Lost London

[WallyChops]

Originally Posted by NCT

Edgware Road is primarily a link not a place, and the last thing it needs is more crossings and more pedestrians thinking it's okay to wander into the road.

A link, not a place - that's an interesting new definition.

I'm not sure I like the idea a city where the streets are primarily for vehicles passing through and not bothersome people who happen to live, work or shop there.

[El_Greco]

Originally Posted by NCT

and the last thing it needs is more crossings and more pedestrians thinking it's okay to wander into the road.

The last thing this city needs is people who think car is the king and pedestrians are just annoying background noise. Where do you get these weird ideas? Some Utopian 60s book?

[NCT]

Originally Posted by WallyChops

A link, not a place - that's an interesting new definition.

I'm not sure I like the idea a city where the streets are primarily for vehicles passing through and not bothersome people who happen to live, work or shop there.

Place and link is a fairly commonly used framework for designing the streetscape as I found not quite recently. A collection of small side streets may well form a place so the designs would be geared towards pedestrians' needs, whereas a thoroughfare should take into account people's ability to travel, so efficiency and conflict management need to be thought through. That said, an efficient thoroughfare can still have vibrant pavements either side and a sensible density of crossings can still deliver good permeability and prevent the two side of the road from being separated. One fairly uniue challenge London faces is that sometimes a location serves as both a place and a link, such as Oxford Street and Regents Street, so conflicts are particularly acute. We have to be realistic, as you can't expect shoppers to walk all the way from Piccadilly Circus to Edgware Road station before it's worthwhile to take the bus. And before anyone screams 'Tube' - it can't serve everyone and it has limited capacity.

Borrowing one of Medo's excellent pics, this is a good example of a place in London - Monmouth Street in Seven Dials, which IMO makes a much better comparison with Mr Brick's photo.

image hosted on flickr

Outdoors by Medonymous, on Flickr

[NCT]

Originally Posted by El_Greco

The last thing this city needs is people who think car is the king and pedestrians are just annoying background noise. Where do you get these weird ideas? Some Utopian 60s book?

The last thing London needs is for for the surface transport infrastructure to be so restricted that it becomes impossible to get to places to such an extend they start losing trade. It's not about cars at all - buses and other essential vehicles need to be able to pass through places quickly and efficiently, not least the emergency vehicles need roads that are relatively free-flowing.

[WallyChops]

Originally Posted by NCT

Place and link is a fairly commonly used framework for designing the streetscape as I found not quite recently. A collection of small side streets may well form a place so the designs would be geared towards pedestrians' needs, whereas a thoroughfare should take into account people's ability to travel, so efficiency and conflict management need to be thought through. That said, an efficient thoroughfare can still have vibrant pavements either side and a sensible density of crossings can still deliver good permeability and prevent the two side of the road from being separated. One fairly uniue challenge London faces is that sometimes a location serves as both a place and a link, such as Oxford Street and Regents Street, so conflicts are particularly acute.

I have to admit I find your explanation and terminology quite unnerving. I have a vision of a room full of planners & highway officials using cold statistics and jargon to decide which fortunate streets will become places and which ones will be doomed to be links.

I understand the challenges of transport and road-use in a city the size of London, but I also know the impact such approaches have. You can’t de-humanise London’s streets and assess them on such stark factors.

I grew up on Jamaica Road & Lower Road in Bermondsey – now the A200. Most people assume the area along its route was all destroyed in the blitz, but until the Seventies much of this historic thoroughfare had survived. Like many other routes, it was decided this would form part of a trunk road – shops, houses and businesses were demolished to create a soulless dual-carriageway that effectively severed the community in two and destroyed the fundamental nature of both roads.

And what about its efficiency? Well, the new road system doesn’t seem to have made traffic move any faster and there’s certainly far more jams than ever before - or perhaps that just because such links simply encourage more people to use their cars.

[NCT]

Originally Posted by WallyChops

I have to admit I find your explanation and terminology quite unnerving. I have a vision of a room full of planners & highway officials using cold statistics and jargon to decide which fortunate streets will become places and which ones will be doomed to be links.

I understand the challenges of transport and road-use in a city the size of London, but I also know the impact such approaches have. You can’t de-humanise London’s streets and assess them on such stark factors.

I grew up on Jamaica Road & Lower Road in Bermondsey – now the A200. Most people assume the area along its route was all destroyed in the blitz, but until the Seventies much of this historic thoroughfare had survived. Like many other routes, it was decided this would form part of a trunk road – shops, houses and businesses were demolished to create a soulless dual-carriageway that effectively severed the community in two and destroyed the fundamental nature of both roads.

And what about its efficiency? Well, the new road system doesn’t seem to have made traffic move any faster and there’s certainly far more jams than ever before - or perhaps that just because such links simply encourage more people to use their cars.

Of course traffic and streetscape management in London isn't perfect by any stretch, but the point remains that transport is a real concern and shouldn't be swept aside. Lack of management or bad management will in fact lead to more cars on the roads.

To be quite honest London's roads are amongst the least dehumanised compared to other cities of comparable size. Jamaica Road is the only candidate for a thoroughfare in the area and a mere 2x2 (not even consistently so), about half the size of most Parisian trunk roads. Mistakes were made in the seventies, but I'd say those are more in the architecture (of lack thereof) of replacement buildings rather than actual road widths. The A23 north of Brixton is probably exemplary in that respect - the road is consistently 2x2 with continuous bus lanes and looks very agreeable - traditional architecture either side probably helps.

