Visit Greenwich, get stuck in traffic

Greenwich, as a tourist destination, is pretty good; in a day you can stroll through Greenwich Park, see the excellent Royal Observatory, visit the National Maritime Museum, view (what’s left of) the Cutty Sark (currently being restored after years of slow deterioration), sample the myriad wares of the covered market and explore various other bits and pieces that might be of interest. There are restaurants like The Old Brewery (which has the most fantastic selection of beers) and cafes like Royal Teas where hunger and thirst can be slaked.

But why would anyone return for a second visit? Greenwich has many fine features and it would be a nice place to visit occasionally except for the one thing; truly horrendous traffic. 

The air pollution is unpleasant (although still nowhere near as bad as Oxford Street - a similarly blighted area of London) but the real problem is simply the volume of traffic trying to navigate the narrow streets of Greenwich. It is clear that efforts have been made to keep the traffic moving but the cost is to force pedestrians one to narrow, highly congested pavements from which the view of the opposite side of the street is about as close as they can hope to get without a life-risking dash across the tarmac.

The main problem is the A206, which splits the village in two. As you can see from the map above, there’s no obvious alternative to the road’s current routing (building bypasses in south London isn’t really an option; maybe a tunnel would do the trick?), which is a pity, because it blights the area and must surely reduce the residents’ quality of life. 

The only answer I can see consists of enhancing the area for pedestrians and making the driving experience (which must already be fairly awful at peak times) even less pleasant, thus discouraging through-traffic from using the route. To do this we might:

• Widen the pavements to ease pedestrian congestion
• Add cycle lanes and racks to encourage the use of bikes instead of cars
• Add regular pedestrian and cycle crossings to make the roads less of a barrier
• Lower the speed limit to 20mph (although this may already be the speed limit - I didn’t check)

All of these changes could be done on the existing roads and would have positive benefits both for residents (assuming that they can limit their car use to off-peak times) and visitors. Making the general environment more pleasant is almost guaranteed to attract more tourists who will then be encouraged to stay longer and return sooner. 

Could this be done? Probably not, because it disadvantages the one group that Transport for London really care about; motorists. Unfortunately, despite the likely benefits to residents, tourists, local business and the environment, anything which interrupts the smooth flow of traffic powered by the internal combustion engine is anathema, unlikely ever to see the light of day. Time for a change at TfL, maybe, or a re-balancing of their remit?