London Living Streets has been campaigning for improved pedestrian crossings for some time. In 2017, TfL undertook to carry out regular ‘active travel’ reviews of every crossing, with the aim of reducing ‘wait’ times for pedestrians, cyclists and bus passengers. Since then, TfL have reviewed well over 2,000 sites including over 200 put forward by our supporters as having particularly excessive pedestrian wait times. The pace of work slowed down during the Covid lockdowns but the review programme is now back on track.
There are still a large number of traffic lights in London that have no pedestrian phase at all. Ahead of the 2021 London Mayoral elections, Sadiq Khan pledged to review such sites and install pedestrian ‘green person’ lights where they are needed. That review process is now also underway and a number of sites are being selected for action over the coming year.
Even though much progress has been made, there is still more to do. This year we’re asking people to let us know of traffic lights that have pedestrian signals on some, but not all, arms of the junction. (As noted above, junctions with no pedestrian arms at all are already being considered in TfL’s programme). This is a great opportunity to ensure that junctions that are missing some – but not all – pedestrian signals are included in the review process.
If you know of any sites where some arms have missing pedestrian signals, making it difficult to cross, please tell us by emailing the location along with a short description of the problem (e.g. Merton Road at its junction with Kimber Road SW18), missing pedestrian lights on northern arm crossing Merton Road) to: londoncrossings@gmail.com
Please submit locations by 1st March 2023, in order for TfL to be able to consider them for their 2023/24 programme of work.
We’ll collate the data, highlight those sites that seem most problematic and forward them to TfL for consideration as part of the pedestrian signals improvement programme.
London Living Streets 