I’d very much like to see Swiss Cottage rescued from the continuous horde of circulating motor vehicles and the roads recreated as Healthy Streets.
Drawing on Transport for London’s Healthy Streets indicators, Swiss Cottage would be suitable for pedestrians from all walks of life, a place where people choose to walk, cycle and use public transport, with clean air; a place where people feel safe, not too noisy, with places to stop and rest, and shade and shelter.
The southbound motor traffic arriving on the A41 trunk road should revert to Finchley Road (which would once again be two-way like the rest of it).
This southbound motor traffic would no longer encroach on Avenue Road and Adelaide Road. Avenue Road would become calm and easy to cross, thereby connecting the cinema and the pub with the green space around the Library and Leisure Centre as well as the underground station, Hampstead Theatre and Swiss Cottage Market.
Camden is developing a network of safe cycle routes radiating outwards from the busy central area of the borough. For example there has long been a safe cycle route between Bloomsbury and Kentish Town and recent developments of the network enable cyclists to reach Chalk Farm and Belsize Park via Prince of Wales Road and Haverstock Hill.
An important next step for the network is an east-west route with protected cycle lanes along Adelaide Road via a safe crossing over Finchley Road onto Hillgrove Road, reaching South Hampstead – as a prelude towards joining the northwest of the borough to the rest.
In 2016 TfL consulted on proposals for returning the southbound motor traffic on the A41 to the Finchley Road with the Avenue Road side confined to buses and cycles and a north-south cycling route through Avenue Road. The proposals gained majority support and TfL was ready to go ahead in 2018 but was blocked at the last minute by Westminster Council.
TfL should dust off their plans, bringing them up-to-date with current standards and enabling an east-west cycle route through the Adelaide Road side of the junction.
Now that Westminster Council has changed hands I hope they will support such changes at Swiss Cottage.
Jean Dollimore is from Camden Cycling Campaign.
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