Blind and disabled campaigners protest over Queensbridge Road floating bus stops

Blind and disabled campaigners gathered at Hackney Town Hall on Wednesday 16 September to oppose floating bus stops proposed for Queensbridge Road. Under the plans, new cycle lanes would pass between the pavement and the stops.

John Thornton, a wheelchair user from Dalston who is visually impaired, said the design could put people like him in mortal danger as they get off a bus. “Two and a half metres from the bus is a fast-moving cycle lane,” he said. He added that riders on e-bikes and scooters do not stop. At the protest he told the council he would go on hunger strike until it changed course.

What is proposed for Queensbridge Road

Hackney Council’s first consultation on the road closed in November 2025. That scheme proposed new cycle lanes and other traffic control measures. It would also remove 33 car parking spaces. A later version added bus stop bypasses with the cycle track running through them, and it was signed off in July 2026.

The council does not see that as the end of the matter. Cllr Jacob Cable, its cabinet member for transport, said the changes were still at proposal stage and that no decision had been made. He said a 21-day statutory consultation was opening on Friday 18 September. The council, he said, has a legal duty to weigh up any formal objections it receives and reply to them. He said he had met Mr Thornton and would arrange a meeting between him and council officers while the consultation runs.

To help blind and disabled people cross, the updated plans rely on warning signs triggered by cycle speed, distinctive paving at each bypass, raised kerb edges and tactile strips set into the footway. The council’s consultation report says the stops fall within Department for Transport volume guidelines for traffic on the road.

Consultation criticised by disabled campaigners

Mr Thornton said that, unlike on past projects, the council held no accessible consultation event for blind and partially sighted residents or other disabled people. He said 70 per cent of disabled people had rejected the overall plans for the road last year.

He also said Zoë Garbett, the Mayor of Hackney, had gone back on two pledges, on putting disabled access first and on better council consultations. The Hackney Greens’ manifesto makes no specific reference to floating bus stops, but it does acknowledge the “access barriers” disabled residents face on the capital’s public transport.

Sarah Leadbetter, who is also visually impaired, said she cannot see or hear bikes as they ride through a stop, so there is no way to know when it is safe to cross. Sarah Gayton, of the National Federation of the Blind, called the bypasses “Russian Roulette” and said disabled people were being “designed out” of London. Some blind people, she said, now rely on taxis or have stopped going to pubs and social events.