Elegant, simple & effective - Merton safe streets

Earlier today I dropped my Brompton into A W Cycles in SW19 (too lazy to change flat on rear myself) and I noticed that Merton Council are updating the older solution they had in place to stop rat-running and create a safer street environment.

This is an example of what they have had in place for a long time now, unsightly, but effective.

Here is the 2014 edition/look which achieves the same result:

The slimline bollards just behind the Mum and her child in the picture above, are a little harder to see in the picture below. However, if you look closely you can see they are set back from the main road. This allows for deliveries, and people to park cars to visit local businesses. 

In the pictures below, we have what I'm sure will be in time, raised flower beds / planters. A nice looking bottleneck to the end of a residential street.

For those who think that my ideas to trial solutions which will similarly block streets off in Tooting are fool hardy or won't work why don't you take a look just down the road. Perhaps ask some of the people who live on those streets how they find driving to the shops etc.

Thankfully, we don't need to look very far to see some high quality examples of how our streets can be improved. We only need to take 10 mins on the 57 bus from Tooting Broadway, or a walk or ride on your bike towards Abbey Mills to see what already exists.

Fingers crossed, that whoever gets elected in the coming local elections, they will recognise that a lot of people would like Wandsworth Council to trial out this type of street design.

I hope that together with my Lib Dem colleagues we might be lucky enough to represent Tooting. If so, we'll be able to speed up the roll-out of these trials and hopefully quickly make a significant improvement to the lives of everyone living in Tooting.