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Islington Tribune - by ROISIN GADELRAB
Published: 21 November 2008

The Upper Street crossing

On the move... one of the worst crossings in capital

Support for new road layout but loss of traffic lane opposed

ONE of London’s most dangerous pedestrian crossings will finally be moved next year after transport chiefs approved plans to improve the road layout outside Angel Tube station.
Six hundred people who responded to a Transport for London consultation exercise favoured plans to move the Upper Street crossing to the north side of the Liverpool Road junction but strongly opposed removing a southbound traffic lane in Upper Street to make way for wider pavements and loading bays.
TfL’s Owen Bentley announced this week that seven of the nine proposals would go ahead, including the traffic lane removal, dependent on further traffic analysis, but that plans to make the bus lanes 24-hour were under review.
Islington Council’s Lib Dem leader James Kempton has welcomed the changes but has vowed to continue to fight any plans to remove the southbound traffic lane along Upper Street from Essex Road to Duncan Street.
Cllr Kempton said: “It’s absolutely brilliant. We’ve been waiting for years to get that crossing moved and finally at long last it’s going to happen. It’s one of the worst places to cross anywhere in London and one of the things we’ve been lobbying for. It’s going to make the whole area so much safer for pedestrians.”
But he added: “We’ve argued with TfL that they shouldn’t reduce it to a single lane. They are going to think some more about it and I’m sure the council will take a firm view when we’ve seen the evidence. One of the next things I will be working on is getting rid of those metal railings that cage people in.”
Mr Bentley revealed the consultation results at a meeting of the council’s south area committee at Finsbury Town Hall on Monday.
More than 6,000 leaflets were distributed, yielding 604 responses. A handful of letters, emails, phone calls and comments were also considered.
TfL will stagger the crossing work, first moving the Angel crossing and adding a new crossing at Islington Green. Then, Mr Bentley said, depending on how traffic flows, it will forge ahead with the removal of a traffic lane.
He added that, while the consultation found less support for the removal of the southbound lane of traffic, respondents backed widening the pavement, bus lane and loading bays. “Perhaps it wasn’t made clear they couldn’t have those three without the first one,” he added.
Mr Bentley said the changes were expected to bring about a 30 per cent improvement in journey times, adding: “We’ll start in April or May next year and will probably go on in bits and pieces for most of the year.”

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