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As for junction design (in the peak hour, and along the various routes into Central London), you won't get a different approach until network-wide problems are addressed, as I keep banging on ad nauseam: reduce the need to travel by evening out activity and not having the vast majority of economic activity taking place in just a small area of Central London
That just ends up with people living in A and working in B, and vice versa, all committing through C which used to be a nice village but which is now in the way of a shiny new bypass. For example look at cities like Houston. Because economic activity is spread out it is very easy to build direct road links over huge distances - nothing valuable is in the way.
By comparison, extreme centralisation:
- has economic benefits (specialisation)
- drives up land value and density making it too expensive to build roads compared to high capacity public transit
- allows people to select where they irrationally want to live and still get to the center of economic activity without using a car
- allows people to meet to their friends (who have probably moved to another district) without relying on cars as they can meet in the middle or connect public transport there
High rise cities should also benefit cycling because everything is closer together.
- has economic benefits (specialisation)
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inappropriate_bike
Haha, no, I've said considerably more than that.
Er? Where has it not been clear that this is precisely Khan's desire?
This measure isn't a 'fancy grand idea', it's a perfectly sensible, workmanlike step that will most certainly change the pedestrian environment for the better. Obviously, it's still limited in its scope with only ten locations, but once rolled out more widely it'll be seen as important.
As for junction design (in the peak hour, and along the various routes into Central London), you won't get a different approach until network-wide problems are addressed, as I keep banging on ad nauseam: reduce the need to travel by evening out activity and not having the vast majority of economic activity taking place in just a small area of Central London (and yes, that's what needs to happen first; it's a case of redirecting investment, and it needs to be in the London Plan). Even were that to happen, the (Boris Johnson-'era') threat of the Roads Task Force-style massive expansion of motor traffic capacity around the perimeter needs to be fought off.
Anyway, that's getting very far away from what we're talking about.