Camden Council recently approved a scheme to revamp Tottenham Court Road. The scheme is quite significant in its own right but the thinking behind it also says a lot about current ideas on how best to use limited highway space in central London. Here we take a look at the issues of this particular scheme and the significance it may have for developments in the future.
Going back to the beginning
Tottenham Court Road was named quite simply because it was the road from St Giles at the eastern extremity of Oxford Street to a mansion called Tottenham Court. Surprisingly little is known about Tottenham Court which was roughly located where the current Tottenham Court Road meets today’s Euston Road. We can presume that Tottenham Court Road wasn’t originally an important road. We can also presume it was demolished before the coming of the Euston Road (then called New Road). By then the road must have had some local strategic importance.
Gower Street today
Both the 20th century traffic history of Tottenham Court Road and Camden’s plans for the future rely on the fact that Gower Street and its continuation into Bloomsbury Street, a road almost as wide, parallels Tottenham Court Road for its entire length. Gower Street was (and is) a significant road in its own right with many historical figures having lived there and much of University College London being based along the road. We know it was served by public transport in the late Victorian times as, in the early 1900s, a certain Miss Prism identifies her handbag by means of various marks including “injury it received through the upsetting of a Gower Street omnibus in younger and happier days”.
Gower Street as proposed
On the Tube
Tottenham Court Road is also well served by Tube lines. Most famously Tottenham Court Road station stands at its southern end. It is currently served by just the Northern Line but by the start of 2016 will be served by the Central Line again and of course from December 2018 by Crossrail, even though the specific Crossrail entrances will both be south of Oxford Street and not in Tottenham Court Road. Whilst TfL’s inability to save the entirety of the Paolozzi murals there as part of the station rebuild has caused consternation in some quarters, but as our friends over at Londonist pointed out, the complete rebuild and redesign of one of the Underground’s busiest stations sadly requires a sense of realism as to what is achieveable. Nor, despite the media outrage, was this a decision that had been made secretly behind the scenes (we covered the murals back in 2009 and TfL were honest about their intentions at the time). The impressive spaces and elements of the new station that are open already though suggest that at least their loss will not be in vain.
The new ticket hall at Tottenham Court Road station
Refreshed platform space at Tottenham Court Road station
Elsewhere, Goodge Street station (originally opened with the name of Tottenham Court Road) is an easily forgotten Northern Line station that is roughly in the middle of Tottenham Court Road. It is part of a relatively small family of Zone 1 central London stations that is still only accessible by lifts and emergency staircase. Other examples are Covent Garden, Russell Square and Regent’s Park – all of which are relatively close by. The lifts at Goodge Street appear to cope quite well with the normal station numbers but one suspects there would be issues if there was a large passenger increase.
Finally, at the northern extremity of Tottenham Court Road is Warren Street station which is served by the Victoria Line as well as the Northern Line. Brief mention also ought to be made of Euston Square Underground station which has an entrance on Gower Street. So, all in all, Tottenham Court Road is quite well served by the Underground and will be similarly so by Crossrail in December 2018. On top of that, if it goes ahead, one can expect a Crossrail 2 station at each end of the road one day.
On the buses
Tottenham Court Road is also a significant route for buses – as one would expect from a road that links Euston with central London including Oxford Street. Camden Council in their
Firstly, we can’t ignore the fact that Tottenham Court Road (TCR) is a crucial mass transit corridor with over 4,000 people an hour getting on and off buses not to mention the thousands more who travel through. The street serves some of London’s busiest bus routes, including 24, 29, 134, and 73 and all of these routes carry tens of thousands of passengers an hour. To put these numbers into perspective, these routes alone carry more passengers than the Croydon Tramlink or the whole of the Manchester Metrolink system.
The sixties: one way forward
The sixties were a time of change. The area around Tottenham Court Road seems to epitomise this whilst much of Gower Street appears to have survived almost unaltered. Among the more dramatic changes relating to Tottenham Court Road and nearby were: Centre Point at the junction of Oxford Street, the new Euston station minus Doric Arch just to the north of the road on the other side of the Euston Road and possibly, most famously, the futuristic wonder of the Post Office Tower around 200 metres away. Another great symbol of sixties roadbuilding, the underpass, resulted in the Euston Underpass being built just to the north of Tottenham Court Road in 1966.
Whilst there must have been earlier road widening schemes, the 1960s also saw what must have been the most dramatic change to date of Tottenham Court Road. On 1st May 1961 Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road north of Cambridge Circus was made one way northbound. Southbound traffic was routed one way along Gower Street, Bloomsbury St and Shaftsbury Avenue east of Cambridge Circus. This was not intended to be the final solution and for the next twenty years new buildings were set further back from their replacements leading to a rather erratic building line which either gives the street a delightful character or makes it look a complete mess – depending on you point of view.
Tottenham Court Road looking south today.
One must wonder how much this massive one way scheme actually helped the flow of traffic, but a major factor was probably that both Tottenham Court Road and Gower St were, for the most part, sufficiently wide for three useful lanes but not four. One way schemes were very much in vogue at the time as a solution to the rise in private traffic in the early 1960s and Tottenham Court Road/Gower St must have been seen as one of the best opportunities available.
What is surprising when one considers the road layout is that the London County Council agreed to Centre Point being built much higher than normally permitted in return for making it possible to rebuild the traffic intersection at St Giles Circus as a roundabout or gyratory system – the latter, along with one way streets, being very much seen as as a vital component in future road schemes. In the end the road layout at St Giles never was used as a roundabout and the dispensation for building Centre Point taller seemed to only produce the initial benefit of having a sheltered but windswept underused bus stand located in the heart of London.
Who owns the road?
It is hard to find out what exactly happened in those days of the 1960s but a relevant question may well be to wonder who was responsible for Tottenham Court Road. In London responsibility for roads has always been a bit of a fudge with government, regional and local responsibility all having played their part in the past. It may be that the objectives of the London County Council were thwarted a local level. As we shall see later “who owns the road?,” is still a vital modern day question that needs to be taken into account when considering road schemes.
The rise and fall of the one-way scheme
Whilst one-way streets, gyratorys, pedestrian subways and banning right turns were once very popular with traffic engineers, the slow insidious effect on of these measures on local communities and how people adapt to them has meant that they are now very much out of favour. Much money has been spent in the past few years removing many of these schemes that were put in with so much enthusiasm as an answer to traffic problems many years earlier. Most notable in recent years have been the Pall Mall and Piccadilly one way scheme and the Aldgate gyratory. In the pipeline are schemes for Vauxhall one way system and the Elephant & Castle gyratory which will be “peninsularised” in a similar manner to the former roundabout at the southern end of Westminster Bridge.
Most of the disadvantages of these 1960s ideas are pretty obvious in retrospect but there are one or two that aren’t. An early disadvantage was that it was extremely inconvenient for trolleybuses as the wires had to be relocated and restrung. More significantly, the multi-lane highways were not very trolleybus friendly as the ability to deviate from the intended path was very limited. This must have been one of the considerations for getting rid of them.
Diagram showing proposed bus routes along Tottenham Court Road
A further problem was that in the 1960s the objective was to speed up traffic flow and not enough consideration was given to the problem of maximising use of road space. One way schemes are all very well but they often mean longer, more circuitous journeys and hence they increase traffic just by existing. In many ways banned right turns are even worse in this respect and nowadays much more is done to accommodate them (especially for buses). Often it is the case that advantage can be take of a right filter to allow some concurrent pedestrian movement that would otherwise require its own phase. In the above diagram it can be seen that in the near future that southbound buses will turn right from Tottenham Court Road into Oxford Street – something that hasn’t been possible for over 50 years.
It took a while to really appreciate some of the effects of these measures on Tottenham Court Road. Subways, intended to allow pedestrians to cross safely, were difficult to use if you were infirm. The fear of being a victim of crime and the detour forced on pedestrians to use them resulted in pedestrians either not making their journey (and thus segregating neighbourhoods) or former pedestrians now making the journey by car. Cyclists too found that road traffic was much faster and they were expected to make dangerous manoeuvres to get into the appropriate lane. No special provision was made for them.
London Transport buses were generally quick to feel the effect of one way schemes. Passenger numbers could be seen to drop (20% has been quoted in some cases) as people could no longer be taken to where they wanted to go, or they couldn’t work out where to catch their bus. Routes became longer and, inevitably, the traffic built up to its previous level to match the perceived extra road space. This left the bus operator with no benefits but a lots of disadvantages.
Clustering around Tottenham Court Road
For many years small areas of London had clearly identifiable areas of trade where similar businesses or shops clustered together. So it was that Fleet Street was identified with newspapers, Charing Cross Road with books and the area around Denmark Street with musical instruments. Up until the early seventies the southern end of Tottenham Court Road was very much the place for electronics. This was then transformed into a mecca for those involved with early hobbyist computers. Today, outside the world of law, finance and politics, there is the very notable exception of Hatton Garden, but apart from that these distinct enclaves are largely gone. Despite this, the northern end of Tottenham Court Road still has a cluster of furniture stores, dominated by Heals, and, whilst a shadow of its former self, there are still many electronic and computer shops at the southern although many of them now are High Street chain stores.
As Tottenham Court Road becomes “just another shopping street” the proprietors clearly cannot rely on trade coming in because of its prominence in certain fields. With Oxford Street nearby (and, crucially, in a different borough) it is inevitable that Tottenham Court Road will increasingly have to make itself attractive to draw shoppers to the area.
The Crossrail Effect
The catalyst for change for Tottenham Court Road in recent years has been Crossrail, although probably not in the ways one might expect.
It has had a major effect for various reasons. The first of which is construction resulting in the worksite taking up much of Charing Cross Road. The requirements for lorry moments has probably led to any scheme for Tottenham Court Road redevelopment being delayed. This in turn has led to what many, but not all, would regard as time for a more enlightened attitude to redevelopment to develop in recent past years and ultimately, perhaps, a bolder scheme that might have otherwise been proposed.
Possibly the most important Crossrail effect has been that the construction site at Tottenham Court Road station led to road width restrictions that resulted in a 30% decrease in traffic. It is reported that there has been no discernible increase in traffic on routes nearby in consequence. Everyone now knows that once you increase the road space more traffic will be the result – a concept known as Induced Demand. Camden Council clearly, and very sensibly, want to get a scheme in place so that the benefits of more highway space are well used and not just ceded back to motorised traffic by default. They also want to make sure that 30% of traffic doesn’t come back.
There are, of course, also the more obvious Crossrail effects. Much has been made the “urban realm” aspect but this has generally been seen by Crossrail to be aimed at the area immediately surrounding the stations and the Crossrail proposals for Tottenham Court Road station urban realm are no different. The Camden proposals, affecting the entire length of the road, go, literally, much further, and are more in line with the suggestions of the Arup report on the subject. This was published last year and mentioned in our article looking at “How Quickly Will Crossrail’s New Trains Fill Up?”.
Also in line with the aforementioned Arup report is the issue of people getting from the Crossrail (or Tube) station to their final destination. The suggestion in the report was that the real solution to handling the large number of people involved is to make walking routes pleasant so the the final leg of the journey can be made on foot.
Camden Council’s scheme gets approval
A future Tottenham Court Road as envisaged by Camden Council
On 23rd January 2015, the BBC reported that Camden Council had approved funding for their £41 million scheme. It is clearly bold and limits through two way traffic in Tottenham Court Road to buses and cycles from the hours of 0800 – 1900 Monday to Saturday. As can be seen from the montage the intention is to make it very much more friendly for pedestrians both on the main road itself and in some of the side streets. Naturally displaced traffic will use Gower Street which will also revert to two-way use.
Euston Circus at the northern end of Tottenham Court Road in 2004
The boldness of the scheme may come as a bit of a surprise but Camden have always been one of the most pro-cycling London Boroughs and no doubt see this as a way to encourage pedestrians, cyclists and bus users. That said, the scheme has had many years of gestation and it is notable that when TfL redesigned and implemented a new traffic scheme at Euston Circus it did so with the specific intention of making it suitable for a two-way Tottenham Court Road. The scheme would probably not have been possible with the old road layout at Euston Circus. It is notable that Euston Circus consultation proposals at the time merely referred to “enabling future provision of southbound bus movements through the junction to link into separate proposals for a southbound contraflow bus lane on Tottenham Court Road”. This seems to fit in with original plans which just involved providing a contraflow bus line in Tottenham Court Road – something that experience in Piccadilly now shows is not entirely satisfactory in a shopping street and brings its own set of problems.
Euston Circus in 2014
Taxi drivers not happy
A very notable omission from the short list of vehicles allowed in Tottenham Court Road is of course taxis. This prompted the reaction quoted in the BBC article from Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) calling the scheme “madness” and stating:
“To consider banning taxis from Tottenham Court Road could be described at best as farcical …No thought has been given to the hundreds of thousands of people that get picked up and set down by taxis in the metropolis everyday.
This does seem rather like an ill advised and misleading comment. The point is that taxis will only be banned from Tottenham Court Road as a through route. Taxis and delivery vehicles will be permitted to enter via designated side streets to pick up, set down or deliver for significant sections of the street but will also be forced to leave via a side road as well (in order to prevent them using it as through route).
Steve McNamara says that a legal challenge will be mounted but it is hard to see anything other than this being dismissed and it is even harder to envisage it delaying implementation of the scheme. Camden have clearly properly assessed this and Camden Councillor Phil Jones said taxis and other vehicles would be able to access 60% of the street via side roads. He continues:
A detailed assessment of the impacts of allowing taxis to use the full length of Tottenham Court Road has been undertaken. The assessment has highlighted that allowing taxis to use the street would lead to more traffic congestion, worse air quality and increased road traffic collisions.
Given that proper consideration has been given it is very hard to see a legal challenge going anywhere. On the other hand one can quite understand why taxi drivers are alarmed. It is probably not Tottenham Court Road that bothers them so much but the precedent set – what if neighbouring City of Westminster Council applied similar restrictions to the cabbies’ favourite through route of Oxford Street?
Throwing down the gauntlet
At the end of the day, Camden’s Tottenham Court Road scheme, on its own, is not really a game changer. With the luxury of having Gower Street running parallel, the unwanted traffic can be re-routed and the street can be made much more pleasant without particular difficulty. What does make it particularly interesting though is the issue of how the City of Westminster and the New West End Company will react to this in order not to lose business from Oxford Street. And then, regardless of what they do or don’t do, how this fits in with other schemes in the pipeline.
Now that the Camden scheme for Tottenham Court Road is definitely going ahead, it is hard imagine that the City of Westminster and the Oxford Street and Regent Street shops it represents are going to wait until 2018 without doing something in response. Whether that would just be a general attempt to improve Oxford Street as it is or to do something further remains to be seen.
Oxford Street
The problem of Oxford Street is nowhere as easy to solve as Tottenham Court Road as the primary issue tends to be what to do with any displaced traffic. This is not easy given that Westminster is averse to putting yet more traffic onto the parallel streets.
And here lies the crux of the matter. For what people, who should really know better, forget is that it is the City of Westminster who calls the shots here not the Mayor. The old joke goes that civil servants at the DfT treat any incoming Minister’s pronunciation of “Bombardier” as a shibboleth. If they say it like the beer, then they require some transport education before they are allowed to make pronouncements. Perhaps when it comes to the planning and engineering of London’s streets the status of Oxford Street should be treated the same way.
If so, then there are sadly a far few proponents of ideas who fail the test, undermining their own case by calling on the Mayor to do something about the street. See for example this Liberal Democrat proposal which states that
In the long-term, as demand for bus services accessing the road reduces, this report argues that the Mayor should fully pedestrianise Oxford Street, creating the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe.
In contrast stands Mayoral hopeful Christian Wolmar, a man passionately in favour of banning traffic in Oxford Street and other places. Way back in 2012 he outlined his vision. This was more recently reiterated in the Evening Standard with a CGI illustration of what Oxford Street would look like. The important thing to note however is that Mr Wolmar makes no claim that he would make these schemes happen if he were mayor. That may seem on the surface to simply be good politics, but he is also presumably astute enough to realise that when it comes to Oxford Street all he could do if he were mayor is to exhort and encourage.
The bigger picture
One gets the feeling that a lot is going to happen regarding roads in central London in the next few years. In 2020 the Ultra Low Emission Zone is expected to kick in leading to a further short term reduction in traffic. TfL are already making noises about working with the freight industry to make deliveries easier but at times of lesser traffic flow. They are also making noises about the need to work smarter. In addition to the Tottenham Court Road scheme, the TfL board has now approved its own major scheme for a cycle highway from Tower Hill to Royal Oak via the Victoria Embankment which will have a significant effect on other traffic. Expect to see central London become more pedestrian and cycle friendly over the next few years and expect to see much debate as to how the remaining road space should be used.
The revolution cometh, but will it be pedestrianised..?
@PoP -Thank you for another high quality article. Perhaps one “planning” point that might be made is that hitherto TCR has acted as a boundary to the Fitzrovia area – a very vibrant part of back street London with its local shops and flats (and Arup’s offices…) -separating it from its natural eastwards extension towards the not dissimilar area around UCH and to the north of the BM. I’m sure it will give a big lift to the areas on both sides once it becomes pdestrian/cycle friendly zone.
“It is probably not Tottenham Court Road that bothers them so much but the precedent set – what if neighbouring City of Westminster Council applied similar restrictions to the cabbies’ favourite through route of Oxford Street?”
We can but hope. In 30 years from now the automobilisation of urban centres will be more widely understood as the disaster it has been.
Pleonasm warning: “sufficiently wide” or “wide enough”, but not “sufficiently wide enough” please.
[OK. I have taken out the “enough”. I have also learnt a new word. PoP]
@Pedantic of Purley
Thanks for the article. I must say that I have a soft spot for TCR, as I worked in Euston Tower, “Vision House” which use to be opposite, in the BT Tower, on Hanson St and others (recalls Channel 4 being in the area). Used to be very excited about the collection of Electronics Shops at the New OS/Oxford Street end.
Went to UCLH a few time recently (broken wrist … and broken leg) and the junction at Euston Road is the best it has ever been. It’s almost OK to go between the Camden (“was Capital Radio”) site and the shop pushing you to have a “Personality Test”!
Having looked at the plans on the BBC site, I think it will make the area superb, and perhaps a favourite lunchtime walk for many?
the LTDA are in a fighty mood, threatening legal action over both TCR and Superhighways.
If they try, they’ll lose both (though on Superhighways they’re spending Canary Wharf’s money on lawyers).
Meanwhile there’s still considerable disquiet from cycle campaigners about the TCR plan, as it’s still thought that a scheme that fully separates bikes and buses could have been fitted in. No-one really enjoys cycling with buses, not even Vincent Stops.
