Your voice for a cycling city

Highbury Corner officially welcomes walkers and cyclists

After decades of grim casualty statistics and hostile conditions for road users, Highbury Corner gyratory has been transformed into a liveable public space with access to the trees in the centre, a piazza outside the station and protected cycle tracks alongside the car lanes. The local branch of LCC, Cycle Islington, which had campaigned for improvements, was at the opening ceremony in force to celebrate the radical changes at this once highly hostile junction.

Opening the new public space Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “Before we started working at Highbury Corner here had been 15 collisions in the previous three years, 12 of those were cyclists.”  “You’ve got to make it easier and more attractive for people to walk and cycle – in London there are thousands of premature deaths due to bad air … and this is part of our investment in healthy streets in London.”

Speaking to LCC Khan said that he hoped local councils would build on investments like Highbury Corner: “I think it’s really important to be ambitious in our plans so I’m sure you realise that’s a consideration at Highbury Corner because of our investment, but you are right to remind me that there are many streets that are outside of my control that are controlled by councils and we want councils to be encouraging people to particularly cycle and walk”

Khan also highlighted the latest TfL cycling standards for all of London: “We’re having criteria before something can become a Cycleway, and that includes safety, that includes signage and all the other things. And I’m keen to work with councils.”

The Mayor’s cycling commissioner , Will Norman, commenting on extending the protected tracks to local schools and cycle routes, added that “What we are building is not just routes, but a network , so it is important, but we have to get those nodes(junctions)  right, this has been such a dangerous junction for so long that getting this right is important, then, as we grow that network, as we see more people cycling, providing that provision and enabling more people to cycle is absolutely critical.”