website called Kimoot and you can either use their app or just download it as a GPX file and use it on whatever app or device you like it is a standard format that basically works on all of them i do these maps for all the videos I do and if I don’t mention them in the video itself people always inquire in the comments so I thought I’d point it out this is also a good time to mention that a viewer called Isaac maintains a map that compiles all those maps into a single Google map which is a great way to browse all the different videos available on the channel by area that’s linked below too cool thing overhead that you might not have noticed that gold bridge with the grass on top of it is actually a green bridge linking the two sides of Mile End Park over this road you can actually cycle on it as well and it makes a nice alternative to the Regent’s Canal tow path which can get a little bit busy around here if you’re enjoying this video so far then please do me a favor and leave a like on YouTube it really does boost it in YouTube’s algorithm and it helps other people find it if you like what we’re doing on the channel you should also hit subscribe which is free and just means that my videos are more likely to appear on your YouTube homepage in future and if you really like what we’re doing here then you can always throw money at me on the Patreon link in the description below the video along with all the maps thanks so much to everyone who does that already the channel is a lot of work and it could not happen without your support so I’m very very grateful as you can see the segregation on the cycle lanes down cycleway 2 is reasonably consistent there are a few bits where you have to share bus lanes but generally they’re either a curb a step track or plastic ones like this keeping you separate from the cars the overall effect is pretty reasonable although I do think that it does fall short of some of TfL’s more recent work compare this to say Cycleway 9 in Hammersmith or Cycleway 4 down to Greenwich and really there’s no comparison this is a little bit on the ropey side but I think it’s just about good enough that said I would love to see it revisited and upgraded to modern standards one of the issues that you can see is just here at this bus stop bypass the reason that I was so cautious about going through this puddle was that I have in the past gone through puddles got a load of water on the lens and then it’s ruined the whole video because you can’t really see what’s going on as there’s water on the lens of the camera maybe not such an issue for most people but it was for me there’s another cycle gate here by the way and I just want to stress how absolutely important it is for you to obey the traffic lights on the bow roundabout just here bow roundabout was a casualty hotspot for cycling back in the day and there was a huge campaign to get it fixed the cycle gate was what we got and for the most part it works if you use it properly so use the cycle lane rather than the general traffic lane when you’re passing through that roundabout and make sure that you obey the lights as they are specifically timed to remove conflicts with other vehicles if you ride in the general traffic lane then there’s still a risk of you being left hooked by a turning vehicle and it just seems like a needless risk to expose yourself to i’ve always found this last stretch down Stratford High Street towards the station really quite weird it’s a big road with lots of tall housing blocks along it and that’s a really unusual site in London but it’s simultaneously a really common mode of development around the world so this last stretch feels really unlike the rest of the city in quite an uncanny way but also feels weirdly familiar and reminiscent of a lot of other cities that you or I might have visited i think it’s particularly notable for having very few people out and about on the pavements um even at rush hour when this has been filmed despite seemingly having very dense housing along its whole length though as you get closer to the station things do gradually improve and the pavements do tend to fill up a little bit i’m not really sure that I like this urban form much as it does feel a bit empty and dominated by traffic if you keep an eye out on the right coming up you can see some of the original buildings of Stratford High Street which are pretty attractive and good-looking and in a pretty good state but they do feel out of place with a big multi-lane highway running in front of them maybe one day someone will transform this whole road into a treelined boulevard with trams running along it but until then I’m just glad that it has decent cycle infrastructure there’s a two-stage crossing to get over the roads here and then you turn left into Great Eastern Street which is our final approach towards Stratford Station before we get there keep an eye out on the left for Stratford bus station with its iconic canopy design uh incredibly this was completed in 1994 and designed inhouse by what was then London Transport to me it feels at least a decade maybe two younger and must have looked positively space aged when it was finished in the first half of the 1990s but anyway we’ve made it all the way from Westminster to Stratford thanks for coming along for the ride it’s a pretty straightforward route this week and I’m surprised that I haven’t filmed this one as it uses two of central London’s kind of premier commuter routes strung together uh do let me know what you think of filming at this time of day as well did you enjoy seeing the sun rise through the video or would you rather I just filmed in the bright daylight like I usually do let me know in the comments please do leave a like to help others find the video and hit subscribe if you’re not already subscribed and thank you once again to everybody who supports London Cycle Roots on the Patreon um if anyone else is feeling incredibly generous and wants to pitch in then there’s a link in the description below i will see some of you in the comments below and the rest of you I’ll see you next week goodbye