🚲 A fantastic new traffic-free way to cycle from Islington to Whitechapel

You can cycle from Islington in north London to Whitechapel in east London entirely on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes.

The route is 4.3km long (2.7 miles) and makes use of Cycleways 11, 13 and 1 as well as the St Peters and Hoxton East LTNs and Bath Street reversal.

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:

http:/patreon.com/londoncycleroutes

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/2362981970?share_token=awXZqjcfterMGiHshAeE4j5zDQGBPKK8dbMaMNVxcIabryncx5&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 routes today i’ll be showing you how to cycle from islington in north london to white chapel in east london this ride takes just 18 minutes and you can do the whole thing on quiet streets and protected cycle lanes by public transport the same journey takes around half an hour and requires a change of line so cycling is a really sensible way to make this trip 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 essex road near islington green and we’re going to turn around and we’re going to head straight down packington street packington street is part of the st peter’s low traffic neighborhood which was put in by islington council in 2020 and as a result the streets around here are incredibly quiet we’re heading towards the regent’s canal and for the first part of this journey we’re actually going to be following a signed tfl cycleway route called cycleway 11 as you can see c11 is painted on the floor at points and there are also green and blue signs which help with wayfinding on some of the lamp posts the cycleway signage down this way is actually fairly recent and i’ve actually been rooting videos down here on this channel since before it was put in so it’s great to see tfl catch up i think adding wayfinding to routes like this is a really good idea as it helps more people figure them out and make the most of these low traffic streets even if they’re not avid london cycle route viewers like i’m sure you are we’ve now crossed into hackne and hackne’s own low traffic neighborhood called hawkton west which links up nicely with the islington one over that bridge it’s similarly quiet one change since the last time i came down here is that the council has physically adapted the street layout to the lower traffic levels before it actually had traffic lights at junctions and a lot of bare tarmac but they’ve since added more greenery and planting like the stuff that you can see just up here outside the pub this is a great move by hackne and these sorts of interventions aren’t just about cycling but are also about making streets like this nicer places to live and work and rep prioritizing people over cars one thing i really like about this route is how various different interventions have connected up to basically make a great low traffic cycle way we’ve already passed through two ltns in two different burs but now we’ve crossed city road we’re actually back in islington again the burough boundaries are pretty weird around here and we’re benefiting from what’s called the bath street reversal which basically removed through traffic from this once quite busy street by flipping the direction of the oneway for cars at one end you might have noticed that we’ve more or less just been riding in a straight line since islington but we haven’t actually hit any traffic at all which i think is fantastic i mean i love segregated cycle lanes and protected cycle lanes but having these almost entirely traffic-free streets right into the center of london is also really fantastic for riding a bike on we’re turning off cycle way 11 for now but just a note to say that that straight line of low traffic streets will actually be extended even further south over the next couple of years as the city of london is planning to remove through traffic from bunhill row moore street and the top of wood street so you’ll basically be riding from islington all the way to the guild hall without any through traffic on the main carriageway i’ll definitely show that off in videos on the channel when it happens so do hit the subscribe button on youtube so that you’re the first to see it when it does there’s actually another relatively recent intervention up ahead here hackne yes we’re back in hackne again has closed this bit of leonard street off and turned it into a cycle track that’s had the nice effect of quietening down this little plaza on paul street i’m not sure if it has a name but as you can see plenty of people were out there sitting out and enjoying it on a summer’s day pull street here is part of cycleway 1 and although it’s relatively quiet due to a few filters along its way the main thing i would say is it really really needs a resurface it’s a very popular cycle route but it’s really pockmarked and full of cracks and potholes which makes it a rather bumpy ride we’re only on it for a second though and we’re actually going to turn off into daart street here which i don’t think a lot of people know about but i find a really really handy cut through along with the streets we’re about to go on to get from cycleway one over towards white chapel this bit of finsbury market here which doesn’t really look much like a market now is pedestrianized i think you’re allowed to cycle through here haven’t seen any no cycling signs and it certainly looks wide enough to do so responsibly it pops you over here within reach of spittlefields market which is just around the corner and actually is still a market incidentally that street finsbury market hasn’t been a major market for some time the 1852 edition of london exhibited said that it was a market for the sale of provisions but that it was even then now little in use i can’t find much else about it but as you saw it’s now just a little passage next to some office blocks i feel like more could be made of spittle square here by the way it’s currently a car park which feels weird for such a central location next to a popular food market you are allowed to cycle down lamb street here alongside the market and there is a drop curb to assist you at both ends but do remember that it’s shared with pedestrians so ride courteously and slowly coming up on the other side of commercial street is probably the weakest part of the route and that is hanbury street it’s absolutely fine today as you’ll see but it’s not uncommon to see cars and vans particularly when loading doing weird maneuvers this street is actually one way without a cycle contraflow for a lot of its length so if you’re doing this in the opposite direction you’ll need to bypass that one-way section by using the parallel street which is princelet street one thing that stands out about hanbury street is that the pavements are absurdly narrow for such a vibrant place you can see people struggling to fit on there uh really the parking which is mostly half empty today should be removed along there and the pavement should be widened and two-way cycling should be allowed on the main carriageway too i would say it should be filtered as well but we’re now in the london burough of tower hamlets which is very pro traffic on back streets and unlikely to try and remove it once you’re past the shops hanbury street does quieten down a lot thanks to a historic dead end here which then turns into a little cycle track you actually have two options to get over valance road at the end you can either do what i do here and use the little recently renovated cycle crossing just here or you can take the touan crossing to your left there and also cycle through the park on shared paths if you’re taking it slow and want to avoid any chance of running into a car on this little alleyway either way you turn right here down castle main street and immediately you can tell from the fancy paving that this area has benefited from a bit of cash and that’s because it was reworked as part of the cross rail or elizabeth line project there’s even a little bolard filter here keeping the street quiet if you want to go down to white chapel market on the main road you can take any of the side streets or passages on the right that we went past but we’re just ending here at the rear entrance to white chapel station i have to say i was pretty surprised at just how quickly this route took me to white chapel as i always think of it as being quite far away from these other places but since crossrail works finished that area has really opened up around the station and the journey has got a lot easier thanks so much for watching that please do hit subscribe if you’re not already subscribed to the channel and if you enjoyed the video do leave a like as well as it really helps other people find it by boosting it in youtube’s algorithm do let me know what you think of the route in the comments hanbury street is definitely the weakest bit and would be so easy to improve if the council cared and thank you once again to everyone on the patreon i really appreciate your support and if anyone else wants to throw money at me then you can find a link to it in the description below the video also along with a digital map of the route and the map of all the different london cycle routes videos thanks again for watching and goodbye