(and is it perhaps time for LR to do a look at the Superhighways, quietways and how all this interacts with public transport? I appreciate that bikes are, strictly, private transport)
Changes are step in the right direction but still hate the drawings of TCR looking nice and tranquil for pedestrians and cyclists when the reality will be more like Oxford street sans Taxis.
@Al__S
Yes the Superhighways are going to be interesting and even more than Tottenham Court Road are going to determine just how far London goes along the “pedestrians and bikes first” route. If approval hadn’t come so hot on the heels of Tottenham Court Road I might well have written about that. I still might do as I suspect it will get “interesting” in the next few months.
Of course, you could argue that, since anyone can hire a bike at a roadside bike station, bikes potentially are public transport.
LTDA Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (of London)
Interesting article as ever on here.
Perhaps Camden’s actions will give Westminster the impetus it needs to implement decent cycling quiet ways through the backstreets west of TCR (and indeed all over Westminster). I won’t hold my breath…
And what exactly does Bombardier rhyme with? I googled “Bombardier pronunciation” and found a link to some lass saying it in a fashion that did rhyme with ‘beer’. The only alternatives I can only see it rhyming with is ‘day’ or ‘dare’… anyone?
Yours ignoramusly,
Ant
@Ant
As the resident Canadian, I can help you. Bombardier is a company founded in and operated from Montréal, Québec, Canada. So Bombardier is a French name, and the French ‘er’ ending is pronounced ‘ah’ in English. Furthermore, the ‘dier’ ending is pronounced ‘jay’, more or less. The accent of the word’s in a different place in French… Given the practice of calling company, city and country names as the residents do, one generally uses the French pronunciation. That being said, the pronunciation in England may differ.
To get back to the transport topic, Bombardier started by a man who built the world’s first snowmobile, which was really more like a tank with tracks and enclosed cabin…
@Ant
Joseph-Armand Bombardier’s was a French-Canadian, and the company he founded in 1942 (originally to build snowmobiles – his own invention) is headquartered in Montreal (Quebec) and it is thus pronounced bom-BAR-dee-ay (to rhyme with tararaboomdeay)
In English a bombardier (bom-bad-EAR) was a rank in the Royal Artillery, equivalent of a corporal in the rest of the army.
Can anyone explain to me why the police and TfL seem to be so in thrall to the LTDA? What is so special about a car that is chauffeur-driven and hired by the minute that allows them privileges denied to other hire cars, or other chauffeur-driven ones, or cars that are actually driven by their owners travelling on their own business?
There is no sound – but this may be of interest.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/one-way-traffic-system-begins-in-london
I would imagine the LTDA feel besieged on all sides at the moment…Superhighways,Ultra Low Emission Zone,Uber etc etc…however when it comes to transport in London, taxis so often seem to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
@Ant – as LBM suggests, one is a French-Canadian train manufacturer (amongst other things) and the other is a British Beer. Both are pronounced in the (differing) styles of their country of origin.
@timbeau
“Can anyone explain to me why the police and TfL seem to be so in thrall to the LTDA? What is so special about a car that is chauffeur-driven and hired by the minute that allows them privileges denied to other hire cars…”
High net worth individuals such as politicians, business executives, government ministers et al want the ability to take cabs about without being impeded.
I’m not a regular visitor to TCR but the last time I was there it seemed to me that a number of the electronics shops had closed. Perhaps this type of shop is less viable given pretty well everything they sell can be bought on the internet.
A lot of the TCR is quite tatty in my view and I don’t think it is inevitable that it will transform itself into a vibrant new shopping street. It may just get more tatty.
I like Heals but it isn’t equivalent to an “anchor” shop like Selfridges or John Lewis. TCR doesn’t have the fashion chains that attract so many younger people to Oxford St so I don’t really know what the street represents.
Camden’s computer generated picture of the street looks all very nice but is somewhat at odds with their statement about the bus routes so maybe they should have copied and pasted about 10 more buses on the picture.
I’ve no problem with taxis having a few privileges around town, they are part of the transport mix, their ready availability and quality probably helps encourage people to make visits by a mix of rail and taxi rather than driving requiring parking space in central London (ugly, wasteful of space and detrimental to the quality of the street environment and the flow of traffic).
But surely their famous ‘knowledge’ is adaptable enough to cope with a few changes without having to spoil every attempt to make certain streets more appealing by insisting on the right to plough through the middle of the planners utopia in their smelly old machines. Allowing them to enter for pickup and dropoff but not just as part of their route seems like the right balance to strike.
Poor Gower St. It seems shops are being prioritised over students.
Actually the taxi policy will also be bad for Tottenham Court Road: finding a taxi to pick up when one has bought something heavy or bulky isn’t going to be easy. I guess people will revert to using Uber
@Theban – heavy computers? Or perhaps you meant furniture from Heals? Surely, a small minority of cab users? (As a fairly frequent cab user on the days when my gout is bad, I can’t ever recall travelling with anything heavier than a new pillow…)
@Alan
“Allowing them to enter for pickup and dropoff ”
Sauce for the goose and all that. Why can’t other drivers pick up and drop off their passengers too? Unlike a taxi, once I’ve picked up my passenger and taken her home, that’s the end of it. I don’t then cruise around clogging up the roads in the hope of finding someone else to give a lift to.
@PoP – “An early disadvantage was that it was extremely inconvenient for trolleybuses as the the (sic) wires had to be relocated and restrung” – Probably what you were intending but the trolleybus wires were never restrung, since the routes terminating at Tottenham Court Road were abandoned on 25th April, 1961. The silent Pathe clip given by Anonymous shows a notice of one-way street change dated 30 April – just five days later.
In fact, the trolleybuses never reached even as far as Goodge Street station from the Euston Road, turning as they did around Maple and Howland Streets (see map above). By 1958, 64 trolleybuses an hour turned there.
This is a very helpful analysis and description of a very interesting proposal.
It is does seem odd that all the good features of the scheme stop abruptly in the early evening when traffic restrictions are lifted. If Tottenham Court Road doesn’t need to be used for general traffic during the day, it is hard to see why it should be essential for it to be open to all traffic during the evening and night (and if it’s to allow access to premises, there are better ways of achieving that).
Meanwhile, the segregated cycle lanes to be added in Gower Street as part of the scheme have already come under some detailed criticism (the author of that post I think misunderstands what is proposed about cycle access to TCR itself, but that doesn’t undermine the arguments about the detailed design in Gower Street).
Those who want to delve more deeply into all this will find the full set of documents here which support the decision by Camden council. Appendix D [pdf] provides a clear and reasonably detailed description of the proposals.
Marek, I assume the idea is that after the shops shut a little vehicular traffic helps keep the street alive- eyes on the street and all that.
One way schemes are all very well but they often mean longer, more circuitous journeys and hence they increase traffic just by existing.
I’m so glad you’ve put that in print and worded it so well. The number of times I’ve made the very same point to people who have trouble grasping it….
(Thanks for all the polite replies regarding the pronunciation of Bombardier!)
@Anonymous 21:26
Thanks for the clip. This helps date the scheme. I thought very early in the sixties but couldn’t be sure.
@Graham Feakins,
With regard to trolleybus wires, I was talking more generally about one way systems rather than specifically about Tottenham Court Road. Indeed I was unaware how prevalent they used to be in London but the number of Routemasters ordered to replace the trolleybuses does give some indication. Tottenham Court Road does seem to a very good example indicating how a one way scheme was the final nail in the coffin for trolleybus – something I suspect was replicated up and down the country.
Thanks also for pinning down exact dates. I may modify the article to include them.
@Marek
I was going to include a bit about the hours of operation as it struck me as a bit strange but the article was already getting rather long (and the final article after being checked by the editor often ends up being longer still!). In particular I am baffled as to why the hours of operation should not apply on Sundays as well. Whilst accepting Mike Jones’s later point about eyes on the street, the hours do not seem restrictive enough to me. This is especially so when one considers that Oxford Street is, I think, restricted at all times.
I have to say I do think the criticisms from cyclists are a little unjustified. Quite why they think they should have a segregated through route along what is clearly intended to be a road for accessing local shops is a bit beyond me. I do not oppose segregation in principle but these does seem to be a case of cyclists thinking that their considerations should always be given top priority. After all what are we segregating them from? Buses which need access to bus stops and a few delivery vehicles and taxis which need access to the kerb. The lack of cycle segregation in Gower Street may be a more valid criticism. You can only improve the lot of cyclists in Tottenham Court Road by disadvantaging pedestrians and it seems to me that the scheme is primarily intended to improve the lives of pedestrians.
I also think that the emotive language of some cyclist criticising the scheme is a bit unhelpful. Referring to the noise and fumes of buses may well turn out to be unfair. In the ultra low emission zone in operation from 2020 all buses will at the worst be hybrid. It would not surprise me at all if Tottenham Court Road became restricted to vehicles not emitting tailpipe emissions. I wonder how that will be displayed on a road sign? Buses (and new taxis from 2018) may well automatically switch to electric mode in Tottenham Court Road with positioning detected by GPS or iBus as appropriate. Incidently this is where I think the New Routemaster really scores because it is the only hybrid I have experienced in London that can run in electric mode for any decent length of time.
@The Other Paul,
I could quite believe that. As well as not grasping it when pointed out, it seems that this thought occurred to very few people. I must admit the first time it was pointed out to me it was one of these things I had never thought of but, once made aware of, appears (to me) obvious. As late as the 1990s this oversight was made at Purley Cross and the current ideas (all shelved) are to do the exact opposite and ensure that traffic takes the shortest possible route through the junction.
Oxford Street is restricted access 0700-1900,Monday – Saturday.
@poP
” Indeed I was unaware how prevalent they used to be in London but the number of Routemasters ordered to replace the trolleybuses does give some indication.”
http://www.londonbuses.co.uk/routes/tb-replace.html
lists all the trolleybus routes (in the order they were closed). At their zenith there were 68 routes and 1811 vehicles in total (although they were not all in service at the same time: the post-war Q1s having been built to replace the original 1932 “Diddlers”
Routemasters also replaced many of the wartime “utility” motor bus types and some of the RT fleet.
Circuitous one way systems – look at Kingston’s figure-of-eight system for example, where it can take five minutes and well over half a mile to go round a big loop, passing the station twice, to get from Richmond to the bridge, or from Surbiton to Norbiton.
From a bus point of view here are a few dates, the full scheme was introduced on 1st May 1961, buses like the 24 were diverted southbound via Gower Street, Bloomsbury Street and Shaftesbury Avenue – rejoining at Cambridge Circus.
The construction of the Euston Underpass meant that from 13th November 1966 southbound buses reverted to Hampstead Road, over the underpass, a section of contra-flow in Euston Road then Gower Street.
From 19th November 1986 southbound buses were able to operate via New Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road instead of Shaftesbury Avenue – this was introduced on 2nd February but was suspended after 2 hours after workmen turned up and started digging a hole in the road.
Trolleybuses – just for those who don’t have access to maps etc., the Trolleybus destination of Tottenham Court Road would today be referred to as Warren Street.
PoP you are not wrong – “a one way scheme was the final nail in the coffin for trolleybus – something I suspect was replicated up and down the country” – can certainly be applied to Bournemouth.
If they put in a NS Cycle Superhighway, would it come down TCR, or would they run it down Regent Street, so its continuation would be the cycle-delightful Regent’s Park, and attempt to skirt west of the Hampstead/Primrose Hill range?
I am sure two way traffic on Gower Street will improve things. At the moment (with one way flows) if you happen to mis-time crossing the street you are nearly mowed down – two way will make it safer.
Less taxi flow in TCR will also make that road better for pedestrians.
As for Heals – well they still do one of the best free loos in central London.
Ah, the only active NS cycle superhighway is the rather short Elephant to Kings Cross via Blackfriars (https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/northsouth), so I guess TCR is too close to be the next route along, unless we have the dozen that TfL originally mooted.
@Pedantic of Purley – large numbers of pedestrians and buses don’t tend to play nice together either as demonstrated by the number of pedestrians killed/seriously injured on Oxford Street.
Camden’s plans imply an element of “shared space” design for TCR where the wolves of motor traffic shall dwell with the pedestrian lambs, but it practice, these sorts of designs just don’t work where there are large volumes of motor traffic as the motor traffic always dominates. They also talk about having footway and roadway at the same level for parts of the street, and I know this is disliked by blind and partially sighted people unless there is clear delineation between the two types of surface so I hope this will be addressed.
Now whether TCR will attract large numbers of pedestrians, I’m not sure. It may end up being a street with lots of fast food outlets and shops for the basics to service people who work in the area during the week, but not a retail destination where large numbers will visit at weekends.
I don’t have any strong opinions on the merits of otherwise of the cycling facilities planned for TCR as to be honest, I find the whole area around there horrendous to cycle in anyway. One street with good facilities will be of limited use until it is built into a network but they’ve got to start somewhere I suppose.
As a general point, evidence from other places is that separated cycle lanes do increase retail spending in a street and reduces the number of pedestrians killed and seriously injured. The latter because there is less roadway to cross and the laws of physics difference between a pedestrian fixated on their smart phone stepping out in front of a bike compared to a bus.
The plans for TCR actually represent a fairly large scale example of a more recent trend to giving more importance to the ‘place’ aspects of a street as opposed to the ‘movement’ aspects. This has been set out in detail in the report of the Mayor’s Roads Task Force, which put forward the case for a family of street types depending on both the importance they have as places as well as the importance the have for traffic and movement. At one extreme there are the ‘arterial roads’, such as the North Circular, where the place aspects are relatively low compared to the movement aspects. At the other, there are the ‘city places’ such as Trafalgar Square, where the place aspects dominate.
While this is hardly a new idea, it’s only in recent years when pressures from residents and, more importantly, businesses and developers, to get a better quality of space in urban areas that this has had any extensive impact. Even as late as the mid 1980s it was hard to get this message accross and the GLC’s proposal for a contra flow bus lane in TCR (supported by Camden) was defeated by both Westminster and the TCR businesses. They both wanted to see TCR widened in line with 1960s plans.
Between the 60s and the 80s a ‘as-and-when’ widening line resulted in new developments being heavily set back to allow for widening at some point in the future. This was abandoned by the GLC in 1982 on the basis that such a widening scheme would never be implemented.
Camden are going on (rightly) about pollution, & you mention Black Cabs, & this subject keeps coming up. I mean, I drive a 1996 Land-Rover & I think it is probably less polluting than your average current black cab (!)
Is anything at all in the pipeline, other than err, “pipe-dreams” about introducing a very low pollution or pollution-free cab any time soon now?
[Opinion stated on many previous occasions snipped (repetition). PoP]
The other Paul
Incidentally, on-way schemes are a cyclists’ bane too – you have to round & round & round, like a goldfish, in fact …
Emissions
A lot of this is spurious, simply because, as time passes almost all of the polluting vehicles will wear out & be replaced – I mean how many of the vehicles shown in that British Pathe clip are running now?
Exception, oh dear, my ( &other people’s) “proper” Land-Rovers, which tend to last for ever, cough.
I used to enjoy strolling along TCR, with its very different mix of shops to Oxford Street. However last time I was there (2 weeks ago) I was amazed to see how quickly the electronics shops have disappeared. South of Percy Street the shops on both sides of the road either have or are being redeveloped. Between Goodge Street and Oxford Street I only counted 5 electronic/computer shops, plus a branch of Maplins. Unfortunately they are being replaced by the same cafes, food outlets and shops that you will find everywhere else in London.
Shared space can work – Exhibition Road is a good example. However, the number of buses on TCR will make this one rather more challenging. Exhibition Road only hosts the 360, running about every ten minutes.
@PoP – your point about cyclists is a valid one, and a reminder that the most vocal do not always speak for the majority (even those of us who are LCC members). Transport planning in London should be about balance, which has been done pretty well here I think.
It would be good to see some articles about cycle and pedestrian strategies in London (knowing that cycling is inevitably controversial). I did look for some background info but it’s hard to know where to start!
@timbeau – I partially disagree (or partially agree..) about Exhibition Road. I think the southern stretch below the Cromwell Road works because through traffic is discouraged here. However in the rest of the road, motor vehicle dominates the street, pedestrians stick to the side, and in no way can this be described as “shared”.
The road surface is nice but then it should be given it cost £35,000 per metre.
Shared space seems to be snake oil pedalled by some consultants as the answer to all urban problems and all you need to do is remove street signs and put in some pretty paving and a 7 year old on a bike will happily coexist with a HGV.
I think it can work in some circumstances but applying it to roads with high volumes of motor traffic is just putting lipstick on a pig.
timbeau refers to shared space in Exhibition Road.
I too think this is a success. But it is quite controversial, some people think it is a complete disaster.
On another point, the taxi drivers who are not satisfied with “access only, go back out the way you came” are probably thinking of being hailed. If the only taxis you can hail are those which have just dropped someone, that’s probably not enough. And if this forces users onto Uber, they may find that they like it. It’s a sticky moment for taxi drivers right now.
Pedantic who never sleeps (at 04:05) refers to tailgate emissions. I think you meant tailpipe?
[ If only. I could get more done then. Reference to tailgate corrected. PoP]
@Anonymous – discussions on cycling usually generate plenty of heat, but to shed some light, I think it may be better to wait until the new superhighway schemes are in operation as then there should be some real data on their impact. At the moment, cycling discussions are often a battle of anecdotes…
PoP
Great article. Four short points:
1. Surprised there was no mention of the Labour GLC’s mid-1970s ‘Superbus’ scheme which would have had two-way buses along Tottenham Court Road à la Picccadilly contra-flow bus lane – think it died a death because of wider problems with aiming for an overlay of express buses in Inner and Central London, plus servicing issues at frontages along TCR – and possibly concerns by the roads authority at the bottom of TCR – the City of Westminster.
2. Clearly it will be essential that the TCR project works well with buses flowing – not bunching too much – at the junctions with other major bus corridors. The problems observed at places such as Trafalgar Square where buses can impede each other (let along other traffic have that effect), need somehow to be minimised.
3. Where next in Central London or other major ‘bus/place’ combinations? Regent Street perhaps? Charing Cross Road? Yes another local authority, but potentially a logical continuation…
4. £41m doesn’t sound a lot for the potential scale of payback. Are there any payback values quickly to hand? Eg, bus operating costs, passenger travel times, street/place quality, scale of emissions, walkability/cyclability? I am sure people have quantified these in numerous ways. The pictures of the future do seem rather idealistic in their uncluttered-ness, so some hard figures may count for more.
