Mitigation measures resulting from East-West Cycle Superhighway construction to take immediate effect on London’s Victoria Embankment
Transport for London (TfL) has announced the go ahead has been given for the partial replacement of the coach bays lost to the construction of the East-West Cycle Superhighway on London’s Victoria Embankment.
TfL has acknowledged that in order to support the coach industry during construction of the Cycle Superhighway, there is a short-term need to provide temporary additional coach parking as quickly as possible within reasonable distance of Victoria Embankment. Therefore TfL’s intends to introduce the proposed coach parking temporarily from this week until late September. The relevant pay-by-phone parking bays will be suspended and coaches allowed to park there for this period.
It has been arranged for the temporary coach parking to be available on Millbank before bays on Victoria Embankment are suspended for construction of the East-West Cycle Superhighway.
The new 158m coach bay will be located on Millbank, in the vicinity of Millbank Tower and Millbank Pier. It will be next to the southbound (riverside) carriageway and will replace: 13 pay & display parking bays (79.5m in total); One 3.8m stretch of double red line; One 16.8m stretch of single red line; one 19.2m bus stand (in which no formal activity currently takes place); and two existing coach parking bays (39.3m in total).
From late September 2015 TfL will begin to introduce the permanent coach parking arrangements on Millbank and reinstate the 13 pay by phone parking bays.
The new permanent arrangements will be to:
+Formally permanently convert the bus stand opposite Thorney Street to four hour coach parking, and extend this new coach parking bay from 19m to 30m.
+Extend the existing coach parking bay next to Millbank Pier from 39m to 45m.
This will provide a total of 36 additional metres of dedicated coach parking. The bays will be operated by Westminster City Council and will have a maximum stay of four hours. Parking sensors will be installed to monitor stay lengths and availability. The revised arrangements will not lead to permanent changes for any of the existing pay-by-phone parking. Also, Westminster City Council recently consulted on proposals to provide an additional four pay by phone and two shared-use parking bays in the local area.
The consultation (CBW1185), received 210 responses. TfL said a large proportion of the respondents were coach operators or coach drivers. 62% made a general comment requesting more coach parking in London. Suggestions for alternative locations included elsewhere on Millbank, Atterbury Street, Albert Embankment, Battersea Park, Royal Albert Way and out-of-town sites from where shuttle services could take passengers into town.
Responding to the consultation, CPT repeated its concerns about the impact of the East-West Cycle Superhighway on coach operations and on tourism. It said the proposal only replaces a relatively small amount of displaced parking and that relocation should have been included in the main consultation. CPT was also concerned that the plans entail a return journey of 3.5 miles to/from the Embankment, resulting in additional emissions, congestion and costs.
Among the objectors was the Tate Gallery, which asked for coach parking to be moved further out of the city. It also argued that a continuous line of parked coaches would affect safety, access and legibility for pedestrians and would worsen existing sense of separation between Millbank and the river.
