Thread by @johnstreetdales

Ten years after having done my first @livingstreets #WalkToWork, I’m once again sauntering from home in Ealing to our office. Was W1, now EC1 - about 12 miles. Seems I’ve picked a decent day for it & my first photos are of the lovely Lammas Park. Hold that name...
#WalkThisMay

Quite a bit of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was filmed around here, back in the day. Lammas Park Gardens featured in the Spanish Inquisition’s dash by bus to the Old Bailey...
#WalkThisMay

...and Lammas Park Road was where Hell’s Grannies stole a phone box from.
#WalkThisMay

Lammas Park Gardens also contains a classic example of a common challenge in the walking environment: a fine old tree that now blocks the footway. The solution here? Build a footway tree bypass out into the parking zone, which isn’t well-used anyway. Priorities.
#WalkThisMay

I’m now on Ealing Common. Whatever came of the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain & Cattle Trough Association?
#WalkThisMay

A pretty decent, useful parallel signalised walking & cycling crossing of the North Circular Road is next on my route.
#WalkThisMay

Also pretty decent & useful are the protected cycle lanes that Ealing Council has installed on the Uxbridge Road in the past year. As you can see, they’re appreciably wider than the old ‘advisory’ lanes. #WalkThisMay

In terms of decent, useful *and* wonderfully simple sustainable travel measures, the conversion of unnecessarily part-time & complicated bus/cycle/taxi lanes into 24/7 features is hard to beat.
#WalkThisMay

You might ask why anyone would want to sit in a new parklet overlooking a supermarket car park. But someone had their pizza here last night, and many others, when out walking, just need more opportunities for a decent sit-down, whatever the view.
#WalkThisMay

Next up in Monty Python locations is this fine old bingo hall in Acton. Now a climbing wall, that’s another Hell’s Granny you can just see through the glass door in the screen-grab.
#WalkThisMay

Another old building nearby is the Old Town Hall, looking grand in the early morning sun. Seems you could live in it now, if you have the funds, as well as swim in it (for a lot less).
#WalkThisMay

There aren’t too many level crossings on local shopping/residential streets, but Churchfield Road, Acton has one.
#WalkThisMay

Acton Park is another lovely green space, and - though perhaps a bit far east - may be additional evidence for why Ealing became called the ‘Queen of the Suburbs’ (or, at least, why Ealing Council has this logo).
#WalkThisMay

A bike hangar outside an apartment block where there’ll be little or no space to store cycles conveniently. Makes sense.
#WalkThisMay

Now in Hammersmith & Fulham, and a perfect example of why, if you want a cycle lane to be a cycle lane, simple ’advisory’ markings aren’t what you need.
#WalkThisMay

My final Monty Python location for today is Thorpebank Road, W12. Not only was it where the exteriors for the New Gas Cooker sketch were shot, that (yellow) corner shop at the end...

...is the building from which, fittingly for my purposes, John Cleese emerged on his way to the Ministry of Silly Walks. I doubt he then walked all the way to Westminster, though.
#WalkThisMay

The floodlights of a stadium I see is now named in memory of a former youth team player, Kiyan Prince. When it was still called Loftus Road, I once saw my team, Newcastle, there contrive to draw 5-5 with QPR, despite us having been 4-0 up at half time!
#WalkThisMay

A very useful little walking cut-through, with a well-tended ‘garden’ at one end. ‘Filtered permeability’ of the old school.
#WalkThisMay

Sustainable drainage combined with fun play features in Australia Road/Bridget Joyce Square. I bet it’s mobbed when the nearby Nursery & Early Years Centre kicks out.
#WalkThisMay

I love a bit of background information, and Bridget Joyce Square has plenty of it, if you’re also interested.
#WalkThisMay

There’s some background information in Hammersmith Park, too. The park has a number of Japanese features, the ones shown here being sponsored by banks & other large corporations
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‘Gateway Central’ claims to be *The* place for innovation. Partly thanks to its hoardings, it’s made South Africa Road no place to be for walkers/wheelers. Now just one footway, less than 1.5m wide. This simply should not be permitted.
#WalkThisMay

Colourful crossings, linking White City station to the Westworks, which has the same symbols on its facade.
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Times change.
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Not my kind of place, but I’m going in. Well, through. I hope!
#WalkThisMay

I made it out! Though I did get lost (I suspected I would).
#WalkThisMay

Still, in getting lost, I came across this. So I reckon that’s a score draw.
#WalkThisMay

Westfield has a half-way decent (but only half-way) walking (& cycling) connection over the busy West Cross Route and into the quiet residential area to the east. You have to duck if you’re an adult cycling, mind.
#WalkThisMay

Signs alone rarely make it better.
#WalkThisMay

Blimey! I’m already in K&C. I never knew Avondale Park existed, but it seems very pleasant & restful. I’m being serenaded by goldfinches, blackbirds, and (less tunefully) ring-necked parakeets.
#WalkThisMay

Some more intriguing local history. It’s all around us, if we take the time, and look. Walking is perfect for it.
#WalkThisMay

More local information, and another gift from our friends at the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain & Cattle Trough Association.
#WalkThisMay

