Designs on a cycle route

• SO a new segregated cycle route running east to west between the junction of Crowndale Road and Hampstead Road, skirting Oakley Square Gardens / Mayford estate and Harrington Square Gardens / Ampthill estate and crossing over Eversholt Street and along Lidlington Place…

One wonders whether this strip (pictured above) which is of ugly raised surface and is enclosed by “loudish” black and white rubber “kerbstones” of differing profiles and shapes, should have been containing growing soil instead, and be planted with a variety of evergreens or low, stubby, hedges but kept lower than the rows and rows of plastic bollards used elsewhere? Grass maybe?

What an improvement it would make to the eye and the environment. Would people agree? A green meandering strip for about a quarter to half-mile in lengths interrupted only by little gaps as the design roadworks bosses thought necessary for crossing. Some in the right location, some are not.

The strip is well over two metres in width, so, is it unthinkable it should have been set out for two-way cycling. There is a secondary school nearby, also the Somers Town sports centre and others hoping for access from the west. Why not?

Material spared by the use of soil, could have been used for filling potholes up.

HERMAN TRIBELNIG
Camden Town Urban Design Improvement Society