URBAN REALM DESIGN |
Wembley Corridor Design | LB Brent
Urban Movement were asked to lead a team with Mott MacDonald to develop design-led proposals for improvements to four signalised junctions and a road bridge over a railway line in Wembley Town Centre, focusing primarily on the Wembley High Road. The catalyst for the project was the designation of Wembley Town Centre as a Housing Zone and the requirement to accommodate 1,500 new homes. This is in addition to the 1,000 homes that have been delivered over the last 10 years and a further 475 that are currently under construction. An added, unique challenge is the presence of Wembley Stadium, located at one end of the corridor. With between 80% and 90% of stadium visitors arriving by public transport the area also must cope with large influxes of pedestrians. All of the above has to be accommodated at the same time as Wembley High Road’s strategic role as a link to the North Circular as well as a District Centre and public transport hub.
The corridor currently suffers from congestion caused by activities associated with bus stops, formal pedestrian crossings and servicing – all necessary for a functioning District Centre, but which restrict traffic capacity. This results in queuing traffic that extends back into preceding junctions, causing exit blocking.
Previous attempts to ‘solve’ the congestion problem have limited pedestrian crossing facilities in a bid to maximise green time for traffic. The reality is that at peak times this becomes rather academic as the traffic has nowhere to go due to the aforementioned exit blocking. Instead, our recommendations is to use this under-utilised green time to provide full pedestrian stages at all four junctions without affecting general traffic throughput. At the same time, we can expand the existing bus infrastructure to further isolate bus users from general traffic delays.
Our Response
As is often the case, previous attempts to improve Wembley Town Centre had generally simplified the context to one of either traffic corridor or retail centre. We ensured that we took a more holistic view of the context, considering both of these functions and acknowledging that changes to the area may not always be mutually beneficial to this duality of purpose. When combined with the requirements of Wembley Stadium (including the associated traffic management on event days) and the relatively new Designer Outlet Village, Wembley town centre provided us with a highly unique context to respond to.
The area also benefits from high levels of public transport accessibility, with the town centre served by Wembley Central, Wembley Stadium and Wembley Park stations as well as up to 98 buses per hour along the High Road. However, while public transport connections are one of the areas strength’s, more local connectivity is hampered by these same railway and Underground lines. The continued development of the area immediately around Wembley Stadium (including the Council’s offices) are highlighting this issue, with a distinct ‘break’ in the town centre between the High Road and the Designer Outlet Village caused primarily by a narrow road bridge next to Wembley Stadium station.
Part of our commission has been to investigate the feasibility of widening this road bridge over the railway line, primarily to increase stacking capacity on the approach to a key signalised junction. Investigations by our sub-consultants, Mott MacDonald, involving Network Rail have revealed that changes to this structure are likely to cost in the order of £10M. One of our suggestions had been to convert this junction to an unsignalised roundabout, reducing the need to accommodate queuing traffic whilst also freeing up additional footway space and improving air quality.
A key driver for change was the level of traffic congestion through the town centre at peak times. This was even though several arms at key junctions within the town centre were missing any form of controlled pedestrian crossing facility, and those that did were often indirect and multi-stage, while footways were narrow in order to maximise traffic through put. The result was that no-one was winning in Wembley town centre.
We recognised early on in the commission that for the town centre to really encourage more sustainable behaviour, we would need to fundamentally challenge the role of the corridor and, by extension, the role of the wider neighbourhood. The bigger question that the project then needed to answer was ‘what sort of place do we want Wembley to be?’ We added value to the project by helping to change its frame of reference and opening up the scope of the original brief.
Working with the Client and Stakeholders
We have been fortune to have had a client that shares our desire to see meaningful change in Wembley and who hasn’t shied away from the difficult questions that have followed. Throughout, we have ensured that the client has had the right information at the right time to discuss proposals with fellow Officers and Council Members. Given the suggested scale of change associated with our proposals an important consideration has been our strategy for informing key parties. So, while many of the issues have been widely discussed and information has been sought from several sources within the Council, at TfL and from external stakeholders, the details of the scheme have only been discussed amongst a relatively small Project Team.
