16,000 homes; 25,000 jobs; Where's the Cycle Plan?

The Vauxhall, Nine Elms, Battersea Opportunity Area continues to take shape with buildings going up and planning applications going in. Meanwhile we continue to await the finalised Planning Framework that developers are working to.

A planning application has just been made to Wandsworth for One Nine Elms (illustrated above). In the background is 'The Tower' at St George's Wharf which is under construction and on completion will be a metre taller than the Gherkin.

Meanwhile Lambeth has an application in for the 3 acre site between Bondway and Wandsworth Road, called Vauxhall Square. 604 flats; 416 student rooms; 500 seat cinemas; shops, 438 room hotel....Car Park entrance ramp, taxi drop off point and servicing along Bondway.

Cunningly the Vauxhall Square website has no images showing the height of the buildings planned, so here's one from a year ago (though without the proposed One Nine Elms, Kylun Towers and other skyscrapers planned for this area).

I'm not going to argue about whether there should be these tall towers or whether the planned population density is too great here. What I do want to see is a detailed plan of how cycling will be encouraged and facilitated across the whole area, and motor traffic reduced and calmed.

I know for example that Vauxhall Square propose 1096 cycle parking spaces predominantly on basement levels one and two. The plans suggest there will be 10 ground level short-stay stands on their property and a further 44 racks on the highway. But, given there will be some 16,000 cycle parking spaces for the homes along the VNEB corridor, is this sufficient short-term parking? Does the masterplan for the area intend people to be using their bikes or leaving them in the basement of their flats?

I'm also intrigued as to how cycling is perceived in relation to the Linear Park. I note, for example, that the Vauxhall Square application shows a one-way cycle crossing from their bit of public space into the Park - i.e. you can cycle across Wandsworth Road into the park but not the other way into their square. Do they intend to ban cycling at all times through their patch, or is another mellow cycle route planned from the Park. What are the other developers planning for their patch of the Park?

Will Nine Elms Lane have beautifully smooth, wide cycle lanes? Will Vauxhall Cross become a pleasure to cycle through, rather than a gruesome gyratory?

What news on the pedestrian/cycling bridge mooted to cross the Thames? Will it be a reasonable width for walking and cycling, or as skinny as the pedestrian only Wobbly Bridge between Tate Modern and St Pauls?

Will the ENVAC style vacuum waste disposal system that also sucks dustcarts off our streets be going in throughout the area? I can find no sign of it in the Vauxhall Square plans (or any drinking water fountains for that matter).

I really, really hope that Wandsworth, Lambeth, the GLA and the developers are putting as much time and effort into making this area a cycling nirvana as they are clearly putting into the hugely expensive Northern Line extension. They are unlikely to get a similar opportunity in the future.

Drinking water fountains for Waterloo Station?

At the Vauxhall, Nine Elms, Battersea exhibition the other day I discovered (when a person I gave my name to said 'Ah, it's you') that over fifty people had written in response to Lambeth's consultation asking for drinking water fountains to be installed. I'd written this post and sent it around a bit.

Iwas told that this was the issue cited most often by respondents to the consultation on the Waterloo plans (which shows how few people generally comment) and the Project Manager told me,

I still have to go through a process on the Waterloo documents and expect to be able to publish the final versions in February. As it stands, my intention is to include something on drinking fountains to address the point you made.

Well done to all those who sent an email - let's hope we see free water, prominently positioned and delivered by tap rather than lorries, at Waterloo soon.

By coincidence I'm talking for 7 1/2 minutes about drinking water fountains at the next Movement for Liveable London Street Talks on 6th December.

An exciting tube project in Vauxhall (beyond the Northern line)

The BBC reports today the Governments multi-billion pound investment programme, including the Northern Line extension to Battersea, saying the government will consider allowing local authority borrowing against the Community Infrastructure Levy to support the scheme, subject to a commitment from a developer to contribute and develop the site.

It's a different tube project that I want to talk about:

One of the most inspiring things I heard at the Vauxhall, Nine Elms, Battersea (VNEB) exhibition is the research undertaken into having the rubbish from all the new buildings removed by vacuum tubes rather than dust carts.

It sounds like science fiction but Sweden's Envac have 50 years experience of doing just this. And if it still sounds fanciful for this huge development project, they're working right this moment on a project of equivalent scale in Helsinki - with recycling thrown in of course.

