Transport for London has announced that its roadworks along Holloway Road will shortly move into Phase 2, around the Drayton Park and Liverpool Road junctions. Local residents have been campaigning for safer crossings at Drayton Park and Palmer Place for literally decades, so were delighted in 2019 when TfL announced it would be putting improvements in place, as part of the Mayor of London’s ‘Vision Zero’ goal, to eliminate death and serious injury on the capital’s roads. The work had to be postponed, due to Covid, but after what has felt like a long wait, at last it’s happening!
Admittedly Phase 1’s bollards, barriers and temporary lights have been causing a degree of delay and confusion, over the last few months, at the Eden Grove and Hornsey Street/Road junctions, for both vehicles and pedestrians, and the whole project is expected to last till next Spring. But by then TfL will have improved crossings and junctions all the way from Highbury Corner to Holloway Rd tube. So we’re going to have to put up with the disruption for a bit longer, but, by the end, a significant stretch of our streets and pavements will be safer.
Thanks, therefore, to TfL and the Mayor, and congratulations to the people of Holloway and Highbury for keeping the pressure up, for so many years. It may take time, but community campaigns really can bear fruit!
Andrew Myer, Islington Green Party