Pedestrianising the centre of Brixton?

[editor]

What does the Brixton massive think of this idea?

The revolution will be pedestrianised – the commercial argument for closing roads in Brixton

July the 4th is the date when those of us in hospitality are told that with proper safety procedures in place we can throw the doors open. For Brixton, this is immense with the wealth of pubs, bars…

www.brixtonbuzz.com

 

[co-op]

Atlantic Rd between Coldharbour Lane and Brixton Rd should have been pedestrianised always when the market and shops were open, it's stupid driving cars through there.

 

[Orang Utan]

Alan Partridge will be livid

 

[Big Bertha]

Great idea

 

[Gramsci]

My posts from liveabe Neighbouurhood thread:


This article is saying buses will have to be re routed for the convenience of business.

Sorry but Im not having this.

The original Atlantic road proposals were for Atlantic road to be for buses and cycles.

This article is for the benefit of business in the entertainment / bar / restuarent sector.

Which is the group of business that dominate Brixton BID.

I dont see how this proposal is going to benefit those who need to use public transport.

 

[Gramsci]

Although a couple of buses would have to be re-routed it is a small price to pay to keep business alive and flag a commercial revolution… but before imagining dining alfresco in spacious avenues, let’s not forget how red-tape, the mechanics of local town centre planning, the expectantly delayed TfL lobbying and plain legalistic lethargy can smother dreams
?

Where do I start?

This is neo liberal libertarianism. Comes across as Ayn Rand

If only the plebs could be stopped using democratic means to frustrate business then all would be well.

Which has now been added to my concerns about the ideology behind the BID idea.

Does Brixton need buses? No it needs the new demographic who can't wait for alfresco dining to restart.

How a pandemic can be used to change society- more al fresco dining. Get rid of buses. I despair.

 

[Rushy]

Whilst I like a general move towards pedestrianisation I suspect that my vision would be quite different to BIDs.

Their choice of the word playground rings the usual alarm bells. As ever, BID's eternal focus is on food and drink venues.

Will they accept stringent noise regulations and pay for associated alterations? Take genuine responsibility for and act to properly mitigate nuisance away from their venues? Perhaps be genuinely revolutionary and adjust their offering towards daytime rather than night clientele? I suspect the reality is that they would aim for something like San Antonio given half a chance.

Where are they saying that the buses (like 322 which has been used to help justify the Railton closures) should be diverted to? The Liveable Neighbourhoods promise to residents has been improved car-less accessibility. Making buses less convenient would negate those benefits. Comments like that illustrate BID representative's inability to recognise the place of business within a community - they make it a constant battle of interests and extremes.

And of course, not a single mention of residents within the proposal area.

 

[ska invita]

Which bus routes are affected?

 

[Gramsci]

Which bus routes are affected?

If CHL is pedestrianised the P5. The 322 uses Atlantic road.

Both are well used in Brixton. There are bus stops on Atlantic road for 322 and Coldharbour lane for P5 ( opposite Bookmongers)

The P5 is used by locals who shop in Brixton.

 

[ska invita]

If CHL is pedestrianised the P5. The 322 uses Atlantic road.

Both are well used in Brixton. There are bus stops on Atlantic road for 322 and Coldharbour lane for P5 ( opposite Bookmongers)

The P5 is used by locals who shop in Brixton.

and i guess the rerouting involves going around the side of the police station where the P4 goes?

 

[Gramsci]

and i guess the rerouting involves going around the side of the police station where the P4 goes?

The article does not say. As long as they are out of the way of the bars/ restaurants I don't think the writer of the article cares. Or Brixton BID for that matter.

The kind of people I see going home with their shopping on P5 arent the demographic this particular form of pedestrianisation is aimed at.

 

[Gramsci]

Brixton BID can put forward what they want.

What Im not clear is how much weight the Council have to give to the views of Brixton BID.

 

[ska invita]

The article does not say. As long as they are out of the way of the bars/ restaurants I don't think the writer of the article cares. Or Brixton BID for that matter.

The kind of people I see going home with their shopping on P5 arent the demographic this pedestrianisation is aimed at.

i know what you mean, but is going on the p4 route round Gresham Road and then back on to Brixton Road such a bad thing?


or i could imagine it flinging a left at the Dogstar, going down to herne hill then back along the edge of the park past the Lido.

