As the photo shows, work appears to have started on a contraflow cycle lane in Long Acre.
The cycle lane will run along Long Acre from Bow Street to Drury Lane, in the opposite direction to the westbound traffic flow. Because of the limited width of the road, the 1.5-metre mandatory cycle lane will not have splitter islands at its entry and exit points. Car parking bays on the north side of the road will be moved to the south side to release space for the cycle lane.
Plans for the junction of Long Acre with Endell Street and Bow Street
The scheme, which is proposed as part of a renovation project for Covent Garden, also includes replacing the existing mini roundabout at the Endell Street / Bow Street junction with two T-junctions, separated by a zebra crossing - see plan above.
Camden has already removed the traffic signals from the junction of Long Acre with Driry Lane and Great Queen Street and to plans to convert the western end of Great Queen Street to a single carriageway, releasing space for a pedestian area.
The new contraflow in Long Acre will open up a new route for cyclists from the Covent Garden / Leicester Square area through to Lincoln's Inn Fields and Bloomsbury. Cyclists have been campaigning for this for many years,
A revolutionary 'cycle warehouse' for up to 1,000 bikes could be installed at Paddington station.
If the £750,000 scheme goes ahead it will become Britain's biggest station cycle park, more than double the size of the facility that opened recently near London Bridge.
The concept has been developed by Dutch operator NedRailways, which is building a similar park for up to 500 bikes at Leeds and has 40 in Holland.
The striking glass structure is provisionally known as Cyclepoint — a translation of the Dutch name Fietspoint.
It would be manned until late into the evening and would include a cycle hire, sale and repair shop. A spokesman for NedRailways said it would be secure, accessible only with a swipe card, and would cost about 75p a day with discounts for season ticket holders.
But already Network Rail has ruled out introducing the scheme imminently because of building work at the station.
A Network Rail spokesman said: "It's Brunel's landmark station and 150 years old, so any designs have to be given the go-ahead by English Heritage.
"The other factor is we're doing some repairs on the roof at Paddington and it will probably be next summer before it's finished, so realistically we're not going to begin any works before then because it will be in the same part of the station."
After many delays, work has started on a new cycle crossing of Bayswater Road, to replace the current zebra crossing near the junction with Stanhope Place..
The new crossing will connect Stanhope Place with a path to the North Carriage Drive in Hyde Park.. The crossing forms an important link in London Cycle Network routes 0 (Hyde Park - Marylebone - Bloomsbury) and 5 (Chelsea Bridge - Hyde Park - Kilburn) and will enable cyclists on north-south journeys to avoid Marble Arch. In addition to the new crossing, two-way cycling will be allowed in Stanhope Place and cyclists will be allowed to turn right from Stanhope Place into Seymour Street.
A plan of the new crossing.
A crossing of Bayswater Road was first proposed in the autumn of 2005. Following a council member's objection to the original design for a toucan crossing, engineers prepared new plans for parallel pedestrian and cycle crossings.
The project was further delayed when Thames Water dug up the road. As is customary, the council then waited a few weeks in case TW needed to dig the road up again.
An unfortunate consequence of this delay is that the budget for this project could not be carried over from 2008-9 into the current year. Because it will have to be funded from the 2009-10 budget, the council will have less money to spend on other projects.