PROJECT SUMMARY: HAMMERSMITH AVENUE
Aerial view of Furnivall Gardens, with the A4 above and Dove Pier and Hope Pier below.
Created in the early 1960s, the Hammersmith A4 was driven through historical residential areas in a way which would never be allowed today. The road obliterated everything in its path, including much of the churchyard of St. Paul’s Church, where it destroyed an old wall and many grave markers. And it drove through the green space of Homefield Recreation Ground, dividing it into two. It was designed not as an urban street, but as a quasi-motorway with six lanes of traffic and no surface pedestrian crossings. It damages the community through which it passes in four ways: visual intrusion, noise, pollution, and severance. We describe in the Project Document each of these problems, and suggest how it could be mitigated. We propose as a first step reduction of the speed limit from 40 mph to 30 mph and the installation of a surface pedestrian crossing near the Hammersmith Town Hall.