Time for a rethink of plan to make this junction safer

Published: 2 April 2010

ISLINGTON Council is consulting local people on proposed improvements to the Hillmarton triangle junction in Holloway. I believe the council’s proposals for the junction won’t “make the roads safer” because:

• They fail to tackle the key problem of speeding traffic generated by the one-way systems and the absence of pedestrian crossings on the ‘triangle’ roads – Hillmarton and Caledonian.

• They look at the junction in isolation when they should consider the whole Hillmarton triangle.

• They will force more traffic onto Cardozo Road, the narrowest road in the triangle.

• It is hard to see how large lorries will be able to do the tight right turn from North Road onto Caledonian Road.

• The S106 Arsenal agreement included traffic-calming for Hillmarton and Caledonian roads. There aren’t any traffic-calming proposals in the present scheme.

• People in Hillmarton Road, living in properties south of Cardozo Road, will find it much more difficult to get to their homes by car.

• Residents and children at Goodinge Nursery in Corporation Street will be affected. That street will be more heavily used by drivers because of the no-right-turn from Caledonian Road (southbound) into Hillmarton. 

• Drivers will circumvent the no-right-turn from Caledonian Road onto Hillmarton Road by doing a U-turn in Cottage Road.

• Hillmarton Road is a key route for buses and the ambulance station in Brewery Road. Have they been consulted? How will signalised crossings affect them?

• There are six new signalised crossings, not all of them well located – for example, on bends, and not where there is most pedestrian usage, such as on routes to the shops in Caledonian Road. 

I have direct experience of driver behaviour when they are faced with two sets of traffic lights located near each other. Drivers frequently go through red at the second set of lights, for example at the traffic lights in Holloway Road at Waitrose.

The council should look again at these plans and come up with new ones which would include putting zebra crossings on Hillmarton Road and Caledonian Road (from Holloway down to junction).        

Marie McGrath
Cardozo Road, N7