Thursday’s Headlines: Across the Pond Edition
Transportation planners in London are using traffic filters to create mini town squares and low-traffic neighborhoods. Plus more news.
By
David Meyer
12:01 AM EDT on September 18, 2025
Streetfilms‘ Clarence Eckerson recently visited London to learn about ways transportation planners in the Big Smoke are re-envisioning their city’s streets to put people over cars.
In the Borough of Lambeth, Eckerson found “modal filters” where planners have effectively created small town squares by diverting traffic at intersections. The design enhanced safety for cyclists and pedestrians while opening up more space for outdoor dining and bio-swales. (Open Plans, which shares a parent org with Streetsblog, has advocated for bringing a similar concept right here to New York City.)
Check it out on YouTube:
In other news:
- A Mayor Adams fundraiser who is facing bribery charges tried to hide a $107,000 Mercedes from the feds, and did not get away with it. (The City)
- NYPD stole a bunch of delivery worker e-bikes, putting people out of work. (Documented NY)
- Staten Island’s paper of record helpfully advised its readers where on The Rock not to speed… (SI Advance)
- … and the borough’s pols fought a safety redesign on Father Capodanno Boulevard. (SI Advance)
- Casino proposals for Times Square and Hudson Yards lost crucial Community Advisory Committee votes. (Gothamist, NY Times, Hell Gate, NY1, W42ST)
- Trouble ahead: Brad Lander reportedly upset Zohran Mamdani’s camp when he privately assured business rep Kathy Wylde “that he would be in a Mamdani administration to address concerns from the business community.” (Gothamist)
- An Astoria man who allegedly struck a girl and woman on a Corona sidewalk over the weekend faces 15 years in jail. (QNS)
- More delivery lockers are coming to NYC streets. (amNY)
- The Hochul administration continues to obfuscate and insist that its Cross Bronx Expressway rehab project isn’t a highway expansion. (Bronx Times)
- A new noise camera is coming to downtown Brooklyn. (Brooklyn Eagle)
- Cops are looking for a hit-and-run driver who critically injured a senior citizen in Brooklyn. (Gothamist)
- Eric Adams wants to ban horse carriages all of a sudden. (amNY)
David was Streetsblog's do-it-all New York City beat reporter from 2015 to 2019. He returned as an editor in 2023 after a three-year stint at the New York Post.
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