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LORRY LOAD OF TROUBLE
Chaos and danger predicted on roads as Crossrail trucks plan is revealed
TRAFFIC chaos, cycle deaths and deafening noise.
THIS is the doom-laden forecast of residents, politicians and campaigners if the council signs off plans that would see hundreds of lorries a day trundling through central London when tunnelling work starts on Crossrail.
Documents seen by Westminster Council’s planning committee last night (Thursday), which they are expected to approve, reveal how routes including Oxford Street, Shafesbury Avenue, Tottenham Court Road and Marylebone Road will be swamped with heavy goods vehicles due to excavation work that will last for a minimum of three years.
Charing Cross Road and Newman Street will be the busiest, carrying 50 lorries a day at peak digging times.
The bombshell comes as a double whammy after Transport for London (TfL) revealed proposals to re-route more than 800 buses a day through the narrow streets of Fitzrovia while the eastern end of Oxford Street is closed to traffic in 2010 to work on the £16billion project.
?Max Neufeld, from the Charlotte Street Association, said: “These lorries will just add to our woes. It’s going to be unbearably noisy, make it very dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians and traffic is going to be at a standstill. Obviously the spoil has to be moved, but surely they should split the load. At the moment they are using just a few routes.”
Lorries will transport earth from sites including Bond Street station, Newman Street, Charing Cross Road and Goslett Yard as well as other major construction sites in the west of the borough at Westbourne Park, Royal Oak and Paddington.
The scheme, which is intended to slash journey times across the capital, will bisect central London, running from Maidenhead in Berkshire in the West all the way to Shenfield, Essex in the East.
Tunnelling is due to take place between 2011 and 2014, but given the speculation over the financing of the project, some transport experts are saying that despite the preparatory work already starting, it may never be completed.
The Lorry Management Plan warned that the earth-ferrying routes, which will see five million tonnes excavated, would “affect quality of life”.
Jace Tyrrell, from the New West End Company, the umbrella group for businesses in central London, said: “Noise, pollution, traffic congestion, vibrations and public safety issues arising from lorry movements will have a significant and negative impact on shoppers and visitors to the West End.”
Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones said: “It is fairly disastrous having all these extra lorries on some of London’s most congested roads. There will be worse air quality and a lot more cyclist deaths.”
Crossrail said: “We have a strict construction code which lays out hours of work, levels of noise and we will not stray from that.” |
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