Elephant and Castle redevelopment

[thom]

Tfl are proposing to redevelop the E&C roundabout, a part of London I'm sure many people on here do cycle through or around on their daily commute or get around south London.

LCC have as far as I can see not voiced any criticism of the plans yet but thanked TfL for the investment.
http://lcc.org.uk/articles/elephant...formed-but-missed-opportunity-at-euston-circu

Ok, whatever feedback LCC may give in time, I want to put a different perspective on this and hopefully get some feedback from cyclists who use E&C.


A friend of mine who lives in one of the housing blocks there is running a campaign on behalf of local residents who use the subways to get around, avoiding all the traffic to use the local services dotted around the area. E&C has a mixed community including young families and old people who benefit greatly from the subways.

The current plans are to brick these up, so diverting all pedestrians onto the ground level crossings to get around. Here is how it works at the moment:

So there is a campaign called Save Our Subways. More people are/will move to E&C due to new housing stock on top of the existing community that includes vulnerable pedestrians (people with buggies, families and the elderly). If existing pedestrian traffic is forced above ground, if improved cycling provision at E&C brings more cyclists through the junction, TfL are creating a situation where more vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians will be competing for space and inevitably more conflict will occur.

There is a consultation phase and survey, linked to via the save our subways portal here.

I'm interested in any thoughts on this particular proposed development and on the general need to balance infrastructure design for different users.

 

[dellzeqq]

Thom - I've been on familiar terms with that roundabout for well over 40 years, and, while I accept it takes all sorts, the subways are dank and frightening. You see people taking all kinds of risks crossing the roads on foot. Having said that....the redesign is rubbish. Exactly the kind of stuff you'd expect of the LCC. Pedestrians will walk even further to cross from one side to the other and cyclists will be routed behind bus stops. The 'cycle lanes' are, well, convoluted, and those of us who will disdain them will get the kind of abuse cyclists receive in Milton Keynes. In short 4 wheels (including buses) at a standstill, 2 wheels complicated and no wheels piss off and die. Did nobody think of turning it in to a crossroads?

The LCC is now part of the problem, not part of the solution.

 

[stowie]

Adrian - it would be a nice thought for traffic to go underground - like the Boston Big Dig but on a smaller scale. I suspect the cost would be extra-ordinary as the logistics to move underground infrastructure and avoid things like the tube lines would be very complex.

And I suspect that the crossroads idea would be a non-starter due to traffic volume considerations. When motorised traffic flow is the primary consideration in these schemes then you end up with the proposal we see above. The complexity is bewildering. But without compromising on traffic flow then I struggle to see how major change can occur - if traffic flow becomes less important than pedestrian access, and cycle and bus routes then suddenly everything becomes possible.

I wonder why subways have to be dank and dangerous? Surely there could be a way of making them pleasant places to be. Imagine a subway system that allowed cyclists and pedestrians direct access through Elephant and Castle but also allowed them direct contact with new developments and shopping and restaurants.

I always feel a bit sorry for Michael Faraday when I go past E&C. The man whose prodigious scientific output laid the foundation for our understanding of electricity and quite a lot of our chemistry as well, is remembered by a somewhat dirty box in the middle of a nasty roundabout obscured by electronic advertising hoardings.

 

[thom]

Thanks for the responses.
I think @stowie is right in that the Northern & Bakerloo lines may screw up any realistic notion to build vehicular underpasses. I imagine the costs would be objectionably inordinate in any case.

The subway environment itself could be better but I think a large part of the issue is that there is little spending or effort on maintaining them at the moment. If anyone does happen to be down there, it is worth looking at the local history displayed on the extensive murals. People do use them - despite the dankness and perhaps an unfashionableness of subways, the local community does seem to value their practicality.

I end up traversing both ends of E&C enroute between Brixton and Borough. I'm relatively confident as a cyclist but to be honest, more and more I've taken to diverting either past the Imperial War Museum to the wide Kennington Road, or on the quiet back-streets of the cycle superhighway route.

I don't believe cyclists should be disallowed or discouraged from E&C junction but something seems awry with the proposal whereby pedestrians will be forced above ground, cyclist flow will increase through E&C due to improved infrastructure there and the usual vehicular flow also has to be accommodated as well, side by side with a useful bus interchange to the tube.

If the subways are to go, I think there should be provision for a network of overhead pedestrian walkways with routing for cyclists too - something like the Barbican but more open and better.

Spend the govt money for the white elephant Garden Bridge on an Elephant & Castle elevated garden walkway instead.