Central to all of the above has been our determination to quantify benefits wherever possible, especially if these benefits can be monetised. Despite starting this project before the current London Mayor took office, we are aware of how closely its outcomes align with the Healthy Streets agenda. This is partly because of our desire and ability to remain at the forefront of industry thinking, but also because we genuinely believe that our streets can have a far wider, positive impact on everybody’s lives beyond transportation.
Innovation
One tool for understanding the local context is traffic modelling, which enabled us to understand the existing operation of the Town Centre’s four main signalised junctions. When combined with our wider analysis of the area, the initial outputs from the traffic model raised several questions about what was currently happening to traffic flows. Due to the significant amount of exit blocking that was occurring along the links that were entering the town centre, the traditional solution of finding additional stop line capacity was futile as this traffic would have nowhere to go. Our understanding of traffic modelling combined with our desire to see meaningful change to the Town Centre meant that the design and modelling teams could work together closely. This allowed us to challenge Transport for London to go further than simply providing a standard traffic modelling response to help justify the potential for better town centre conditions.
The upshot of the congestion that was being observed was that specific movements at each junction suffered from varying amounts of under-utilised green time, with one particular arm losing an average of 38 seconds of green time each cycle during both peak periods. One option would be to address those elements of the street that are causing the delay - inset bus stops into already narrow footways or relocate them somewhere less convenient, remove pedestrian crossings or increase the waiting time for a green man, and prevent the largely independent retail offer from servicing for large parts of the day. However, not only would this be to the detriment of the town centre environment, it would simply induce more traffic to an already noisy, polluted and traffic dominated area.
We successfully argued that greater traffic capacity through the town centre would not see a reduction in vehicle journey times. Rather it would most likely result in poorer air quality, a worse pedestrian environment and further frustration for drivers. Equally, it would do little to encourage the many new residents of the Housing Zone to make sustainable travel choices. Given that the main junctions within the town centre were essentially not doing anything for large portions of their cycle time due to exit blocking we reasoned that full pedestrian crossing stages could be introduce with little or no impact on overall vehicle journey times.
However, we recognised that the new pedestrian crossing facilities, combined with a range of other public realm improvements, could only go so far to improving Wembley. Although the original brief specifically asked us to investigate the opportunities at four signalised junctions to improve the town centre, we understood that more fundamental change could be achieved if the network was considered more widely. To more fully realise the potential of Wembley we have helped the Council to build a case for more radical change that will see significant improvements in public health, public transport operations, cycle mode share, road safety, development densities, community and social cohesion and air pollution. And this will not just apply to the town centre, but instead will benefit a far wider area that encompasses 17 schools and 10 parks. Hopefully it is apparent that our level of ambition for this project is not left wanting.
The corridor currently suffers from congestion caused by activities associated with bus stops, formal pedestrian crossings and servicing – all necessary for a functioning District Centre, but which restrict traffic capacity. This results in queuing traffic that extends back into preceding junctions, causing exit blocking.
Previous attempts to ‘solve’ the congestion problem have limited pedestrian crossing facilities in a bid to maximise green time for traffic. The reality is that at peak times this becomes rather academic as the traffic has nowhere to go due to the aforementioned exit blocking. Instead, our recommendations is to use this under-utilised green time to provide full pedestrian stages at all four junctions without affecting general traffic throughput. At the same time, we can expand the existing bus infrastructure to further isolate bus users from general traffic delays.
Our Response
As is often the case, previous attempts to improve Wembley Town Centre had generally simplified the context to one of either traffic corridor or retail centre. We ensured that we took a more holistic view of the context, considering both of these functions and acknowledging that changes to the area may not always be mutually beneficial to this duality of purpose. When combined with the requirements of Wembley Stadium (including the associated traffic management on event days) and the relatively new Designer Outlet Village, Wembley town centre provided us with a highly unique context to respond to.
The area also benefits from high levels of public transport accessibility, with the town centre served by Wembley Central, Wembley Stadium and Wembley Park stations as well as up to 98 buses per hour along the High Road. However, while public transport connections are one of the areas strength’s, more local connectivity is hampered by these same railway and Underground lines. The continued development of the area immediately around Wembley Stadium (including the Council’s offices) are highlighting this issue, with a distinct ‘break’ in the town centre between the High Road and the Designer Outlet Village caused primarily by a narrow road bridge next to Wembley Stadium station.