Point being a bus reroute might not necessarily be such a terrible thing

 

[Gramsci]

i know what you mean, but is going on the p4 route round Gresham Road and then back on to Brixton Road such a bad thing?
View attachment 219123

Yes if want to shop in Brixton Market. I dont see why ordinary people should have reduced bus service for the benefit of Satay Gallery and Courtesan. And the other leading lights on Brixton BID board.

They are all itching to get those tables in the street. Brewdog already has people drinking out on the pavement.

So get rid of those P5 users.

 

[ska invita]

Yes if want to shop in Brixton Market. I dont see why ordinary people should have reduced bus service for the benefit of Satay Gallery and Courtesan. And the other leading lights on Brixton BID board.

It all depends on where the busses stop in the plans. I could well imagine it stopping within a few meters or even outside the Atlantic Road end of Brixton Market if they revised the zone just a little. I think best to wait and see the full proposal. Everyone benefits from pedestrianisation, not just chi-chi cheese eaters

 

[Gramsci]

. But all the plans Ive seen for Atlantic specifcially say the buses go through. Its general car traffic that cant. That was one of the points of the Liveable Neighbourhood Scheme. Make buses be able to get around better.

 

[Gramsci]

It all depends on where the busses stop in the plans. I could well imagine it stopping within a few meters or even outside the Atlantic Road end of Brixton Market if they revised the zone just a little. I think best to wait and see the full proposal. Everyone benefits from pedestrianisation, not just chi-chi cheese eaters

See post 16 above.

 

[ska invita]

with busses its not really pedestrianised though - if there's a version for full pedestrianisation and the bus rerouting isn't offensive that sounds great to me

also delivery drivers need access!

 

[Gramsci]

Gianluca Rizzo has been promoting change as operating officer at Brixton Bid and notes

“As a forward-thinking community we have to find radical solutions that encourage enterprise and improve our environment in times where many high street retailers are struggling. COVID-19 poses a number of threats but also a massive opportunity to re-think places to unable socially distanced interactions.

Pedestrianisation, reduction of social distancing and relaxation of licensing policies to create an ‘Al Fresco’ environment are simple yet effective measures. These solutions might be the only chance businesses will have to survive and for people to stay in employment’’.

This is the Tory exit strategy from the lockdown.

 

[Gramsci]

On the food front.

One thing the lockdown has bluntly shown is the wealth disparaties in Brixton area.

I was volunteering at the Brixton Emergency Food Hub. A lot of people need food to get by.

The organisation of this by a few groups with Council support showed an alternative to the society/ economy we are now supposed to get back on. It showed , if for a short while, a different way to run an economy.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Everyone benefits from pedestrianisation, not just chi-chi cheese eaters

I don't know the specifics here, but if bus passengers (especially if they are any combination of elderly / infirm / disabled / carrying shopping / with small children) have to walk much further between bus stops and destination then they don't benefit.

with busses its not really pedestrianised though

i'm not a fan of 'pedestrian and bus only' streets - too many pedestrians (especially children running out of shops) forget and think it's fully pedestrianised. woolwich did that in the 80s and after a few accidents / near misses, the buses were taken out of certain streets in the town centre and buses / passengers moved to less convenient locations further away from the shops. while there's rarely a single cause and effect for anything, woolwich didn't exactly thrive as a shopping centre after that.

pedestrianisation schemes can often be a case of 'we don't want unsightly buses and pleb bus passengers making the street look untidy, let's move them to somewhere else'

this got mentioned on one of the feminism threads a while back, but too many highways / transport planners only think about things from the perspective of able bodied, middle class men...

 

[Gramsci]

I don't know the specifics here, but if bus passengers (especially if they are any combination of elderly / infirm / disabled / carrying shopping / with small children) have to walk much further between bus stops and destination then they don't benefit.



i'm not a fan of 'pedestrian and bus only' streets - too many pedestrians (especially children running out of shops) forget and think it's fully pedestrianised. woolwich did that in the 80s and after a few accidents / near misses, the buses were taken out of certain streets in the town centre and buses / passengers moved to less convenient locations further away from the shops. while there's rarely a single cause and effect for anything, woolwich didn't exactly thrive as a shopping centre after that.

pedestrianisation schemes can often be a case of 'we don't want unsightly buses and pleb bus passengers making the street look untidy, let's move them to somewhere else'

this got mentioned on one of the feminism threads a while back, but too many highways / transport planners only think about things from the perspective of able bodied, middle class men...

