Camden LBC has expanded its plans for a major revamp in Tottenham Court Road, with costs increasing by some £15m due to new additions such as stepped cycle tracks.
Following a consultation last year, Camden’s cabinet gave the green light to a £41m plan – up from £26m – to transform the area ahead of the opening of the new Crossrail station in 2018.
The council has revealed it only has £32.9m of available funding, including a £10m contribution from TfL – and is only providing £2m itself, though this could be increased to £4m next month. Additional funding options are being investigated, with at least some of the cash expected to come from developers under Section 106 agreements.
A council spokesman told Transport Network: ‘The cost increases have resulted from the increased scope of the project that will provide more public spaces of a higher quality, more trees and planting in Alfred Place, stepped cycle tracks in Gower Street and some new pedestrian crossings as well as including contingencies for working outside of normal hours, which may be required.’
The borough has changed plans from protecting cycle lanes in the Gower Street and Bloomsbury Street area with 'light segregation' - rubber blocks sometimes called 'armadillos', similar to those recently used on Royal College Street – and has instead opted for a wider design for ‘stepped tracks’.
Along with replacing the one-way system on Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street with two-way tree-lined streets and restricting Tottenham Court Road to buses and cyclists only during the daytime (8am-7pm Mondays to Saturdays), a 20mph speed limit will be introduced and five new public spaces created, including a new pedestrianised plaza at the foot of Centre Point next to the new Crossrail station.