@Jonathan Roberts,
3. Where next in Central London or other major ‘bus/place’ combinations? Regent Street perhaps? Charing Cross Road? Yes another local authority, but potentially a logical continuation…
There are lots of smaller schemes (typically junctions) at the moment out which are or have been out for consultation in Zone 2. And others, on a smaller scale, as a result of the Cycle Superhighway proposals. My guess is that the next big one will be also Crossrail related, and probably something happening in Oxford Street or the surrounding area (e.g. Hanover Square).
I can’t see much dramatic happening in Charing Cross Road. The borough boundary runs down the middle of the road so that complicates things.
Personally what I would like to see is the extreme eastern end of Oxford Street done in a similar manner with a high quality link to a rejuvenated Soho Square. To make this worthwhile though you would need to ban through taxis over a short distance in Oxford Street and I can imagine that causing an enormous storm. Providing a decent East – West route for taxis in Central London without them being permitted to go along the entire length of Oxford Street seems to be one of those unsolvable problems and will only get worse with the Tottenham Court Road scheme.
Greg
“The ULEZ would include additional requirements for TfL buses, taxis (black cabs) and private hire vehicles (PHVs):
A requirement that all taxis and new private hire vehicles presented for licensing from 2018 would need to be zero emission capable
A reduction in the age limit for all non zero emission capable taxis from 2020 from 15 to 10 years (irrespective of date of licensing)
Investment in the TfL bus fleet so that all double deck buses operating in central London will be hybrid and all single deck buses will be zero emission (at source) by 2020.”
From TfL’s Consultation on the Ulra Low Emission Zone as proposed.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/ultra-low-emission-zone
as someone who cycles regularly I find shared use plans only increase risk and avoid them. the inherent uncertainty about priority – intended to be a virtue – is in practice dangerous.
here’s some detailed commentary on some shared use plans from a critical campaigner:
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/placefaking/
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/a-shared-space-vision/
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/lessons-from-exhibition-road/
from the first link, note the picture at the bottom, the Dutch street with lots of buses on it. given the large number of bus routes through TCR, isn’t there a high likelihood this will be what the new street will look like, rather than Camden’s proposal? full of buses with people on the pavements?
I would hate the one-way pendulum to swing too far in the other direction.
Taking advantage of Gower Street to relieve Tottenham Court Road was a good idea. Whether it is done as a one-way system, or segregation by vehicle type strikes me as a case-by-case situation, and it seems quite in order to change it here.
But one of the values of one-way and gyratory systems should not be forgotten. Somewhere like Kings Cross, it makes it possible to have multi-lane traffic light queues. An absolute killer for traffic throughput is the classic old-fashioned cross roads, where one vehicle waiting to turn right blocks all straight-on traffic.
Having said that, another valuable lesson just being learnt is of course that “traffic throughput” is not the only thing that should be maximised. But neither should it be entirely neglected.
And, back on the one-way business, when cycling I have absolutely no concerns about being taken slightly out of my way by one-way systems. I’d choose a smooth ride round three sides of a smallish square any day, over perching awkwardly in the middle of the road waiting to turn right.
Re Anonymous 5 February 2015 at 13:47
Exactly I thought some shared use lessons had been learned from Oxford City Council’s well observed and studied scheme on Cowley Road over a decade ago. One of the issues was I think visual processing overload for street users as there was too much info to take in, process and respond to especially as people got more tired later in the day.
@PoP – “Providing a decent East – West route for taxis in Central London without them being permitted to go along the entire length of Oxford Street seems to be one of those unsolvable problems” . Wigmore Street and its extensions pretty well does the job for you, in fact.
A fine article, as ever.
Might I suggest though that an alternate word to ‘infirm’ is used where discussing subways (under the road) – its a catch-all term and somewhat derogatory nowadays. How about ‘older people’ or ‘people with disabilities’, depending on what was meant.
as someone who cycles regularly I find shared use plans only increase risk and avoid them. the inherent uncertainty about priority – intended to be a virtue – is in practice dangerous.
I do wonder whether it’s very much a “horses for courses” thing. By that I mean that shared spaces are very much not a one-size-fits-all approach and shouldn’t be implemented without a lot of careful consideration of the traffic (of all varieties) patterns in that particular instance.
A bit like how roundabouts are great at keeping traffic moving at multi-option junctions until you reach a certain traffic density where they just make things worse rather than better.
The superhighways are all very well, but the point of a cycle is to be able to get close to your destination. It’s no good confining the cyclists to a few designated arteries, if they are at increased risk the moment they leave them to get to their actual destination. (and they will be at increased risk, both because more traffic will have been displaced from the routes with cycleways, and because the more you paint designated cycle routes, the more other road users will feel a sense of entitlement to everything else – yes, Mr White Van Man this morning: I’m not in the cycle lane because it goes straight on but, as you can see from my hand signal, I am turning right.
The City’s scheme of making the whole area cycle-permeable, so that cyclists but not motor-vehicles can cut through the back streets, seems to work well. (e.g using bollards, streets which are two way for cyclists but one way for cars etc)
@Greg – isn’t the new Metrocab due to begin passenger service trials in London this year? It is not zero emissions as it does have a petrol engine, but will be capable of 50 miles or so on the batteries, so like the new Routemasters could operate fume-free in central London. If it is a success it could present a serious threat to LTC who are way behind the curve with plans for their equivalent hybrid cab, the TX5.
@Graham H,
But Wigmore Street and its extensions leads to Goodge Street which comes out in … Tottenham Court Road – the street we are trying to avoid. It doesn’t even come out at a neat intersection where taxis could drive straight across. That may be the best compromise available though.
My wacky solution is for a few “taxi tunnels” in central London whereby taxis in electric mode could use a small short tunnel to overcome, or rather undercome, critical intersections such as this one – subject of course to no vital structures being below surface level.
@Anonymous 14:29
I will bear that in mind for future but I did specifically mean infirm as in a person (who may be old) who does not have a specific disability but is generally less agile and finds movement difficult. I don’t think the alternatives suggested convey what I wanted to put across and cannot think of another way of expressing it.
As someone who would categorise himself as showing the first signs of being infirm despite being fairly active I suspect the frustrating thing is that is isn’t specifically recognised as a disability. If asked “do you have a disability?” I think I would answer “No”.
LCC is London Cycling Campaign, a cycling advocacy group.
@PoP – I take your point although some compromises may make the whole thing more generally acceptable. Indeed, a similar approach might be applied to Mortimer St /Soho Square to enable Wigmore St to become eastbound only with Mortimer St westbound only (and a bit more tinkering with the junction with Regent St might take you a lot further west to begin the process of clearing Oxford Street …)
Tunnels – like the Lower Robert Street one, perhaps?
@LBM – LCC has other resonances for those of us who can remember the days before the GLC!
I can only agree with what the author of the linked blog posts says. Shared space, where different road users need to ‘negotiate’ their way makes the road in question governed by the laws of the jungle: the strongest ends up having priority.
I fear the same will happen to Tottenham Court Road. Despite it not having the same intensity of bus service as Oxford Street, it will still have too many buses for cyclists to feel safe in. The carriageway must be wide enough for bikes to be able to overtake buses on the outside in both directions, and bus drivers would need to be instructed not to overtake other buses unless forced to (e.g. bus in front has broken down, etc.).
All in all, Camden’s aspirations for TCR are to make it into a clone of Oxford Street. To me, this means traffic jams, inability to cross the street except at signalled crossings, no cyclists (my future commute will be west-east through the area and I already have 3 sensible alternative routes avoiding Oxford Street) and people spilling into the roadway due to insane crowding levels on the pavements.
…which is exactly why I have not gone shopping in Oxford Street in years.
And a quick question regarding taxis: I can fully understand why they are being banned: if Camden wants to make this a semi-pedestrianised zone, they will want to do away with the chaos connected with taxis stopping wherever they please, cutting across cyclists and so on. What I was wondering though: where are taxis specifically allowed to stop? As far as I understand they are allowed to stop ‘anywhere safe’. My question is: is there a definition of this? In my years of commuting on two wheels I have seen taxis stop exactly on street corners, on pedestrian crossings, or on red route clearways where stopping should technically result in a hefty fine at the very least. How many of these behaviours are actually prohibited?
And lastly, on the subject of emmissions: I also think battery powered vehicles have come a long enough way to be a viable solution for taxis in London. I also wonder about hybrid buses: if the whole point of hybrids is to reduce particulate pollution, then why is the combustion engine on them diesel and not petrol?
Of course (we’ll probably not of course, but any type of crayonista comment has to start with of course) pedestrians and cyclists would be better off with a tram, as the tram has a very fixed shared path. It’s not going to happen, but it’s the right idea.
@straphan
“why is the combustion engine on them diesel and not petrol?”
Methinks the bus depots and fueling locations have diesel only.
@Straphan,
Unfortunately many taxi drivers think that the rules don’t apply to them or that they can “get away with it”. Clearly more enforcement needed on future to drive the message home. A few points on their licence with the risk of a loss of livelihood would focus minds.
Petrol consumption for large vehicles is horrendous. The army used to exclusively use petrol for logistical reasons (see PLUTO) but had to abandon this idea due to the sheer quantities involved. Army petrol lorries certainly survived into the 1970s and the petrol engined Green Goddess fire engines were used until at least 2002.
Hybrids reduce particulate pollution partly by using the energy more efficiently and mainly by having much higher standards of filter to trap the particulates – which is the realistic way forward. Obviously you don’t need a hybrid to have the latest EURO 6 compliant filters.
@straphan,
Can I re-iterate? I think the thinking behind this is that if you want a through route you should be using Gower Street which will at least be partially segregated. If you want to be in the situation where you are overtaking buses then you probably shouldn’t be in Tottenham Court Road in the first place. If you are using Tottenham Court Road for local access, as intended, then one would expect a more gentle pace of cycling.
@PoP: But from what I understand Gower Street will not have any segregated cycle lanes. If I have to choose between cycling amongst buses and cycling amongst everything else (taxis, mad white vans, ‘Berks in Mercs’ etc.) I think I know what I’d choose…
Point taken about diesel hybrids.
I think a suitable alternative for “infirm” might be “less agile”.
I much prefer to avoid steps, especially downwards, but I definitely can use them where there is no satisfactory alternative. I do not think of myself as “infirm” (let alone having a disability), but I am definitely less agile.
@Malcolm: The EU’s preferred terminology is PRM – Person with Reduced Mobility. This is used across all rail-related legislation, and can refer to anyone from a person on an electric-powered wheelchair to someone with a heavy suitcase.
@straphan,
Gower Street will not have segregated cycle lanes but it will have “two-way street traffic with protected cycle lanes between New Oxford Street and Grafton Way”. See here for details of the road plan. The consultation also includes a picture of Royal College Street to show what that means although the picture is a bit misleading as that involves contraflow unlike Gower Street.
There is also the picture in the main article showing protected cycle lanes in Gower Street. I would have described the picture in the text below it to point this out but John Bull tells me off when I do this and refers me to the London Reconnections Style Guide.
No doubt the cycling lobby will tell us that protected cycle lanes aren’t good enough. I suspect whether it is or not depends on both cyclists and other road users behaviour and the level of enforcement.
@Malcolm,
I will use less agile in future though it grates slightly that we have a perfectly good word that has to be replaced by a phrase describing something in terms of not being so much of something else.
@straphan 17:51
Person of Reduced Mobility is fine in a formal document but I think it tends to stifle the flow and grate when trying to describe people in a less formal article.
The problem for alternatives for Oxford street is that the streets are quite narrow East of Regent Street, and in both sides are often quite a distance from Oxford street itself. Plus the only decent East West routes exist on the North side, it’s a joke on the Southside, especially in Soho.
@pop
“Gower Street will not have segregated cycle lanes but it will have “two-way street traffic with protected cycle lanes ”
What is the difference between “segregated” and “protected”? Although they can be segregated without being protected (e.g merely some white paint) they can’t be properly protected unless they are segregated from everyone else by something substantial, like a kerb.
Pedantic says “Petrol consumption for large vehicles is horrendous”.
I have often heard this, and often wondered about it.
Internal combustion engines seem eminently scaleable, at least within the range moped to road-train. So if you work out the ratio of petrol volume to diesel volume to produce a fixed amount of energy, then I would have expected this not to vary much between large and small vehicle. And if this is so, then why should the best choice (whether for price or for volume) differ between small cars and large trucks? And come to that, why should it differ depending on which side of the Atlantic Ocean you happen to be on? Or on whether or not there are hybrid gubbinses involved?
@Malcolm,
As I understand it, it is all down to compression ratios. A diesel engine is a fairly chunky bit of kit and you can’t have small diesel engines. You can however have very small petrol engines such as those in model aeroplanes. As you try and scale up the petrol engine has to be made disproportionately bigger as there is a quite a low maximum realistic petrol compression ratio whereas the diesel comes into its own with its higher ratios.
I suspect your argument may have more validity if we were talking about stationary engines but vehicles have to transport them so size and weight are critical issues.
Maybe someone else can explain this a bit better.
Thanks to comments by others I have added a couple of dates, a reference to the building of the Euston Underpass and a reference to further planned road widening after the one way system was introduced.
slugabed
Thanks, but I already knew that – in fact I’ve filled-in the “opinion” form for TfL on that one …
What they are not clear about is old (meaning over 15 or 20 year old) vehicles. Will they be “exempt” simply on the grounds that there are so few of them, or what?
PoP
Unfortunately many taxi drivers think that the rules don’t apply to them or that they can “get away with it”. May I suggest that, in fact it is the “minicab” drivers who are much the worst offenders in this respect? [ Using mobile phone whilst driving seems to be a favourite of theirs ]
Malcolm
How about “creaky”?
I’m certainly that way at the moment, having had a bad fall – whilst sober, too!
PoP
“compression ratios”
The analogy is with steam-power, where compound expansion was the way to go for fixed units, esp pumping stations & similar [note]. Once you had to carry it all around in a limited volume, like a locomotive, then things got a lot more difficult.
Turbines, of course, are even further up the scale ….
[note: I remember the triple-expansion engines in the Lea Bridge water pumping station … ]
@Malcolm
Fuel efficiency with regard to vehicle size is more about rolling resistance and aerodynamics than actual mass vs power. Comparing trains to trucks is hard but take the two stroke diesel in a class 66 at around 3500hp vs a truck around 350hp. The 66 pulls a lot more than ten times the trucks 44 tonnes 🙂
As a slight aside, and I ought to point out I am biased as I own a fair bit of stock in a raft of alternatives, taxis as we know it will die in my life time. And thank goodness we will be able to travel in clean driverless cabs thus saving us from the point of view of the common taxi driver.
@PoP Its all about fuel density and operating characteristics.
Diesel has a far higher energy density so at higher power demands the saving in mass of fuel vs the cost in engine weight makes diesel a good choice.
Also high capacity diesel two strokes can be tuned beautifully when their operating range is limited to 20 or 30 rpm in the low thousands or even high hundreds. Or they can clag up like a coal fired power station if they aren’t looked after properly 🙂
Anyone interested in the history of Tottenham Court Road and The Tottenham Court from which its gets its name can look here –
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Court_Road
The article mentions how Gower Street was always known for buśes and mentions a piece of literature and yet these plans will see no routes in Gower Street something that will no doubt in convince those located in Gower Street especially the UC College famed I remember from The Dr In The House films one of which shows Trolleybuses in this area !
I suggest that route 14 which runs from Piccadilly Circus to Cambridge Ciurcus be diverted to serve the rest of Shaftsbury Avenue ( both ways ) then across to Gower Street to Euston Road and then be diverted along Euston Road to Kings Cross/ St Pancras to terminate behind Kings Cross where the new Granary Square development is part of a fast growing new area ( while here may I say it’s about time routes 45/63 remained in service until they reached Granary Square !). Returning the 14 to where it used to run.
If this scheme goes ahead the question of traffic in Charing Cross Road will need to be addressed as at present most of the traffic heading north in CXRd continues straight across into Tottenham Court Road and this scheme would mean their only route would be into New Oxford Street something that would add to congestion in Oxford Street .
This scheme needs to begin at Cambridge Circus allowing traffic to use Shaftsbury Avenue to access Gower Street with the benefit of upgrade to Charing Cross Road as benefit of Crossrail spreads outwards.
@damian thanks for those points. Agreed that the rail environment is different from road. The differences in power-to-gross-weight ratio are probably mainly accounted for by required acceleration – to keep up with traffic, and required performance at hill climbing with not-too-degraded speed.
But I’m still mystified as to why a small petrol car can come within spitting distance, fuel-economy-wise, of a diesel, but a petrol truck apparently cannot.
There was a time, some years ago, when somebody claimed that all the fuel saving from a diesel car was swamped by the cost of changing the (lube) oil twice as frequently. But I think that has ceased now.
PoP – it’s a shame you have such a negative view of the “cycling lobby”. Cyclists have been until very recently a classic “outsider” lobby not part of the policy making process and so vocal and fragmented. This is changing as cyclists’ representatives grow more organized and closer to the policy process. See recent debates among LCC recently or Rachel Aldred’s contributions for examples.
It should also be noted that a very high proportion of cycle schemes in london and elsewhere often seem worse than useless. See the planned changes in Deptford as an example. It is difficult to remain calm when you see large-scale schemes for cycling (version one cycle superhighways for example) that do nothing for cyclists. Or ideas such as shared spaces being advocated for cyclists when they create conflicts, or expansions to pavements meaning space for cycling is erased (Cheapside is now virtually unrideable now).
To the commenter above, I don’t recognize the City as being permeable. Almost all commuters use the main roads.
PoP: A diesel engine is a fairly chunky bit of kit and you can’t have small diesel engines.
The Smart 58bhp 0.8 diesel model has a claimed 85.6mpg. http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/smart/fortwo/mpg
So small diesel can be efficient.
Here’s a lobby group that once had close insider role clearly worried their influence is fading
http://metro.co.uk/2015/02/05/london-taxi-boss-cyclists-are-the-isis-of-london-5051443/
@Melvyn – a couple of factual suggestions for your post. Wiki is wrong – as has been discussed recently on this forum – in describing the history of TCR; Tottenhall stood not at the junction of what is now Oxford Street and TCR but much further north.(Faithorne and Morgan’s map of c1680, for example, shows no building corresponding to the 1813 engraving of Tottenhall).
Trolleybuses never reached Gower Street. The 627,629 and 653 turned from the north in two loops viaTCR, Howland Street and then either Fitzroy Street or Whitfield Street and thence back to TCR via Maple Street. LT had originally intended to go as far as Bedford Square but their plans foundered as usual,on localopposition.
