The latest consultation began by proposing some new cycling infrastructure. The Mayor's strategy of marking cycle lanes is infuriatingly tokenistic, and in this case, also cuts into already crowded inner city footways near the station. A Place-Shaping plan for this increasingly cosmopolitan area has been developed painstakingly over several years, and is now naively overruled, with TfL cutting away at the pedestrian realm and town square. One of these proposed green lanes clashes with a bus stop, the King's Cross 'ghost bike' and a parish boundary marker which is hundreds of years old.
An approximately ten-metre long kerb-separated cycle lane is proposed in York Way, north of the dangerous junction, at the entrance to King's Cross Square, and is proposed to cut into the new pedestrian realm recently completed there as an overdue legacy of the 2012 Olympics.
The entire approach appears traffic-engineering led, while no assessment has been made of impact on the public realm, nor of potentially improving the walkability of this important town centre area, nor of applying TfL's own toolkit "Valuing Urban Realm". The consultation process was based on technical highway engineering plans, illegible to many, without three-dimensional or pedestrian views, and was attended predictably by a few residents and traffic nerds like myself. A tent could easily have been placed on the crowded pavement at King's Cross Square, for the cost of hiring the community room at KCBNA. This would have been visible to the thousands of people, visitors, shoppers, office workers, commuters and others who use the area daily.
Coroner Mary Hassell at the Min Joo Lee inquest, referring to this accident site, said that "cycles and HGVs do not mix", yet the design by TfL indicates otherwise. Advanced Stop Zone markings invite the unwary cyclist into the junction to 'mix' here, leading from Gray's Inn Road to York Way.
Joanne stated that the TfL traffic modelling boffins calculate that the 'Journey Time Reliability' impact of reducing the two lanes to one would be "11 minutes" for motorists on the gyratory. It is not TfL policy to consider pedestrian or cycle journey times. This ostensibly means the highway authority considers a journey time reliability variation of 11 minutes for 'commercial freight and buses' to be unacceptable, while accidents like the Min Joo Lee collision are unavoidable, and sadly seem repeatable here. This means that in King's Cross town centre, engineering is focussing on road space and maximising motor vehicle journey time reliability ('flow'), clearly at the cost of the public realm and better pedestrian environment (air quality, noise, walkability, shop viability and accessibility etc)
The two northbound carriageway lanes of Gray's Inn road at the Lighthouse site will inevitably be constrained when the island development re-opens with its narrow footways, so the idea that this 50 metre piece of northbound lane in Gray's Inn Road reduces traffic flow variability by 11 minutes seems spurious. Anyway, the two lanes suddenly merge in the (deadly) junction with Pentonville Road. York Way ahead is a single 20mph lane, with taxis pulling into the station at the proposed segregated cycle lane on the left.
The design approach so far has been entirely engineering led, and in clear discord with Manual for Streets 2, the government's 2010 street planning guide, which states that, where there is a public realm, such as near a railway station, "pedestrians needs should be considered first" (page 7). Instead, pedestrians have been excluded from the traffic modelling (and modelled separately with VISSIM, according to Joanne - but this contravenes TfL's own modelling guidelines). The engineers were oblivious to recent plans for improving adjacent Caledonian Road.
Pedestrians arriving by train from Europe and the whole of the UK would be confronted at the edge of King's Cross Square with a green painted cycle lane, a tripping kerb where taxis stop, and a countdown timer - the opposite of being considered first. The proposed pedestrian countdown timer will aim to further constrain normal pedestrian judgement, with the traffic engineer's wish that they will conform to more predictable behaviour like 'traffic'. Cyclists gain strips of green paint. What was the point of Bikes Alive again, after all? I think Boris didn't really 'get it'.
1. TfL "Objectives" for Kings Cross
- Improved safety for all road users, in particular pedestrian and cyclists
- Better balancing of traffic with the need to create an improved place to live, work and visit
- Improved accessibility for pedestrian, particularly for public transport and access to and from mainline stations x
- Maintain bus journey time, services and infrastructure
- Appropriate provision for taxis, private hire vehicles, servicing and freight
- Retention of journey time reliability and capacity on the Inner Ring Road
- Ensuring suitable provision for coaches and tour buses
- Improved environment for people who live and work in the area
(Detail of any improvement targets for noise and air quality, for the environment, and pedestrian permeability of the area have been ignored by TfL, as have the 2008 PERS audits)
Online Survey: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/streets/kingscross
My Response:
The footway is reduced and contravenes Manual for Streets 2 p 7.
