Preparatory works have begun to convert the notorious Old Street roundabout to a two-way layout in a bid to improve cyclist and pedestrian safety.
Transport for London was shamed into finally tackling the gateway to “tech City” by London deputy mayor Heidi Alexander after cyclist Sarah Doone was nearly killed by a cement mixer.
Ms Doone, 38, from Peckham, a freelance TV worker for Al Jazeera, had to have a leg amputated after being run over by the HGV in July. Friends have raised more than £38,000 to help during her rehabilitation.
Speaking days afterwards, Ms Alexander said “it could have been me” and vowed: “I will do everything in my power to ensure that we bring down the rate at which pedestrians and cyclists are killed and seriously injured on London’s streets.”
City Hall today announced that work had started at the roundabout , almost four years after changes were strongly backed in a TfL consultation.
Main construction is due to start overnight next March, with the scheme completed by the “end of 2020”.
The north-west “arm” of the diamond-shaped 1960s roundabout, between Old Street and City Road, will be closed to enable a “peninsula” island piazza to be created.
Three of the four subways to the Tube station will be closed and replaced with surface-level pedestrian crossings. Two-way traffic will flow around the western, southern and eastern sides of the roundabout. City Road will remain open.
There will be fully segregated cycle lanes and cycle-only traffic signals around the new junction.
The changes, part of the Vision Zero target of eliminating road deaths on the TfL network by 2041, were proposed because bikes account for a third of vehicles using the roundabout in the morning rush hour. More than 80 per cent of the injuries involved a pedestrian or cyclist.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “I announced over the summer that I wanted to see improvements at Old Street brought forward, and I’m delighted that work to transform the junction has now begun.
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“Old Street is one of the busiest junctions in London, but is currently an outdated roundabout that needs to be made safer for the thousands of people who pass through it every day.”
Claudia Webbe, Islington council’s executive member for environment and transport, said: “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform a polluted, outdated junction so that priority and space is given to people instead of vehicles.”