@tom
“To the commenter above, I don’t recognize the City as being permeable. Almost all commuters use the main roads.”
Certainly many do – but many know the back street routes – for example mine from Blackfriars to Barts via Blackfriars Lane, Ludgate Broadway, Pageantmaster Court and the Old Bailey. See also the recent changes to Hatton Garden, (Old) Fetter Lane, Shoe Lane, Stonecutter Street, St Brides Street, etc , all of which are permeable to cyclists but not motor vehicles.
@greg
“Unfortunately many taxi drivers think that the rules don’t apply to them or that they can “get away with it”. May I suggest that, in fact it is the “minicab” drivers who are much the worst offenders in this respect?”
I don’t see minicabs routinely passing the “buses only” sign on Mepham Street (outside Waterloo) because they are too lazy to go round to the official drop off point.
Nor obstructing bus stops.
Nor queuing for 200 yards beyond the “no taxis to queue this point” sign at the end of the taxi rank.
Nor do I often find them in the cycle boxes at traffic lights.
If the police were to crack down on such infringements, most taxi drivers would collect enough points to be banned within hours.
@Malcolm
“So if you work out the ratio of petrol volume to diesel volume to produce a fixed amount of energy, then I would have expected this not to vary much between large and small vehicle.”
The thickness of an engine block is dictated by the compression ratio, which is much higher in a diesel. Engine mass therefore does not scale linearly with internal volume, but with surface area. Consequently, to withstand the same compression ratio, a 2 litre engine need only be 1.6 times as heavy as a 1 litre engine (two to the power of 2/3). There will always be a weight penalty for a diesel, necessitated by the higher compression ratios used by diesel engines which require thicker engine blocks to contain the higher pressures, but the penalty becomes less for bigger engines. Improvements in efficiency, turbocharging etc, (and the relative costs of petrol and diesel) have brought the break-even point down over the past few years but there will always be such a point.
1. Traffic segregation: Cyclists and pedestrians don’t mix, particularly the aggressive cycling minority much seen in London. At least the new scheme means that they won’t be riding against the other traffic. They will still have no regard for pedestrians, road signs, 20mph speed limits or traffic lights. Will all cyclists confine themselves to the “superhighway” or segregated lanes? I very much doubt it. Neither will all pedestrians stay out of a cycle lane just because there is a white line. Just as well the new scheme is on top of UCH.
2. Pronunciation of Bombardier: this was covered in detail last year on another thread (sorry, I’ve forgotten which), and no conclusion was reached – there seems to be no right or wrong way. Just because a long established English word originated in another language – like bombardier, grenadier and fusilier – doesn’t mean that the usual English pronunciation “-eer” must be changed to “-eeyay”. We don’t refer to Paris as Paree, Vienna as Wien, Moscow as Muskva and so on. We pronounce Quebec as “Kwebek” not “Kebek” so why do we have to make an exception for a train and aircraft manufacturer? After all, we always said DeHavilland not “d’aviyond”. I think we can safely blame the Saxons. (TCR was built in MittelSaxe).
By the way, I haveheard Plaistow pronounced “playstoe”, “plarstoe” and most recently “plyashtoff”.
3. Small diesel – model aircraft are not powered by petrol engines with spark ignition. They use 2 stroke compression ignition – i.e. diesel – engines with a battery powered glowplug for preheating prior to starting. The battery is disconnected before take off. The smallest popular size of such engines has a cylinder capacity (swept volume) of 0.803 cubic centimetres. They are neither clean nor efficient.
@anonymous
” Will all cyclists confine themselves to the “superhighway” or segregated lanes? I very much doubt it.”
Of course not – that is the fallacy of the scheme – any more than cars confine themselves to motorways. Unless you both live and work on the superhighway, you have to get to and from it. And there is the danger too – that motorists will feel entitled to any part of the road not specifically marked out for cycling.
This is what was originally proposed for Kingston’s Portsmouth Road for the “mini-Holland funding
http://www.kingstonguardian.co.uk/resources/images/3470145.jpg?type=article-full
This is what it has been watered down to – basically repainting the existing white line and removing a fence to widen the footpath. (together with upper picture showing the present layout)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7etArVCMAIr8zU.jpg:large
Pedants’ corner: One of my favourites: I recommend adverse -> averse 🙂
[OK. Corrected. Thanks. PoP]
And then “City of Westminster which” (or “City of Westminster that”), rather than who.
[I am going to leave it as it is because I believe in the concept of corporate persona. Even if it is strictly incorrect I am contrasting this with the mayor who definitely is a “who” and don’t want the sentence to get stilted in order to be technically correct. PoP]
@Graham H – I must confess to being the culprit who added the Oxford Street misinformation on wikipedia – about the manor house being sited at “what is now the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street” … I know I had Euston Road in my mind at the time and am at a loss to explain the error. The source of the info was http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol4/pp467-480 … I’ll have a search for TCR discussions on this site, and see if I can make amends by removing from wikipedia any errors flagged. The truth is that at wikipedia, we aspire to write articles as well as those found on LondonReconnections, but often fall short.
And here’s a happily obsessive posting on the subject of the very corner of TCR we’re discussing, from a kindred spirit: http://alondoninheritance.com/london-streets/a-lost-bank-and-the-adam-and-eve-pub-on-the-corner-of-euston-road-and-hampstead-road/
@Greg @PoP
Incidentally, one-way schemes are a cyclists’ bane too – you have to round & round
In my experience of trying to explain this, it’s not the longer distance taken by individual vehicles that people have trouble grasping; it’s that this then generates more traffic.
I think the reason it requires some mental agility is that you have to separate the concept of traffic within the one way system from the concept of the number of vehicles passing through the system as a whole, and accept the idea that they can change independently. You also have to be able to reject 50 years of road planning orthodoxy.
I have thought of Tottenham Court Road as the centre of my universe for a very long time now. I used to work in Centre Point, and on Whitfield Street (back entrance onto TCR), and lived a while on Tottenham Street (a stone’s throw from TCR – our back windows looked into the offices of Channel 4) so I’ve got to know it very well. And I’m seriously worried about this whole concept. To have a contra-flow bus lane on TCR would – just about – be practical, but to move all non-bus/bicycle traffic into Gower Street *and* to create protected cycle lanes there too is just not going to work! There isn’t the road width. Gower Street will be limited to a single land in each direction (presuming a desire to retain the pavements) so instead of two-three lanes Northbound (TCR) and two lanes Southbound (GS) all of the current traffic – minus buses – will have to squeeze into one lane each way; a reduction of 50% or so. Now I understand the principle of ‘more road space leads to more cars’ but I’m really not sure the reverse will apply when traffic is already seriously pressured to not enter this area at all in the first place (congestion zone). Vehicles which don’t _have_ to be there already aren’t, so where is all this traffic to queue?
At present Northbound traffic is regularly backed up all the way to Trafalgar Square, and in rish hours Euston Road tries to feed Gower Street but regularly blocks too. Even without dedicated cycle lanes I just don’t see these proposals being able to move the traffic. Also, I agree that the image from Camden is completely unrealistic. Oxford Street is already (nominally) bus only, and Boris has also reduced the volume of services actually transiting that road, yet pedestrians still have to take great care in crossing the Street. Whilst some routes do not turn into TCR there are many coming up from Charing Cross Road or starting at St Giles Circus, so any difference in bus frequencies is minimal. TCR has lost most of its historic reasons to be a shopping ‘destination’ and though there are new developments in progress there is nothing to suggest that will recover; TCR will be increasingly about office space.
ps. “tailpipe”? I rather though British vehicles had “exhaust pipes”.
pps. re Trams: instead of complaining that Edinburgh was late note that Manchester’s latest (quite long) extension was over a year *early*.
@Timbeau – for what it’s worth, the route you described isn’t in the City!
On the issue of taxis and stopping: taxi drivers are exempt from almost all legislation regarding where they are allowed to stop to pick up or drop off passengers. This presumably dates from their role as Hackney carriages. They are even allowed to stop on double red lines (no stopping at any time) as well as double yellow lines (no waiting at any time).
A few years ago TfL created a new marking, the thick single red line, and installed it in the bus stop cages on York Way to stop taxis dropping off passengers for King’s Cross there and blocking the flow of traffic. I’m not sure what has come of that development.
@Tom 21:47
PoP – it’s a shame you have such a negative view of the “cycling lobby”
I would regard that as a completely unjustified statement without foundation. Just because I don’t agree with everything they say doesn’t mean I have a negative view of them. How can you possibly know what my view of them is? Do you know me personally? Have you had long conversations with me about cycling and the cycling lobby?
Am I expected to agree with everything the cycling lobby says? I don’t agree with all decisions of a lot of organisations. It doesn’t mean I have a negative view of them.
Re Alison W
Tailpipe now used international in emission metrology and calculation terminology. Some of the acronyms used look nicer with a(nother) T rather than an E.
“who owns the road?,” is still a vital modern day question
Nobody owns the road. The public highway is land in which there are no property rights. This principle goes back centuries. I’m sure there’s at least one reader who can quote the history as far as the first statute.
Compression ratios /Petrol /diesel
In brief as I don’t have much time a the moment:
Higher compression ratios mean altering the stoke : bore ratio i.e. block geometry this has a far bigger effect on mass than worrying about the pressure difference.
A Higher compression ratio is about improving combustion thermodynamic efficiency, one of the draw backs is then needing a far bigger cooling system and this is the biggest problem for increased block weight (i.e. traditionally petrol engines were much more likely to have Aluminum blocks instead of heavier cast iron due to the lower localised operating temperature.)
Diesel also traditionally needed fairly heavy high pressure fuel injection systems though most new petrol engines now have high pressure fuel injection too.
One big reasons for diesel preference is that (road) transport fuels are taxed on a volumetric basis in the UK so Diesel has 9%* greater energy content (advantage) per litre (35.8 vs 32.8MJ/L) if taxation were changed on energy content basis (which would better align with environmental CO2 emissions thinking) diesel would be unpopular over night.
*[85% of this difference is chemistry related, circa 15% density difference related]
Road petrol engines compression ratio go up to 13:1 (F1 18:1), Diesel up to 22:1, (this doesn’t take into account any adiabatic pressure change into account which is an additional non linear factor and why compression ratio alone isn’t the best comparison metric, Pressure Ratio is more useful) . [CR is effectively ratio of max : min “cylinder” volume.]
Higher compression (and Pressure ratios) and the resultant higher air temperatures and pressures involved result in the molecular Nitrogen (N2) and Oxygen (O2) in the air dissociating into atomic form which can then react to form NO2 or N2O (NOx)
For a quick intro to emissions issues and solution see:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanical-engineering/2-61-internal-combustion-engines-spring-2008/lecture-notes/lecture22.pdf
For comparison RR Trent Jet Engines have an equivalent compression ratio of above 45:1 with the air entering the combustion chamber at above 700C as it has effectively just gone through a 6 or 7 stage supercharger. (The NOx emissions are significantly higher because of the combustion temp being above the critical 1600C where NOx formation really takes off.)
With modern high efficiency petrol car engines it can take 5+ years to recover the higher capital cost of opting for a diesel engine if just doing mostly urban mileage (say 8-10kmiles a year). (For GH AR WW etc even longer to reach additional financing cost break even).
Adding turbo and /or supercharger to Petrol engines is effectively closing to gap on the difference in pressure ratio vs diesel engines.
Damian
Like this do you mean?
Cough (quite literally)
timbeau
We have “mini-hollands” in process in LBWF too, but it”s gone ‘orribly quiet at the moment.
@Tom
“the route you described [Blackfriars to Barts via Blackfriars Lane, Ludgate Broadway, Pageantmaster Court and the Old Bailey] isn’t in the City”
I rather think it is – after all, it goes right past City Thameslink station. And what’s this?
https://geo0.ggpht.com/cbk?cb_client=maps_sv.tactile&authuser=0&hl=en&output=thumbnail&thumb=2&panoid=JQXr8flqRpOTimHiyNjBaw&w=402&h=168&yaw=89.14559064672437&pitch=-25.236246873797597&ll=51.513905,-0.102723
(Of the other streets I mentioned, Hatton Garden is actually in the LB Camden, but the closing off of its southern end at Holborn Circus was part of a City of London project)
@Anonymous: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/revolutionary-road-new-plan-tottenham-court-road/#comment-240509
As a cycle commuter I am readily happy to admit there are quite a few cyclists that jump red lights, but 20mph speed limits? Please – have you ever seen cyclists going faster than 20mph? In any case – how are they to tell how fast they are going if they are not legally obliged to have speedometres?
Cycling on pavements – much like the success of shared space – depends on the volume of each of the types of traffic. I certainly don’t see cycling on pavements being a sensible idea in central London (and indeed aside from a few crazy BMX riders I don’t see anyone cycling on pavements there). But in places like Milton Keynes?
@PoP: I’d love to know what ‘protected’ cycle lanes mean. So far the ‘Superhighways’ have turned out to be a bit of blue paint on the roadway so I’m not getting my hopes up on this one.
@ngh,
In brief as I don’t have much time a the moment
Well if that is the brief answer I suspect we are all relieved that you are busy!
@ngh
“In brief as I don’t have much time a the moment”
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it takes time.
or – “sorry for the length of this memo: I didn’t have time to write a short one”.
@Straphan
“have you ever seen cyclists going faster than 20mph? ”
If I set the speed limiter in my car to the 20mph imposed in Richmond Park, I frequently get overtaken by cyclists, on the flat as well as downhill.
(The Google street view image linked in my previous post wasn’t supposed to be a thumbnail – but local authority’s crest can nevertheless just be made out.)
@straphan,
If you had followed the links provided you would have seen what protected cycle lane means. Armadillos.
@timbeau – Richmond Park is covered by Royal Park Regulations rather than Road Traffic Regulation Act so what is legal or illegal in one place may not be in the other. It appears that speed limits apply to bicycles in the park but not outside as the limits there only apply to motor vehicles. There are cycling websites with long discussions about the minutiae of what the legislation says but life is too short for me to worry about it and I’m not fit enough to do 20mph on the flat for anything but a short distance.
@Reynolds 953
Whether or not the Royal Parks bylaws are ultra vires may be an interesting question, but it was not the one that Straphan asked. He asked whether we had ever seen a cyclist go faster than 20mph. Answer, yes.
straphan says ” In any case – how are they [cyclists] to tell how fast they are going if they are not legally obliged to have speedometers?
Not being forced to have a particular piece of equipment is no excuse for breaking the law. If you think that you might be able to exceed 20 mph, and you do not trust your own ability to judge speed, then you should fit a speedometer. Otherwise you need not.
Re PoP / Timbeau,
Brief from memory and no calculation involved, The topic and how it is linked to reducing emissions could take up several LR articles. There are complex interlinkages that are missed and brushed over.
Emission wise 4 main categories:
CO2
CO/CH (both linked to poor combustion)
NOx
Particulate Matter (PM)
The focus has traditionally been on the first which pushed you to diesel but the 3rd and 4th rise to prominence recently pushes you back towards petrol engines as diesel hit a technology (& cost) brick wall at this moment.
The NOx emission at Heathrow have a particular being on future (public) transport policy especially schemes like WRATH, HS2 airport link, and HEx swapping to CR, Hybrids EVs etc. to miniimse surface transport emission as there isn’t too much room to manoeuvre on aviation NOx emission which are also rising…
Thank you timbeau for a plausible explanation of the diesel/petrol size breakeven issue. And thank you ngh for your “brief” exposition which makes it clear that many other factors also come into play, and that it’s all rather complicated. (Which I should have guessed). But between you, you have put my mind at rest on this matter, for which I am grateful. What a resource we have here!
@ngh
and 2-stroke, although potentially more powerful (because every downstroke is a power stroke) has problems meeting the second (because exhaust and compression are part of the same stroke, so however efficient the cylinder head design is at “scavenging”, some unburnt fuel will get into the exhaust.
@Pop maybe I read too much into these comments of yours above.
“I have to say I do think the criticisms from cyclists are a little unjustified. Quite why they think they should have a segregated through route along what is clearly intended to be a road for accessing local shops is a bit beyond me. I do not oppose segregation in principle but these does seem to be a case of cyclists thinking that their considerations should always be given top priority.”
“No doubt the cycling lobby will tell us that protected cycle lanes aren’t good enough.”
I’m not here to generate heat rather than light so I’ll leave it there.
@Timbeau, fair enough! can you can find me a permeable way to commute north/south from London or Tower Bridge. I’ve not found one in 12 years of riding it.
Re Timbeau
Exactly and as useful data point compression ratio for a decent petrol 2 stroke is just over 8:1. Some larger outboard marine engines are still 2 stroke but not in the traditional form but they have direct injection and are lubricated in a similar way to conventional 4 strokes also see diesel 2 strokes below.
2 Stroke diesel engines (the big ones where diesel started e.g. ships, most railway locomotives) got over some of those issues by using direct injection (allows more efficient port design, higher CR and lower unburnt hydrocarbons) and turbo chargers to improve the pressure ratio to compensate for lower CR inherent in 2 stroke designs.
Talking to a Japanese motor co executive a few years ago he reckoned the smallest a diesel could usefully go is 35HP output for transportation purposes. (caveats galore in this number)
Frictional losses meant you generally don’t want an engine that is less than circa 300cc / cylinder this magic number goes up as the CR increases.
@PoP: sorry, couldn’t find the exact description in any of the links. Armadillos should do the trick, although there will still be tens of taxis and white vans to peeve cyclists off…
To be honest, I wonder if the best solution would be to build an armadilloed cycle lane on the offside (centre) of the roadway in Tottenham Court Road. That would have meant cyclists going through TCR not having to mix with buses at all, except for instances where they needed to turn into a side street; whereas buses could pull in and out of bus stops as they please without having to look for cyclists.
@timbeau: Even with the proliferation of 20mph limits on very wide streets, I seriously doubt many cyclists could pull off 20mph during the peak – on most 20mph roads there just isn’t the room to do it.
@Malcolm: I don’t believe that’s how the law works – or should work in any case. If I am to be legally obliged to stick to a specific speed limit I would also need to be legally obliged to posess a device that tells me how fast I am going so that I can stop myself from committing an offence. That is why all motor vehicles are fitted with a VOSA (I think it’s VOSA…) approved device. I don’t think there is even a similar process for bicycle speedometers. Relying on ‘gut’ feeling with regard to how fast I am going is neither safe nor sensible.
@straphan
This may be only about royal parks, if what I have read about cyclists’ speed limit obligations is correct.
You may be correct that the lawmakers forgot to stipulate that cyclists must have a speedometer, and that may be a deficiency in the law. But that deficiency does not constitute any relaxation of the part of the law which exists.