How can this kind of scheme be encouraged and nurtured? The obvious starting point is to impose a limit on motor traffic, a vehicular 'gastric band'. That will bring this kind of imaginative thinking from pipe dream to pipe reality. Good grief, you'd even see drinking fountains and taps at railway stations as the sane replacement to lorry transported bottled water .

There's a load of guff talked by Boris about equality - giving people the choice to choose their mode of transport. The reality is that most kids and many other people would love to cycle to get to where they want to go but don't because the volume and speed of motor traffic,the lousy road layout, and the aggression of drivers make it an unequal option.

The way to liberate people to cycle and walk in the city is quite simply to throttle motor traffic and give the direct and easy route to the cyclist and pedestrian. Limit the capacity to the motorist, make them go around a maze or the M25 to get to their destination. But give the cyclist and pedestrian their desire line; give them cashpoints and drinking fountains, attractive shop frontages (or better, book and stuff library frontages) and riverside views. Put in loads and loads of hire bike docking stations.

Sure there'll still be a quantity of really unavoidable motor traffic but a lot will simply evaporate, as the dust cart example shows, and as the Netherlands have proven.

There are wider actions too, including making sure the planning regulations support local businesses, by providing affordable housing and workshop space alongside the swish apartments, rather than forcing them out of town resulting in vans and lorries trundling for miles and miles through residential streets just to get to inner London.

The plans for residential properties need to nurture active travel. If it's easier to jump in the car or in a cab than on the bike the design is failing.

VNEB can be the new Amsterdam.

A really good first action to implement in the next month or two with a bit of white paint and a couple of signs is for TfL take away one of the southbound lanes on Vauxhall Bridge from motor traffic so that the UNBELIEVABLY DIRE cycle lane becomes a delightful wide cycling boulevard instead. I've used the cycle lane twice recently on weekdays at 3.30pm and it made everything clench up. I can't believe that anyone responsible for roads could conceivably have cycled it and not immediately condemned it. What were the traffic 'engineers' who dreamt up such a monstrosity thinking, and why wouldn't a cycle friendly Mayor dramatically improve it immediately?

An attractive and prominent drinking fountain

Researching a ride for Pedal Power Kennington I immediately spotted these magnificent fountains either side of the front entrance to the British Museum, though, as arguably befits a museum, they're dry as a bone and just for show these days.

This is exactly the kind of location that our public building (and I include railway stations) should place attractive, working fountains.

The British Museum has a modern drinking fountain hidden in the basement, at the entrance to the toilets (eurgh), but the water flow is so feeble you'd be forgiven for thinking you might die of thirst while waiting for a group of thirsty school children taking turns to sip.

Demand drinking fountains at Waterloo

94,000,000 litres of bottled water are sold in London each year with a clear knock-on effect on traffic volume and pollution that drinking fountains and taps don't have.

Lambeth Council has two planning/development policies for Waterloo Station and area out for consultation, both ending this Friday 22nd July at 5pm and you might consider dropping the council an email, such as the draft below, asking them to build in a requirement for prominent free drinking water fountains/taps to reduce the dependency on bottled water.


The email, with your name and address at the bottom, should be sent to  MTrevethan@lambeth.gov.uk


Please can the Draft Waterloo Area Supplementary Planning Document and the Waterloo Station and Interchange Draft Development Brief be amended to ensure the prominent and abundant provision of freely available drinking water (fountains or taps) within Waterloo to reduce the traffic, waste, pollution and expense associated with bottled water. It is appalling that Waterloo Station has no public water fountains/taps, given the number of tourists and commuters passing through. Equally the entire South Bank appears to have no working water fountains/taps for public use. Please build in a condition that these taps are not hidden away but are positioned and promoted to the standard that the bottled water manufacturers and retailers achieve.

Waterloo Station Retail Development

Tomorrow evening the South Bank Forum features an update on Network Rail's £10 million project to create 18 new shops on a balcony at Waterloo Station.

According to Network Rail, 70% of all rail users either start or finish their journey in London giving an exquisite opportunity to make filthy great profits from flogging bottled water, shiny paperbacks and the like, brought in by the congesting, noisy, stinking, lorryload.

The opportunity to grossly rack up the profits at the cost of the environment is enhanced if you ensure your stations don't have drinking water fountains or taps for refilling your water bottles, charity shops or libraries.

Let's see what their website says:
Greener stations

We're committed to reducing our environmental impact throughout the infrastructure that we own and operate.
 
Our Commitments:
Achieving sustainable consumption and production
Protecting natural resources
Improving energy efficiency and reducing reliance on fossil fuels
Improving the economic value of the existing railway
Encouraging people to use the railways.

