New Access: Exhibition Road in London

Exhibition Road in London is home to some of the UK’s – indeed the world’s – most culturally important institutions, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, Science Museum, Royal Geographical Society and Natural History Museum. Attracting millions of visitors every year, a new scheme is about to begin that will significantly improve accessibility levels to its attractions.

At the helm is access champion Councillor Andrew Lamont, who is keen to illustrate the significance of the project. He told Able: “It’s absolutely crucial on a global scale because it sets the whole scene for accessibility within possibly the most important cultural destination worldwide. It’s estimated that 11.5 million visitors come to the part of Exhibition Road in Kensington and Chelsea and that figure rises to 20 million if you include Hyde Park and the Serpentine – those are numbers larger than visitors to Venice!

“At the moment Exhibition Road discriminates strongly against those with ability issues,” he adds. “If we could make this a central point for London, where it can bring together all the cultural elements in an area that’s very good for public transport, then we could achieve something very great for the capital.”

Councillor Lamont is backed by Councillor Nick Paget-Brown, the cabinet member for transport in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He wants to firstly end the domination of the area by cars. He told us: “If you go to Exhibition Road today then that’s what you’ll see – with people trying to push their way round the back of cars, perhaps with pushchairs, perhaps with wheelchairs. Actually it’s a disincentive to go and visit some of these places because you just think there’s going to be so much inconvenience and risk involved in getting to them.”

The Royal Borough has set up a disability advisory group. “We’re having a real look at it,” Councillor Paget-Brown said. “People are advising us on what the most sensible way forward is. We hope that we’ll end up with a fantastic streetscape which will be a joy to everybody. Exhibition Road will be one of the few places where cars have to look out for me and not the other way round. That’s good news.

“We will ensure that the scheme makes all of those institutions as accessible as they could possibly be,” he added. “The design, the materials used and the configuration of what needs to happen – we’ll make sure that the accessibility agenda is absolutely at the top of the list.”

To redraw one of the most famous parts of London is a hugely ambitious project although the ideas applied are all very sensible, simple and well conceived. Councillor Lamont told us: “The proposal is that the traffic on the Exhibition Road will travel only on the eastern side. The proposal includes an area for pedestrians and a transition zone where pedestrians can wander with caution. There will also be special areas for coaches to drop-off safely and for Blue Badge holders to stop and drop-off. The levels will all be equal. There will also be designer high visibility lighting. We may be able to integrate sound into these units to give people guidance and information. There will be a giant grid pattern on the road that shows traffic that they have to be cautious. Restrictions will take them down to 20 mph.”

Councillor Lamont has his eyes on changing the very nature of how disabled people are treated, using Exhibition Road as a giant case study and a model for street design in the future. He said: “Every aspect of this borough will be more accessible for more people and therefore the issue of whether you have a disability or not becomes immaterial. I want not only to help the Council bring this about but I want everyone with a particular access issue to know about it, from the Borough, London, the UK and – ideally – the international stage.”

Of course some of these ideas aren’t new; it was Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert who originally decided to bring arts and sciences to the people. Councillor Paget-Brown said: “The original idea has got slightly lost over the years. It’s not been as good a place to visit as it could have been. I hope that everyone will enjoy the fantastic treasures that are there.”

For more information, visit the Exhibition Road website.

The thinking is that Exhibition Road is one of the most important streets in London, if not the country and when you think of the huge number of world famous institutions that are based there, it’s an absolutely golden thread of a road running from South Kensington up to Kensington Gardens and yet in terms of the public realm and the quality and accessibility to those world class institutions, we think it’s currently pretty poor. There’s an awful lot of competition for a limited amount of road-space. It’s choked with traffic and parked cars and we think this is an opportunity to improve the streetscape and improve the accessibility to the whole area

I think it will be unique. It will have a London atmosphere and a London character as you would expect, given the nature of the institutions. These are world class institutions but the streets around them are very far from world class. We want to make it accessible for people with a range of disabilities; it might be that they’re using wheelchairs or have infirmities or poor vision. At the moment there’s a real forest of obstacles to negotiate before you can get to these fantastic buildings.

What we’re going to do is flip the balance in favour of pedestrians in that area, which means widening the pavements and being very clear that there is a pedestrian only zone that will be free of obstacles. There will be good delineators between the pavement zone and the carriageway. At the moment it’s a dual carriageway with a central reservation and it is a remnant from the age when the car was king, when everybody else fitted in around the car.

We’re looking at the whole of the South Kensington area to be improved as a transport interchange. Work on unravelling a particularly unfriendly one way system around the station is going ahead at the moment. We’re lobbying Transport for London for step-free access to the station – which, at the moment, doesn’t have the capacity that we would like, given the number of visitors that currently come to the museums and gardens. We’re looking for a much more integrated accessible area both outside the tube station and eventually within it. We hope that the road outside will become a lot more pedestrian friendly, by widening pavements, taking buses out from immediately in front of the tube stations. At the moment there’s an incredibly narrow pavement; if you’re in a wheelchair it’s very difficult.

Yes, although one of the ideas is to use sound equipment, so that the moment you arrive at South Kensington station you would be guided to wherever you want to get to. The moment you arrive you’ve got a guide telling you what’s available and which direction to go in. That would be very innovative and we’ll be exploring that with the museums. Mostly though, it’s the application of good practice and common sense removal of obstructions with design that work in favour of pedestrians.

London’s capital investment over the last 100 years has seen it being under-invested. Look at the catch-up we’re now playing with the Underground system, which has lacked investment for many, many years. I think it can easily be argued that London has not had the levels of funding that some of the great cities in the North have, where regeneration has been going on for 20-30 years.

We’ll specify details from the bottom end of Exhibition Road right up to Kensington Gardens and we’ll set out the different criteria and accessibility ambitions for the whole of the area – the materials, timeline and how we’ll be getting it done in time for 2012.

I’ve already engaged with the chief executive of the cultural consortium which is the collective of the museums, V&A, Science Museum, and the National History Museum. They are very keen to raise the profile of their accessibility and they realise that this is key in the modern world. Of course research has been done that says that nobody with a white cane ever goes up and down Exhibition Road. I wonder why? Narrow pavements, parking, traffic, a very busy dual carriageway…

We hope people will drive with incredible care and attention because they’ll quite clearly not be on a standard road. The aim is that the space will be for everyone. However, there will be some times when the area will be closed to traffic, such as annual festivals and – of course – building up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

I’ve had a lot of experience with special ability groups. I’ve also spent the majority of my career fitting into the fully sighted world and not being associated with disability groups at all. I’m more involved in planning issues but I am involved in the public realm, all of the outdoor stuff – streets, parks, arts and culture. So I kept seeing the Exhibition Road aspect crop up. We discussed it on numerous occasions but, at this point, there was just an idea for a shared flat surface – no delineators. At that time I hadn’t picked up that this would be a challenge to certain groups. This then lead to my being asked to take on this access champion role. Prior to that, I was just another councillor who happened to be partially sighted.

I hope to chase down all those hotels in this quarter that aren’t accessible. I also want to also get on to Transport for London and ask about more accessible stations. So, this thing will not stop here.

Related posts:

1. Adapted Vehicles: Access Doesn’t Get Easier Than This! Whether you are looking for a single wheelchair accessible...
2. On The Road In September I spent a week visiting disabled people and...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.