COUNCIL TEXT
Delancey Street is a one-way street with two lanes along most of its length, running from Camden High Street to Parkway. It has a mixture of residential and business fronting it and is located within the boundary of the following wards; Camden Town with Primrose Hill, St Pancras and Somers Town, and Regent’s Park.
There is currently a pedestrian crossing facility with push buttons (puffin) located on Delancey Street near its junction with Arlington Road and a zebra crossing near its junction with Albert Street. In addition, there are a number of bus stops along this stretch of road, hence together with the crossings, a number of pedestrians cross this road at various points. The road is heavily used by traffic especially during the morning and evening rush hours, which makes it difficult to turn out of the side roads.
During the 36 months to July 2005, there were in total 12 recorded collisions, which resulted in 2 serious and 10 slight personal injuries. The majority of the collisions involved failure to give way (50%), of which 25% involved motorcyclists. Of the 12 total collisions, 3 involved pedestrians and 3 involved cyclists. The majority of the collisions are concentrated at the two main junctions with Arlington Road and Albert Street where Delancey Street traffic has priority.
Due to the high volume of traffic, the Council is concerned about the safety of vehicles turning out of the side streets and the safety of pedestrians crossing the road. The Council is therefore proposing measures to improve safety on Delancey Street at its junctions with Albert Street and Arlington Road. These proposals will form part of a local safety scheme, funded by Transport for London (TfL) for implementation in 2006/07 financial year.
The Council is informing you of its proposals for improvements to Delancey Street as shown on the drawing. The proposals include the following:
• Increase the width of the pavement on both sides of Delancey Street just before its junctions with Arlington Road and Albert Street. This will reduce the road from two lanes to one wide lane (4.5m wide), which will still be wide for buses, lorries and emergency services.
• This will improve safety for pedestrians crossing at the dedicated crossing points (puffin or zebra) as vehicles approaching will be able to see them clearly and they will have a shorter distance to cross. Safety of vehicles coming out of Arlington Road and Albert Street will be improved as the widened pavement will improve visibility between drivers approaching from Delancey Street and those coming out of the side streets.
• At Albert Street the pedestrian refuge island will also be widened in order to align it with the pavement widening on Delancey Street, hence safety of vehicles turning right out of Albert Street will also be improved as the stoplines will be moved forward. The existing grey colour tactile paving at this junction will be changed to buff colour tactile paving.
CCC’s response
We support the objective of the local safety scheme, which is to promote road safety in Delancey Street.
We also support one aspect of the implementation: the narrowing of the road to a width of 4.5 metres, which is wide enough for vehicles including buses to pass cyclists safely. According to Francesco Cioffi, three pedestrian casualties occurred one at Albert St/Delancey St junction, one at Arlington Rd/Delancey St and one outside No. 50 Delancey St. The proposed measures should help to avoid a recurrence of the first two types of collision.
But our experience is that at least part of the problem on Delancey Street is the speed of traffic coming over from Pratt Street when the lights change at the Camden High Street junction – it tends to hurtle over and on towards the Parkway junction. Speed may have been the cause of the third pedestrian collision.
We also requested information on the details of cycle collisions. Francesco Cioffi said: ‘Unfortunately I have misplaced the accident data and I can’t seem to find out where the cyclist collisions occurred. I will look for them this week otherwise I will try and get them again’. But we haven not received them.
However we do know that speed reduction reduces the likelihood of cycle casualties. A major oversight in this safety scheme is the lack of any measures to reduce speed. The Arlington Street junction road narrowing will be difficult for cyclists to anticipate, as they will approach it coming round the corner from Camden High Street.
We are not at all happy with the carriageway reverting to two lanes between the two pinch points (as shown on the plan) – traffic isn’t going to form two lanes having been channelled through the first pinch point, but the extent of road space will encourage speeding and make it dangerous for cyclists to get into a suitable place to get through the second pinch point (with buses etc going that way too).
To summarise:
- further measures should be taken to reduce the speed of vehicles between Camden High Street and Arlington Road;
- Delancey Street should remain as a wide single (4.5 m) lane between Arlington Road and Albert Street.
After CCC Safety Audit
Phone conversaton with Simi Shah, 6 Feb 2009.
Fatality happened after changes made (motorcyclist). Locals refused to have junctions raised or to raise puffin crossing south of junction Arlington (buildings close to street). Police insisted gap should be 4.2 m. I urged slower speeds (e.g. signs) so that gap could be narrower, but main point to narrow the road all the way along. They have hatching + parking. We should probably look again and get back to her. Consider both speed reduction and narrowing (but need space close to Camden High Street).