The specifics are its an idea that Brixton BID are clearly floating.

The Council proposed scheme ( still under consultation ) is different.

But I can imagine BID are lobbying the Council to do this under powers they have during the pandemic to alter roads without the usual consultation. They are also asking Council to relax licensing- which Im not sure is possible.

The pavement has been widened in Brixton road by TFL to make more space for the passengers waiting for the buses - which I support. Also Council have temporarily widened pavements in LJ and Herne Hill - for social distancing purposes.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

The pavement has been widened in Brixton road by TFL to make more space for the passengers waiting for the buses - which I support.

again, i'm not local.

in my nearest town centre, this has been done to put more space near the bus stops.

except that they didn't allow gaps for people to get from 'pavement' to bus at first.

and means people now have to get on / off buses from ground level not from the kerb, which again isn't much fun if you're elderly / infirm / disabled etc

 

[Torpid Scorpion]

How exactly is closing off coldharbour lane to traffic going to work? There no other way to get accross the brixton road other than rat running through the estates or going all the way north to vassall road. Perhaps the yuppie bars can fund a tunnel. I thought not. Idiocy.

 

[Gramsci]

again, i'm not local.

in my nearest town centre, this has been done to put more space near the bus stops.

except that they didn't allow gaps for people to get from 'pavement' to bus at first.

and means people now have to get on / off buses from ground level not from the kerb, which again isn't much fun if you're elderly / infirm / disabled etc

The TFL one on Brixton road they have done a properly built pavement extension.

 

[TopCat]

and i guess the rerouting involves going around the side of the police station where the P4 goes?

That would be the first choice diversion. However the junction by the police station is at full capacity. It would mean slower buses serving an illogical route, the volume of which would impact Brixton Road /A23.

 

[TopCat]

with busses its not really pedestrianised though - if there's a version for full pedestrianisation and the bus rerouting isn't offensive that sounds great to me

also delivery drivers need access!

I bet the BID cunts wont swallow a timed daily slot for deliveries. They would want no buses or cycles but endless Sprinter vans delivering day and night.

 

[vjaska]

It's an idiotic proposal esepcially when you consider the lack of awareness around the consequences of pedestrianising a large chunk of Brixton especially in conjunction with the equally ill thought out low traffic zones popping up all over. Currently, travelling east from the Brixton Hill area is cut down to using Dulwich Road or Coldharbour Lane as a result of Shakespear Road & Railton Road being closed off – cutting Coldharbour Lane off will simply put more traffic onto Dulwich Road & Gresham Road as a result transferring any pollution problem with it rather than solving it. Then we have the fact that the P5 & 322 will be massively affected by this proposal especially the P5 which uses Somerleyton Road to access Brixton – depending on how much of Coldharbour Lane becomes pedestrianised, Somerleyton Road could become a no through road, leaving the road unserved by buses as a result as the P5 would have to run via Moorland Road and then along Gresham Road running right around the town for no reason and no benefit. At a time when bus patronage is falling in London, the last thing we need to do is accelerate it by diverting it away from what it’s there to do not to mention the risk of being stuck on a even more congested Brixton Road & Gresham Road. Speaking of Brixton Road, those who mention Brixton as a heavily polluted place – yes it’s a polluted place like most places are but only Brixton Road is at the top of the list in London in terms of how polluted they are and it would get worse when displaced traffic gets forced to use it.

Unless public transport is seriously invested in and we get people moving out of their cars onto it, then ideas like this will make things worse even if the aim was to make things better.

And as for the widened pavement on Brixton Road, the irony is the opposite side of the road had a narrower pavement and yet still keeps all three stops whilst the side with the widened pavement lost a stop with social distancing issues transferring to the St Matthews Church stop that the 2, 415 & 432 serve.