We have a lot of busy streets in Kings Cross – the presumption for years has been that 'cars are king', pedestrians come distant last in the car, bus, truck, road works, bike pecking order.  TfL Camden and Islington have neglected the appalling Kings Cross gyratory for decades and Sophie has been following their recent consultant-led efforts to make up for this.

Residents however can take control with some imaginative re-use of the black stuff.  In Oxford residents working with RoadWitch and SusTrans and tacit connivance of their local council repainted and completely reorganised their entire street (pic left).  After all, they live there, pedestrians have right of way etc etc.  Some of the RoadWitch stuff is really fantastic and imaginative – check out their site.

Elsewhere my attention has been drawn to PARKing Day – put enough money in a meter for a day and turn an on street car parking space into a park – with some hay bales, wood chips, perhaps some art (pic left from Australia). Perhaps Kings Cross should be replace graffiti with guerilla/street art – perhaps an art caravan in a parking bay. 

BTW unhitched caravans are an interesting loophole in parking law – they aren't motor vehicles and if they haven't been dumped, the council has to use planning law to get rid of them as unlicenced structures. I only know this because the council failed for months in 2005 to get rid of a caravan in a residents parking bay on my street being used by a crack dealer…..