 

[stowie]

If people wish to drive through places where people live then they should pay whatever it costs to do that on the reasonable terms of those who live there.

Well, we would all like to sit around a campfire singing songs and knitting yurts. Frankly, I am astounded you cannot see the importance of driving (to do important things like food shopping or wandering listlessly around B+Q until you end up buying some PollyFilla) and how this must be maintained even if it does divide communities and aggravate asthma and other lung conditions in the young an old. I think this right is enshrined in Magna Carta and until a better city transport method is invented (excluding walking, cycling, bus, tube, train, tram) then I think impinging on the right to drive anywhere you like is frankly treasonous.

 

[theclaud]

Campfires, yurts, knitting, blah blah blah. Pathetic

Stowie is channelling Linf.

 

[thom]

Apologies @stowie I misread you.

so did i until @theclaud elucidated the situation ;-)

 

[stowie]

Apologies @stowie I misread you.

I have to admit it was a fairly poor attempt at sarcasm.

I thought your Original Post was both utterly accurate and entirely depressing in that this type of philosophy is not only not used in our decisions on our built environment but that it is often viewed as ludicrous by the very people who have the power to change things.

 

[StuartG]

If people wish to drive through places where people live then they should pay whatever it costs to do that on the reasonable terms of those who live there.

That is the point E&C is on the border of the Congestion Zone. People use the junction to avoid it. Simply moving the CC border a couple of hundred yards south would turn the junction into an oasis.
Well apart from the odd (hundred) buses plus a few thousand DZ wannabbees. But I can live with that.

 

[dellzeqq]

I suspect that the present arrangement is as good as it is ever going to get for 'traffic flow' and that the redesign will cause massive jams and all kinds of kerfuffle. It's just possible that TfL have come up with something that will please a minority of cyclists and nobody else.

Note, by the way, there is already a convoluted cycle lane bypass around the Elephant. Which is not greatly patronised even though the southbound traverse of the northern roundabout is a bit worrying. That worry could be fixed by a bit of clever phasing of the lights, but, hey-ho, why pass up the opportunity to spend squillions.

I confess I like the silver box a lot, Then again, Stowie, I spent some wonderful nights in 1973 sitting in the middle of the roundabout smoking dope. The lights, the reflections, the ceaseless traffic - halcyon times that @zimzum42 really should ask his mum and dad about...........

 

[zimzum42]

You saying you're my dad?

 

[thom]

Something of an update for anyone interested.

There was a consultation meeting yesterday. As reported on the SE1 website, the LCC decided to urge TfL rethink the designs - criticism here.
Apparently TfL were somewhat surprised. Local campaign groups seem to be getting together in opposition as well.

On the subway side, Richard Reynolds is putting a proposal together that show how to retain the most useful subways and has an idea to engage a London architecture festival with a project to show how to improve the subway environment. His cycling notion is to create a complete safe cycle roundabout route on the streets surrounding E&C. I think this was proposed before by cycle campaigners but there may have been resistance from the Haygate Estate redevelopment plans - I'm not sure, perhaps someone knows more on this.

 

[dellzeqq]

TfL might well be surprised. It's overcomplicated, expensive and has lots of colours and it has the self-same bus stop doodahwotnot the LCC supported at Bow. You'd have thought it would be right up their alley........

There is already a cycling ring road, albeit one that doesn't cross the Heygate. Then again, that's probably Southwark's call - and they're too busy demolishing thousands of flats and complaining about a housing crisis to worry about it.

 

[thom]

Yes the Heygate traversal seemed to have been ruled out at planning stage despite lobbying for it.
But there is a road behind E&C station that ought to provide some way to do it too.
Richard has had some success with Southwark council in the past (he did manage to get some land for a community garden in the Heygate estate that he runs) but I'm not holding my breath that he'll be able to influence cycle infrastructure much.

 

[procel]

Thanks for the responses.
I think @stowie is right in that the Northern & Bakerloo lines may screw up any realistic notion to build vehicular underpasses.

The pedestrian subways already cross the alignment of the tube lines at the lower level, so it's not that which prevents building of an underpass. The simplest possible underpass would join Newington Butts to New Kent Road (underneath Walworth Rd and Elephant Rd) and avoid the tube line alignment anyway. Then TfL could do as @StuartG suggests and move the CC zone boundary, without cutting a gap in the London Inner Ring Road. Other than money, the main reason its not on the cards is that such things are unfashionable.