The methodology for JTR assessment re lane consolidation G I Rd northbd appears flawed.
Pedestrian modelling has not been integrated per TfL Guidelines.
Cycle infrastructure proposals are tokenistic and will not demonstrably improve safety, may
worsen pedestrian and cycle safety.
Valuing Urban Realm Toolkit has not been applied.
Islington works for 2 way Caledonian Road are ignored.
LBC / LBI Place Shaping Plan 2012 has been ignored.
These proposals have now been built.
Other responses:
1 Cycling Embassy UK
2 MaidstoneonBike
Online Survey: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/streets/kingscross
My Response:
The footway is reduced and contravenes Manual for Streets 2 p 7.
The methodology for JTR assessment re lane consolidation G I Rd northbd appears flawed.
Pedestrian modelling has not been integrated per TfL Guidelines.
Cycle infrastructure proposals are tokenistic and will not demonstrably improve safety, may
worsen pedestrian and cycle safety.
Valuing Urban Realm Toolkit has not been applied.
Islington works for 2 way Caledonian Road are ignored.
LBC / LBI Place Shaping Plan 2012 has been ignored.
These proposals have now been built.
Other responses:
1 Cycling Embassy UK
2 MaidstoneonBike
Posts
Thanks for the contributions. Jackie, I am glad that what I said resonated with your experience.
Since this conversation was about the CLG meeting on "NP and research", I thought it would be good to share some feedback. Unfortunately I left soon mid-afternoon, so can only comment on the early part of the day. A few "take-outs" from me (James can give a fuller picture):
1) ACADEMIC VS OTHER RESEARCH
To be clear: this was only about academic research, rather than commercial, academic, policy and research to support FORUMS in their work.
As a former LSE academic, I was reasonably sympathetic. However, it may have been more productive to have a broader focus. So much research is needed to support the process - and at a fast pace - that it seems unwise to narrow the remit to academia. Academic contributions are invaluable for their objectivity and depth, but they do not help much to support good implementation in the short to medium term.
Essentially, the purposes of the meeting were for CLG to know what kind of research academics are currently doing on NP, to share with them research that CLG is currently doing, and to identify evidence gaps and try to fill them - in the context of CLG not funding any research.
2) KEY RESEARCH THEMES
The main research questions addressed, as far as I could see, are to do with:
a) the intended aims of localism and decentralisation, and how positive/negative, genuinely innovative, democratic or empowering this is;
b) how NP is actually being delivered: detailed case study analyses of NPs at different stages in their implementation and with different profiles. This seeks to answer questions such as: who gets involved / who is left out, what are the barriers/ how they can be overcome, what capacity of required and who has it or not, what is the impact of NP on the culture of LPAs, what type and amount of support LPAs provide to NFs, etc.
c) whether current implementation meets the intended aims of the policy.
3) RESEARCH FINDINGS
It is early days. However, the findings of Dr Andrew Wallace and Paul Watt (Lincoln University) from studies in London confirm what I expected:
- geographical clustering in central / North London
- uneven capacity - with severe lack in some places
- uneven response to NP from local authorities
- dominance of middle class professionals in Forums
- aspiration to adopt a "responsible" response to planning
- contestation of neighbourhood boundaries
- preoccupation with neighbourhood "quality" and "aesthetics"
- relatively little focus on "structural" matters: welfare, equality, employment provisions...
- uncertainty / skepticism about policy efficacy and impact
They conclude (and I concur) that "marginal" populations need to be better integrated in the NP process, that most FORUMS are unwilling or unable to engage with welfare questions (e.g. housing, services, employment, transport, access to health), that there is a need to improve relationships between LPAs and Forums, and that the perspectives of relevant "outsiders" to a particular plan should be sought.
4) EXPERTISE / OUTSIDE HELP
Another recurrent theme was the lack of capacity in relation to certain issues (e.g. consultation, welfare, structural matters, equality, etc) and the need to bring in outside expertise. There is plenty of expertise available strictly on planning matters, but little on other issues. Most forum participants think in terms of their personal experience - what they like or dislike - but very few have the social policy knowledge necessary to think about the underlying factors that help create better neighbourhoods for all.
I believe that summary does justice to the discussions I attended. James, take it away for the overview of the late afternoon session!
Marie-Claude