If I build a fence over 2m in a place where the law says fences may not exceed 2m, that is an offence, and I cannot use the excuse that the law forgot to also stipulate that I must buy a tape measure.
@Straphan
” If I am to be legally obliged to stick to a specific speed limit I would also need to be legally obliged to possess a device that tells me how fast I am going so that I can stop myself from committing an offence. ”
Oh dear, my car isn’t fitted with a breathalyser.
@tom
“can you can find me a permeable way to commute north/south from London or Tower Bridge”
I’m not so familiar with that end of the Square Mile, and it does of course depend on where you are going to. The London Cycling Campaign used to publish good maps but I found mine just by using Google Street View. Note that none of my route is a dedicated (or even segregated) cycle path – but for motor vehicles they are culs de sac.
Of course, it’s easy to say “I wouldn’t start from there”, but none of the bridges (including Blackfriars) are a good place to start because they are themselves, by their nature, major traffic arteries (Southwark Bridge is probably the easiest of the four).
What on earth is an armadillo?
@Malcolm, timbeau: Not that I think it’s fair, but I see your point(s).
@timbeau: An ‘armadillo’ is a little bulge shaped like half an egg, made of rubber or plastic. A row of these is fixed to the roadway where a line is painted on the roadway. Suggest you google ‘armadillo roadway’. The idea is that it separates two lanes of the road from each other, but does not completely remove the possibility of crossing from one lane to another.
In practice I think what it is meant to achieve is that ‘normal’ traffic does not inadvertently stray onto the cycle lane, but those that need to (taxis, deliveries, people needing to park, etc.) can do so.
The shared space Exhibition Road looks does look very nice, but I hope they do not do something similar for TCR.
I believe that the design of shared road schemes are inherently dangerous, and only really suitable for small local roads with very light and slow traffic.
I have two young children. They are generally fairly well behaved, and they know to always stay on the pavement and not to cross the road. What are they supposed to do in Exhibition Road or other shared road schemes?
@ timbeau – armadillos are objects used to separate lanes, typically separating a cycle lane from lanes with motor traffic. See here for information from a manufacturer and some photos from a blog showing them on Royal College Street.
http://www.cyclehoop.com/product/cycle-lane-safety/armadillos/
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/update-on-royal-college-street/
However there are armadillos and there are armadillos. Ones used in some European cities are larger and made from concrete, so will do damage to a car that drives into them.
In Royal College Street, the armadillos seem to have been prone to damage after cars drive over them, so they have put in planters to protect the armadillos then the planters have been damaged after cars drive into them…
They have there advantage of being a quick and relatively cheap way of creating dedicated cycle lanes so the impact of the lane can be understood through real world experience.
@Reynolds 953: In Brussels they used them on the Louizalaan to separate the tram tracks from the car lanes. For extra emphasis, they also used used cobblestones for the space around the tracks….
Although they seemed to have been removed again according to Streetview.
@Alison W
It is not the number of lanes on a road link which define the capacity of the link but the number of lanes at the stop line of a traffic signal controlled junction. This is because the traffic lights will not be green for all the time and usually for less than half the time for any leg. This means that two lanes crossing a stop line can easily be fed by one lane on the main leg of the road. This is why bus lanes, when properly designed, do not cause any delay to ordinary traffic, but just speed up buses.
Hence, subject to good design of the junctions at Euston Road and New Oxford Street, just having one lane in each direction on Gower Street will not, in itself, cause much (if any) extra delay.
@Malcolm
Are you saying that cyclists are not subject to the 20mph limit in the City, Camden, Islington etc?
Anonymous (6 February 2015 at 14:44) – I never said life was perfect (!) but, like with the cities of Switzerland my answer would depend upon whom I was conversing with. In the case of passing through the German-French border by train I’ve noted I will arrive in Aachen but leave Aix la Chapelle. I also lived in Cardiff (Caerdydd) for a while but note that my Welsh-speaking staff would still call is Cardiff.
Quinlet: Maybe that is true for bus lanes with a reasonable separation between services, but as there are frequently multiple buses queuing in multiple lanes at the top of TCR concurrently I’m not sure how practical it will be.
The other aspect of removing all buses from Gower Street will be poorer access to the University of London buildings (Senate, ULU), Birkbeck, and UCL. This would be a clear negative for the plans to my mind.
@ Anonymous – re: speed limits and cycling, I believe the Road Traffic Act only applies speed limits to motor vehicles so technically people cycling would not be subject to speed limits on streets. As mentioned previously, the Royal Parks are covered by different legislation.
There may be other legislation that could be invoked, such as the Offences Against The Person Act “wanton and furious” charge.
@Reynolds 953
Actually speed limits apply to all ‘vehicles’ and bicycles come within the definition of ‘vehicles’ Where legislation is limited to ‘motor vehicles’ is in the enforcement side, so that FPNs can only be issued and sent by post to keepers of motor vehicles (for fairly obvious reasons)
Now I’ve seen what an armadillo looks like, I wouldn’t want to hit one of them when riding a bike. Tramlines are bad enough.
Here’s a hopeless shared use scheme – it has simply become a slalom for the drivers (with multiple blind corners caused by the sideways-on parked cars), and pedestrians (of which there used to be a lot as the street links the bus stop with the railway station, not to mention being near a primary school) now give it a wide berth
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.413696,-0.286237,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s4VTfgtgAvO3TD8wO8mMBNA!2e0
note that
– the GSV camera has a higher viewpoint than a typical car driver
– there are no kerbs: the yellow lines are not the edge of the area that can be driven on
– indeed, the bend at the far end is immediately followed by a 6′ width limit – to line up to go through it you need to go right up to the edge of someone’s front garden wall.
@Quinlet – The speed limits apply to motor vehicles only. See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/27/part/VI.
Similarly the Royal Parks limits were amended in 2010 to only apply to mechanically propelled vehicles. I.e. not bikes. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/1194/regulation/1/made
So no, bikes aren’t subject to 20mph limits, however they must still be sensible as cyclists can be prosecuted under dangerous driving legislation (as I understand it).
Personally when cycling in London, which I do a couple of times a year, I find it easier to cycle as close to the speed of the traffic as possible. One aspect that irritates me is the stop start nature and a clear run is nice. An advantage of one way streets is that theoretically you can phase traffic lights to give that clear run, I believe they do this in North America (although not necessarily for cyclist’s speeds).
I happen to personally dislike buses as they move into and out of the kerb more than others so a central cycle lane would be my preference.
Something interesting on the topic of cycling and speed limits:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2014/jul/25/can-cyclists-be-fined-for-speeding
http://www.astounding.org.uk/ian/cyclelaw/speed_limits.html
Armadillo – there you go, wasn’t that easy!
Tom
Tower / London Bridge to/from where?
R953
Someone I Know got stopped by Plod, in Dorset, for doing 42 mph on his bike in a 30 limit. Their speed-trap was, however just inside the signs, at the bottom of a long descent!
Mod note on: speed limits for bikes
We have discussed this before and nothing new is coming up. A lot of stuff is just being repeated. The original discussion starts here as far as I can tell.
I will repeat what I said there and is roughly the same as Silent Lurker’s comment above. Section 81 of the Road Vehicle Regulation Act 1984 clearly lays down the rules about speeding. It is here. Note that in every single reference it refers to a motor vehicle. A bicycle is not a motor vehicle. Yes, OK, the royal parks are different.
Unless you have something genuinely new and worthwhile (in the opinion of LBM or me) to say, further comments relating to speed limits on bikes will be deleted.
I’m still stuck on oddness of the visualization of TCR suggests it will be a “place” whereas with 90 buses an hour (as per Camden’s website), this area may be defined by “movement”. I don’t know how the relaxed pedestrians and ambling bike riders will cope with buses rumbling past at many more than 1 a minute. Is the council guilty of over-optimism?
I recently saw a model of what University College Hospital calls its Phase 4 development. The big traffic issue for UCH is the great difficulties that disabled patients have in accessing the site. Add to that the drop-off and pick-up of those too young or ill to use the Tube or buses. Anyway, we were looking at Grafton Way on the model and spotted a tree right in the middle of the road! Possibly the TCR plans by Camden are allowing that opportunity for more trees?
As a fairly frequent crosser of TCR, I find that doing so from Goodge St station is reasonably easy, without bothering with lights. Buses coming the other way and a greater density of cyclists may well make that a less relaxed experience.
Cant believe what I’m reading on here. This sounds like a really, really bad idea.
It seems that there are cyclists who got new sets of crayons for Christmas at Camden council.
If this happens it will judged to be a very bad decision by history after we’re all old or dead.
p.s Camden don’t seem very organized. They’ve turned Fitzrovia into a massive building site by granting planning permission on multiple rebuilding schemes big and small simultaneously it’s a nightmare working round there at the moment.
@Anonymous 19:39
A council does not have the power to refuse planning permission on the basis that there have been too many applications granted and that it would cause building chaos. In any case, typically, with planning permission you only have to start work within three years so there is no simple way, via the planning process, that you could achieve what you want.
As to the rest of your comment, telling us it sounds like a really bad idea is not really helpful and not the sort of comment we encourage. It you want to tell us why you think is a bad idea then that is different but your comment leaves us none the wiser about anything.
Anonymous no one at Camden Council used any crayons they may have got last Christmas on this scheme.
It has been many months in its gestation and there was a public consultation last June & July & August as well as consultations with e.g. TFL and Westminster City Council as well.
Major schemes like this don’t just happen overnight and are often years in the planning and go through several iterations.
I often see inaccurate comments on the planning process in threads on here as though it exists in some sort of vacuum. I’m betting that there were loads of posters attached to lampposts in the area over the past few months but I bet they were all ignored as were articles in the local press.
Mod note: I have deleted all references to pronounciation of place names which seemed to enanate from a comment on Bombardier which somehow slipped into the original article. Apart from the sheer number of irrelevant comments, this off-topic subject was itself verging on going off-topic into the history of engineering companies.
I have also deleted a few other comments attempting to bring up the topic of bikes in disused tube tunnels here. If I hadn’t lost heart at the mind numbing tediousness of the task, I would also have deleted the comments on speed limits for bikes given that this was practically all repetition of what has been said before.
Please remember we discuss transport issues and these are supposed to be related to the article. We are not a bulletin board let alone an all subjects one. An occasional diversion for a bit of light relief is fine but when the on topic discussion is obscured then comments have definitely wandered off too far.
@ Chris C. There are many residents in Fitzrovia not happy with all the building work who haven’t “ignored the posters on lampposts”. I only work there, so am not fully involved. See Here (local press) >>>
https://towerarchive.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/fitzrovia-news-fn135_centre-pages-lowres.pdf
To the matter itself.
I don’t see many cyclists on TCR to warrant such a drastic action. there are many side routes parallel to TCR which the cyclists take such as Rathbone Place and Charlotte Street. Indeed I cant recall from memory if there are actually any Barclays bike docking stations on TCR itself. but on the roads I’ve just mentioned there are.
So for no good reason you get the cars to move to where the cyclists currently are and the cyclists to move to where the cars currently are AND force them to mix in with Buses.
All for £41m. Is this a traffic/cycling improvement scheme or a job creation/s106 money available scheme.
@Anonymous: there are no cyclists on TCR much like there are no horse-drawn carriages on dual carriageways: it’s somewhat scary trying to cycle with 3 lanes of traffic, weaving through a barrage of buses and trying to cut across the roadway because you need to turn right.
Having a part-segregated cycle lane on Gower Street will certainly go a long way towards improving conditions for cyclists in the area.
Anonymous as PoP has already said a council planning committee cannot refuse applications just because other schemes have been approved in an area. Nor can they impose a particular time constraint (other than the statutory ones) on a scheme
If a council tried then it would get reversed at a planning appeal.
But I detect a bit of nimbysim going on as in it’s OK for me to do work on my property and cause disruption but it’s not OK for others to disrupt me at a later date.
The TCR scheme has been on the drawing board since 2007 so it’s hardly new and until the CR and TCR Tube works have been completed it wasn’t really possible to start work on it.
@Graham H I was referring to article and mention of buśes on Gower Street long before Trolleybuses were introduced , reference might have even been to horse buśes !
Trolleybuses on TCR were simply an extension of tram routes which had terminated on Hamostead Road but needed to be extended to a turning circle .
I travelled down Gower Street on Friday and it is just 3 lanes wide with a section at the top end a bus lane and a section on opposite side a bus lane at the South end for buśes turning into New Oxford Street.
Ironically thanks to Camden Council cyclists already have segregated cycle lanes in a number of side streets .
As for contra flow bus lane on TCR that was already being suggested when Ken Livingstone was Mayor .
This scheme goes way beyond a contra flow bus lane and begs the question as to what will happen to northbound general traffic on Charing Cross Road which would all have to turn into New Oxford Street which is both narrow and has a history of accidents . The latest one only a few days ago!
Perhaps it would be better to simply install contra flow bus lane and move forward in stages ?
Presumably the traffic up Charing Cross Road will go into Shaftesbury Avenue and onto Gower Street. It would be a bit pointless for heavy traffic to go round into New Oxford Street Then Gower Street. That then leaves residual local traffic on Charing Cross Road which could be sent up Denmark Street to High Holborn to distribute. This would leave the interchange at Centre Point buses only.
@Melvyn
I believe the Camden documents and video about the scheme also indicate that Shaftesbury avenue will become 2-way for the remainder of its length. I suspect that, to all intents and purposes, the North end of Charing Cross Road will be blocked as a through route for private traffic during daylight hours too, but Camden can’t make that declaration because they only manage the Eastern side of it!
@Anonymous 15:40
I think it’s incorrect to frame this scheme as a cycling scheme. Cyclists have been taken into account, but as the documents and video make very clear, the aim is principally to improve the environment for pedestrians, and in particular provide capacity for the large increase in pedestrian traffic expected when the Crossrail station opens. I also don’t think Camden is reticent about the fact that they consider TCR a major shopping street that’s constrained economically by being a relatively hostile environment for shoppers.
That means wider pavements (tick), better access to buses (tick), safer road crossings (tick), new pedestrian squares (tick) and less traffic overall (probably tick). Seems to me like they’re pretty much on target.
@Straphan
“trying to cut across the roadway because you need to turn right.”
As it’s a one way street it is legal to overtake on the left, and there is therefore no reason at all why a cyclist whose destination is on the right hand side of the road shouldn’t cycle in the right hand lane.
@AlisonW: bus routes will move further away from the University of London buildings only in one direction. Any return trip there by bus will already involve walking to Tottenham Court road on one leg of the journey anyway. Conversely, people who work on the west side of TCR (eg. at the University of Westminster building) will now have a usable bus service available closer to them. Splitting services down pairs of one-way streets doesn’t actually increase the area served by bus routes, as Jarrett Walker points out here.
@timbeau:there is therefore no reason at all why a cyclist whose destination is on the right hand side of the road shouldn’t cycle in the right hand lane.
Actually getting to the right hand lane can be easier said than done.
@PoP Have the mods considered setting up an LR forum to deal with this kind of problem? I understand wanting to keep comments on topic but it seems bad manners to unilaterally delete a bunch of comments that people will have put though, time and effort into creating.
Perhaps part of the problem is that this article itself would be considered “off topic” by many readers of this blog because it doesn’t talk about trains!
‘ian J
“Actually getting to the right hand lane can be easier said than done.”
That’s why the cycle reservoir at traffic lights is the full width of the carriageway – contrary to popular belief, it is not somewhere to put a taxi
@ timbeau – the problem with Advanced Stop Lines (ASL) is they are designed with a filter lane to enter them on the left. If this means going alongside a large vehicle, this can be extremely hazardous and is one of the major causes of cyclist fatalities in London so the best thing may be to hang back and avoid entering the ASL.
If the cyclist does enter the ASL box along the left hand filter lane and then wants to turn right, then they need to get over to the right hand lane and hope that the lights don’t turn green while they are doing so.
Of course, the cyclist could enter the ASL box along the right hand lane. Technically this is illegal but I can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone being fined for doing it.
ASLs are therefore not best practice when it comes to designing cycle facilities but of course the UK is a long way behind best practice so we see a lot of them here…
In Denmark they often use “hook turns” at junctions so if you want to go right on a bike, you stop in the left hand lane in the junction and wait until the lights on your right turn green (OK, in Denmark read left for right and right for left…) The Netherlands often has cycle specific lights so cyclists can proceed straight on or turn with motor vehicles held back.
@The Other Paul – of course, the thing missing from your tick list is good shops to attract lots of people to TCR. Camden’s strategy therefore appears to be “if we built it, they will come”.
Time will tell but I wonder if the existing building stock along TCR is that suitable for modern retail?
As I mentioned previously I don’t know where they would fit a large “anchor” store like John Lewis, Selfridges or M&S. The fashion chains like Top Shop and Zara want plenty square footage while a lot of the existing units along TCR seem quite pokey to me.
Those complaining about the number of developments in Fitzrovia should be aware that not all are in Camden. Westminster accounts for 12 of the 28 developments listed in that link. However, if the TCR cheme works and the area becomes even more attractive, then expect more building work!
@Reynolds 953
Indeed – and other cyclists often sit on the extreme left of the box, blocking the exit from the filter lane and thus leaving later arrivals stuck in the kill zone.
“If the cyclist does enter the ASL box along the left hand filter lane and then wants to turn right, then they need to get over to the right hand lane and hope that the lights don’t turn green while they are doing so.”
My regular commute involves the opposite problem – joining a main road from the and needing to go left at the next junction. Given the number of side streets which debouch onto the right hand side of TCR, cyclists are just as likely to find themselves on the right hand side of the one way street as on the left.
“hope that the lights don’t turn green while they are doing so.”
Like any right-turning traffic, you may have to wait for the lights to cycle (sorry) through a red phase before you can make the turn. But in my experience, whatever vehicle you are operating, as long as you make your intentions clear most other road users will accommodate you.
@Anonymous 07:11
@PoP Have the mods considered setting up an LR forum to deal with this kind of problem? I understand wanting to keep comments on topic but it seems bad manners to unilaterally delete a bunch of comments that people will have put though, time and effort into creating.
We have considered a forum loads of times. Every time we come to the same conclusion.
There are plenty of forums out there so why do you want to use this one to discuss off-topic issues that the people who take time to look after and update aren’t interested in. If you want to discuss pronunciation of foreign places or history of engineering companies then go and do it elsewhere. Set up your own forum if necessary.
