| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:West London orbital rail link (see front page) | |
| Posted by: | Mark Evans | |
| Date/Time: | 07/04/26 10:35:00 |
| I'm sure you are right about through traffic being the main issue. At the moment it clearly makes up the bulk of vehicles on Bollo Lane as more continue from the Gunnersbury Lane roundabout over the level crossings into Chiswick. This route seems to have got more popular with SatNavs directing people coming from the west aiming for the north of Chiswick to avoid Chiswick High Road when it is congested. If the level crossings were to close, the Bollo Bridge Road alternative is a bit longer and narrower but drivers will probably continue to be directed that way unless it is completely blocked, which, even with a much smaller proportion of through traffic it will be regularly rendering the new developments inaccesible by road for much of the day. Peter is right that an opportunity was missed at the time of the Chiswick Business Park development. However, I don't think the idea of a through road ever got much of a mention. The pitch was that it would be served by a Piccadilly line station paid with a developers contribution of £14million. However, even if this sum wasn't woefully inadequate, they never actually asked TfL if they would have been willing to provide it which, categorically they weren't. So we ended up with a car-led development with relatively poor public transport links which got even worse when the 27 was axed. The site has a massive amount of car parking and Chiswick's most car intensive busines - Foxtons. It isn't the case that anyone driving there from the north would get much benefit coming in via Bollo Lane. If you are coming from the North Circular you can get there much more quickly by cutting through Power Road. That means that, although lots of people drive to work at the Business Park, there would be no real benefit to them by providing through access. TfL may have some leverage with the business park owners if they were to offer genuinely transformation public transport improvements such as major upgrade of Gunnersbury and better bus routes. However, there incentive to get access through the business park is much reduced if most of the flats on Bollo Lane are not going to be built - which seems to be the scenario at the moment. |