Forum Topic

Why have crossings at Greenford Flyover?

Greenford Green Labour has raised safety at Greenford Flyover as a local priority. It says that they will work with TfL to introduce surface level crossings. Not a new idea, a local Conservative councillor has been promoting this for some time. Why indulge those who are too lazy to use the subways? Their excuse for crossing the slip roads is that they fear being mugged or even murdered in the space under the Flyover but that could happen to them anywhere. On schooldays you will see more than one parent dodging traffic with their children, often with a phone clamped to one ear, because they are late. Apart from being a real menace to responsible drivers this provides a very poor example to the next generation of pedestrians. Other parents make the effort to turn up on time and at certain times of day there are quite a few people with pushchairs using the subways. They aren't perfect, they are quite steep and the dogleg layout makes CCTV coverage awkward, but I still see them being used by people on mobility scooters and cyclists. The opening of William Perkin High School near these subways was a major concern for me and I commented on it during the planning application stage. Whoever is responsible for the area under the flyover has cut back the bushes and undergrowth since the school was launched, and the steps have been improved.A more intelligent option would be to make it much harder to cross the slip roads (higher, more substantial barriers) while using that space for an air-conditioned community building in use 24 hours a day. A walk-in medical centre, a police station, a cybercafe and even a local radio station could make that space useful. It is not suitable for a skate park - it is below street level, out of sight of the road, and and I could feel the effects of the noise and emissions when I was down there for two hours with Henry Shaftoe, a lecturer in Planning and Architecture along with Chris Vallance of BBC Radio 4 on a hot day. Henry Shaftoe has been active in improving a similar space in Bristol (read about it here:  https://info.uwe.ac.uk/news/uwenews/news.aspx?id=1895).One of my neighbours, who admits he has never used the subways since it was built in 1979, wants the space filled with concrete, which shows a profound lack of understanding as to how such structures work. If the crossings are put in place the area under the flyover could be used as a nature reserve, with access limited in the same way that it is at Perivale Wood. It could soak up all the run off caused by the loss of front gardens. It would be interesting to see what local members of the Selborne Society and Friends of the Earth think of this idea. Here is a short video for all those who, like my neighbour, have never been under Greenford Flyover, recorded before the growth was cut back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BPcfRRaKbs&feature=youtu.be

Albertina McNeill ● 4417d6 Comments

I work in the evenings, as do a great many other people who keep your world functioning. Did you miss the bit about walking home at night? That's often 10pm or 11pm at night, near the flyover. You flatter me, am I entirely to blame for Greenford's congestion issues? Who knew? I admit to being responsible for a brief traffic jam one morning as I had blogged about potholes in Rockware Avenue (an absolute whopper that no one else seemed to have noticed) which was reported by a local councillor. It was fixed within twenty four hours. It reached the stage where problems were reported every time I raised them, fly tipping, litter, graffiti, cyclists riding the wrong way around the flyover. I expect the council is relieved that I stopped at the end of 2012.Thanks for regarding me as an advocate for Greenford. With so many uninformed, naive and overly fearful people about it certainly needs someone to stand up for it.

Albertina McNeill ● 4416d

if you have walked for so much, why not to ward forums :)Anyway beng such a greenford advocate why is it congested after the good for greenford scheme, your local feedback would have helped here

Ron Gill ● 4416d

Actually Thomas, I've never learned to drive. I am a pedestrian ninety-nine percent of the time and prefer to see people walking/cycling to driving but I expect them to do it responsibly. You're right, the people who cross the slip roads are selfish. Glad you got the point of my post, although some reading your reply might wonder if you bothered to read it at all.

Albertina McNeill ● 4416d

I've been to a lot of local stations at night. I have an hour long walk home from work in West Ealing to Greenford at night. I've even walked through the space at the flyover at night which is close to my home. In fact, I spent the best part of 2012 walking around Greenford at all hours for a blog called Greenford 365, which to date has had over 50,000 hits. You must have missed it. "Local approval" by the handful of people willing or able to attend ward forums isn't much of a recommendation. It's unfortunate that, even though you're "still young", you believe that any subway in Greenford is "largely unsafe". I am now "fairly old" but am somehow capable of walking about at night in the area I've called home for twenty years.

Albertina McNeill ● 4416d

"Why indulge those who are too lazy to use the subways?"So pedestrians are lazy, which makes people choosing to drive in a major city, what, precisely?  Olympic endurance running champions?  Mountain climbers?  Biathlon hopes for the 2018 Winter Olympics?  How dare people seek the most direct route between two places regardless of the ugly, alien structure imposed on them.  Such selfishness.Anyway, you should be welcoming more pedestrians, it gets people off the roads so the Mr. Toad set can poop poop their way to the next jam.  The degree of unawareness in this post boggles the mind.

Thomas Barry ● 4417d

bit late, there was a consultation for this and approved locallyAlthough Im still young, I do understand the reasosn for closure of a subway, it isnt the 70s, 80s anymore, its largely unsafe at nightever been to hanger hill station at night?

Ron Gill ● 4417d