Chiswick Roundabout Area To Get Cycle Upgrade

One of thirty-three dangerous junctions 'relics of the sixties'

The area from Chiswick roundabout to Kew Bridge is to get a Transport for London (TfL) upgrade to make it safer for cyclists as part of the Mayor's and Transport for London's 'Better Junctions' programme. The Hammersmith Broadway gyratory will also be included in the scheme.

Thirty-three of London’s biggest and nastiest road junctions will be transformed in the £300 million programme to make them safer and less threatening for cyclists and pedestrians, the Mayor and TfL announced today (February 26).

Image- www.cyclestreets.net/photos

Details will be given next month and work is expected to be carried out in the second half of the year.

The Elephant & Castle roundabout, London’s highest cycle casualty location, will be removed. At other intimidating gyratories, such as Hammersmith and Vauxhall, safe and direct segregated cycle tracks will be installed, pending more radical transformations of these areas in the medium term

The Mayor, Boris Johnson, said: “These road junctions are relics of the Sixties which blight and menace whole neighbourhoods. Like so much from that era, they’re also atrociously-designed and wasteful of space. Because of that, we can turn these junctions into more civilised places for cyclists and pedestrians, while at the same time maintaining their traffic function.”

The pre-Cycling Vision programme would have divided £19 million between 100 junctions, an average of £190,000 per junction. The new programme commits in the region of £300 million to just 33 major junctions, an average of £9 million per junction.

The money will come from the £100 million Better Junctions budget announced in the Cycling Vision, from the Vision’s Cycle Superhighways budget for those on superhighways, from the general TfL Major Schemes programme budget and from confirmed third-party and developer contributions in the order of £50 million. Most junctions will use a mixture of some or all of these funding streams.

Most serious bike and pedestrian injuries and fatalities occur at junctions. In the last three years, more than 150 cyclists and pedestrians have been killed or seriously injured at these 33 locations. Yet many are unavoidable, without side-street alternatives.

Leon Daniels, Managing Director of Surface Transport at TfL, said:“For over a year our designers and engineers have been working flat out to develop new junction designs for these 33 locations to completely change how they operate, transforming their areas for cyclists, pedestrians and the wider local community. They are some of the busiest traffic intersections in Europe, so this work has been complicated. But we are now fully committed to delivering these junction improvements as quickly as possible, making London safer and more inviting for all.”

February 26, 2014