What shall we do about Highbury Roundabout?

There seems to be a huge amount of discussion (and disagreement) about the proposals for Highbury Roundabout.

Taking the issues a point at a time; If there is one thing we can nearly all agree on, I think it is that gyratory systems are generally a Bad Thing, as they encourage traffic to travel at greater speeds, and are much more scary to cross.  They are also very scary for cyclists.  The classic example of this was Norman Foster’s interventions to Trafalgar Square, where a once scary racing circuit is now a much calmer, and more slowly-moving two-way traffic system, with the Northern arm pedestrianised, and Trafalgar Square completely redefined as a major public amenity and events location.

So, we can agree that closing an arm of Highbury Roundabout is almost bound to be a Good Thing.  But then the question is, which arm:  

There are strong and vocal supporters of proposals to close each of the four arms of the roundabout, all have whom have developed arguments as to why their proposal should be favoured.  I won’t go into the arguments here, but rather stick my neck out and say I think the current proposal to close the western arm is the right one, on the basis that the large majority of people movements in the area are associated with and gravitate towards the station, and that common sense suggests that this would be the most obvious link to join the central roundabout area to the public (ie pedestrian) realm, and would provide the best-used additional pavement area.

However, having reach this conclusion about arm closure, I am personally horrified at the amount of space traffic engineers have taken from the central roundabout area to remodel the roadway and cycleways.  The highway round the other three sides of the former roundabout is currently shown at six lanes wide, or seven, if you count the 2-way cycle route, which is far worse than the current racetrack round the roundabout.  This flies in the face of public amenity and common sense.  It is my impression that traffic engineers still see their role as trying to move traffic through an area faster, whereas I think most people would agree that traffic calming is what we need at busy junctions such as this - after all, that is the intended purpose of removing the gyratory.  

At the moment, the traffic scheme proposes to remove 27% of the central roundabout area and give it over to traffic movements. (If you zoom into the map, you can see in red the current outline of the roundabout.)  I think we have to push back on this, and demand that pedestrianisation be achieved without loss of the valuable green space that is the roundabout itself: In a Borough with so little green space it seems wrong to lose such a large amount of that green space in the name of  maintaining traffic flows. 

I also have my doubts about the merit of introducing quite so many cycle lanes, when the route one would have to take on a bicycle is in several directions quite counter-intuitive.  Looking at the proposed layout, and imagining what I might do if I wanted to travel from Holloway Road to Upper street on my bike, I would probably opt to just stay on the road rather than criss-cross over the various convoluted cycle routes.  In my experience most cyclists tend to take the most direct route rather than follow cycle paths that take longer.  The cycle routes need to be logical and straightforward, or some cyclists may take matters into their own hands and start using the western (pedestrianised) arm as an informal alternative route, which I'm not sure would be the best solution either.

And then finally, there is the discussion about whether to remove the railings around the Arboretum, (so-called because it is a collection of various tree species, originally planted as an experiment in 1959, to investigate the resistance of various tree varieties to exhaust fumes).  Again, personally, I think the railings should be removed, or we won’t get the benefit of a major new public open space, and the rebalancing of the public realm between motorised vehicles and everyone else.  The removal of all the railings on the Angel section of Upper Street a few years is a good demonstration of the success of this rebalancing principle.  However, I do think a lot more discussion is needed about how we landscape the central area so that it can take the wear and tear of being a public open space.

Overall, I think we should commit to closing the western arm, push back on the loss of the green space at the expense of traffic, revisit the cycle lane proposals, and keep talking about the use of the central area.

Green waste and food waste recycling

I have received a number of emails from residents in my ward concerned about our proposal to stop doorstep collections of green/garden waste and also food waste.  (To be clear, co-mingled mixed recycling collections (paper, plastic, metal and glass) will continue unchanged, as they are collected by the same vehicles that collect general waste.)

We do not make decisions like this lightly.  However, in a situation where we have had more than 50% of our support grant from Central Government cut over the last five years, we are running out of areas where we can make savings via efficiency, or cutting less efficient services.  As a result of stopping this collection service we will achieve a budget saving of £1m, which would otherwise have had to be cut from areas such as youth services (which we have chosen to enhance this year), libraries or the voluntary sector.   

Food waste will be collected by positioning dedicated food waste bins in up to 150 locations in each ward across the borough, with sensors to alert the Council when they are nearly full, for optimal efficiency of collection.  The food bins will look like this:

The options for garden waste will be:

• Take the waste to the Hornsey Road Recycling Centre
• Use a communal collection point in the locality
• Pay to have the waste collected by the council.

       Garden waste collection bins will look like this:

These new arrangements for green waste collections have been trialled in Tollington Ward over the summer, and reports are that recycling rates have not suffered as a result.  There does however remain the question of where the communal recycling points will be located, and the risk that they may become a sort of general dumping ground for rubbish.  I am still waiting to hear how the locations for green waste collection points will be established, and whether there is a maximum distance criteria for this.  With regard to assisting disabled people, the council already provides support for residents with mobility difficulties, and this will be expanded to include green waste collections for those residents.

I realise that some residents are not very happy about this proposal, and I can understand why this is causing concern, but the harsh reality is that the Tory government’s cuts to local authorities are really starting to bite, and we won’t know if this is an effective (ie positive value) cut unless we try it.