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Improvements? What a joke!
• CHANGES on Prince of Wales Road at Kentish Town West railway arch have been presented by our council as improvements (Dalby Street road closure will cause traffic chaos, February 1).
Had these proposed changes been prepared by a developer, the inclusion of the word ‘improvement’ would have been expected. All those who have taken the trouble to understand the proposals, however, have been flabbergasted.
The changes include moving off-centre the traffic hazard line that defines the centre of the low arch bridge. All to promote a new road junction at Dalby Street.
Observers of traffic constantly see high vehicles passing along Prince of Wales Road ‘migrating’ to the centre.
If the centre of the road ceases to be the same as the centre of the arch, it will a mount to a new and serious traffic hazard for motorists and drivers of high vehicles in particular.
This, together with a totally ‘blind’ corner for pedestrians having to cross the New Dalby Street because the proposed road will lack a pavement on either side, suggests Camden is actually promoting a double hazard ‘black spot’. Can this be sensible?
J TREADGOLD
Leighton Road, NW5
• THE Dalby Street road closure and associated highway improvements proposed by our Camden Town Hall engineers at Prince of Wales fail to convince me that any of the changes proposed will benefit the community.
‘Slow moving’ traffic will be replaced by a mean lane as narrow as 4.8 metres wide with no parking spaces and no footpath whatsoever, when the existing two-way traffic lanes, parking bay lane and pavements on both sides of Dalby Street was deemed inadequate by the developer himself. The existing road, however, is more than twice the width of the proposed new Dalby Street. My teenage son has recently started to ride a bike. So I have paid particular attention to the cycling changes proposed by the Town Hall engineers at Prince of Wales Road.
A revolutionary plan to widen the zebra crossing by a grand total of 12 inches to assist cyclists (four inches on one lane and eight on the other) is presented as a cyclists’ dream. The scheme will also destroy the only totally segregated cycle lane (under the bridge on the south side) replacing it with a 1.5 metre unsegregated lane.
A new proposed cycle lane at the junction of the new Dalby Street and Prince of Wales Road will be unsafe as the cycle lane is likely to be constantly blocked by car drivers emerging from the new Dalby Street, nudging in and blocking the way whilst trying to get a clear view beyond the railway bridge line. The Kentish Town West station pavement will lose its cycle stands and width to be replaced with no cycle stands and a 2.5 metre wide pavement. All these ‘improvements’ are the cause of local amazement at the benevolence of Camden Town Hall.
BEVERLY GARDNER
Athlone Street, NW5
• COMMONSENSE indicates that slow traffic is more polluting. Frustrated drivers are more often mobile users whilst driving – see Highgate Road on a Monday rush hour. The council’s proposals are certain to slow Prince of Wales traffic. This will be welcome for the advantage this gives pedestrians and cyclists.
The crossing of the proposed New Dalby Street will need help. This totally blind crossing point on the route from the No 46 bus stop to the railway station will require a pedestrian crossing if it is to be made safe.
NIGEL SLATER
Castle Road
Kentish Town, NW1
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