Reducing traffic on Grey Street makes sense
The esteemed architecture critic, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, described Grey Street as one of the finest streets in England. In 2010 listeners of BBC Radio 4 went further and voted it the ‘Best street in the UK’. The street is undoubtedly the jewel in Newcastle’s architectural crown. Together with the cluster of bridges that cross the Tyne gorge, it affords the city a stunning townscape. In any other city, Grey Street would have long been given special treatment. But Newcastle City Council’s measures to give cyclists and pedestrians extra space on the street in order to enable social distancing, as workplaces and shops begin to open during the continuing Covd-19 pandemic, have met with predictable opposition. The former Tory Metro-Mayor candidate, Charlie Hoult, led the charge on social media with a less than statesman-like, ‘Wtaf!’. His complaint was that there would be, ‘No space for casual parking to pick up or drop off at the offices, whether a legal document or a catering delivery.’
But this is a weak and illogical argument. In order to understand why, we need a bit of historical and geographical perspective. The modest forms of pedestrianisation and traffic reduction that have been introduced in Newcastle have always been met with howls of opposition. It is now largely forgotten that, from the opening of the Tyne Bridge in 1928 to the opening of the Tyne Tunnel in 1967, Northumberland Street formed part of the A1 — that is, it was part of the main road from London to Edinburgh. It remained a busy thoroughfare thereafter and crossing the road was to take your life in your hands. (When you tell that to young people today, they don’t believe you.) Yet, when buses were banned for an experimental period in 1989, critics queued up to complain. When Northumberland Street was finally and belatedly pedestrianised the same arguments were deployed as we hear today in relation to improvements on Grey Street. Would the critics of the Council’s plans for Grey Street want Northumberland Street reopened to traffic, so that cars could pull up to allow drivers to pop into Fenwick’s or grab a newspaper from WH Smith? All reasonable people would agree that Northumberland Street is immeasurably improved by people being able to walk safely. But if we had listened to the critics back in the day, it would still be choked with traffic. As far as Grey Street is concerned, if picking up and dropping off packages is so vital, logically we should allow more parking there, not less. The objections make no sense.
If we raise our gaze from our own backyard, it is apparent that, across the globe, the days of city centres being subject to the tyranny of the internal combustion engine are coming to an end. Cars produce pollution, ill-health and congestion. Walking and cycling do the opposite. Even Boris Johnson agrees. For decades, civilised cities have been removing cars from city centres. In Copenhagen locals and tourists typically linger in the bars and restaurants of Strøget, not realising it was once clogged with cars before it was pedestrianised in 1962. Copenhagen’s famous café terraces are a recent invention made possible by reclaiming the streets from cars. (Don’t say it could not happen in Newcastle: Copenhagen is on the same latitude, 55o North.) When it was proposed to pedestrianise the Garben in Vienna in 1971, all the usual objections were raised. But the city government went ahead. Pedestrianisation has been continually extended and now Vienna is ranked the most liveable city in the world, attracting visitors and investment.
The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing cities to reorder the use of space. A global wave of urban change is underway. Innovation is the order of the day. Cities are being reinvented. Health, well-being, and quality of life are the new competitive advantage. The only question is whether Newcastle leads or lags. The cities that attract visitors and investment in the future will be those that catch the wave, not those marooned in the past. Grey Street is Tyneside’s Taj Mahal, its St Peter’s Basilica, its Forbidden City but, for decades, it has served, in practice, as a car park. This is an astonishing and lamentable way to treat a prized architectural asset. It would not be countenanced in any comparable city. Now the Council is acting to address this, and it is to be welcomed. Grey Street stirs the soul. The poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman, wrote, ‘As for the curve of Grey Street, I shall never forget seeing it to perfection, traffic-less on a misty Sunday morning. Not even Regent Street, even old Regent Street London, can compare with that descending subtle curve.’ Note the adjective — traffic-less.
John Tomaney is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at University College London. He lives in Gateshead.