As part of our ongoing campaigning work on London’s most #DangerousJunctions, LCC convened a summit of experts on designing and delivering junctions in London in early March. The Summit brought together experts across different disciplines and from different companies and areas, all with considerable experience of fixing dangerous junctions with a view to beginning to work out why it seems so difficult to get rapid progress on junctions and what London can collectively do to roll out better and more safety schemes faster.
The summit was the first part of a broader, deeper part of work also taking in Friday’s #DangerousJunctions webinar (now on our webinar page). Later this summer, we’ll be producing a bigger report on junctions – aiming to begin to give politicians and London ways forward to increase the pace and quality of progress on junctions, save lives and enable many more people to walk, cycle and wheel through these hostile locations.
The initial findings of the summit are downloadable on our junctions page and here. The summit heard from a range of experts that two issues dominated junction delivery: too much (unnecessary) private motor traffic, and lack of political will and clarity on the issue. In other words, all too often designers are told to not just make junctions safe, but to do so without impacting buses, without impacting private motor traffic, to a tight budget etc. etc. – and when they then try and make any changes, congestion is such that in most of London, any extra time for cars waiting at the lights is an impossibility (politically).
There are already a slew of recommendations from just the initial summit, but key ones were: using junction designs already popping up and working all over UK; embracing temporary materials and trialing schemes; a rapid roll-out of fair and smart road-user pricing and/or other measures to reduce demand for driving; a national review body for junctions; far more bus lanes to the junction and ‘bus gates’ that stop private motor traffic from crossing junctions, as seen at Bank and Bishopsgate in the City, and Stoke Newington Church Street in Hackney, among other places. Read more recommendations here.
LCC followed the summit and initial findings report with a webinar featuring our Campaigns Manager, Simon Munk; Victoria Lebrec, Action Vision Zero; Phil Jones, Phil Jones Associates; and Lucy Marstrand-Taussig, Marstrand-Taussig to bring some of the issues around junctions to a wider audience.
Simon covered the initial findings from the report, Victoria spoke movingly about the collision that saw her leg crushed at an infamously dangerous junction on Old Street, Phil covered some of the ways the government guidance is and changes to road rules could improve junction delivery, and Lucy covered the impact junctions have on mobility and access for everyone.
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