Transport for London withdraws proposals to abolish traffic lights at pedestrian crossings in our Borough

1 min read

A small victory for all of us
We have just learned some wonderful news. Do you remember Transport for London’s wish to abolish 145 pedestrian crossings (with traffic lights) across London – eight of them in our Borough (see Wandsworth Living Streets: inaugural meeting)? The idea was to speed up road traffic, with pedestrians (and cyclists) once again paying the price. The crossings appeared to have been selected for abolition without rhyme or reason. TfL admitted they had not conducted pedestrian movement surveys. And TfL seemed not to have thought about why the crossings had, at considerable expense, been built in the first place!
Objections were raised – by individual residents including Jonathan Callaway (Vice-Chair of the Putney Society), London Assembly member Jenny Jones, Wandsworth Councillors Jane Cooper and Steffi Sutter, and, not least, by Wandsworth Living Streets which held an alert with Wandsworth Society Chair, Valerie Taylor, and Wandsworth Friends of the Earth at Kimber Road on 28 September.
Transport for London has now told Wandsworth Council officers that they are withdrawing all eight of the proposed pedestrian crossing abolitions in our Borough.
Congratulations to everyone involved, including our own Councillors who took up the issue!
Of course, we must remain vigilant. TfL may try to abolish other crossings. And as one of our members, Eva McCartney, says, there is still the problem of the timers on many pedestrian crossings being set for too short a time for elderly or disabled people to cross roads without feeling threatened by the rush of traffic resuming.
Have a happy – and warm, I hope – holiday season over Christmas!

Read also: Wandsworth Living Streets: inaugural meeting

UPDATE 8/12/2010: Wandsworth Council’s Press release.

Did you like reading this article? Help us write more!

Clapham Junction Insider (formerly known as the CJAG website) has been publishing local news for over 14 years and remains committed to providing information about the local community and engaging in public interest journalism.

Our goal is to feature a wide range of community campaigns and initiatives, local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, and provide assistance to residents.

We have always been dedicated to these endeavours and have no intention of changing. In fact, we would like to expand our efforts further.

Until recently, all the stories, analyses, and reports published have been made possible with the invaluable help of many volunteers. However, it requires a significant amount of time and effort, and we are frustrated that we cannot do more. There are numerous topics we would like to cover, but we require financial resources to provide regular information.

Therefore, we kindly ask our readers to consider offering financial support to sustain these efforts. Any contributions made will help support community and public interest news, as well as the expansion of our coverage in this area.

2 ways of supporting our project

Do you think what we are doing is helping the community and you want to encourage us to do more? We have set up two ways of supporting our project:

  1. Paypal: For one-off contributions, you can just use your bank card. However if you wish to encourage and support us regularly with a small amount, you will need a Paypal account to set up a monthly subscription. Click here to donate.
  2. Patreon: this is a well-known membership platform that connects content creators with supporters. Mainly, it offers financial tools that let supporters subscribe to projects that give creators a predictable income stream as they continue to create content. Click here to subscribe and support us regularly.

If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

Secretary, Wandsworth Living Streets.
Winner of the 20’s Plenty for Us 2017 Campaigner of the Year award have steadfastly campaigned for 20mph limits in the London Borough of Wandsworth for many years. The campaign evolved to include lower speed limits in a wider programme of improving the quality of life in Wandsworth and reducing road danger.
Robert passed away on the 31st January 2022.