Description
The intersection of Grey Street with Blackett Street around the monument has always thronged with pedestrians. Northumberland Street, Eldon Square Shopping Centre, and other shopping streets converge on this point. Like Oxford Street in London, Blackett Street also provides one of only two east-west links across the centre, and has long been a very busy bus corridor. Old photographs show mounted police struggling to control the intersection as traffic struggles through the throngs of shoppers.
A public realm strategy by Gillespies in 1988 identified the upgrading of the space around Grey's Monument as an essential first set in the regeneration of the city centre. Conventional pedestrian crossings would not cope with such complex pedestrian movements, but it remained essential to retain buses and some taxis, delivery and service vehicles in Blackett Street. The addition of a Metro station in the 1980's had added further complications and restraints, and prompted a radical solution.
The result is a design that allows two-way bus movement across the busy space under the monument, but in only one direction at a time. A 150 metre long, 3.5 metre wide paved path, edged by a low kerb with contrasting pink and grey granite edge strips, defines the bus path. Buses pause at a pinch point at either end to wait for oncoming buses to clear before negotiating their way at low speeds through the crowds. Rough setts serve as rumble strips at either end. Tactile paving guides blind and partially sighted pedestrians to a central crossing point, but the vast majority of people stroll across wherever they wish, pausing briefly to allow any bus to pass. A few service vehicles and taxis turn into side streets or negotiate the rest of the space informally, without any conventional highway definitions.
The link from the south of Grey Street down to the Quayside consists of a series of interconnected streets dramatically framed by railway and road bridges overhead. The streets, known as Side from the foot of Dean Street, drops down to join Sandhill below the Tyne Bridge. These steep streets have been redesigned and rebuilt to replace their former highway character with a distinctive language of setts, paviours, granite kerbs and Caithness slabs. The result is a remarkable example of streets designed to cope with bus movements and occasional vehicles whilst fitting perfectly into their historic context.
