Old Street roundabout designs

Has anyone else seen this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20613655

Basically it's being proposed that a large building be constructed in the centre of the roundabout, and the current artists' impressions of the structure appear to have a lit cladding on the outside (presumably to somehow illustrate the "tech" and "electric" economy in the area).

Given the number of times Old Street features in the Rider Down forum, I'm pretty worried that the design (even in it's nascent and nebulous form) reduces visibility around the junction, whilst additionally appearing to wash the area in uneven and sparkly lights (LEDs I presume) that will make it harder for all road users to quickly see other road obstacles.

Does anyone know if the planning process has already commenced for this, or is this just the government and Mayor dreaming at the moment?

I met the bloke who designed this at an alumni art exhibition at my old school. He's a really bright guy with interesting ideas (though his work is a bit one-liner and commercial for my taste).

The proposal is all about using advertising to fund a new cultural building and a major revamp of Old Street roundabout. It's quite a good idea and his caught the attention of some big cheesy-type people.

Oliver Schick will have a lot to say about it I'm sure, as an infrastructure buff with a special interest in the roundabout, who also abhors all contemporary architecture ;-)

I still remember the current old street roundabout being built, has it been that long?

The proposal is all about using advertising to fund a new cultural building and a major revamp of Old Street roundabout. It's quite a good idea and his caught the attention of some big cheesy-type people.

That strikes me as a very bad idea though.

Advertising by necessity needs to grab attention, do we want one of the most dangerous junctions to have an attention grabbing centre?

To navigate a roundabout you have to look to the inside, I'm not sure that it would be advertising that funds the building, it is the externalised cost of road incidents that would fund the roundabout.

Literally, and trying to avoid being hyperbolic, I think that distracting advertising in the centre of roundabouts brings in revenue for the landlords with a real cost measured in increased road incidents.

Well, Josh has heard me say all this before when we've met up at Old Street, but here goes.

We (London Cycling Campaign in Hackney) have done some work on this, as we consider the current proposals to be the wrong strategy for this important crossroads. We would like the junction to be returned to its former layout. We don't want to end up with an IMAX situation in which the roundabout (albeit minus one of its arms) permanently enshrined.

Junctions function because they have a centre of public interaction. Close to this centre are the best commercial opportunities. From early crossroads along cross-country roads, where you might have got an inn, a blacksmith's, a horse stable, etc., to modern, extremely busy urban junctions, where two ways cross is generally the best place for concentrating functions such as shops, pubs, etc. It's no accident that historically so many public houses were on corners.

Roundabouts are nonsense because they remove all advantages of concentrated junctions. They are not meant to help people linger somewhere, just to drive through. It takes ages to walk around one, which means people do this less and use shops there less. Needless to say, they create extremely poor environments for cycling. The streets leading up to roundabouts are difficult to cross on foot because of high exit velocities. In fact, when gyratory systems were first bombed into our cities, they were generally built with pedestrian underpasses, adding even more delay and effort to insult and injury--literally, as early gyratory systems produced carnage. For some reason, though, people on foot insisted on continuing to cross at the surface, jumping guard railing, etc. They are still difficult to negotiate for many bike riders and there are many fatalities and serious injuries to people walking and cycling, whether at Old Street, Vauxhall, or the Elephant and Castle, to name just a few of the most notorious. Their baleful influence actually extends a good way along side streets, too.

For all these reasons, the vast majority of them in London had to be fully signalised, removing all 'advantages' for motor traffic capacity. The Old Street roundabout itself was only signalised and (I think) had surface-level crossings added in 2002, the last of Inner London's major roundabouts, as part of the Mayor's construction of the Inner Ring Road for purposes of congestion charging.

What these architects are proposing is essentially to design an artificial, contained interaction space where the junction's interaction space should be more naturally. I thoroughly approve of the idea of facilitating interaction and exchange of ideas, but it is avoiding the real problem here, which is the inappropriate shape of the junction. No-one dares tackle it; Islington's strategy for the roundabout involves closing the north-western arm to motor traffic, as they are proposing at Highbury Corner. There, that strategy makes sense, as there is something worth preserving in the centre; there is nothing worth preserving in the centre of the Old Street roundabout. The strategy (which was adopted in 2008) is in urgent need of revision. Predictably, TfL have claimed that a return to a crossroads layout would cause car queues all the way up City Road. This is nonsense; we would instead see considerable modal shift to cycling and walking.

