Paddington - the bare necessities
The areas around train stations in city centres should be not only navigable and legible, but welcoming and inspiring. The area around Paddington Station is anything but – largely due to it its bewildering and toxic streetscape.
The Paddington Partnership business association is currently consulting on much-needed public realm improvements to the Bishop’s Bridge area around Paddington Station. The proposals involve pavement widening, pedestrian crossings and opening up views to the canal. But what’s urgently needed is the re-allocation of road space.
The streets around the station have been designed to make motor vehicle traffic as fast and fluid as possible. But to anyone not in a motor vehicle, they are confusing and frightening experience.
The proposals to create an urban logistics hub in the space below 5 Kingdom Street would see a significant increase in cargo bike users in the area, further underlining the need for safe cycling infrastructure.
Bishop’s Bridge itself sets the tone. Passengers emerging from the station are spewed out into a bewildering and fume-filled environment, unable even to cross the road. Cyclists are at the mercy of speeding traffic on what is in effect a five lane urban motorway.
At one end of the bridge the four-lane lane Harrow Road roundabout is likewise a massive deterrent to walking and cycling. A faded painted bike lane and few random wands that deliver cyclists into the mouth of an emerging junction mean even the most confident of cyclists would hesitate to ride here. As for pedestrians, they are forced to go the long way around via a dingy underpass.
At the other end of the bridge, the two main junctions with Eastbourne Terrace and Westbourne Terrace are equally car-centric. Turning right into Westbourne Terrace, cyclists are left at the mercy of two lanes of oncoming motor traffic.
Eastbourne Terrace itself, which is narrow and straight, encourages speeding and close passing. With Westbourne Terrace running parallel, the case for closing Eastbourne Terrace to private motor vehicles, at least for part of the day, is compelling. This would also help open up what should be the station’s grand entrance, which is currently obscured by a lift entrance, motorbike parking and fortress-like metal pillars.
As for congested and fume-filled Praed Street, this too provides no safe cycling link onto the nearby C27 on Sussex Gardens.
Paddington Station, and those using it, deserve better. On its surrounding rectangle of streets more space is needed for walking and cycling, including cycling-safe junctions, pedestrian crossings on the bridge and protected bike lanes that link up with Westbourne Terrace and C27. A better cycling network would also take cyclists off the canal towpath and reduce cyclist-pedestrian conflict. And the Harrow Road roundabout, which is the gateway to the bridge, the wider Paddington area and Edgware Road to the east, needs to be made safer and easier to navigate.
We are not highway engineers, but the proposal shown below seems a good solution to us for safe active travel on the section of Harrow Road between the Harrow Road roundabout and Edgware Road - a key route. We would welcome any design that makes cycling safer here.
