The coordinator of the Hackney branch of the London Cycling Campaign explains why
Trevor Parsons, Wednesday 3 November 2010
 No two ways about it: Stoke Newington High Street at present. Photo: Hackney Council We are delighted that Hackney Council is consulting on the future of Stoke Newington’s streets. Transport for London (TfL) and the Mayor of London
control the A10 [which includes Stoke Newington High Street], and they
won’t budge unless there’s an unequivocal demand for two-way from the
borough.
Scrapping the gyratory is a longstanding aspiration for many
residents, visitors and traders. To them, the advantages of returning to
two-way are clear, and a few months’ disruption while the changes are
made will be a price well worth paying in exchange for people-friendly
streets.
Others, though, are understandably concerned about the cost and
timescale of this change, and are thinking of ways in which the negative
effects of the current system might be reduced while keeping it
one-way.
Our view is that there’s no future in tinkering with a broken set-up.
The problems which we all currently have to put up with – fast motor
traffic, reduced crossing opportunities, ratrunning, and diverted
journeys – are a direct result of the streets being one-way, and will be
difficult or impossible to fix while the streets stay one-way.
Let’s look at each of these issues in turn.
First, speed. Multi-lane one-way streets inevitably result in higher
motor traffic speeds. Give people a race-track, and they will race.
Twoway working, with the expectation of traffic in the other direction,
and little chance of overtaking, causes people to moderate their speed
naturally, reducing the need for technical fixes such as cameras and
humps.
The non-High Street sections of the current gyratory in particular
suffer from inappropriately high speeds, as people put their feet down
to get around the tedious southbound diversion as quickly as possible. A
two-way High Street will see lower speeds, while Northwold Road,
Rectory Road, Manse Road and Evering Road will be returned to borough
control, allowing them all to be included in the council’s commitment to
20mph as the default speed limit.
Second, crossing the street. We will campaign with residents for as
many pedestrian crossings as possible, both on a two-way High Street,
under TfL control, and on the three-quarters of a mile of streets which
will be returned to borough control. On the latter, we would like to see
frequent zebra crossings, because these give the maximum degree of
priority to pedestrians, and work well on two-way streets where speeds
are low. On the High Street, TfL will probably insist on
signal-controlled crossings, and we would push for a good distribution
of these, together with allgreen pedestrian phases and diagonal
crossings at junctions. Even away from formal crossing facilities, it
will be much easier to cross due to the reduced speed of motor traffic
all round.
Third, rat-running. We advocate widespread ‘filtering’ of residential
streets, which will allow residents’ cars and service vehicles to reach
every address, and return to the main streets the same way. This is the
most effective way of eliminating through motor traffic and creating
peaceful, low-speed streets. Look south to De Beauvoir for a well
established example of this technique (and home-owners, check out their
house values!). But filtering the minor streets while keeping the main
streets one-way would result in long diversions around the one-way
system for residents and deliveries. Filtering is only really viable if
the main streets are two-way.
Last but not least, diverted journeys. The current one-way system
inconveniences everyone, but its worst effects are on bus journeys and
on cycling. Currently, people using buses (the majority of trips in our
borough) are forced to walk to remote stops, inconveniencing residents
and discouraging people from coming to the High Street to shop. Down in
Shoreditch, where a similarly outdated one-way system was scrapped in
2002, bus journeys are now far more straightforward, and the effect on
retail custom has been dramatic. Bus priority measures were also
introduced at the approaches to the town centre – something Stoke
Newington could benefit from too.
Cycling, meanwhile, is massively suppressed by the gyratory system,
which makes journeys longer, more hazardous and downright confusing to
navigate. Following the return of Shoreditch’s main streets to two-way
in 2002, there has been a cycling renaissance, with people on bikes now
making up more than half of the vehicular traffic flow through some
junctions on Old Street in the morning peak. Stoke Newington can have
that too – though not via contra-flow cycle tracks, which simply can’t
offer the required level of service, and have disadvantages for
pedestrians and deliveries.
We encourage everyone to respond to Hackney Council’s consultation survey.
Be aware that the most important questions come near the end of the
survey, especially question 20, which asks: “Would you support the
removal of the current one-way traffic system if it is replaced with two
way traffic flows on Stoke Newington High Street, Northwold Road,
Rectory Road and Evering/ Manse Road?”
We would like you to answer YES to this, please! Anything else is a
fudge, and won’t get Stoke Newington the more people-friendly streets we
deserve.
To have your say, see Hackney Council’s Stoke Newington gyratory consultation Article originally published by the Hackney Gazette
Copyright © 2010 Trevor Parsons, London Cycling Campaign in Hackney, Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 UK Licence: England & Wales
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/uk/
CAZENOVE AREA ACTION GROUP (CAAG) and STOKE NEWINGTON COMMON USER GROUP (snug) fully endorse the views above and urges you to express your support to this proposal. CAAG, SNUG and neighbouring groups have campaigned for many years to have the one way system reverted to 2 way traffic, and have local streets returned to local control.
There will
be a public exhibition in Stoke
Newington Library between 18
October 2010 and
10
January 2011.
Drop in
sessions: Friday
12 November 2010
5pm – 8pm
Morrison’s
Supermarket
47/49 Stamford
Hill N16
5SR
Saturday
4 December 2010
10am –
2.30pm
Stoke Newington
Farmers’ Market
William Patten School,
Stoke Newington
Church Street, N16
0NX
Deadline
for responses:
Monday
10 January 2011
More
information
For more
information about this
consultation, please contact the
Traffic and Transportation team
on 020 8356 4891 or email: consultation@hackney.gov.uk
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