Further news on the future of Vauxhall Cross gyratory and bus station

Martin Stanley of the Fentiman Road, Richborne Terrace & Dorset Road Residents Association writes...

Our local Councillor, Jane Edbrooke, and TfL, have helpfully provided more detail about the discussions that are taking place around the future of Vauxhall Cross.  The key points are as follows:

TfL are, at Lambeth’s request, modelling the traffic flows around Vauxhall Cross involving removal of the gyratory system.  The main change would be that traffic from the Oval and the Elephant would in future be allowed to go straight under the railway and across Vauxhall Bridge. This main road under the railway, and all the other roads around Vauxhall Cross, would become two-way.

Most pedestrian readers of this email would therefore still be required to cross several lanes of traffic before walking under the railway to the Vauxhall stations, but the traffic would two-way.  The idea is that this would be a more pleasant (or less unpleasant) experience than at present, rather in the way that Piccadilly, and Windrush Square, Brixton, have been improved by the reintroduction of two-way working.  And there would be an environmental benefit in the form of the reduction in northbound vehicle mileage.

So far, so good, except that Lambeth have asked TfL to model the traffic flows on the assumption that the bus station is demolished to allow for shops to be built along Bondway, so creating a two-sided shopping street/town centre.  This triggers the following questions etc.

• First, it would cost around £50m to widen the road under the railway, by the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, to allow full eight lane two-way working, plus £25m for the rest of the reconfiguration.   This does seem a huge amount to spend just to gain an arguably marginal improvement in traffic flows.  And it is far from clear who would pay for it.  Lambeth taxpayers?  Or TfL’s passengers?
• Second, under this option, the bus stops that are currently conveniently concentrated in the bus station would need to be dispersed onto both sides of Wandsworth Road and both sides of the road under the newly-widened railway bridge.
• Third, is not clear whether there would be less traffic going round what is now the other three sides of the gyratory.  On the one hand, they would have lost the northbound traffic from the Oval and the Elephant.  On the other hand, there is going to be a lot of extra traffic generated by the Nine Elms developments.  And altered traffic flows around Vauxhall Cross may even attract traffic that currently avoids the area and goes through the Oval or across Chelsea Bridge.
• Fourth, it may not be easy to find a safe route for cyclists and pedestrians along and across the new eight-lane highway, without unacceptable delays to motor vehicles.  The four-way crossroads at the foot of Vauxhall Bridge would be particularly complex.

Plans giving a feel for the likely detail of this option may be seen at here and here.

Because of the cost and other implications of this first option, TfL are separately modelling two-way working without the railway bridge road widening.  This would mean that buses from the Oval would still need to go through Bondway.  As Lambeth would still want the bus station to disappear, there would now be bus stops in Wandsworth Road (both sides), Bondway, South Lambeth Place and Bridgefoot .   The cost of this reconfiguration would probably be c.£25m, compared with c.£75m for the first option described above.

A plan giving a feel for the likely detail of this option may be seen here.

And both of the above options will need to be compared with the status quo.

TfL’s research, modelling and discussions will take quite some time, and there will be no public consultation before next Spring or Summer.  In the meantime:

• Pauline Gaunt, Helen Irwin and others who wish to save the bus station are pressing Lambeth to ask TfL to model the abolition of the gyratory + maintaining a (possibly re-designed) bus station in broadly its present location.
• They point out that (although the proposed new town centre would benefit from the train/tube/bus passenger footfall) it is not in an ideal location for most of the current residents of Vauxhall, Oval, South Lambeth Road and Wandsworth Road, all of whom live on the South and West side of the railway.  Also, the retention of the bus station would still allow for more shops along the East side of Bondway and on the Kylun island site, and that the Bondway Storage site (up for redevelopment), and the 66 South Lambeth Road site (if the owners were interested) would both be ideal sites for shops and socialising, and provide a link between the Linear Park and Vauxhall Park.
• And they have asked TfL to make sure that the consultation, when it happens, contains projections of noise and vehicle emission pollution.
• Both TfL and Jane Edbrooke point out that it is very difficult to arrange effective consultation with either the huge numbers that pass through Vauxhall Cross each day or local residents.  There are as many as 56 residents’ groups in Jane’s Oval Ward, and it is of course socially very diverse.
• Nevertheless, and unlike TfL, Lambeth officials have still not agreed to discuss their ideas with local residents, …
• … nor is there any sign of the further public consultation meetings that were promised by the Council earlier this year.
• But Jane Edbrooke took careful note of concerns about the bus station and undertook to discuss the Council's policy towards it with both colleagues and officials.
• Please email Pauline Gaunt [pauline.gaunt@mypostoffice.co.uk] if you would like to support the bus station campaign and/or be kept in touch with her and Helen’s discussions with the Council, TfL and others.