Published: 1 December, 2011

• DURING the Olympic Games in 2012 two lanes of the Euston Road are going to be closed to normal traffic and reserved for Olympic vehicles, a bit like the Zil limousine lanes reserved for communist bureaucrats during the time of the Soviet Union.

When you first hear about them it sounds like the Olympic lanes will create chaos.

But maybe, just maybe, they’re a tremendous opportunity. How about this for a radical Olympic legacy for Camden?

How about turning those two Olympic lanes into cycle lanes either side of a tree-lined walkway?

The bikes can be directed back into the main traffic flow at junctions using advanced stop boxes (bike boxes).

This is an idea that came to Green Party councillor Maya de Souza and I after we heard Roger Madelin of the King’s Cross developer Argent speaking at the recent Camden Air Quality Summit.

He pointed out that when the Channel Tunnel work was being done a few years ago, and Euston Road went down to two lanes, people got used to the delays or simply stopped using the road.

Our proposition to the Mayor.

Give Camden a real Olympic legacy.

Turn those lanes into cycle lanes and a tree-lined walkway.

ALEXIS ROWELL
Camden Green Party