Socialist Roads
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I was going to post this as a bit of fun, because HO appears fleetingly in the background:
However, the video does have some interesting points: I know that intersection well, and it is a pig (usually as a pedestrian – you can see how hard it is for cars to make their way out, so they are less than averagely patient with pedestrians – I use lots of back streets when I cycle to avoid that very junction.
But, as the presenter delves into the complexity of the problem, it becomes an example of planning, of how tweaking one aspect of a system can have major unforeseen effects further down.
Free marketeers would harp on about how this is happening because of socialist free access roads, and if people were charged for their transport choices, the market could fix this.
The reality, though, is that precisely the conscious planning, co-operation and debate of all involved is the key to fixing this sort of issue.
I hope a clever solution is found.
As this is just down from our offices in Clapham High Street I know the area too as a car driver and as a pedestrian. At one point the activist cyclist suggests that the side road in question (it is hardly an intersection) is a rat run, ie a short cut for cars. I can’t see from where to where. It is rather an exit on to a main road for those living in the area. Anyway, it is often closed at weekends. I suspect the problem for cyclists is that the main road is down hill at that point and that they inadvertently find themselves going faster.
He also omits to say that, at the pedestrian crossing with lights further back, some cyclists take no notice of the red light. But that of course is par for the course.
He says that the road was not built for cars. True, it was built for horse-drawn traffic including, being Clapham, omnibuses.
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