• EARLY Sunday afternoon, three Metropolitan police vehicles rather bigger than saloon cars, perhaps the size of Chelsea tractors, were on an urgent call, blue lights flashing, sirens blaring.

The three vehicles turned out of Baynes Street into one-way Royal College Street to find the lights on Camden Road at red, road traffic in single file back to beyond Baynes Street, and a bus at the stop opposite Randolph Street.

Some road users did their best to make way while others, despite my encouragement, seemed insistent on leaving a gap of half or a full saloon car’s length behind the car ahead.

These police vehicles were, unfortunately, delayed by a minute or two, able to proceed into Camden Road only once the lights turned green and cars ahead of them pulled away.

The road layout, redesigned this decade, now has a one-way cycle lane on each side of the street, and road traffic confined to a single lane, albeit a little wider than most of Royal College Street.

It is not uncommon for emergency service vehicles to be stuck in the single-lane, one-way, Royal College Street yet it’s an A-class road and an important thoroughfare in Camden Town, providing relief to busy Camden High Street.

In Royal College Street it’s the norm now for the 46 bus to be very slow moving at certain times of day. Even blue-light vehicles not on emergency call, delayed unnecessarily, may be thus caused to be late on their next emergency duty.

It must be very common for service vehicles, of the non-emergency type – ambulance transport, gas, electricity, electricians, water, plumbers, telecoms and school buses – to be delayed unnecessarily, too, in Royal College Street.

These delays add up, causing more air pollution and inconvenience to Londoners awaiting these service calls. They contrive to make the UK less productive and doubtless add to the costs of utility companies passed on, of course, to you and me.

A smarter approach to the design of Royal College Street should have been required, able better to accommodate all modes of London’s transport while mindful of the needs of emergency service vehicles and, in these times of terrorist activity, the needs of military vehicle movement, especially those of UK Special Forces who won’t always be able to get close enough by helicopter.

I think one-lane Royal College Street should have remained two-lane. However if one-lane was imperative, instead of one-way cycle lanes, surely two-way cycle lanes should have been built on one side only of Royal College Street.

These should be wide enough so that, with blue lights flashing, the cycle lane might be used by emergency service vehicles in adversity only, when traffic in Royal College Street is not moving at all or enough. It’s easy enough for a cyclist to dismount in such circumstances.

It is the duty of Camden Council and the GLA to keep all of London moving, not just cyclists.

I am not anti-cyclist (except those who break the law and cycle on footpaths) and I am not pro-car. I am, though, all for our streets being fit for purpose, especially the movement of emergency vehicles, public transport, and service vehicles that help to keep London working.

LESTER MAY
Reachview Close, NW1