A huge opportunity would be lost if the central island was permanently confirmed and the corners remained undeveloped properly. The junction is surrounded on almost all sides by poor-quality buildings that are long past their sell-by dates. Most would benefit from being extended if their basic structure was to be retained in a wholesale redevelopment, or from being replaced altogether. The cost of a traffic scheme (constructing a suspended structure over the Tube station, building a crossroads) would be dwarfed by the development volume that could be realised around the junction. The precedent for tall buildings is well-established there, so that you could realise developments worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

After all, if this is supposed to be Tech City, it has to go somewhere--you're not going to forever be able to trade on a few former warehouses and medium-sized office buildings containing start-ups.

I still remember the current old street roundabout being built, has it been that long?

You probably remember the works that took place there in 2002, to which I allude above. The roundabout itself was built in the 1960s.

http://www.islington.gov.uk/publicrecords/library/Planning-and-building-control/Information/Advice-and-information/2011-2012/%282012-03-03%29-Old-Street-Roundabout-Development-Strategy.pdf

This isn't the adopted strategy, just a draft--I've asked Islington several times for their adopted strategy (of 2008) but it still hasn't been uploaded (or sent to me separately)--don't know why, as it's a public document.

That strikes me as a very bad idea though.

Advertising by necessity needs to grab attention, do we want one of the most dangerous junctions to have an attention grabbing centre?

To navigate a roundabout you have to look to the inside, I'm not sure that it would be advertising that funds the building, it is the externalised cost of road incidents that would fund the roundabout.

Literally, and trying to avoid being hyperbolic, I think that distracting advertising in the centre of roundabouts brings in revenue for the landlords with a real cost measured in increased road incidents.

I agree. I think whether it's advertising or not, it would be very distracting. I also forgot to add something in the previous post; work by Intelligent Space and others has consistently found that one of the main barriers to pedestrian movement is if views are blocked, and this scheme would introduce a major blockage of views.

FWIW, the bit I thought was a good idea was raising capital from advertising and investing it in cultural projects.

I think the proposal is ugfuck and I agree it would also block views excessively. It would create a distraction, but I kind of assume that everyone is distracted by everything all the time anyway.

You'll think I'm mad (or a just a bit pretentious), but I quite like Old Street Roundabout (not including the road itself) as it is the dirty, smelly underpass has quite a lot of character. But yeah, it could really do with a spruce.

I should have posted this here when we came out with it:

http://hackney.cc/old_street_city_road/

^so much better

What's all the stuff in the middle of the roundabout, as a matter of interest? I assume at least some of it has a function of some kind. Is that what the collection of pillboxes in the left hand corner is for in the proposal?

Don't really think there's anything, just ventilation.

Recently a bar open in the middle;

and how are right hand turns serviced in the crossroads version?

No, the 'pillboxes' are only there to illustrate possible uses for that space. It's very unlikely that the functions which currently exist in the centre of the junction couldn't be accommodated in some other way. After all, you'd be talking about a whole new build on two or three corners.

For a second I thought the link was to Hackney council's website and that this was an official plan :(

Nah. motorised traffic always get first priority.

Ed, the one thing you can say about Hackney is that motorised traffic does not always get priority. Rather than go for cycle lanes and such their policy is generally to make it easier for cyclists on existing routes- hence a lot of streets that are two way for bikes but not motor vehicles or where cyclists can pass through but motor vehicles cannot (the fabled 'filtered permeability) and places such as the Narrow Way where only bikes and buses are allowed as well as regulations for new housing developments that do not include parking spaces. It may be true in Hackney, as in the rest of London, that the bus will always be king but that's all, as far as policy goes.

^ I don't agree with this. There is very little provision for cycling in the north of the borough. Stoke newington and Stamford hill are terrible places to cycle as is green lanes.

I said, in response to Ed, that in Hackney motorised traffic does not always get first priority and it doesn't. always. I live in Stoke Newington and don't agree that it is a terrible place to cycle, by the way.

You're right it doesn't always get priority. The one way system frustrates me in SN

Me too and eventually it might go. Stamford Hill is a mixed bag, riddled with streets that are two way for bikes but one way for cars but also bedevilled by some of the worst driving and road etiquette to be found anywhere. 'Crazy town' as it is sometimes known amongst cycle instructors.

The one-way gyratory in Stoke Newington is now scheduled for a return to two-way between 2016 and 2020 (in the TfL business plan). We're having the first meetings about it this September.

In the north of the borough (north and north-east of Stoke Newington, that is), there isn't yet that much political support for cycling. This will gradually change.

and how are right hand turns serviced in the crossroads version?

Oops, sorry, Nic, I missed this. There are a couple of options, e.g. giving quite a long phase to the Inner Ring Road right turn (Old Street east to City Road north) or split phases, but in principle right-hand turns would work as they always do at crossroads.

Just recieved an email from TFL detailing their plans and consultation for redevelopment of Old Street Roundabout https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/old-street-roundabout