Note: This is aimed particularly at anyone who cycles in central London and travels near either King’s Cross or St Pancras stations. Everyone else? As you were. Unless you work for Camden Council…

While tube maps show King’s Cross St Pancras as a single station, anyone who visits will know that there are actually two different stations served by that tube. King’s Cross serves trains to the north and Scotland, as well as Hull, Cambridge, King’s Lynn and suburban stations to the north of London. Over in St Pancras, there are Eurostar services to the continent, services towards the midlands, and trains running north-south between Bedford and Brighton.

Between the two stations is Pancras road. While you can travel through towards Camden, it’s mostly used by black cabs, minicabs and a few buses dropping people off and picking passengers up from the station. There are dropoff points for both stations along the road, and King’s Cross’s taxi rank is set back from the road too (St Pancras’s taxi rank is on the other side of the station).

These are busy places, and there is always lots of traffic.

However, Pancras Road is also used by a large number of cyclists who are entering or leaving either mainline station. And that’s where the trouble comes, because the road can be positively chaotic. On the St Pancras side, is a long area for setting down and picking up, but at busy times double parking is pervasive. So minicabs in particular will crawl along the road waiting for a spot to open up to safely discharge their passengers. They tend not to worry about other traffic users.

Then there is the real problem – vehicles conducting three point turns. I understand that once you’ve set down, vehicles want to return into central London, but vast numbers conduct three point turns. I took this video on Friday with separate vehicles all trying to do the manoeuvre in very busy surroundings.

It would be safer for all in the vicinity if three point turns or u-turns were made illegal on this section of road. Particularly for cyclists, this can be dangerous as there is so much movement in the area, that cyclist can become invisible.

Instead, such turns should be further up Pancras Road, where there is already taxi-waiting space for those cabs queuing to pick up passengers at King’s Cross. For others, it’s easy to loop around St Pancras station via Goods Way and Midland Road, from where drivers can head off in any direction again. Let’s just keep the horrible 150m section between Euston Road and the passenger entrances of King’s Cross and St Pancras Stations clear of u-turning traffic can we?