I am convinced that one of the main reasons for our success is that we do moderate comments here for tone and relevance. You probably would not believe the number of industry professions and politicians who read this. These people, in some way the people we really want to be able to have dialogue with, or at the very least put across our views, will be put off if they have to trawl through irrelevant comments. Incidently, it is also one reason why we are extremely intolerant of people making personal attacking comments. We often want these people to be informed rather than scaring them off.
One other thing is that I don’t think people appreciate how much time moderation takes. I also think the are some other potentially excellent forums out there but fail because they are not moderated and it ends up with those that shout loudest and are rudest getting all the attention. One thing you tend not to see is the comments that don’t make it here because of various filters, or quickly get deleted for various reasons (some innocent sometimes) and the email we (especially Long Branch Mike) write to people explaining why their comment was unacceptable, trying to get them “on-side” – and it all takes time.
Finally, myself, Long Branch Mike and John Bull do have lives. Working lives at that. We certainly don’t want to add to our burden. We would love to have more people to share this area of the work. Meanwhile we can only give the site so much attention. My one regret is that, because I am trying to have a life, I was not aware of the build up of irrelevant comments or I would have stamped on this earlier to prevent yet more of them.
Now I have to mentally note to work until a bit later because of making this comment.
@The Other Paul
I think it’s incorrect to frame this scheme as a cycling scheme.
I think you have brought us back to a fundamental point which seems to be lost by many and seems to have generated much slightly unfair commenting on it as a result.
Does the technology allow you to suspend the comment function for a particular article, either when the mods think it’s run its course, or after a predetermined number of comments, or days?
@timbeau: there are plenty of reasons why cyclists continue to queue on the filter lane rather than enter the cycle ‘box’:
– they do not wish to overtake those who got there earlier
– once a bike stops on the left hand side of the box there is no space between it and the first car to squeeze past
– just after the junction cyclists are usually supposed to return to their little sliver of tarmac (or the left half of the bus lane). Why then bother turning out of the filter lane and risk having an angry motorist revving their engine behind you as you try to return to the left?
@timbeau,
Does the technology allow you to suspend the comment function for a particular article, either when the mods think it’s run its course, or after a predetermined number of comments, or days?
Basically yes we can lock a thread either manually or limit the amount of time active. On occasions we have done the former. We have thought of locking threads in the past but are reluctant to do this because sometimes people genuinely come up with a useful new comment. We also may have a subsequent similar subject that, though not quite on topic, is a suitable reason for reviving the thread.
What John Bull would like to do is set the system up so that we have some means of highlighting the more relevant pertinent comments (or an example of them) which of course would be slightly subjective. This would give more casual visitors an opportunity read a summary of the discussion and to get a feel for the tone of the comments. The trouble is that WordPress isn’t really flexible enough for this or indeed some other things we would like to do and, as always, time is our real enemy.
@Pedantic of Purley:
The Register (a popular IT industry news website) has an “upvote” / “downvote” system that could be used to provide a “popular comments” feature. I don’t think they use it for that themselves, but the active community here is more mature than on most forums — including The Register’s, sadly — and blog sites on t’Interwebs.
The number of regular, active, posters here isn’t that high: you could either assign a ‘trustworthiness’ rating to each regular (which doesn’t have to be displayed), or you could use variables like the ratio of moderated / deleted posts versus untouched posts to extrapolate a weighting factor, so the opinions of trolls and sock-puppets would be automatically ignored.
Thus the opinion of a poster like, say, Graham H, would have a much higher ‘valued-opinion’ score than, say, me. (And no, I don’t mind that at all; I’m a dilettante at best in this field, so that’s as it should be.)
The trick, I think, is to not show any numbers anywhere. Adding “Agree”/”Disagree” (or whatever) buttons next to each post might be sufficient for the UI.
And now, back to your scheduled thread…
@PoP can you give an example of a thread that has been locked? There are threads whose articles were originally posted 2010 that are still getting comments!
I really feel that a lot of the valuable discussion on this blog is being lost by its current structure. Have you considered an approach like the macrumors.com forum where the “news articles” are forum posts where that are highlighted on the front page and kept strictly on topic? Any other discussion gets moved into another forum topic, which is much better than just deleting it.
[If you could provide a valid email address when you post comments we would be happy to discuss this with you off-line. LBM for PoP]
Tottenham Court Road won’t become a major shopping street, as mentioned it has inferior sized shop units and the only anchor store is Heals. The building stock is a mix of heritage structures that are residential with small retail or office or hotel use, with a mix of ground floor commercial space. Again these are mostly left over spaces.
I suspect that the lower value furniture and electronic stores will be replaced by mid to upper market bars and restaurants that be drawn to service the large increase in Office workers that are about to occupy all these new office buildings that are expected to rise over the next 10 years.
There are several developers that have been slowly accruing blocks full of small office buildings over a period of 20 years or so, just waiting for Crossrail and lease expirations to coincide. It’s no coincidence that nearly every small building at the Eastern end of Oxford street has been flattened or soon will be and replaced by large new office buildings and big shop units.
They want to do the same in Fitzrovia, but the residents are fighting them every step of the way. One of the big land holders wants his redeveloped blocks to be filled with ground floor bijou shops and restaurants, basically dragging Charlotte street North and Tottenham court westwards creating a sort of mini Covent Garden or Soho. Great for office rents, not if you want to keep your bit of the West End quiet.
The current battle is not so much about the office square footage but about those ground floor uses, with local residents preferring office space on the ground floor.
So in 10 years time expect Tottenham court to be an extension of the quieter ends of Soho or Covent Garden, there may quite a bit of retail but nothing large, but as this is London all it takes a couple of fashionable shops to prompt a stampede of similar shops and new shopping district will be created.
@Rational Plan – didn’t the GLC intend to perform the same stardust operation in Fitzrovia as they tried (and succeeded with) in Covent Garden? Did any of this thinking survive?
@Graham H, no idea I’m afraid. Generally creating a new buzzing district is harder to do than many think and often local government plans are more a hindrance than help.
Most hip new neighbourhoods have grown organically with small business creating those bars, clubs and shops that create a unique flavour for this new district etc.
But sometimes a large corporate has done it. The problem is that most large private or state concern is looking only who not only can pay the highest rent but more importantly has a good covenant. In other words is still likely to be able to pay the lease in 15 years time. Which is why most of towns are filled with chains as they are better bets than independent owners operators.
The best recent example of transformation is Marylebone High Street. Not that long ago the street was down at heel and fusty with increasing vacancies. The key difference is that the street is under single ownership of one Londons great estates.
Unlike most UK high streets it was effectively an open air shopping mall and the owners did not realise it. A neighbourhood is often defined by the strength of its shopping street and an attractive street drives up office rents and residential values. The new management at this great estate realised and drove a new retail policy of not always going for the highest rent and reserved a certain number of units for useful local shops such as an ironmngers, bakers etc.
Plus of course it assembled enough units to attract a Waitrose and soon the streets fortunes changed as more fashionable stores were attracted and now the street is the heart of the areas which helped drive rental values in the surrounding blocks skywards. Now Marylebone was never poor but it is so much more richer now. You’ll note whenever an American actor is put up in a flat for a West End run or a film they will nearly always say they are staying in Marylebone.
As to Tottenham Court Road. If it was up to me, if you really wanted to spread the West End, the main opportunity would to build several new theatres. Crossrail has already spawned one new theatre to be built near Centre Point. 2 or three New Theatres North of the Dominion would drag serious interest in lots more restaurants, hotels etc, I know both Macintosh and Webber want new venues with air-conditioning and much bigger seats, the problem the theatres themselves are not big profit centres, otherwise they’d all have been upgraded decades ago. But some serious S106 payments from new offices could help with that.
The problem of course is the local s don’t want that and so low key fringe central london district is all they want.
@anonymous 20.07 – I couldn’t agree more. The structure of this forum is a constant frustration to me, as it makes excellent writing and informative comment very difficult to follow. On two other forums I follow I follow the ‘latest comment’ link only, and rarely miss a thing. Sadly on LR I doubt that is the case.
One issue for TCR is what will happen with Goodge Street Station ?
With a rebuilt fully accessible TCR Staion and maybe an upgrade of Warren Street / Euston Square either as part of HS2 or property development at the UCH end of the road the question as to whether Goodge Street Station which is small and only has lift access but is not fully accessible should remain open is likely to arise given it will not be able to cope with large scale development unless it includes the station.
@Anonymous 20:07
An example of a locked thread is here. Note Long Branch Mike’s comment about providing a valid email address. This could have been discussed off-line and we never use email addresses for anything other than contacting you or exceptionally when someone wants to contact someone else directly we forward (once only) an email.
Can I please get it into your and NLW’s head? WE ARE NOT A FORUM. If you start with that false presumption then you are bound to get misplaced ideas about what we are doing wrong. I would argue its the people who treat us as a forum who have got it wrong. If you want a forum go to a website that is a forum. Don’t complain that this website, which isn’t meant to be a forum, is badly structured as a forum.
@Melvyn,
Good point and one I was hoping someone would pick up on. Of course it could go the other way and if busier there would be the incentive to install escalators. I imagine that the tube planners would be pretty keen to take the pressure off the surrounding stations. Remember also that Covent Garden only has lifts and even during the lift upgrade works they are managing to keep it open most of the time for exiting the station.
Re. PoP & Melvyn’s comments concerning lifts – does anyone have reliable figures for lift capacity and thus throughput at, say, Goodge Street, Covent Garden and Elephant & Castle (Bakerloo) and E & C (Northern)?
We ‘all’ know how busy Covent Garden can get but out of those stations, the one I see and use most is E & C (Bakerloo), with three lifts. There, the upper landings seem to cope reasonably well with the steady flow of incoming passengers (unless perhaps all lifts for a short time are at the lower landing level…), whilst exiting and thus clearing terminating passengers off the Bakerloo easily. Having said that, the spiral staircase is also well used.
How does Goodge Street today compare and what figures are we thinking of should its capacity be so exceeded as to warrant escalators?
Well, TFL want to add Escalators to the Northern Line at Elephant, but there are currently thousands of new flats under construction in vast high rises being built there right now, and that’s before we add in the effect of a completely redeveloped Aylesbury estate.
Fitrovia is only facing a couple of million extra sq ft of office space in comparison. The street already two tube stations that are interchanges. I suspect most users will travel to either Warren Street or Tottenham Court Road and then walk.
With Tottenham Court Road station and street expanding their pedestrian capacity, it will no longer feel like such a crush and combined with all the new upscale development, it will attract even more development.
I suspect Goodge street will cope as it is. If on the other hand the developers manage to create this new buzzy commercial destination away from Tottenham court road, then more people will interchange so they can get to Goodge street, to shorten their walk, further West.
Melvyn / PoP
Not just Goodge St – the parallel example of Russell Square on the Piccadilly line raises concerns – it, however is very well used (lots of hotels + students ) but gets very crowded.
I don’t think either could be closed, but “something must be done” ( & preferably Russell Sq first) but what, precisely should be done – how are you going to fit escalators in?
Not an easy problem to solve.
@Greg,
For what it is worth, I agree. I think we are getting to the point where lifts only in central London has to be seen as highly undesirable though I can see the attraction of keeping them at Covent Garden as part of the heritage of the area. I suspect that in reality it is a case of do it when an development opportunity presents itself – as in Elephant & Castle and Bank (Waterloo & City).
@POP
A forum is “a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.” Like it or not, this is an website where people (some of them with a fixed username) do just that. It’s a forum. It’s just that its current structure is not fit for purpose.
Furthermore, it’s absurd to claim that the value in this blog lies in the comments that are left on the articles, and then rail against those who suggest adopting a format that makes those comments easier to read.
@Anonymous,
I use “forum” in the accepted web sense as opposed to a blog.
If you have nothing constructive to say and insist on not providing a valid email address and don’t like the way we run things then don’t visit.
Continuation to not accept the way we run things will lead to your posts being automatically filtered out. This discussion is at an end.
@Greg
The problem, as always, with converting Goodge Street and Russell Square from lifts to escalators is that lifts go vertically but escalators require the platforms and entrance to be some distance apart horizontally. In some cases (such as Holborn, Warren Street, and South Kensington) this was fixed by having two flights of escalators, with a U-turn at an intermediate landing. Rarely, it was done by moving the exit at platform level from one end to the other (Euston CX branch). More commonly (such as Chancery Lane, St Pauls, Angel), it was fixed by moving the station entrance at street level. About 100 yards seems to be the norm. It occurs to me that Goodge Street and Russell Square are about 300 yards apart. A new entrance near Senate House and the rear entrance to the British Museum could have escalators to the platforms of both.
Timbeau, At street level Goodge Street and Russell Square stations are almost half a mile apart, and as both lines run North-South I assume the tracks are too.
@david G
Yes, my mistake (they are both about 300 metres from Senate House)
However, routing Crossrail 2 that way, with connections to both existing entrances, would reduce congestion at Euston and KX and take away the “single point of weakness” that an even more comlex interchange at Euston St Cross would represent.
Even if HS2 happens, XR2 doesn’t need to call at Euston to reduce congestion there – it needs to take away the people who have no need to be there other than for interchange.
First time poster – hello there!
Under the heading “Who owns the road?” there is an interesting point about “ownership” of London’s streets being, historically, quite confused. TCR actually provides one of the best examples of this. In 1961, when the one-way system arrived, TCR was a Metropolitan Road for which the Highway Authority was the LCC. As with many other major streets in London, they were steadily pushing back the building line in order to widen the road. However, the Ministry of Transport were the Traffic Authority for all streets in central London, a product of an odd arrangement dating from the 1930s called the London Traffic Area. This meant that the LCC were responsible for maintaining the road, and any widening works, but the MOT were responsible for managing the flow of traffic on it and all neighbouring streets.
When the one-way system was introduced it was, therefore, an act of the MOT, which was not only done without reference to the plans to widen TCR, but which was actually opposed by the London County Council, who saw it as a distraction from the real task of widening the road.
The widening plans were only formally abandoned in 1982, but in reality they were dead in the water long before that, because (precisely as the LCC had feared) the one-way system was efficient enough that there was no longer a pressing case for widening TCR and it was never again a priority for funding.
@Chris156 – the question of widening roads (which, as you say, has been confused in London) is not quite the same as who owns the road (once widened). The highway is owned by the highway authority as a piece of land. Widening a highway requires the authority to extend its land holding through compulsory purchase, which is what the LCC were up to in the case here, as you say. Other people also have (limited) rights over the road – for example, where a statutory undertaker such as a tramway has acquired such rights through Act of Parliament (or TWAO). Even frontagers may have rights – for example, where cellars extend beyond the building line.
The actual Goodge Street (rather than the station) is already quite ‘buzzy’. The station could never deal with the masses that pour in and out of Warren Street in the peaks but the latter serves massive office developments on the north side of Euston Road, and there is not much similar around Goodge Street (although there are plenty of medium-rise office developments in the heart of Fitzrovia a bit to the west). If TCR became a more popular shopping street, then the passenger flows that generated around Goodge Street are likely to fill the off-peaks rather than increase the peaks.
On an aside, I have previously wandered around the location of Warren Street station trying to identify where the original lifts from the Northern Line must have discharged onto the streets – I failed!
@ Fandroid please see link to London Museum site with photo of old Warren Street Station –
http://www.ltmcollection.org/images/webmax/qe/i00004qe.jpg
Not sure if this helps ..
Here’s a picture of the pre-1934 Warren Street in 1925
http://www.ltmcollection.org/photos/photo/photo.html?_IXSR_=C3CCCH9kKNP&_IXMAXHITS_=1&IXinv=1998/55051&IXsummary=dates/decade&IXfromdate=1920&IXtodate=1929&_IXFIRST_=1225
and here in 1914 http://www.ltmcollection.org/images/webmax/qe/i00004qe.jpg
given that it appears to be flanked by other buildings, it looks as though the frontage cannot have been onto TCR as there is insufficient distance between Euston Road and Warren Street to fit all three in – I guess it faced either (or both) of the east-west streets.
@Fandroid/timbeau – From past memory, pre-Victoria Line Warren Street station entrance/exit was indeed on TCR as I hope this 1951 map will demonstrate:
http://tinyurl.com/ob9895k
It’s the bit that protrudes closest to the pavement line.
Warren Street opened as Euston Road in 1907 and became WSt in 1908. Unusually, it had Leslie Green frontages on both. The escalators reaching TCR opened in 1933 in replacement for three lifts in two shafts, a fourth lift having a short life. Access to the lifts was from the eastern openings, with exit from the western openings. The original frontages were therefore handed and the above references seem to link to both sides.
@Graham F
The escalators went in in 1934, and it was then that the original Leslie Green entrance was replaced by the typical 1930s art deco entrance that the station still has today. It is that later entrance that is shown on the 1951 map.
@taz I’m not convinced the 1914 and 1925 pictures show opposite frontages: the building on the right in one picture is one storey taller than the building on the left in the other: if they were opposite sides of the station they would of course be the same building.
Here are two more pictures, evidently taken very close together in time since the station shows the original name “Euston Road” which was changed after only a year to Warren Street.
http://www.ltmcollection.org/images/webmax/pb/i0000opb.jpg
http://www.ltmcollection.org/images/webmax/pc/i0000opc.jpg
These are evidently not of the same entrance, although curiously the circular window is between the first and second bays of the frontage (reading from the left) on both sides.
The National Library of Scotland has zoomable on-line old OS maps of various dates which can be useful in working out what-was-where-when. This link takes you to the 1914 6-inch of the area: http://maps.nls.uk/view/102345864, from which it appears that the Warren Street Station was one building west of Tottenham Court Road, with faces on both Warren street and Euston Road, which is why buildings appear at both sides of the early photos. I assume taking over the TCR-facing building gave enough room for escalators to be installed.
Thanks to the many knowledgeable posters here – I have been lurking too long but then things have changed and moved on since I retired from BRB HQ eighteen years ago!
@Edward Edragon – It’s also interesting to note the position of the two tube stations serving Euston (a bit off thread, this) – presumably one for each branch.
@Graham H
That’s correct – the Yerkes-era Leslie Green-designed CCEHR (Charing Cross) branch station is still there on the corner of Melton Street and Drummond Street, but the CSLR (City branch) station is now lost under the 1960s concourse of the main line station. Comparing the 1914 map with the present one you are probably close to it if you go to the Burger King outlet at the top of the ramp leading down to Platform 4
…….and many thanks to Edward Edragon for pointing out that resource. I’m now going to waste many hours looking at how things have changed over the last 101 years!
@timbeau “if you go to the Burger King outlet” – why would you do such a thing?