Part of our commission has been to investigate the feasibility of widening this road bridge over the railway line, primarily to increase stacking capacity on the approach to a key signalised junction. Investigations by our sub-consultants, Mott MacDonald, involving Network Rail have revealed that changes to this structure are likely to cost in the order of £10M. One of our suggestions had been to convert this junction to an unsignalised roundabout, reducing the need to accommodate queuing traffic whilst also freeing up additional footway space and improving air quality.
A key driver for change was the level of traffic congestion through the town centre at peak times. This was even though several arms at key junctions within the town centre were missing any form of controlled pedestrian crossing facility, and those that did were often indirect and multi-stage, while footways were narrow in order to maximise traffic through put. The result was that no-one was winning in Wembley town centre.
We recognised early on in the commission that for the town centre to really encourage more sustainable behaviour, we would need to fundamentally challenge the role of the corridor and, by extension, the role of the wider neighbourhood. The bigger question that the project then needed to answer was ‘what sort of place do we want Wembley to be?’ We added value to the project by helping to change its frame of reference and opening up the scope of the original brief.
Working with the Client and Stakeholders
We have been fortune to have had a client that shares our desire to see meaningful change in Wembley and who hasn’t shied away from the difficult questions that have followed. Throughout, we have ensured that the client has had the right information at the right time to discuss proposals with fellow Officers and Council Members. Given the suggested scale of change associated with our proposals an important consideration has been our strategy for informing key parties. So, while many of the issues have been widely discussed and information has been sought from several sources within the Council, at TfL and from external stakeholders, the details of the scheme have only been discussed amongst a relatively small Project Team.
Central to all of the above has been our determination to quantify benefits wherever possible, especially if these benefits can be monetised. Despite starting this project before the current London Mayor took office, we are aware of how closely its outcomes align with the Healthy Streets agenda. This is partly because of our desire and ability to remain at the forefront of industry thinking, but also because we genuinely believe that our streets can have a far wider, positive impact on everybody’s lives beyond transportation.
Innovation
One tool for understanding the local context is traffic modelling, which enabled us to understand the existing operation of the Town Centre’s four main signalised junctions. When combined with our wider analysis of the area, the initial outputs from the traffic model raised several questions about what was currently happening to traffic flows. Due to the significant amount of exit blocking that was occurring along the links that were entering the town centre, the traditional solution of finding additional stop line capacity was futile as this traffic would have nowhere to go. Our understanding of traffic modelling combined with our desire to see meaningful change to the Town Centre meant that the design and modelling teams could work together closely. This allowed us to challenge Transport for London to go further than simply providing a standard traffic modelling response to help justify the potential for better town centre conditions.
The upshot of the congestion that was being observed was that specific movements at each junction suffered from varying amounts of under-utilised green time, with one particular arm losing an average of 38 seconds of green time each cycle during both peak periods. One option would be to address those elements of the street that are causing the delay - inset bus stops into already narrow footways or relocate them somewhere less convenient, remove pedestrian crossings or increase the waiting time for a green man, and prevent the largely independent retail offer from servicing for large parts of the day. However, not only would this be to the detriment of the town centre environment, it would simply induce more traffic to an already noisy, polluted and traffic dominated area.
We successfully argued that greater traffic capacity through the town centre would not see a reduction in vehicle journey times. Rather it would most likely result in poorer air quality, a worse pedestrian environment and further frustration for drivers. Equally, it would do little to encourage the many new residents of the Housing Zone to make sustainable travel choices. Given that the main junctions within the town centre were essentially not doing anything for large portions of their cycle time due to exit blocking we reasoned that full pedestrian crossing stages could be introduce with little or no impact on overall vehicle journey times.
However, we recognised that the new pedestrian crossing facilities, combined with a range of other public realm improvements, could only go so far to improving Wembley. Although the original brief specifically asked us to investigate the opportunities at four signalised junctions to improve the town centre, we understood that more fundamental change could be achieved if the network was considered more widely. To more fully realise the potential of Wembley we have helped the Council to build a case for more radical change that will see significant improvements in public health, public transport operations, cycle mode share, road safety, development densities, community and social cohesion and air pollution. And this will not just apply to the town centre, but instead will benefit a far wider area that encompasses 17 schools and 10 parks. Hopefully it is apparent that our level of ambition for this project is not left wanting.