Tolworth Broadway, Kingston-upon-Thames

We won an international competition along with SEW to improve the public realm on Tolworth Broadway in Kingston-upon-Thames.  The existing High Street is heavily dominated by vehicle movements and suffers from poor pedestrian permeability.

Our concept begins with taking down barriers and widening the carriageway’s central reservation creating a green pedestrian and cycle way along the centre of the four-lane Tolworth Broadway.  The project aims to encourage crossings over the road on natural desire lines and to link large residential areas in the borough to green spaces and parks to the south, by reducing severance caused by the A3 and roundabout.  A key move includes the creation of a new at-grade crossing over the A3 roundabout.  The crossing cleverly operates in the shadow of existing signal sequences and adds a direct and visible way to cross a very difficult junction.

The ground-breaking concept of central promenading provision where pedestrians and cyclists have equal priority is a first for the UK.  The public realm improvements have been designed in consultation with Transport for London due to the nature of the Broadway as a TfL TRN – Strategic Network Route. The project is due to start on site in 2010.

CLIENT - Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames

ROLE - Civil, Structural and Transport Engineer

ARCHITECT - Studio Egret West

COST - £1.9m (starts on site early 2011)