@timbeau – yes – I can see the confusion (in my mind especially) because there were indeed two, opposed station entrances for Euston Road (later Warren Street) as can be read seen here:
http://tinyurl.com/qe3qzvx
“Euston Road (now Warren Street) Underground station, Euston Road entrance, Northern line. The station, presenting two facades opening onto Warren Street and the Euston Road, was designed by architect Leslie Green. A large poster map ‘The Hampstead Tube is now open’ is on display. The station name was changed to Warren Street on 7 June 1908.”
@Graham H
“The highway is owned by the highway authority as a piece of land”
Actually it’s far more complicated than that. The highway authority only owns the land where the land was actually bought for a road. That usually means a new road. Elsewhere, even where the road has been ‘adopted’, the highway authority has only rights to the surface. The land is deemed to be owned by the frontagers up to the centre line of the road.
This may seem like an academic distinction but it has importance at various levels. Most recently there have been various attempts to provide under street parking for residents in various cities. This is popular in cities such as Paris. However it has been seen as a financial non-strater in the UK, partly because of the need to move sewers (in Paris they run under the footway at each side of the road but in the UK they tend to run under the centre of the road) and partly becasue of the need to get every frontager to agree to sell their share of the land (in France, the state owns the land). This clear leaves every scheme up to ransom from the last frontager to agree to sell.
@Quinlet – actually, it’s even more complicated than that as some highways – and I suspect that TCR may be one such – are vested in the Crown. Frontagers would not have many rights in such circumstances.
You are right that the position is not just an academic matter, as all statutory undertakers have to take great care in getting it right. LPTB, in particular, both for the purposes of laying tram track and conduit in relation to highway ownership, and in pole planting in relation to frontagers’ cellars, had to take great care. In particular, the 1870 Act’s requirements in relation to maintaining the street on either sideof the rails, was an unwelcome complication and expense. However,so far as I am aware, the LCC/LPTB never laid conduit in streets where frontagers owned the subsoil, which would have made the enabling legislation, shall we say, interesting.
@Quinlet,
Actually I think it is much more complicated than that. The complications really surface when a road is no longer needed (e.g. bypassed). I thought for roads built up until around 1961/2 (if my memory is correct) there is an obligation to return the road to the original landowner. To avoid giving it back for nothing, and sometimes also to avoid having to establish who to give it back to, can lead to lots of silly consequences. One of the most notable is needlessly large lay-bys on relatively minor country roads that have been straightened. Often the obvious thing to have done was a land swap.
More pertinent to London and more beneficial to London, the above obligation means that roads are rarely totally swept away as part of a big development. It also leads to quite a few pedestrianised narrow lanes as that is the best thing available to do with the redundant road. Of course, as always, a specific act of Parliament (and possibly at Transport & Works Act Order) or successful complex negotiations between the parties involved can override this.
Thanks to all those who have cleared up the mysteries of Warren St station. I did not realise that escalators were installed well before the Victoria Line turned up. That explains why the history of the site is not exactly obvious from its present state. For those who are interested, the name ‘Euston Road’ still appears in the tiles on the Northern Line platforms.
In my experience, statutory undertakers have rights to lay pipes etc in highways* (hence the ‘statutory’ bit), and can basically ignore the ownership of the subsoil. There have been endless Acts covering this process, but generally they only ever modified the processes which had to be followed to do this. In practical terms, huge new pipes are not laid down busy urban roads mainly because they are usually already clogged with services.
The coverage of tram routes (and conduits) in south London was fairly extensive. That would suggest that subsoil ownership was not much of a bar to tram route electrification. The main obstacles seemed to be Borough vetoes, low railway bridges, and the necessity to widen narrow roads (including property demolition). Overhead was adopted (for later extensions) for cost reasons.
*except motorways
@Fandroid -not quite so. The purpose of the legislation for statutory undertakers is to enable them to override (pun alert) anyone else’s common law rights, such rights often include ownership (eg by enabling land and rights to be purchased compulsorily). Hence the opposition to such things as tramways focusses on the legislation, as the opportunity to protect these rights. If the statutory undertakers didn’t acquire such rights by legislation, then they wouldn’t be able to install their “apparatus” by simply following “process”. Being a statutory undertaker also protects their operations against actions for nuisance,such as damage caused by noise and vibrations.
There are a couple of relevant (to this forum) footnotes to that situation.The first is that one of the key cases in establishing the protection of statutory undertakers was Selfridges v the CLR (Selfridges lost). The second is that the lawyers went through extraordinary convolutions to avoid Railtrack (so firmly in the private sector) requiring legislation to define it as a statutory undertaker. In the end,it was resolved through the planning system including a generic description of a railway infrastructure body – a category of one,in this case….
Graham H
Which raises the question …
What is Network Rail’s “statutory” position – especially now that it is a nationalised body?
[Unsubstantiated aspirsions snipped. LBM]
It will certainly be interesting to see what TCR does evolve into. The paucity of “landmark” properties for anchor tenants is an issue – but I would imagine somewhere there is a sufficiently determined developer who will produce something if the right tenant shows up.
More significant than that, though, are the possibilities for what kind of retailers and other users of the space will arise within the constraints of NOT having large units. There are a number of districts and streets where the fact that only small shops are available has been a godsend for small shops and boutique operators. Quite possibly we will see Tottenham Court Road become home to a further clutch of smaller furnishing and decor stores clustered to take advantage of Habitat and Heals customers – or closer to Oxford Street something similar in the fashion area. It won’t be a replica of Oxford Street and it won’t an open-air Westfield (thank goodness) – but if you combine the existing reputation and appeal of TCR, the vast improvements to the public realm this project implies, plus the added market access Crossrail is going to bring, I would be surprised if we didn’t see a lot more “character” on the new TCR and it ended up considerably more bustling than it is now.
As regards Goodge Street station, maybe someone with a better grasp of the figures can correct me, but the layout has always seemed very similar to stations like Covent Garden and (less so in my mind) Russell Square – but I don’t think it is nearly so heavily used.
That suggests (to me at least) that it may be less a question of the lifts being a problem as the layout and situation of the ticket hall causing congestion. I would then think that the easiest and perhaps cheapest approach would be to look at an additional entrance/exit on the north side of the station, removing the three shops and having the station open out onto Tottenham Street, either via a public space – replicating the open space on the other side of that street or, if they want to make back some money, via an expanded ticket hall with office or residential space above.
@L O Ben One consequence of the removal of ticket offices maybe the simplification of building new entrances to stations in that a much smaller entrance would be needed with new escalators and step free lifts to another part of the platform .
This would of course work best on SSL sub surface stations but the new entrances at Bank Station show how even deep tube stations could gain new entrances allied to property development . This might be a solution to some of these old small stations which still use lifts but given the fuss over a few tiles ( not even historic!) at TCR recently demolition and rebuilding of old stations as was done at Warren Street is unlikely to be done to remaining old stations like Goodge Street !
@Greg T – so far as I am aware,Network Rail’s (re)nationalisationdidn’t require any legislation -it was simply a matter of reclassifying its debt and changing its governance via the SoS’ golden share. That would mena that the legal route by which it is a designated statutory undertaker hasn’t changed.
Graham H
So, if Railtrack wasn’t a statutory undertaker, then Network Rail isn’t either?
Surely this is a vast legal anomaly … or have I missed some vital legal point there?
@Greg,
I don’t think there is any vital legal point here. As I understand it, railways traditionally weren’t statutory undertakers because the original concept was that they had the authority to dig up roads and typically were the gas, electricity, water and sewerage companies as well as the Post Office for its telephone network. These originally happened to be nationalised industries.
My best understanding is that the nature of statutory undertakers has changed and is no longer restricted just to digging up the roads. The fact that this change happened in an era when Railtrack ceased to be and Network Rail was born seems to be just a coincidence. The Statutory Undertakers article on Wikipedia illuminates but does not clarify.
Melvyn – I don’t think the removal of ticket offices will produce that much of a dividend in terms of space. Most of the “locked” area of a station will be staff facilities such as a break room and toilets, with operational requirements still being there for storage and computer systems – my (NR) ticket offices all have enormous server racks in them to run Oyster systems, ticket sales and all the other stuff that requires computing.
Meanwhile outside there will need to be more TVMs – and sufficient space for people to queue to use them – as well as circulating space for the now mobile ticket office staff to roam with their handheld computers and maps and whatnot.
I think we’re likely to see floor space being used differently, but it’s not going to have nearly so much of an impact on the total area needed for a station foyer as you might think.
@PoP – That’s right, in the sense that “statutory undertakers” have been with us since the canal and turnpike era; originally, it simpy meant someone carrying on a business enshrined in statute,and main original reason for that was to enable them to ovverride property rights through compulsory purchase. (Later, also, as per the Selfridge’s case, actions for nuisance, as well as certain sorts of planning legislation). Ownership didn’t come into it. The problem for the lawyers when RT was created was that RT didn’t have a statute setting it up, and the politicians wanted to avoid naming it in any statutory document because of the risk of inadvertantly creating something that might then have a statutory existence -this had less to do with making it a statutory undertaker (which was essential) but much more to avoid it being classified as a nationalised industry. Hence the curious creation of “railway infrastructure managers” as a category of one in the relevant planning SI.
@poP
“gas, electricity, water and sewerage companies as well as the Post Office for its telephone network. These originally happened to be nationalised industries.”
Except for the GPO, these were generally municipal undertakings until the 1940s. As the roads were also a municipal responsibility, digging them up was simply a matter between two departments of the relevant borough council.
Tramways, at least in the London area, were generally built by private companies, but the local councils could, and except in Middlesex usually did, compulsorily purchase the tramway (and the road it ran on) after 21 years.
@timbeau -“(and the road it ran on)” – please see the earlier discussion on this thread as to the complex position about highway ownership. Unless the tramways had been laid on privately-owned highways (very rarely the case), the compulsory purchase related to the reversion of the right to lay and operate a tramway. The private tramways had not themselves had to purchase the highway either, although they had an obligation under the 1870 Act to maintain the highway for a distance on either side of the track. (This obligation did not apply to anything laid under the 1896 Act,although by then most tramways were on the threshold of municipal ownership).
@timbeau. I fear that as far as London is concerned you are wide of the mark about municipal statutory undertakers.
Water was supplied by several private water companies in London until 1904 when the Metropolitan Water Board came into being. And, although that had many local councillors on the board, it was always a separate entity from the various highway authorities in London. The private companies would have been established by Acts of Parliament and presumably those gave them the necessary powers to lay mains in streets. Croydon kept a separate (municipal) undertaking until 1974, but even that may have had an earlier history in private hands.
For gas you are even further off the mark. The Gas Light and Coke Company supplied gas in London until nationalisation in 1949, having absorbed many smaller local companies. You are partly right about electricity, but there were still quite a lot of electricity companies operating in London alongside municipal undertakings.
You may be more correct concerning smaller local authorities outside London, but, as usual, the Great Wen got in early with its own special way of doing things!
On a general note, I went to Tottenham Court Road a couple of weeks’ ago and was shocked by the change. Gone are the hi-fi shops that I used to frequent to be replaced by souless, shiny frontages for who knows what. Back in the mists of time, my first real job was at the Warren Street end of the street.
L O Ben Think outside the box or more accurately Current Station …
Look at Bank Station where a new entrance to the Waterloo and City line is being built as part of an office development and another new entrance to the Northern Line is planned in the Bank Station upgrade .
Both of which will not have conventional booking offices .
While at Euston Square a new entrance was built as part of an over station development which includes lifts to westbound platform for disabled access but oddly a failure to provide step free access to booking hall !
Or look at Canary Wharf Station which has many access points from different parts of the surrounding buildings and it’s possible to do this at other stations if stations are combined with buildings above as was done with Swan and Edger at Piccadilly Circus . In fact overcrowding at Oxford Circus entrances might be reduced if it was linked to surrounding shops in same way .
@Melvyn. You are right about the trend towards integrating stations with surrounding buildings. That seems to be happening quite a bit, as you have noticed, and is also doubtless a possibility in various places beyond those already existing.
But I don’t think that actually contradicts L O Ben’s points about the space needed. What I understood him to be saying was that the abolition of ticket windows would not, of itself, release much if any space for other uses. I think I agree with him there, in spite of the Johnsonite puffery about places to pick up your Amazon order or whatever.
@Malcolm,
Not mere puffery. I agree that some “back office” space will be required and sometimes in an already constrained station any space released will be needed as to increase the circulating area. However, there is usually a lot of flexibility in deciding where to locate cabinets containing electronic wizardry.
Go to Cannon Street tube station and see the Argos click and collect point. Although not that busy, the staff are not exactly twidding their thumbs waiting for potential customers to appear. Given that shelves the appear to be full of items waiting for collection I suspect it is quite well used.
The point that Peter Hendy would probably emphasise, taking advantage of a bit of serendipity, is that these click and collect points may well be removing Argos lorries from our streets as they may well have previously have done multiple drops to deliver the same items to peoples homes. So, I am sure he and others would argue, this is not a pipe dream and merely selling out to commerce but a way of improving London’s traffic situation whilst at the same time generating revenue to improve public transport.
@PoP
Oh. I am corrected. Once again you demonstrate the superiority of actually observing a place (or in this case a phenomenon) rather than sitting at a computer making things up. I must get out more!
@Malcolm,
At the same time, as always, I would caution attaching too much significance to one observation. I can’t make my mind up whether this is the next big thing or it will fizzle out. I suspect it is here for good (or bad) – just to what extent is unknown.
I know people in TfL are excited about it because stations today are about “the total customer experience” rather than just selling tickets and catching trains. It is not just TfL. Network Rail is keen to keep up with the action as reported here recently.
In north London at various tube stations they also do early evening supermarket deliveries in the car park. Basically instead of delivered to your door it is delivered to your tube station. I haven’t seen this myself.
TfL is seriously getting interested in this area and not just because of direct income. On the freight delivery side there seems to very much be an attitude of how can we all work together to work smarter not work harder and reduce the number of small deliveries. As some in TfL are keen to remind people when talking about traffic in central London – it is not the private car that is the primary problem.
This I find interesting but is getting seriously off-topic.
@ Malcolm my point was more about creating new entrances to stations like for example a development on Marylebone Road just west of Circle Line platforms allowing a new entrance and maybe even platform extension to fit new S7 trains.
As for shops in stations Canary Wharf has just been altered on one side with shops added to space that included gents toilet which has been relocated to other side of Staion and is now used for a Card shop, coffee shop and has one to let. The ticket office is still operational but no doubt at least front part could become another shop if ticket office closes.
While the development of Oyster Ticket Shops raises the question as to why these can’t simply be located in stations in place of booking offices ?
PoP
On the freight delivery side there seems to very much be an attitude of how can we all work together to work smarter not work harder and reduce the number of small deliveries.
Otherwise knowm as … errr … parcels in the Guard’s Van.
Oops.
Red Star anyone?
@Greg T An experiment was carried out recently at Euston Station where a train full of pallets arrived overnight at Euston and using its old Post Office area were unloaded and distriibuted by electric vans in London.
Of course rebuild of Euston for HS2 may mean these facilities are lost !
A comment about cycling provision, which I think it may have been overlooked in the discussion above (and is hopefully constructive, not confrontational) –
There are two ways of measuring whether a scheme is good for cycling. Whether it makes things better for existing cyclists (as this probably will), and whether it makes it good enough for previous non-cyclists to venture out (as this… might or might not).
Some parts of the cycling lobby are not lobbying for `cyclists’, but for people who currently wouldn’t cycle in London if you paid them: inexperienced people, people with kids, people with an `irrational’ fear of 10 ton motor vehicles looming impatiently behind them.
Would you take a friends’ children out for the day, and cycle with them down those roads? Perhaps to visit the University, or the cinema on TCR? If yes, great. If not, then it’s `not good enough’; they can go on the tube, the bus, or the pavement!
Is it important that people can use bikes if they want? Well, TFL’s consultation on the Superhighways hints that every person on a bike is a person not on the overcrowded tube. Prioritising cycling often means de-prioritising a different mode of transport. But that shouldn’t mean it’s prioritising `cyclists’ over everyone else – at least if you do it right. It should just mean your transport network got a little more efficient!
Ollyver says “It should just mean your transport network got a little more efficient!”
Ideally yes. Or should it? If you are just trying to get the maximum number of people through a particular bottleneck, buses will probably achieve this more efficiently (70 people on a bus take up less road space, by any measure, than 70 cycles). But we should of course be prepared to look beyond “efficiency”, to have a healthier happier population not just getting from A to B, and in that wider quest, good provision for cyclists is essential.
I like the “friend’s children” test, and I am not aware of anywhere in London which passes that test yet – at least if the children are under 12.
@Malcolm
“I am not aware of anywhere in London which passes [the friends children] test yet ”
There are a few routes where cycling is allowed and motor vehicles are not – parks for example, and towpaths, but they hardly make for a coherent joined-up network.
@Malcolm
see Diamond Geezer today, whose piece is on Model Traffic Area in the Lordship Recreation Ground in Tottenham, the largest park in N17. [Further detail added. LBM]
http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/
When it comes to cyclists especially those who are students this plan might make TCR safer but Gower Street where the university is located might become more dangerous ..!
@Malcolm “when cycling I have absolutely no concerns about being taken slightly out of my way by one-way systems” …
By way of contrast, I have a huge problem with it. A bicycle does not have an engine; every bit of energy needed to propel it comes from my own body. Therefore the overwhelming concern is for the route to be as direct as possible. Any deviation from a straight line is an additional drain on my precious energy. Such deviations are bad enough when they arise from the natural layout of the streets; when they are imposed artificially by some bunch of planners trying to be “helpful” they are infuriating.
It is for this reason that I find the vaunted cycle path network in Milton Keynes pretty much useless – it is full of curves and meandering indirect routes which make it very much a “long way round” compared to the roads (and also has severe gradients around every road junction while the road itself remains flat).
It is the same on foot: when there are fences down the edges/centre of a road to try and force people to cross only at specific points, I object violently to going out of my way to such a crossing point, and instead climb over the fence to cross at the most convenient point and minimise the amount of walking I have to do, while swearing blue at the planners responsible.
In fact, the most convenient urban layouts for getting around, either by bike or on foot, are those which have remained essentially unchanged from the days of the horse and cart – because they offer the most direct routes. (The congestion they cause to motor traffic is a bonus, since when the traffic is mostly stationary it is much easier to weave through it.)
I walked down the lower part of TCR this afternoon heading for the tube (very impressed with the new entrance). The whole street scape was awful – pavement cracked and uneven and too much ‘street furniture’ getting in the way.
The road could do with a resurfacing as well!
Pigeon
Yes, the worst possible deviation for a cyclist is one that involves a steep hill, & many so-called “planners” don’t seem to have grasped this basic fact.
