These bike lanes are the last thing we need

• IT seems that cyclists are now urging Transport for London to put bike lanes on both sides of Seven Sisters Road! (‘Experimental cycle lane confuses riders’, January 5).

The section of Seven Sisters Road from the Nag’s Head to Hornsey Road is part of the one-way system between Camden and Finsbury Park.

This is a major bus route; at least six different buses pass along it and stop at various points. It is also a very busy shopping street with shops and cafés on both sides and pedestrians trying to cross the road wherever they can.

Pedestrians also need to cross the road from the main part of the shopping centre in Holloway Road to the part further on. Any kind of cycle lane is the last thing we need there. It doesn’t benefit people visiting the area and putting in cycle lanes along both sides, reducing all traffic including buses to a single lane, is completely unrealistic.

At the gyratory from Parkhurst Road there are lanes for traffic turning left travelling into Holloway Road, straight ahead into Seven Sisters Road, and turning right into Holloway Road.

At the junction of Holloway Road with Parkhurst Road there are lanes for traffic travelling ahead and turning right and, at the junction of Holloway Road with Seven Sisters Road, lanes for traffic turning left and travelling ahead. Having cyclists travelling across these lanes in any direction they choose will create chaos.

Between 2017 and 2020 some 31 cyclists and 54 pedestrians have been injured at this gyratory, that is, almost twice as many pedestrians as cyclists. You would expect TfL to give top priority to making the area safe for pedestrians rather than experimenting with cycle lanes.

There is no reason why the whole road network should be adapted to suit cyclists at the expense of everyone else. I can see no reason why we should encourage more people to cycle. We should be encouraging people to walk and use public transport.

Elsewhere you report that potholes are causing misery across the borough, (Falls and trips cost council £350k in insurance claims). Instead of spending millions of pounds on experimental cycle lanes which sooner or later may be removed (like that in Euston Road) the money would be better spent repairing roads and pavements. This would benefit everybody.

MJL HALL, N19