Lambeth is asking people to fill out
this e-postcard to help them spend substantial amounts of money by next Spring to improve our streets. It's very quick and easy to do.
My suggestions on things to check for on your street, and suggestions you can make, are:
Rat-running traffic
Suggest filtered road closure so that residential traffic and visitors can access their homes/businesses but other drivers cannot use your street as a cut through to another area. Pedestrians and cyclists will continue to be able to make their way through.
Good examples of this in SE11 include
i, The filtered closure at the Kennington Park Road end of Cleaver Square
ii. the filtered closure at the top end of Sullivan Road at the junction with Brook Drive, making the enclave of streets around Walcot Square and St Mary's Gardens tranquil and pleasant with little traffic and low speeds, while allowing children, for example, to cycle through the barrier to the local primary thus avoiding having to use an A road.
Speed of Traffic
Ask for 20mph speed limit. Several boroughs are setting 20mph, rather than 30mph, as the default speed limit, raised only on certain streets where it is deemed reasonable. Lambeth hasn't moved to that yet, so the more people who ask for their streets to become 20mph streets the better.
If you live on a major road you can ask for cycle lanes to be put in, allowing children to make their way around by bike (tweaked photo of Baylis Road from
this fab blog)
Cycle Parking
Fed up with visitors having to drag their bikes into your hall, or having to keep your own bike indoors? Is it easier to park a car than a bicycle? Ask for cycle stands or residential cycle parking to be installed. You should emphasise if there's nowhere you can even informally park your bike:
Alley that would mean you needn't have to use a busy road or a long route
Ask for it to become shared use, with signage emphasising pedestrian priority, but considerate cycling permitted. Also ask for a dropped kerb to be installed, such as the new one in Wincott Street:
Barriers that are inconvenient and futile
Ask for these to be removed with Pedestrian Priority signs in their place and, if needed, rumble strips that deter cyclists from maintaining too high a speed.
Banned entry or turns for cyclists
Lambeth is making many streets two-way for cyclists that are one-way for motorists. A simple 'except cycles' sign can be added to banned turns such as that shown above.
Misleading or lacking signage
A chance to flag up signs or road markings that need fixing, removing, or are needed.
Inappropriate parking or loading
Ask for No Parking and/or No Loading lines and signs
Lack of greenery
The focus of road engineering and design for the past fifty years has been on getting as much motor traffic using them as possible. This is changing and allows our streets to be reclaimed as pleasant spaces while still permitting necessary motor traffic
. There's no way the budget will stretch to doing an Isabel Street to Van Gogh Walk transformation for every street but planting trees in existing tree pits or establishing some other form of greenery should be feasible.