Bell-mouth junctions - the bane of walkability. This 8.5m wide street becomes 20m across along the desire line over its mouth. That’s 20-25 seconds in the carriageway for many people. In a residential area that has a 20mph speed limit. Unacceptable, yet everywhere.
#WalkThisMay

The much quieter & less well-known part of Portobello Road. I love these old painted signs, even if I can’t quite make them out. And I also love old buildings being partly reused as coffee shops. Time for a break...
#WalkThisMay

It’s why I walk 😉
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And one for the street, of course 🙂
#WalkThisMay

Another bell-mouth. 7.5m becomes 16.5m, no dropped kerb, and an easy, fast left turn in for motor vehicles. Proper rubbish.
#WalkThisMay

And talking of dropped kerbs, the lack of provision & consistency even in one small area is distressing. And I’m not picking on Notting Hill. It’s everywhere. No drop; drop; drop with no tonal contrast blister paving...
#WalkThisMay

As for this! “Sorry. We want to do a bit of work on this private house, and you might get in our way. So push off.”
#WalkThisMay

In happier news, just opposite, a pub named - and painted - for just such a day as this. 🌞
#WalkThisMay

In case you ever need to know.
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This, in my view, is a good thing. But I also think Westminster needs to do a lot more for everything represented by those three symbols and three words.

Back to dropped crossings, I suppose this one gives access to the recycling bins & cycle stands, but there’s no onward provision for walking.
#WalkThisMay

Perhaps I shouldn’t be, but I am a bit of a sucker for a mews.
#WalkThisMay

Not good if you need to walk or wheel out at this end, mind.
#WalkThisMay

Another fine old building, yet surprisingly easy to miss if you don’t look up. I’m not at all sure that’s an intentional balcony garden.
#WalkThisMay

I’m no fan of subways, but I am somehow sad that the Joe Strummer one on Edgware Road at the A40 flyover/Harrow Road is now a thing of the past.
#WalkThisMay

I’ve never been quite sure what this is all about near Edgware Road H&C/Circle station, but it jollies things up.
#WalkThisMay

It’s weak of me, I know. Very weak. But I can never walk or cycle here without thinking ‘Doh!’
#WalkThisMay

Scenes like this do bring a smile to my face. Hi-vis ‘walking buses’ aren’t wrong, but they’re a reminder that our basic street user priorities are.
#WalkThisMay

Scenes like this, which are far commoner, do not bring a smile to my face. @dpdparcelwizard
#WalkThisMay

I feel, somehow, that this is a sign we’ve reached Peak Something. Just not quite sure what.
#WalkThisMay

OK, so the street’s shut at present, but I’ve long thought this might perhaps be the most pointless long stretch of double yellow lines anywhere.
#WalkThisMay

It’s amazing how things so recent can, at the same time, seem to be part of ancient history.
#WalkThisMay

A building that does justice to the organisation it houses (RIBA). A very far cry from the first building I knew to house CABE - the Tower Building next to Waterloo station 🙈
#WalkThisMay

Well, they *say* it’s cycle parking, but I can’t be sure. Wonder how many of these there are, and how well they’ve used.
#WalkThisMay

This was The Lukin, back in my day.
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And by ‘my day’ I mean when 1 Fitzroy Square was my office - and then the end of my first #WalkToWork jaunt in 2011. It was lovely, if a bit grown up for the likes of me.
#WalkThisMay

In that same ‘my day’, Tottenham Court Road was a nightmare. It’s not perfect now, of course, - no complex street ever can be - but with wider footways, two-way working, and cycles, buses, taxis & immediate access only I think it’s a much better street for people.
#WalkThisMay

The Camden version of the Westminster bike bunker. Definitely some cycles in here.
#WalkThisMay

I first saw a sign like this in Paris in the 80s. They’re of almost no practical value, I suspect, but I’ll let them pass 🙂
#WalkThisMay

Byng Place (Torrington Square) doesn’t seem to be to everyone’s liking, but it is to mine. What Camden did turned a wide ocean of tarmac into a place that’s a magnet for people (and also an easier place for overtaking if you’re cycling).
#WalkThisMay

I dunno. #BloodyRubbishRemovalDudes
Cycle tracks aren’t just for cycling 👍🏼
#WalkThisMay

I guess this is another (parish?) boundary marker. On Tavistock Place. Anyone?
#WalkThisMay

One of the most mature, well-loved and effective ‘traffic filters’ I know. Ampton Street in Camden.
#WalkThisMay

Kings Cross Road/Farringdon Road. Part of the Transport for London Road Network. I wonder if its capacity for motor traffic will, or should, be fully utilised again.
#WalkThisMay

One of ‘our’ local pubs - reopened last week. One of the reasons I’m looking forward to working from home less.
#WalkThisMay

And this, you’ll be more than relieved to know, is the last photo (but one) of this #WalkToWork. The marvellous Our Most Holy Redeemer church on Exmouth Market. The office is just round the corner.
#WalkThisMay

My very last photo is a screenshot. After six hours, it’s time for a proper sit-down. And proper work!
#WalkThisMay