Pedestrian crossings: Simple solution to save cash (From Harrow Times)

Pedestrian crossings: Simple solution to save cash

10:32am Friday 20th August 2010 in

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Navin Shah’s letter about a threat to pedestrian crossings appeared in Your Views with the headline ‘Safety cannot be ignored’ (August 5).

Two weeks ago, I wrote to David Eaglesham, highways manager at Harrow Council, about the sudden closure of the heavily used pedestrian crossing on Headstone Gardens at Pinner View, for an unspecified period of road works.

While temporary measures are in place for traffic, Harrow Council has simply ignored pedestrians.

If a pedestrian crossing exists, it exists because a need has been established. This need does not go away when temporary measures are in place which delay drivers. If anything, the need is enhanced because drivers are made impatient and irritable by the restrictions imposed on them.

A temporary pedestrian crossing could be installed in a day. Yet, following my complaint, the council required the contractor to erect only an absurd sign directing pedestrians to the next crossing half a mile away.

This emphasises the council’s priority is the traffic along Headstone Gardens, and pedestrians can take a hike, literally.

Those specially commissioned signs took two days to obtain, twice as long as it would have taken to install a crossing. And the signs were simply a waste of money. Nobody is making that hike.

Mike Robinson, Hide Road, Harrow