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Cyclists protest outside the new St Pancras station |
It’s poetry and motion at St Pancras!
...but not everyone’s getting on board
New Euro link station opens to public amid demonstrations over facilities and area’s future
PAUSING for a minute’s silence at the junction where two fellow cyclists were killed, protesters from across London gathered to demand safer streets around the new St Pancras station yesterday (Wednesday).
Under the banner “Lovely station, Lethal Access”, more than 50 cyclists rode circuits around the station to highlight shortfalls in cycling safety and bicycle parking space as VIPs gathered inside to welcome the first scheduled Eurostar trains from the Continent.
They were joined in Camley Street by widower Reg Wright, paying silent tribute to his wife, Hampstead jeweller and author Emma Foa, 56, who was killed at the junction with Goods Way last Christmas by a lorry which trapped her bicycle under its wheels.
At an inquest into her death earlier this month, St Pancras coroner Dr Andrew Reid took the unusual step of pledging to write to Transport for London over cycling safety, saying he had heard too many cases in which cyclists were killed by heavy goods vehicles.
Protest organiser Jean Dollimore, of the Camden Cycling Campaign, said riders were encouraged by the recent installation of 50 bike stands at the station and promises that Eurostar would accept bikes on trains from next year, but warned that cycling around the station remained hazardous.
She said: “There are simple things that could be done that have not been done, such as signage for cycle routes to Camden Town or Bloomsbury, and the most important thing is cycle safety artound the station. Midland Road is one way southbound, and we want northbound access for cyclists. These are things that could take some time to sort out and at the moment they are unsafe.”
She said the Camley Street junction, which has claimed two lives, remained dangerous despite the addition of a ‘bike box’ at its front.
She added: “They’ve built the lead-in lane in the wrong place, so that cyclists could be drawn down the inside of a heavy vehicle. It must be moved.”
At the junction, the minute’s silence was called by London Cycling Campaign chairman Ralph Smyth. He said: “Two tragedies have happened at this spot.
“We are stopped here at St Pancras, the world’s greatest station, which seems to have forgotten the cyclists.”
He said that although Network Rail rushed in 50 bike parking spaces at the station’s NCP car park “in advance of this protest”, campaigners are calling for at least 1,000 to make the area genuinely accessible for cyclists.
He also challenged the sentence awarded to the driver of the lorry which killed Mrs Foa, who pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention in October and received a fine and six penalty points on his licence.
“A £300 fine for killing somebody. There are those who would say that was an insult to justice,” said Mr Smyth. |
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