We have had a wonderful day in Pimlico in Westminster, and would love to tell you about it. Pimlico is famed for the council’s clever and pioneering work reducing through- traffic in local neighbourhoods in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and we’ve been exploring today.
Pimlico is in the heart of London- it’s just a few minutes walk to the Thames, and 20 minutes walk into Soho. It was nice to see so much bike parking at the station- not one rack was unused- and it’s much more used we imagine than this phone box!
We saw bikes everywhere- almost every railing had a bike attached- it’s clearly a popular way to get around Pimlico! But the real reason we were here was to see the Pimlico Grid- an interesting block of streets we were keen to explore.
It was the famous architect Thomas Cubitt who built the Pimlico Grid in the 1920’s, and it’s now protected as Pimlico’s Conservation area. There’s even a statue of him in the area (and a pub), but it was what happened in the late 60’s and early 70’s that we were really interest in today.
To halt the problem of through-traffic, the Westminster authorities designed the grid into a series of one- way streets. One resident told us, “this is a very mixed area- people live in Pimlico from all different backgrounds. But what has made the area very liveable, is what the authorities did to traffic management in the 1970’s”.
They told us that taxis often call the area the Bermuda Triangle, as it is so easy to get lost. We saw two people in Christmas jumpers putting their rubbish out, and both said it was a “super quiet place to live”. One contact sent us this fascinating video from 1970. In it, author and journalist, Ian Nairn says he lives in a “village in the biggest city in Europe”. Somewhat ahead of his time, he says the following:
One of the “problems that you come up against when cities expand violently” is “traffic comes roaring down streets that were never intended to take it, and there’s quite a lot of that in London I’m afraid”
He explains that “Commuters used to use these residential streets as a shortcut … but Westminster authorities decided to make a kind of traffic maze here, to stop them going through”.
“So they put up No Entry signs and made a few one-way streets. It’s impossible for cars coming into it to go straight over and find a direct way out, so the through-traffic has vanished, and the streets are quiet again”.
A local doctor he interviews says it’s a “marvellous idea”. Given the debate today, it’s interesting to think that this video is 53 years old!
But it seems attitudes haven’t changed. The Pimlico neighbourhood plan says “Residents … like the parks, gardens and green spaces. They appreciate the lack of traffic on most streets, and would like through-traffic reduced if possible”.
We call on Westminster council to continue the work they did in the 60’s and 70’s in reducing through- traffic. It is clearly a popular measure with people here in Pimlico, and we imagine, all over the borough too…
