10 year birthday for London's first mini-Holland
A lot of familiarity with the Chiswick experience here as the Waltham Forest mini-Holland scheme celebrates its 10th birthday. Luckily Chiswick gets to enjoy the experience of changing the way we live in urban space while sadly neighbouring Ealing and Richmond suffer in the old paradigm of car primacy. .https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/mini-holland-cycling-scheme-sadiq-khan-will-norman-walthamstow-b1158415.htmlThe benefits:"A game-changing transformation has resulted in more cycling, more walking, fewer collisions - saving lives. It’s resulted in greater footfall in the shops, cleaner air, closer communities.“We no longer need to design our cities for cars. We need to design them for people. This encapsulates that and shows what is possible. The impact goes way beyond London. Waltham Forest has shown the world how to do it."The hysterical and vile opposition:"Clyde Loakes, the councillor who led the introduction of the schemes, faced numerous threats to his safety. “There were some pretty hairy interviews with the police about some of the stuff that was coming my way,” he recalled.He received hate mail and protesters brought a coffin to Orford Road to signify the “death of Walthamstow village” when the road restrictions were made permanent in 2015. The newly-appointed Dutch ambassador, who was a guest at the event, was “chased” away by protesters.The Labour-run council had to fend off a judicial review challenge in the High Court brought by the E17 Streets 4 All group."And more on the benefits:"In 2018, researchers at King’s College predicted that children in the area would live longer because the air was cleaner.Mr Loakes said: “It started off just as a highways project, but look at the difference we have made in public health terms, in air quality terms, in congestion.“It all came from a nugget of an idea that we could make a difference and help more people to walk and cycle more often.“I didn’t even know what a cargo bike was, but now you see them on the school streets. Because we have created the infrastructure, parents feel safe to transport their most cherished loved ones to school and back again by bike.”
Paul Campbell ● 283d2 Comments