How we are getting H and F moving
Wednesday November 9, 2011
Over the last nine months, through its Get H&F Moving campaign, Hammersmith & Fulham Council has been asking residents and commuters for their views on transport in the borough – the good, the bad and the ugly.
And we received hundreds of comments telling us exactly what you think about roads, trains, tubes, buses, cycling and walking in H&F – well over 500 of them.
Cllr Nick Botterill, cabinet member for environment and deputy leader, said: “The council really has to thank everyone who took the time and effort to join in to make Get H&F Moving a community venture.
“This campaign has captured people’s imaginations and stirred up a lot of interest. It’s been a real opportunity for residents to speak honestly about their issues with transport, to help themselves and others by making suggestions on where transport could be improved and to actually see changes happening based on their ideas.”
The majority of comments received were suggestions for places for Boris Bike docking stations – 214 of you sent in your ideas, suggesting on average three sites each, and we have already identified 30 sites using these comments. The council needs to find 80 sites in total and transport officers are now working through responses and visiting potential sites, to investigate if they are viable or not for the scheme. Incredibly, only one resident did not want to see the bike scheme extended to the borough.
Around 170 people commented on traffic congestion during the Get H&F Moving campaign, broken down into the themes of impact of road works in general, North End Road, Fulham Palace Road, Wandsworth Bridge Road.
Parking drew around 70 comments, including complaints about match-day and visitor parking schemes, but a high proportion of comments were actually requests for more car club bays. At the beginning of the year, the council installed new car club bays in the Ravenscourt Park area, which have proved a great success. The council is now looking into the possibility of creating more bays in the borough.
The final most talked about topic was public transport, with residents commenting on overcrowding on the tube and trains, calls for the District Line service at Olympia not to be scaled down, issues with the regularity of buses throughout the borough and noise from airplanes flying to and from Heathrow over homes in the south of the borough.
The culmination of the campaign was last night's Get H&F Moving Transport Summit, where residents and members of the Environment and Residents’ Services Scrutiny Committee discussed these topics and posed questions to transport experts from Transport for London, Thames Water, H&F Council and BAA.
Those who attended included Brian Mooney, of the Hammersmith & Fulham branch of the Association of British Drivers and John Griffiths, of H&F Cyclists.
Mr Mooney said of the idea to build a new cycle super-highway in the borough: “I hope that the cycle lanes won’t remove any road space and won’t be to the detriment of the majority of the road users.”
Tony Boys, chairman of Hammersmith Embankment Residents Association, congratulated the council on the speed of the works on the new Fulham Palace Road slip road, which opened last month, saying: "Very, very well done on the roadworks - I've never seen Conway work as fast as that before. Congratulations on the fastest set of roadworks I have ever seen."
You can still send in your comments via the council website – www.lbhf.gov.uk/getmoving – and we will continue to read them, consider your ideas and act upon them, where possible.