@Pigeon
“A bicycle does not have an engine; every bit of energy needed to propel it comes from my own body. Therefore the overwhelming concern is for the route to be as direct as possible”
…..as direct AND UNITERRUPTED as possible. Far too many cycle paths have “give way” lines at every side street, badly-phased traffic light sequences, etc. – it can be very frustrating to have built up momentum ready for a hill ahead only to have to burn it all off with the brakes – although of course you should always be prepared to do so: “your permission to speed is your ability to stop” – why modern trains go up Shap faster than they go down.
@timbeau – “…..as direct AND UNITERRUPTED as possible. Far too many cycle paths have “give way” lines at every side street,” While we all understand the dynamics of cycling, the quote neatly illustrates why cyclists and pedestrians don’t mix. If cyclists are determined to have a “motorway” where they don’t need to stop, then it becomes a permanent barrier to pedestrians.
@ Pidgeon I agree with you on barriers like near Blackfriars Station where pedestrians are expected to use a subway to cross the road used by cars to access the underpass. A barrier that means making Blackfriars Station fully accessible is no use to a wheelchair user who works along Queen Victoria Street on same side as station !
I wonder how those who live along the North Circulat manage to use buśes given a road barrier makes it like living along Berlin Wall !
As for cyclists wanting direct and shortest routes the main problem is when they ignore banned left turns and cross through pedestrian phase of traffic lights at places like Angel, Islington from Pontonville Road to Islington High Street – watch out for a blond male cyclist in this area !
Throughout this whole thread there appears a low level hatred for the licensed London Taxi Driver, adding ‘contribute to the problem’….. ‘polluting’……’surely they have the knowledge to navigate around it’…….what’s the difference between them and a normal car that needs to drop off/pick up?
Firstly, dropping off and picking up members of the public -not your mate- is a fundamental aspect of, wait for it, making a living. Are you proposing that the taxi driver be denied a prerequisite in his job description to earn an income for his family?
Secondly, by 2020, all Taxis are to meet zero emission deadlines. In fact, taxis already conform to the Euro 5 emissions strategy. It is illegal for them not to do so. TFL restrict taxi drivers to currently two vehicles, the drivers themselves are not given any other option and there is no model available on the market cleaner than Euro 5. It must be noted too, that whist the onus to meet the zero emissions policy will laid at the feet of the driver at enormous expense, the new Route Master will remain exempt from such policy. So who are/ will be the ones polluting the utopian looking TCR. The ever expanding intransigence of central London discriminates against the infirm, those with heavy shopping, the disabled, people running late, and those who genuinely do not know where they are. It seems the people who were once a priority, are now secondary to the decision making by Camden Coucil/TFL.
Thirdly, taxi drivers would love nothing more that to optimise their navigational wizardry to wind through the short cuts, easing weight off the main arteries and getting their passengers to their destination as quick as possible. The problem is, there is no such thing as a ‘short cut’ any more. In fact, if there are any, they are referred to as ‘rat runs’. Rat runs only differ from short cuts in name, but the detrimental impact the name change has on the psyche of local residents is catastrophic. At the very least, it is imperative that the local boroughs implement changes to road directions, so those short cuts…erm….rat runs previously used as ‘through routes’, are now ineffective. So, with only 1 taxi rank space per 250 taxi cabs, the drivers are forced to chug along streets with all the other trade vehicles that have no choice to to be on the road (through no fault of their own either). Enclosing, as far as a private car goes, doing the same job as a taxi, why not register with UBER? As it stands, you will not have to comply with the regulations arbitrated and enforced by TFL on other minicab operators, you can use your own vehicle, you don’t have to provide disabled access, you don’t have to be EURO compliant, you don’t have to be pre booked, you can surcharge at busy times and you can add yourself to the other 20,000 private hire licenses TfL have willfully handed out in 2’years. Oh, that also exempts you and 70,000 other registered minicab drivers from the congestion charge- whether you are working as a private hire driver or just picking up your mate.
One thing that can be said, London Taxis are an integrated part of London’s transport infrastructure, it’s not perfect, but it’s self sufficient (unlike buses that are subsidised by £600 million a year), factually, the safest transport choice available to the public, and in a flawed metropolis like London, they are as good as you will ever get. Use other cities as an example. As far a danger to cyclist goes, data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, records no major accidents involving taxi cabs and cyclists in the last 10 years.
[Numerous potentially inflammatory words have been snipped. LBM]
Sean,
I don’t think there is a general anti-taxi sentiment. Many readers of this thread actually use taxis sometimes as part of the overall palette of transport means to get around London. Some more than others. I myself took my mother out to an event a week ago which would have been very difficult without using a taxi for a small but critical part of the journey.
What I, and I hope other people, find concerning is the way that Steve McNamara totally misrepresented the situation. Taxis will still be welcome in Tottenham Court Road to pick up or drop off passengers. What came across was an arrogance that suggested that because Tottenham Court Road was currently used as a through route by taxi drivers then this should remain the case even though the alternative of Gower Street was available. Incidently, this viewpoint that seems to be made by some cyclists too with regard to cycling and they think that Tottenham Court Road should include a segrated cycle route.
None of this has helped by a clear loathing of cyclists and all that they stand for made by people representing the view of taxi drivers. As pointed out on another thread, we will not get a sensible allocation of the best use of road space by having self-interest groups considering only their own position and expecting everyone else to give way to them. There are too many different users chasing too little road space.
@Sean
“Firstly, dropping off and picking up members of the public- not your mate- is a fundamental aspect of, wait for it, making a living. ”
I’m not sure I understand your point – is the purpose of licencing taxis primarily to make money for the cabbies, or to provide a service to the public? (Extending the point, is the rail franchising system intended primarily to extract money from the public for the benefit of Stagecoach, Deutsche Bahn and the rest?)
Dropping off and picking up my elderly disabled relatives is a fundamental part of the purpose of many of my car journeys. Yet taxis can do so where I cannot.
When will we see a level playing field – which means the police ceasing to turn a blind eye to infringements of the Road Traffic Acts such as passing this sign
https://goo.gl/maps/g32P3
or doing this?
https://goo.gl/maps/914fq
https://goo.gl/maps/aX1jx
https://goo.gl/maps/8TeYj
Yes, it is good that all taxis are Euro5 compliant, but with the political will, all taxis less than fifteen years old could have been hybrids by now (hybrids are far better-suited than diesels to the stop-start traffic that is a taxi’s role in life)
“One thing that can be said, London Taxis are an integrated part of London’s transport infrastructure”
Why can’t I pay for them with my Oyster card then?
@ Sean – if you’re going to complain about the level of bus subsidy then please use the right figure. The official figure for 2013/14 was £368m and the budget figure for 2014/15 is £382m. These are obviously big numbers but then we have a very busy, well used comprehensive bus network that is fully accessible. I am delighted to see that TfL have decided to increase the subsidy and expand the bus network to cope with ever growing demand.
I am afraid I am not a fan of taxis and don’t really see them as part of London’s public transport system. I’ve used a black cab twice in 32 years and only once was I paying and even then it was a fight to get a cab to take me to my destination in outer London. I wasn’t impressed. I know I hold very much a minority view but I’m used to that. Taxis are unaffordable for me and don’t offer me anything that I can’t manage by bus or rail or walking. I know there are many people who benefit from using taxis but I do not understand why those representing the taxi trade take such a “protective” stance towards the trade. Taxis have no right to exclusive or protected access to London’s roads but you’d think they’d been granted in perpetuity monopoly on the roads, ranks and use of technology to the exclusion of everything else. That doesn’t feel tenable to me and organisations that don’t adapt end up failing.
I see that taxi drivers decided to watch “en masse” when the Assembly Transport Committee tackled the Commissioner about TfL’s management of the taxi trade. Some of the comments via Twitter are not repeatable here but they didn’t leave me with a positive view of the taxi trade. At some point I’ll force myself to read the Committee’s report on the taxi and private hire trade in London to try to understand what all the fuss is about.
I see that the Licensed Taxi Driver Association application for a Judicial Review of the Tottenham Court Road scheme has been rejected.
@Sean – the issue is not whether taxis are liked or disliked (I’m a fairly frequent user of them myself) but whether the taxi trade is a distinct market segment (or merely an artificial one) and whether it is sustainable in its present form long term. So far no one, abuse apart, has managed to define what a taxi is/is not – but may be we have all missed something?
BBC confirmation of rejection of application of Judicial Review here.
Note that this was just an application to have a Judicial Review – not the review itself. So it would appear that, unless rejected on a technicality, this was completely without merit. As stated in the article, it would have been very hard to present a case that even had some an arguable point on which to challenge it. “We really don’t like it” doesn’t count.
A small but useful change has been introduced this weekend whereby passengers on route 14 can now continue to a stop directly outside UCH Hospital on Euston Road instead of having to leave bus near Warren Street Street Station then cross the road to the hospital. This change will also benefit passengers transferring from route 14 to westbound 18,30 and 205 buses which now stop outside UCH .
Sometimes useful changes need cost very little and perhaps similar arrangement on routes 45 and 63 allowing passengers to reach the new Battle bridge development where these routes terminate may one day happen …?
Just off TCR, the Building Centre are hosting a TfL exhibition on the Future of London’s Roads
http://www.buildingcentre.co.uk/exhibitions/streets-ahead-the-future-of-london-s-roads
I’m not 100% sure this is the best thread to post this, but a number of media outlets are reporting that the Mayor has said both sections of Oxford St will be pedestrianised by 2020 (Eastern section first).
It’s the introduction of the one hour hoppa fare that will enable the number of buses on Oxford Street to be reduced and thus allow for pedestrianisation.
quinlet,
Very simplistic. You still have masses of taxis to divert that will clog up the local roads.
I would argue it is because we have a Mayor that is basically saying “we will do this. Now what do we have to do to make it possible?”
The ramifications are enormous, hopper ticket or no hopper ticket – and a hopper ticket doesn’t help if there are no buses!
TfL will do what it takes to make this possible knowing they have the support of the new Mayor. It is a really big task with big consequences and this should not be underestimated.
@ Quinlet – I’ve sat and listened to several Assembly webcasts this week including one partly covering Oxford St pedestrianisation. It’s pretty clear that the issues are enormous and the Hopper ticket is a tiny element in any solution. From what Val Shawcross has said the Central London bus network is going to be radically redesigned throwing away the practices and design of many decades. Resources are going to be rationalised and moved out to the suburbs to deal with demand issues there. There is also a much wider “bus review” planned for the Autumn *and* a change being pushed through as to how TfL renews the bus fleet to support the wider ULEZ / air quality strategy.
I’ve no inside track but based on what has been said, even in outline, we have an enormous set of changes coming our way. There is also a massive number of issues requiring resolution (as PoP says) and we must remember that Westminster City Council control Oxford St and surrounding roads so the Mayor can’t do much without their consent / agreement. He could remove all the buses without pedestrianisation but I fear that might cause just a few problems. 😉
My point is that one of the biggest sticking points on Oxford Street pedestrianisation has always been the number of buses going down Oxford Street. Taxis are much easier to manage because they don’t run on fixed routes and can get access via the cross streets.
Key to opposition to reducing bus numbers has been that having to change at Marble Arch/Oxford Circus/Tottenham Court Road incurs an extra fare to all except travel card users. This has made it politically difficult to cut the number of bus routes going down Oxford Street. Hoppa tickets cut this gordian knot. Hence fewer bus routes and lower bus numbers on this axis make it easier to divert what remains and this makes it sellable to Westminster City Council.
I don’t deny that there are other issues and there will need to be a lot of hard work to make it work, but at least there can be a significant reduction in the political problems.
WW
Resources are going to be rationalised and moved out to the suburbs to deal with demand issues there.
Fat load of use, if said suburb’s roads are already utterly clogged, so that traffic is moving ever-more-slowly, with the redistributed buses still stuck in the same jams.
Ditto for: the wider ULEZ / air quality strategy.
You mean, there IS a strategy?
“Oxford Street”
The answer is, of course, trams, but that, as we know, immediately runs into other problems, such as where do they go to the E & W of Oxford St, & where do you put the depot(s) ???
[Various bitter and cynical comments snipped. LBM]
@ Quinlet – sorry but I’m still going to quibble. VS did not place huge emphasis on the Hopper ticket. She acknowledged it would help but her emphasis was on a complete replanning of the bus network and having far fewer buses running. She said TfL had had to be “shaken out of a rut they had got stuck in over planning the bus network”. She also said that she expected side streets to be pedestrianised too so I don’t see taxis being able to sneak across a pedestrianised Oxford St. This is a very large scale change. Coming back to the theme of this article it seems to me that the pedestrianisation of Oxford St causes some issues about the design of the TCR scheme and also the proposals to re-jig the Baker Street gyratory system at the other end of Oxford St. Why put in designs assuming access to or across Oxford St if it’s going to be removed. I wonder if Camden and Westminster councils are having to go back and revisit their assumptions and traffic modelling?
LBM
It should be pointed out that various Local Authorities ( i.e. the London Boroughs) & not just the one in which both WW & I live, are joint-perpetrators of increased traffic-congestion, in which the aforementioned buses will remain stuck.
What is to be done about that problem, or rather set of sub-problems, is most likely a suitable subject for a separate article, though!
As for the proposed enlarged ULEZ, it seems very difficult to get a consistent story from any of the normal (i.e. journalistic) sources as to what actually is on the table for consideration. Most importantly, to London residents inside the A406/206 “loop” is whether new restrictions will actually apply to them, as opposed to commercial vehicles, & if so, in what degree.
I’ve seen several conflicting reports, some of which worry me, personally, but it would help if we knew what the actual, as opposed to “kite-flying” proposals might be.
WW
but her emphasis was on a complete replanning of the bus network and having far fewer buses running
Now does this mean “just” in the Oxford St area?
I assume that’s the case, with the remaining buses dispersed to various traffic-jams in the suburbs, instead …..
I’m conflicted on the whole ‘pedestrianise the lot’ front as whilst it may (indeed will) improve air quality *on the road itself* it will only move those fumes onto the not-very-parallel roads used in replacement. Plus (as I have tweeted to the Mayor) it will directly affect disabled people who will have great difficulty in getting from whatever location the new bus stops are to the shops themselves. Crossrail may be fully-accessible, but the Central line very definitely is not (plus CR stations aren’t actually below Oxford Street anyway, requiring long transits from platforms.)
The idea of completely revisiting the London bus routes from scratch very much appeals; there have been massive changes in where people live, work, and play yet many routes still follow the old tram and trolley lines. A network for the _current_ century is very much to be welcomed, I’d suggest.
It might interest folks to know that there is still considerable anxiety among patient representatives at University College Hospital about the effect of the TCR changes on access to the hospital. Although it is fully recognised that UCH patients generally have to get there by ambulance or public transport, it is a fact that there is an increasing number not eligible for an ambulance for whom public transport is very problematic. Outpatient numbers and daycase numbers are ever increasing. That means that there has to be a way for a small but significant number to be dropped off and picked up. Not easy now. Even trickier in the future.
The Oxford Street changes may effect the buses, but it’s doubtful whether the Euston Road end proposals will change.
@ Greg – you will need to be patient on ULEZ. There’s a 3 stage consultation process and the current 1st phase is really just a “sounding out” stage. The next phase will have more detail where I am sure you will vent your righteous anger in the required direction.
On the buses there are several strands of activity which will inter-relate.
1. There is an overarching review of the network to cover a range of issues like a greener bus fleet being deployed in the most polluted areas, ensuring access to public services and health facilities, catering for increased demand, giving access to development areas before they are fully developed.
2. A review of the bus fleet itself to quickly improve its environmental performance prior to ULEZ expansion. For buses the area is all of Greater London not just the North & South Circs.
3. Catering for Crossrail’s introduction – this affects multiple areas of London.
4. Coping with Oxford St pedestrianisation – this will have large scale impacts on many of the busiest routes in London.
5. Getting the last 195 NB4Ls into service and managing the resultant cascade of vehicles away from converted routes.
6. Managing the impacts of the Hopper ticket’s introduction and how demand changes as travel patterns and interchange points shift.
Sitting behind all of the above is the usual retendering of route contracts and the usual review process TfL operate. TfL have a huge job on their hands to pull all this together. Clearly part of the aim, based on VS’s words, is to not shrink the bus budget but to increase its effectiveness and to redeploy resources to where they are needed and to presumably add new links and services too.
@ Alison – while I understand your remarks about wanting to see a bus network review we do need to avoid “throwing the baby out with the bath water”. Yes some travel patterns have changed but not all of them. Routes have lasted 100 years because they meet a proven need. If TfL go “bonkers” and enact huge changes to routes, numbers, stop locations etc they run the risk of repeating the worst fall out of deregulation back in 1986. Lots of “clever” bus companies redesigned their networks, changed numbers / timetables etc and people walked away from the buses and never came back. Fear of a repeat of the resultant chaos was partly what stopped deregulation in London. It would be foolhardy in the extreme for City Hall and TfL to inflict large scale chaos on London’s bus passengers. Therein lies the challenge.
There is another issue for TfL too. If it throws too much of the network into “change mode” then TfL may lose control of part of its business. It won’t know how much fare revenue is due, where the patronage is and whether things are working. Data processes are faster these days but you need to be careful not to keep making snap judgements and corrections. The recent railway equivalent could be said to be C2C’s problems and C2C can at least get on train loading data. TfL can’t in the same way. TfL has typically been fairly cautious in how extensive change is because of the impact on patronage from such change. The only counterpoint is that Central area services have seen massive reductions anyway so the issue now is to address the over provision of services. There’s no great evidence yet that bus patronage is recovering – I check the periodic numbers loaded to the London Datastore.
WW
Are there useful channels for input, even at the “phase 1” stage, so that warning signals can be sent to TfL, before ideology royally screws-over possibly-useful “odd” exceptions/vehicles/transport links & other “varitions” that many people never think of, until it is nearly or actually too late?
[ I have been here before, in similar circumstances, when “officialdom” didn’t think it right through, for every available case… ]
E.G. In the Netherlands (I think) a town/city decided to “Ban all 4×4 vehicles” for “environmental” reasons … until they realised AFTER they had passed the regulation, that their Fire/Ambulance vehicles were … 4×4’s, oops.
Very red faces, all round, IIRC.
@ Greg – a little bit of Google effort with obvious words will throw up the requisite info. I’m sorry but I’m not here to dig out urls for people.
WW
… seriously, the “usual channels” either produce bland answers to questions you haven’t asked, or merely regurgitate the official boilerplate.
Actually being able to input, not objections as such, but serious questions seems to be very difficult.
As we know, locally, of course …..