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The country is dead set against subways at the moment it seems. An iconic (and in my opinion, beautiful) subway in Leicester has recently been filled in and replaced with a terrible pedestrian crossing on a busy ring road. But apparently that's preferable, and we're no longer allowed nice sweeping grade segregation for pedestrians unless it's a poncy glass bridge in a weird shape.
Here's a pic of them blocking it up: http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/4749729085/in/photostream/
Apparently it didn't look good to visitors. Did they ask any visitors? The current set up is disgusting and far less appealing, instead of bring in the city straight away you're forced to cross a badly timed crossing:
http://publications.leicester.gov.uk/linkwinter2011/files/assets/seo/page11.html
My question is: how would you cross a road like this?
The new crossing means both traffic and pedestrians have to stop whereas previously it was free-flowing. The old subway looked nice (could have done with a clean) but apparently it's unsuitable.
If not a subway, then how could a subway be improved so as not to look "naff"?
Most of the problems with them come from "antisocial behaviour" (also known as Offensive Aggressive Wa*kers Who We Can't Be Arsed To Deal With), poor lighting, or a concrete interior.
So build them out of fancy brick, give them some street decoration, and get rid of the yobs. How about putting shops through the subway, creating less a road-crossing, more a nice place to be that happens to cross a road?
Bridges are apparently fine even though they have the same ability to bottleneck pedestrians into a bunch of yobs as a subway does.
And I'd take yobs over angry street drivers any day.
Wolverhampton has a very nice grade segregated pedestrian route running from Pendeford Business Park, through Pendeford, and to Aldersley High School. It is beautiful and very easy to use with no road crossings. But the people that don't actually use it hate it, because it has subways, and everyone knows subways just lead to yobs.
Is this really the future?
Because we don't want this?
Because we assume they always have to look like this?
There's a big effort to get rid of the underpasses beneath Wolverhampton's inner ring road, which IMO is a disgusting thing to do, when they're open, light, and just look like this:
If you're going to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds getting rid of a subway just to get rid of the yobs,... spend a margin of that amount getting rid of the yobs.
End of rant.
Here's a pic of them blocking it up: http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/4749729085/in/photostream/
Apparently it didn't look good to visitors. Did they ask any visitors? The current set up is disgusting and far less appealing, instead of bring in the city straight away you're forced to cross a badly timed crossing:

http://publications.leicester.gov.uk/linkwinter2011/files/assets/seo/page11.html
My question is: how would you cross a road like this?
The new crossing means both traffic and pedestrians have to stop whereas previously it was free-flowing. The old subway looked nice (could have done with a clean) but apparently it's unsuitable.
If not a subway, then how could a subway be improved so as not to look "naff"?
Most of the problems with them come from "antisocial behaviour" (also known as Offensive Aggressive Wa*kers Who We Can't Be Arsed To Deal With), poor lighting, or a concrete interior.
So build them out of fancy brick, give them some street decoration, and get rid of the yobs. How about putting shops through the subway, creating less a road-crossing, more a nice place to be that happens to cross a road?
Bridges are apparently fine even though they have the same ability to bottleneck pedestrians into a bunch of yobs as a subway does.
And I'd take yobs over angry street drivers any day.
Wolverhampton has a very nice grade segregated pedestrian route running from Pendeford Business Park, through Pendeford, and to Aldersley High School. It is beautiful and very easy to use with no road crossings. But the people that don't actually use it hate it, because it has subways, and everyone knows subways just lead to yobs.
Is this really the future?

Because we don't want this?

Because we assume they always have to look like this?

There's a big effort to get rid of the underpasses beneath Wolverhampton's inner ring road, which IMO is a disgusting thing to do, when they're open, light, and just look like this:

If you're going to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds getting rid of a subway just to get rid of the yobs,... spend a margin of that amount getting rid of the yobs.
End of rant.