It may well be true that surface transport management placed too much emphasis on cars in the 70s, but that's doesn't simply mean it isn't needed or important. The emphasis should be on better bus networks and provisions for other essential users (i.e. not cars). As has been proved time and again you cannot rely exclusively on rail-based transport either - bus routes were axed after the Jubilee Line eastern extension only for them to be brought back again. It'd be preferable if cars didn't exist, but you can't magically make them disappear. The best way remains providing bus priority and that requires a favourable road environment. Traffic calming tends to have a disproportionate effect on buses resulting in more people using cars and rat-running through side-streets.

[El_Greco]

Originally Posted by NCT

The last thing London needs is for for the surface transport infrastructure to be so restricted that it becomes impossible to get to places to such an extend they start losing trade. It's not about cars at all - buses and other essential vehicles need to be able to pass through places quickly and efficiently, not least the emergency vehicles need roads that are relatively free-flowing.

More baseless drama. Impossible to get to places, people wandering into roads, traffic going willy nilly all over the place and so on. All that people said was that there needs to be a change in mentality - less car-centric and more pedestrian-centric. Yet you somehow manage to come up with some ridiculous stuff about anarchy on the roads.

I also find your obsession with buses funny. Did you know that numerous research has shown that drivers rarely, if ever, are prepared to transfer their trips to buses (I dont drive and I avoid buses), but they are to rail based transport (ie trams). Not to mention its clean, makes less noise etc.

Having people who know about cities and urbanity working in transport departments would help also. The dull dinosaurs such as yourself talking about "places" and "links" isnt the answer. Especially given the fact that its exactly this sort of crowd thats responsible for the current mess.

[NCT]

Ever wondered why people are not prepared to transfer onto buses? Because some clueless dinasaurs in planning departments do their best to make sure buses are as slow and unreliable as possible.

It's all about journey reliability and convenience, and trams will not offer that any better than buses on London's roads, and people aren't going to switch to trams if there isn't sufficient priority to make them fast and reliable. Guess what, (central) Paris doesn't have on-street trams either.

[derwent]

[QUOTE=Reconstructism;91319599]

Originally Posted by derwent

I suppose you could go to one of the graves of a 1960s architect and spit on it or something....

Love your thinking! There must be a website someplace dedicated to 1960's architects grave sites...

[derwent]

Originally Posted by Reconstructism

Hahaha, laughable scheme. I suppose when the roads are not so busy they can be used as makeshift tennis courts, judging by the road markings!

Interesting debate around the Edgware Road scheme. Edgware road is an odd place. It is an urban motorway in a similar way as Park Lane. The difference being the Edgware Road is absolutely teeming with life. And yet, because of the traffic - and possibly because it is a particularly drab and uninteresting street architecturally - it is not a place I would ever consider as a destination. In 25 years of living in London i've cycled down it and i've bussed down it, but never walked down it as a destination place.

[Mr Bricks]

Originally Posted by NCT

Borrowing one of Medo's excellent pics, this is a good example of a place in London - Monmouth Street in Seven Dials, which IMO makes a much better comparison with Mr Brick's photo.

image hosted on flickr

Outdoors by Medonymous, on Flickr

Haha, if most streets in London looked even remotely like that I wouldn't complain.

[Octoman]

There are plenty of steets in London that look just like that. I think certain parts of London have an urban realm that compare with anywhere. That area in the picture is lovely and covers a large expanse as far as covent garden market and taking in places like Neils Yard. I was there the other weekend and you can spend a whole day strolling around. Bloomsbury, Soho, Marylebone High Street, Camden, Borough and countless other places are really nice urban environments.

[PadArch]

any streets that are part of a conservation area tend to have a better urban realm, because conservation area guidelines cover all these things such as bollards, fences, signs etc.

[ill tonkso]

This photo from Portsmouth shows the difference decluttering and a lighter road surface make. Those sticky out plastic signs ruin it now.

What really bugs me though is that this road is for Pedestrians, the two Bus routes which use it (infrequent ones) and Cyclists. The Car and Motorcycle in this photo are using it illegally.

Delivery vehicles may use it before 11am.

[delores]

Originally Posted by PadArch

any streets that are part of a conservation area tend to have a better urban realm, because conservation area guidelines cover all these things such as bollards, fences, signs etc.

It's the lack of cohesion in the Portsmouth photo which blights many of the uk's high streets, It's really just about regulating as you say the guidelines actually can enhance a street, relying purely on commercial interests alone to come up with a decent shop front does not work in most cases. The street in Covent garden should be a benchmark that's easy to achieve across the city and country for that matter. It does help however that the buildings are of some notable quality.

[mouldss@hotmail.co.u]

G. Reid – Entrance to Blackfriars Station, Queen Victoria Street Fleet Street, looking west (1930)

New entrance to Blackfriars Station.(2012)

[mouldss@hotmail.co.u]

Façade of Oxford Music Hall on Oxford street.



Sorce

theatrestrust

Oxford street grand Marshall & Snelgrove demolished 1973-75





Sorce

http://sheepandchick

[Mr Bricks]

^

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on here:







So much clutter..

[alexandru.mircea]

The designer was drunk...

[NCT]

1st and 3rd are quite normal by Europeans standards if one cares to take off one's rose-tinted glasses. 2nd though is a bit of pointless traffic calming.