The council is planning to make changes to Kentish Town Road as part of a Local Safety Scheme. This is not a formal consultation, but in essence advance notification of the works which are due to start in mid November. The changes are:
Increase the width of right turn lane into Holmes Road & Islip St
Raised entry treatments across Islip St, Caversham Rd, Gaisford St and Patshull Rd
Widening the traffic island between the Holmes Rd & Caversham Rd junctions
Laying of anti-skid surfacing material.
CCC’s response
We wish to point out that Kentish Town Road is on the LCN+, and has one of the largest numbers of cyclist casualties of any road in the borough.
CCC has lobbied for over a decade for cycle friendly changes to be made in this road to no avail. We are therefore concerned at the lack of measures intended to assist cyclists.
Raised Entry Treatments
We welcome the raised entry treatments across Islip St, Caversham Rd, Gaisford St and Patshull Rd as these should result in reduced speeds for motor vehicles negotiating these junctions with Kentish Town Road.
Carriageway narrowing
The increase the width of right turn lane into Holmes Road & Islip St and the widening the traffic island between the Holmes Rd & Caversham Rd junctions may result in cyclists being pinched by motor vehicles, so we do not recommend that these measures are implemented without consideration of cyclists’ needs. If the council does proceed with these measures we strongly recommend that the cyclist casualties at these locations are closely monitored so that remedial measures can be swiftly implemented.
Contraflow cycle lanes
Furthermore, given the casualty statistics for Kentish Town Road, we suggest that any measures that allow cyclists to use the quiet adjoining roads as an alternative will reduce cycle casualties. In previous consultations we have requested contraflow cycle lanes at the junctions of 4 roads to the east of Kentish Town Road which are still unidirectional as follows.
Bartholomew Road: There is currently a no entry sign and plug at the junction of Bartholomew Road and Bartholomew Villas. CCC again requests a cycle contraflow lane through the plug. This would enable cyclists to make the maximum use of Bartholomew Road in avoiding Kentish Town Road.
Caversham, Gaisford and Patshull Roads: As requested before, there should be a no entry plug and contraflow cycle lane at the Kentish Town Road end of each of Caversham Road, Gaisford Road and Patshull Road; these are currently no entry from Kentish Town Road, but 2-way after a short distance.
The requested contraflow lane in Islip Street has already been implemented and is very beneficial to cyclists.