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Saturation point as museum races to attract more visitors
• NOW the British Museum is on a path to convert its building into a London Disneyland and the launch of the spectacular becomes its prime activity, it has lost the balance between interesting the public while preserving its speciality for the more serious person, hence the sacrifice of the reading room to more vicarious pleasures.
In any case, even if the museum halts its race to maximise its number of visitors, the gross disparity in the use made of the road widths between the north and south side entrances must be attended to in the interests of pedestrian and vehicle safety.
The photograph included in the New Journal report shows the northern entrance to the British Museum (How traffic could be driven out, August 14). Had it shown its southern side in Great Russell Street, and then gone on to point out that this latter width is a third of that in Montague Place and, further, that saturation on the southern side by visitors and traffic is responsible for more than 20 pedestrian accidents during the past three years, he would have shown how complacent/silly is Councillor Mike Greene’s view that the proposed road changes will make for a safer area.
What should be considered is making the northern entrance to the museum equal to the southern. This means a lot of new thinking and a shifting of old ideas. In this the overloading of people and traffic, particularly at the museum’s main entrance in Great Russell Street, must be addressed.
This could include re-routing the No7 bus away from Great Russell Street to use Bedford Square and Montague Place. Coaches and taxis should also be encouraged to that side, both for dropping off and pick-ups.
And, now that a process of renewal is under way, the sheer ugliness of the southern side can be attended to, doing a service to users, visitors and residents of Bloomsbury.
ALAN SPENCE
Chairman, Bury Place Residents Association
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