Local hero shows us the way…
On Thursday afternoon after the Council’s recycling vehicles have been through one will often get a sighting of this rare and colourful species, Smithius litterpickipus. It cleans the street of the detritus and strewn bins from the weekly waste collection. On this particular occasion using spit and handkerchief he was also trying to remove graffiti from the bus timetable – alas it will need something stronger. Such is his pride in our neighbourhood.
I’ve been talking to some new residents, down from London, who live beyond Chris’s litter run who would love to see the look of our neighbourhood improved to such a level that everyone living and using the street would want to keep it nice and tidy. I feel similarly and have similar ‘litterpickipus’ tendencies but I also think that if it was safer to look after the ‘streetscape’, even more people would keep it looking nice.
The street could be calmed and beautified by curtailing most of the through traffic using a ‘bus gate’ and creating ‘parklets’, where otherwise there might be concrete piers to protect parking areas. We’ve described all this in a bit more detail here and here and much of Ghent and bits of London have been converted in this way. The main rat-run which extends beyond Camden could be stopped anywhere along its length so the bus gate might well be better outside Camden – we don’t know as yet.
The initial objection to these schemes is that it simply displaces the same volume of traffic elsewhere but apparently the results are different. The increased inconvenience and the more pleasant experience of walking or cycling encourages a significant proportion of travellers to consider other means of ‘getting from A to B’ – in technical parlance, a ‘modal shift’ towards active travel and the bus.
In early September, as Chair of the CRA Committee I will be meeting Cllr Joanna Wright (Cabinet Member for Transport Services) regarding different schemes and then feeding back to the committee soon after. We will then decide whether to push hard for a ‘low traffic neighbourhood’ for Camden Road and the streets between it and London Road or do something better.
Whaatever we advocate will require the support of residents. We’d be delighted to hear from others on this prior to our meeting so do leave some feedback by commenting on this blog-post.
Jeremy, Chair CRA
This is a great idea and will transform Camden if we can push it through. I’m sure Cllr Wright will be supportive. However, not all residents will be in favour – although we all complain about the volume of traffic, there will be some who won’t want to change their habits and accept restrictions on car movements during the peak hours. It’s a trade-off and there are bound to be those who consider that the disbenefits will outweigh the benefits. It will be interesting to see the reaction from B&NES officers. Personally I can’t wait. Bring it on! And well done to the CRA for pushing this forward.
Thanks, Julie. Exciting to get get such wholehearted support. The CAZ must be about to put cameras on our street anyway so why not programme them to be a busgate rather than ‘waving through’ virtually all the traffic a CAZ C won’t exclude – if that makes sense? As for residents not liking it – we’ve started honing the arguments – for a small amount of occasional inconvenience you get a quieter, safer, more beautiful street, is that not worth gunning for?
I completely support the idea of a low traffic neighbourhood. Having spoken to others, if the walk was less hazardous and felt less polluted, more would walk to St Stephens, St Saviours and Atelier Nursery.
I’m sure you are right, Rachel.