Cycling in Hackney News
April 1999/May 1999

Just the one story this time, but it's a good one...

Seven Sisters road space victory

If you've got a wide road, you can provide wide lanes for sustainable transport, and narrow down the space for private motor traffic - that's the important precedent that has been set in a breakthrough decision on one of the most important routes in north London, reports Trevor Parsons.

The Seven Sisters Road lies on the desire line between the West End, Camden, Stamford Hill, Tottenham and the North East of London generally. It is due to be ‘red-routed’. Hackney Council has to submit proposals to the Traffic Director for London showing what it wants to do with the road.

Hackney’s road engineers propose a timid mixture: a four-metre wide bus-and-cycle-only lane westbound, but just a three-metre bus lane eastbound, and, wait for it, a cycle lane on the pavement. We say cycle lanes on pavements are worse than useless. We’ll have a wide bus-and-cycle lane on both sides, if you please.

When we next meet, the engineers reveal that they were actually planning to narrow the pavement (!) to achieve that solitary four-metre lane, but that the Traffic Director for London had rejected the idea because of the huge cost of moving the kerbline. Phew!

We suggest a cheaper and greener approach: reduce space for private motor vehicles down to one lane each way to allow for the two wide sus-trans lanes. The engineers say that this would reduce junction capacity, particularly at the tricky Woodberry Grove junction, and that the Traffic Director would reject it.

We ring up the Traffic Director’s office. Dale MacKenzie, the North-East Sector geezer, says in general he favours:

• wide bus lanes, not pavement cycling
• cost-effective measures to smooth the flow of priority groups. (That means people using buses, feet, pushchairs, wheelchairs, shopping trolleys, bikes etc).

Specifically on Seven Sisters Road, Mr MacKenzie adds: “Since you’ve got one lane coming in, and one lane coming out, all you need is one in the middle. We wouldn’t oppose a scheme that did this.”

Wow! We tell Hackney they’d better re-draw their plan. Seeing as the deadline is just a week or two away, the Traffic Director will accept a simple description of the revised proposal. Result!

There’s plenty more to be done along the whole length of this route. Especially to revert the ugly and failing Nags Head one-way system to default settings. Come to think of it, Camden High Street and Tottenham Court Road could do with the treatment too. It’s time to think big!