Just north of the velodrome in the Olympic park Stratford. These blocks used to be used to block off the monier road bus bridge on fish island. Wondering why they would lay them out like this?

by cool-passata

27 comments

  1. Allows access for bikes but prevents racing other vehicles ?

  2. I’d say to stop drag races, car meets and just folk meeting up to appreciate each other vehicles.

  3. Possibly to stop traveller camps. When they built the Olympic site they disperced a travelled community to multiple other sites.

  5. They are mines that you need to get past to escape from New York! Snake pliskin style!

  9. Stop fly tipping, people racing their cars, caravans from settling there. Lots of reasons. To be honest the first one that popped into my head when i saw the picture was tank traps but then i saw where it was and thought Stratford isn’t that bad….. yet.

  13. I run around there a fair bit. It was initially left clear, and kids/teenagers started using it for motorbike/dirtbike drag races and tricks. To be honest they weren’t doing a lot of harm (apart from the risk to themselves) given that the road has no pedestrians/users, but Newham put those concrete blocks in to deter it.

    I did read they’re going to do something with the road (green space) but given the only thing they are interested in when it comes to the olympic park is extracting as much profit through developments i suspect nothing will happen.

    The area of actual parkspace is steadily declining, it’s all very depressing and I’m sure isn’t what would have been promised by the 2012 organisers

  16. I think there were people somehow getting cars on here at night and racing. Or at least there was a hell of a lot more noise from engines revving / tyres squealing in that direction a few years ago. There are a lot of newish wide roads in the area though so might not have been this one they were using.

  17. People used to go film ‘music videos down there’ but now they do hire out that road as a filming location.

  21. If you’re looking for a good workout, run the length of that road and jump/climb over each block in your path. My friends and I do it every now and then on Sunday mornings.

  22. I remember wandering drunk down this road, or one very similar to it years ago coming back from a party in Hackney Wick.

  23. To prevent racing. Single barrier is easy to circumnavigate and road can still be used for racing, multiple barriers take a lot more bricks, this makes it impossible to pass by car and impractical to race on bike.

  25. It’s wild how fast can a road decay without maintenance even if cars are absent.

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