Caroline and a team from City Hall went on a long walk on Tuesday 3rd August with Sustrans officers Carl and Matt. The fact finding walk is part of Caroline’s investigation into making walking easier and safer in London. The report will look at what the Mayor is doing to make walking safer in London and suggest things he can do in the short, medium and longer term to encourage more Londoners to walk around our great capital city.
Sustrans is a UK charity set-up to identify practical ways for people to travel in a more sustainable and healthy way. The visit was an opportunity to look at two programmes delivered by Sustrans GOAL (Greenways for the Olympics and London) - a broad programme of work including the development of an extensive network of London Greenways, the National Cycle Network and a network of walking and cycling routes around the Olympic park, and Connect2, a UK-wide programme to develop 79 cycling and walking routes by 2013.
The walk started at Mile End tube, walking through Stepney and Ratcliff and eventually ended at City Hall! The team looked at a number of features such as:
- The Green Bridge over Mile End Road;
- Meath Bridge over the canal (a Connect2 project);
- Filtered permeability at Morpeth Street (filtered permeability is the concept that networks for walking/cycling should be more permeable than roads to make them more attractive);
- Mile End Road presenting a barrier to north/south movement; and
- A pedestrianised street in the Gas Works redevelopment.
“It was lovely to spend the whole morning walking through Tower Hamlets, looking at ways walking can be made better and also looking at some of the barriers to walking. It was great to go to the Ocean Estate, where Sustrans is currently working on a community walking and travel planning initiative and to hear first hand how it is working” commented Caroline.
Photo – Caroline by the canal in Tower Hamlets