Improving The Wisley Interchange
It is probably nearly ten years since I drove through the Wisley interchange where the M25 and A3 meet.
The BBC this morning is discussing a proposal to improve this junction by taking some land from the RHS Wisley Garden.
This Google Map shows the area.
Note how close Wisley Garden is to the A3, which all proposals say should be widened from three lanes to four.
Two proposals have been put forward by Highways England.
This is Option 9, which is a four-level flyover.
And this is Option 14.
I suspect as far as Wisley Garden is concerned it’s a choice between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea!
Just out of curiosity, I looked up on the RHS Wisley Garden site, how I could get there easily by public transport.
Effectively, it means taking a train to Woking and a taxi!
Wisley Garden can’t have it both ways, as they encourage people to drive to the Garden and yet are objecting to widening of the A3.
A Wider Problem
Wisley Garden illustrates the wider problem, of how so many attractions are only easily accessible by car.
Some attractions like Brighton and Hove Albion’s new Falmer Stadium, have been built with decent public tyransport access, but others assume everybody comes by car.
Surely, in this age, where the environment matters, no development should be allowed without due consideration of well-thought out public transport.
I’ve Now Got A Back Garden!
On BBC Breakfast this morning, the weather is coming from Woodberry Wetlands, which is London’s newest Nature Reserve, that opens to the public today, after being opened by Sir David Attenborough yesterday.
This Google Map shows the area.
Woodberry Wetlands
One entrance is on the road between the two reservoirs and I think there is a second one by the Castle.
To get there, I just walk across the road by my house and get a 141 bus to the castle. It takes me about ten minutes.
How many readers of this blog realised that North London had such an impressive castle?
It was built to keep Tottenham and Arsenal supporters apart. Tottenham is to the North-East and Arsenal is to the South-West.
This morning, I visited Woodberry Wetlands.
I walked across from where the 141 bus dropped me by the Castle along the New River Walk.
It was crowded, as would be expected on the first day.
One thing that surprised me was that I saw a fox in broad daylight, strutting about as cool as you like.
I think it will turn out to be a popular attraction, but I think that transport bus, bicycle and walking access should be improved.
- Probably the easiest way to go is to walk from Manor House station. Some signs showing the shortest walking route would help.
- The maps on the web site need updating with buses from both entrances.
- Bicycles were everywhere and there needs to be better storage.
- A bus running between the reservoirs would certainly help.
It is the sort of attraction, that would benefit from some Boris bike stations.
- Manor House station
- Finsbury Park station
- The Castle
- The entrances to the attraction.
The first two would also serve Finsbury Park.
London Gets A New Garden
The British on the whole love their gardens and London’s new garden over Crossrail Place, the shopping centre on top of the Canary Wharf Crossrail station has now opened under its plastic roof.
It will be interesting to see how this station-cum-shopping centre develops. The cinema opens soon and there’s a floor and a half of shops at least to open before the station opens towards the end of the decade.
DownThe Hill In A Sunny Sheffield
I took these pictures as I walked from the Leopold Hotel to the station.
The Winter Garden was a total surprise. In fact, when I saw it, I was rather disappointed that I’d had a morning coffee in a Cafe Nero.
It was a very easy walk with the hill.
As I got to the bottom, it struck me that it might have been an idea to put the odd escalator in the climb to make it easier to walk up. Perugia has a similar problem of getting up the hill and they have used escalators to advantage.
London’s Garden Station
With the English love of gardening, you’d think that there would be lots of railway and Underground stations in the capital, which celebrate gardens.
But there are only three; Covent Garden, Kew Gardens and Ruislip Gardens.
The first is not really a garden now and who has heard of the last, but everybody has heard of the second.
So as I had heard the station had a pub on the platform, I went to take a look.
I just had a glass of real cider, but unfortunately the pub called the Tap On The Line had one of the most coeliac-unfriendly menus I’ve found in a long time.
The piece de resistance, was that the chips were oven chips, which as any coeliac knows are enhanced with wheat, so are not gluten-free. Even McDonalds manage to make their fries gluten-free!
You would be better off bringing a picnic to eat in Kew Gardens, which is four hundred metres away.
Tidying Up Dalston Kingsland Station
They would appear to be getting to grips with the vegetation at Dalston Kingsland station.
As the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden is under threat from the expansion of the shopping centre, why don’t they ask that team to improve the station?
One surprising thing, is that you rarely see a vandalised garden in Hackney. This doesn’t fit the stereotype.
Through St. Paul’s To The Tate Modern
I went for a walk this morning, starting on the North side of St. Paul’s Cathedral and then over the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern.
I’d actually never been in the gardens of the cathedral before, which connect the two sides of the building. As it was fairly early, it would have been a pleasant place to sit around for thirty minutes or so.
There’s more on the blue trees here.
Geneva’s Flower Clock
This is apparently famous.
Geneva’s Flower Clock
I couldn’t get any good pictures as there were always masses of Asian tourists in front of it.
The Sun Is Out In De Beauvoir Square
I took this picture yesterday morning, as I walked through the are to my doctor’s for a B12 injection.
The Sun Is Out In De Beauvoir Square
Last year, at this time of the year, there would be a lot more colour and leaves around. It really has been a bad winter.
Although, it was good to see the gardeners setting up the garden for Spring.
I don’t think many would associate this quiet and pleasant square with the inner London borough of Hackney. But then Hackney is one of the inner boroughs with most green spaces.
The New Leicester Square Emerges
Leicester Square is an iconic place and I took some pictures as it completed its transformation on Thursday.
Note that two pictures, show the old Royal Dental Hospital, which is now a hotel and the sandwich bar, where my mother used to take me as a treat after a visit.
The Anonymous Widower 