Hackney Transport Strategy, our draft responses

Thanks to everyone who came along to the public meeting on 13th October "The Big Green Pow Wow".

We've developed our draft response to the transport consultation and we'd like your comments before we submit it.

Please comment below this blog post, like it, share it or email us at info@sustainablehackney.co.uk  We are also responding to the Air Quality Action Plan.

Transport Strategy generally:

  • We include all the points made by members of the public to us as part of our submission.
  • The Strategic Transport Vision should include accessibility and state how transport can contribute to sustainability by managing transport demand, improving air quality, reducing carbon emissions and reclaiming the streets for public use and enjoyment.
  • The transport strategy should look at how transport demand can be managed - how changing employment, housing, retail, technology and stronger communities can impact and reduce transport demand and related policies to support that.
  • We strongly support 20mph speed limits for all our streets.

Public Transport:

  • We want Hackney to build public support and lobby for a Crossrail 2 alignment that has at least two stations in the borough and maximises the social, environmental and economic benefits of Crossrail 2 for Hackney.
  • We want to see most if not all of Hackney's stations having step-free access, not just a majority.
  • We want to see improved public transport services in the whole of the borough, not just the East.
  • We want to see improved community transport services.
  • We support 4-tracking of the West-Anglia lines and would like to see this prioritised to bring Overground levels of service to seven more stations in Hackney.
  • We want to see a substantial improvement in cycle parking at stations.

Liveable Neighbourhoods

  • We strongly support the council’s objective to create and sustain “liveable neighbourhoods,” with initiatives ranging from tree planting and safe play streets to safe pedestrian routes, cycle and car share schemes and new areas for communal food growing. But these ideas need coordinating and discussing with residents. We want to see a borough wide Liveable Streets Forum and the council to encourage discussion on liveable street improvements in Ward Forums so people can take ownership of street greening.

  • We strongly support increasing street tree cover – but this should be in the context of the Biodiversity Action Plan.

  • We support increasing community street planting, but we think a more pro-active approach is needed and that biodiversity is a better objective than food growing.

  • We support a Hackney-wide Freight Action Plan.

  • We want to see targets for more car-sharing bays and electric car charging points.

UPDATE our final submission is here Transport Strategy - comments from Sustainable Hackney - Final.pdf

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  • Steve Dowding

    I wonder if anything could be said on the issue that sometimes Hackney Planning makes decisions contrary to its own declared policy, I'm thinking increasing parking and traffic on Hackney Marshes here?

  • Harry Hewat

    Water Freight seems to be a major omission in the Hackney Draft Transport Strategy.
    The River Lea, Hackney Cut & Regent Canal all pass though Hackney and present a major opportunity to move freight from road to water.
    The basic infrastructure is already in place with recycling facilities, waste handling, aggregates distribution and container terminals all located waterside on the Lea and Thames rivers.
    The existing waste handling facility on Millfields Road could be converted back to a wharf for waste products and new wharfs provided in Hackney Wick and along the Regents Canal.
    The environmental advantages are huge - Water freight uses significantly less carbon than either road or rail (by between a third and a quarter less than road-freight); and by reducing the amount of HGV's on the roads, they would be less polluted, less congested and safer. 
    The waterways are an underused resource. They were the backbone of our transport network 200 years ago and could play a significant role in a low carbon economy.

  • Sustainable Hackney

    Many thanks to all who submitted ideas and comments by email and online. We’ve included your ideas and submitted our final comments. We’ll report back when the final Transport Plan is published sometime next year.