| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Car free day throughout the Chiswick High Rd area? | |
| Posted by: | Karen Liebreich | |
| Date/Time: | 12/07/18 20:02:00 |
| Andrew – I don’t consider you one of the usual suspects; you will have to work harder! Steve – deliveries cannot be a big issue on the weekend, surely, especially Sundays. Remember we are talking about a one off, or at most a once a month event. Certainly no-one complained about not being able to get their deliveries in on Turnham Green Terrace when we closed it. But yes, Andrew, the buses are the biggest problem. Ignoring Steve’s ageist and misogynistic point about confused grannies, you would need to work out whether you let the buses through, but then how do you stop other traffic without draconian policing? And if you divert them then where should they go. As Mark says, South Parade is already narrow, so if they were to go there, you would probably have to restrict parking along South Parade for a day. Jeffery, yes, blue badge holders would have to have extra provision. Thank you Richard, Philippa, Carl for being open to considering new ideas. No Steve, I haven’t been to Auckland, Bogota or Toronto. And your point is? Ah Loraine, the most regular of our usual suspects. I thought this thread could be a sensible discussion about the pros and cons of having a carfree day, but with your customary analytical skill you have seen through it all and realised it is actually, yes, an evil conspiracy dreamed up by your favourite bugbear “fanatical cyclists” who spend all their time plotting to fill up your pavements “with attendant noise and odour pollution.” Closing the road wouldn’t necessarily have to include stalls. Regent Street, for instance, has a few, but it also sets up sitting areas with deck chairs and giant jenga, runs exercise classes, flower workshops and stuff that doesn’t detract from the usual shops but just makes the temporary new pedestrian area more enticing. The fall in business that David sees on the Green Days for instance, shouldn’t happen if the event is on the road in front, rather than pulling people away over to a green far from the main drag that is providing lots of food, music and shopping away from the High Road. No, I don’t really see Chiswick as a destination from all over London, but I would see it as a destination for this part of West London, say from a distance of five miles or so. I can’t see that closing a road for one day would be “an expensive disaster” that suddenly causes people to abandon their shops for ever. Personally the idea of sitting in traffic for 20 minutes getting down the High Road and then 30 minutes every day after 3pm trying to get back down Sutton Court Road is the deal-breaker. Anecdotally I know of many people, especially in the Grove Park area, who find it much easier to go to Mortlake (or shop online) than to bother with Chiswick traffic. I drove up yesterday to buy something heavy – the shop didn’t have what I wanted anyhow and then it took me 40 minutes to get back down Chiswick High Road and across the A4. Parking wasn’t a problem – there were loads of spaces on Turnham Green Terrace, and anyhow I didn’t care whether I had to pay the £1 or not, it was the traffic that was the problem. I hold no particular candle for closing Chiswick High Road once for carfree day, especially not if I have to help organise it, but I thought it was worth exploring as there is a general move towards carfree days in general, and September 22nd in particular. It does seem like a lot of work for one day, and unless there is buy in from the businesses, then it’s obviously a non-starter. I’m glad to have the input from such a well-qualified person as David. Nevertheless I think closing Turnham Green Terrace and Devonshire Road occasionally would be worth serious consideration. I do think we need to think radically about our High Road. We are all buying around 40% of our stuff on the internet. That means 40% less purchasing on the High Road. So maybe we have too many shops. Or too many of the wrong kind of shops. We can sit in our bubble and pretend that Chiswick is not like anywhere else in the world, and that nothing that has worked anywhere else will work here, cos we are sooo special, but we are actually facing exactly the same problems as other High Roads – closing shops, high rents, high rates, nasty traffic, cheaper on the internet, Westfield... Meanwhile the congestion not only puts people off shopping on our High Road, but it is damaging our health. We should be encouraging active travel to fight our obesity and diabetes. (And yes, before someone points it out, I should be a lot thinner). And we should be using our cars less in order to cut back on pollution. In future years traffic pollution will be like smoking – did we really sit in restaurants and aeroplanes inhaling other people’s smoke? Did we really not realise years before the eventual bans that smoking kills? I’ll save Steve, John and Loraine the trouble and call myself a sanctimonious preaching prig, shall I? (Though I do like my car, don’t tell the true bike fanatics!) Meanwhile our real problem on Chiswick High Road is through traffic. King Street did a survey a few years back and discovered that 75% of their car traffic was just through traffic. This is of no use to local shops at all, bringing just congestion and pollution. If King St had 75%, then I suspect the result is the same for Chiswick High Road which is essentially a continuation of the same street. The problem is to get rid of that 75% and retain the 25% who actually want to park and shop. Cutting off the through routes, so that you can’t go easily from Hammersmith Roundabout to Chiswick Roundabout when you see the A4 is congested is the golden ticket that we need. And encouraging stop and shop. Which you can do easily if you are walking or cycling, and not so easily if you are stuck in a traffic jam. Interestingly the latest Hounslow recommendations on Air Quality, just out this week, with our very own Cllr Hearn on the panel, recommended not only that air quality must be a priority for the council, but that NOx and particulates from road transport (and buildings) are the issues that the council has the greatest ability to influence. One of the four main programmes (others were encouraging home owners and businesses to cut their emissions, and protecting the elderly and children) should be “promoting and facilitating cycling in the borough as healthier, reducing pollution and congestion, and more economical, whilst encouraging lesser dependence on private vehicles.” So for both economic and health reasons we should be tackling congestion in Chiswick. Sorry, for those who might still be reading, this post is basically 200 posts all in one dollop! |