Yeah, right.

Why not ask whether there'll be prominently positioned water taps in the newly refurbished station at the meeting tomorrow night.

A new drinking fountain for London

An officer at Lambeth Council's Sustainability Forum this week alerted me to London's first fully approved drinking fountain in 30 years!

The fountain is at the northern end of the wobbly bridge, alongside St Paul’s Churchyard, near the City Information Centre and opposite St Paul’s Cathedral.

It has been installed with the approval of Thames Water, the Water Regulations Advisory Scheme and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. There is a thorough maintenance programme which includes daily cleansing and regular tests to ensure the water is of the highest quality.

This is a trial installation as part of a proposed scheme to introduce new drinking water fountains around the Square Mile and restore the City’s historic drinking fountains. Depending on the success and use of the fountain it could lead to a roll out of similar drinking fountains across the City during 2011.

I therefore urge you to use it and pass on word of its existence far and wide.

A possible design flaw is that it's so discrete as to not shout 'DRINKING FOUNTAIN - USE ME' - something I wondered about another recent fountain in Hyde Park. I can't imagine Evian being so shy in asserting their presence.



A further minor quibble is that it's more of a public tap than a drinking fountain as it's been designed to refill water bottles. and the water flows quite forcefully so it's not ideal for sticking your mouth under.

However, the key point is that visitors to this bit of London have a working, hygienic source of water that isn't in a one-use container and isn't delivered by thundering lorries. I imagine it's been selected as being pretty vandal proof and easy to maintain. Let's hope that hundreds are rolled out across London. Locally, Waterloo Station and the South Bank would be choice places to install them.

Practically perfect

Cycle hire, car-free cycle route, lawns and trees, and even a modern, working water fountain. It's in Hyde Park at the top end of the cycle path that runs along Park Lane.

Why only practically perfect? I didn't realise the sculpture was a water fountain! And, from checking for users over a few days as I pass, I suspect I'm not alone.


A great thing about the Royal Parks (I'm quite often cycling through Hyde Park and Regent's Park) is that their drinking fountains always seem to work. Okay, so you need to stick your finger up the spout of the one on Broad Walk in Regent's Park to make it work...but that's probably why the Parks have a competition to design a new 'standard' drinking fountain.



Let's hope the South Bank are paying attention.

The South Bank is broken

According to the draft South Bank Cycling Strategy the South Bank attracts 17,000,000 visitors a year. That's a lot of people who are likely to be thirsty during their visit.

The riders on the Pedal Power Kennington ride on Wednesday felt thirsty by the time we reached Bernie Spain gardens so we stopped for a drink from the water fountain but it was broken.

I think it's the only one along the South Bank for quite a way - the nearest one I know of is this one between Lambeth and Westminster Bridges which is also broken:

So, one of the marshalls nipped off and bought a bottle of water that had been driven to the South Bank by a great big polluting lorry.

Vroom, Vroom South Bank.

No Water in Waterloo Station

The draft South Bank and Waterloo Cycling Strategy, written by The South Bank Employers Group (SBEG), aka POMT (Purveyors of Mindless Tat), under the guidance of its members has this sad comment about Lambeth Council's Road User Hierarchy which puts walking first, cyclists next, then buses, rail, taxis, motorcycles, then freight transport with cars last:

...representatives of the larger businesses that rely on HGVs to transport goods to site raise questions about its specific application to the South Bank area.

Network Rail, owner of Waterloo Station, was a member of the report's steering group. Clearly it is important to keep all the retailers in Waterloo Station stocked with essential products.

Just look at the window of that fine newsagents, W H Smiths. Full of essential water driven in by bloody great lorries.


and on the other side


I stopped counting the number of places flogging bottled water in the station when I ran out of fingers, thumbs and toes.

I didn't spot a single tap or water fountain for the thirsty traveller so I asked at Station Information.

Nope I was told, not one. Nowhere.

Network Rail is a non-profit distributing company set up by the Government. So they needn't whinge about needing to screw the planet to appease their fat-cat shareholders.

So WTF can't they ditch the bottled water, get rid of shedloads of HGVs and simply install taps to the pipes I'm sure they already have in the station. (And likewise at Victoria Station which also hasn't drinking fountains or taps .... and probably all the rest they own)

As for the River Walk - there's clearly no rush to fix an existing fountain when the planet killing landowners can extract rent from planet killer stalls and narrow the walkway with yet another A-board into the bargain.