Rockets

Which shops - what are you basing this on? Only today Clean Air for All Dulwich reckons only two support the measures (I think we can guess which ones) and another one is about to close... https://x.com/DulwichCleanAir/status/1856971581471560101?s=19 The overly glowing reaction to this from the usual suspects is so predictable...talk to most folks who live in the area about the money wasted, the challenges the emergency services have had with the council and the India stone debacle and the reaction is very, very different. But, to be fair, is it any wonder the council acts the way they do when some are happy to back them even when they get things very, very wrong? In some people's eyes they seem to be able to do no wrong. I suspect Dulwich Square will haunt the council and councillors for a very long time - this will be their legacy - wasting tax-payers money on a vanity project that created a bigger environmental footprint than was necessary delivered zero tangible difference to what was there 6 months ago and took desperately needed money away from more pressing needs. If their only KPI was to make some active travel lobbyists happy then congrats to them! Perhaps the government's new Covid Corruption tsar could take a look to work out what has been going on here....;-)

Budget has seen to be no object on the square given the millions wasted on it - so are you saying that if the price isn't right then it's ok to do harm to the environment...that's a very slippery slope if you are allowing the council that escape lane....? I don't think it is £1.5m better than what was there before they started these works - a lot of my neighbours say they preferred what was there a few months ago - that it now feels like a spaceship landing pad. I just think about the improvements to other parts of Dulwich/Southwark that could have been made with that £1.5m budget that has been wasted (and done unknown harm to the environment in the process).

The council apologist in chief strikes again.... Malumbu, I know you would love this to be in the lounge so there isn't any attention on the council's failure but it is a transport hub. If it is true that these slabs are from India then Cllr McAsh has some very serious questions to answer as this has happened on his watch and you cannot take a position of closing a road on the basis of helping the environment and then go and cover it in environmentally damaging materials sourced from half way around the world and transported on a cargo ship. These are elected officials entrusted by us to do the right thing - they have not done that here and it makes a mockery of their environmental stance and is beyond embarrassing - you have to ask just how much oversight and governance the likes of Cllr McAsh are providing. They have also embarrassed those supporters who have blindly stood by them with their support for the changes in DV. Their "consultation" part of the website (which has been stripped of all the detail on the consultation plans interestingly enough and is now a much more abbreviated version of the previous site) https://www.southwark.gov.uk/parking-streets-and-transport/improving-streets-and-spaces/streets-people states: How we're making streets healthier and greener in Dulwich ...which is laughable in light of their choice of materials...

The short answer is that the council don't monitor displacement. In their world traffic "evaporates". Now, they did do some monitoring and claimed that traffic was "reduced across the whole" but that monitoring was massively flawed because it did no monitoring on displacement routes such as Underhill Road, Crystal Palace Road, Barry Road or the A205. Remember, the council originally only monitored on the streets within the LTN which shows their motivation for doing robust monitoring of displaced traffic - they really didn't want to have to and were forced to. Bottom-line is LTNs do nothing to remove traffic from roads - they only move it from one road to another - it passes the problem to someone else. No it won't but this will be considered a win for the council as it stops the traffic going through Dulwich.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/dulwich/ltn-hailed-as-eco-friendly-using-indian-stones-quarried-5000-miles-away/

Ha ha, Earl doesn't seem like the pub going type! 😉 If we did I certainly wouldn't want to get into an argument with them! 😉

I think Earl makes a very good point that needs considering here - idling cars left that junction 4 years ago (and this is a good thing) but since then the council has spent more and more money on redesigning the junction over and over again. The question remains, and to Earl's point about the cars going 4 years ago and the fact every works has been just to tweak the design - you have to ask why? Can anyone pinpoint what has changed to warrant the £1.5m of tax-payers money - it seems to me all they have done is increase the risk to pedestrians, slowed down emergency service access and removed parking which is of detrimental impact to the shops. Oh and put in really expensive and environmentally unfriendly paving and added a couple of new benches and new traffic lights.

Earl, what are your thoughts on the council shipping those lovely pavement tiles from India (rather than Yorkshire) to use to adorn your beloved square...any concerns that this will have had an necessarily negative impact on the environment? Is that not a little hypocritical? BTW I actually preferred the Square in its previous form before this huge amount of tax-payers money was wasted on it - it now looks like a huge bright concrete landing pad and I am not sure the area looks any nicer for it. It all feels a bit Milton Keynes and I think is out of character with the rest of the Village.

Earl, I think you need to spend more time reading what people actually post as you seem to constantly misinterpret/fail to grasp the message. I am wondering if you are starting to do it deliberately so you can pick a fight or whether you really don't understand. But if you had taken the time to actually read what I had said instead of doing your usual knee-jerk reaction then perhaps you would have understood it. I have explained it more than enough times to you that, given the overall number of journeys taken within an area then it is not a regular occurrence but you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge what I ACTUALLY said and instead try to accuse me of minimising it. Not for the first time, a complete untruth. Clearly....you can't argue with an....active travel lobbyist....;-)

Seemingly only in your mind but that's you interpretation and you're entitled to it. I have clearly done nothing of the sort but then it's down to your interpretation of what I, and others, have been saying and as we have seen time and time and again you get things wrong very frequently. And, on the basis of the number of journeys made within that area that does not make then a common/regular occurrence. I was taking issue with you stating that they were a common/regular occurrence - which they are clearly not. Another example of you putting your spin on the data and, deliberately, taking my point out of context to try and further your own position. Well it is if one of them hits you and that, at the end of the day, is what this thread is about so again, you have tried to turn it into a BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CARS!! I, and many others, will agree to disagree with you on this one, especially given the number of cyclists riding on pavements in the area - which, thankfully, despite your best efforts, keeps this thread on thread!!!

Because folks like you categorise every accident as bad driving (you have, predictably, just done it again) without any clue as to what actually happened. It's a Pavlovian response some of you seem incapable of shaking off. Car accident = bad driving. Absolute fantasy-land made-up nonsense. Earl, you need to be better than that. My jaw has not returned from where it dropped to when I read this..... I am afraid there are a hundred times more examples on this forum of people trying to minimise the impact of cyclists - it's almost daily. The BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CARS!! brigade do it every time anyone dares suggests cyclists might be becoming a problem - Earl, you just did it again. As far as I am concerned, and I have stated this a lot before, I do not want to be hit by a car or a bike and the biggest threat in the area we live in at the moment is being hit by a cyclist due to the high number of cyclists who ignore the rules of the road and put pedestrians at risk as a result. If some don't want to accept or acknowledge that or try to justify/minimise it because "well a bike won't hurt you as much as a car" then so be it - it does nothing to strengthen their cause just harms it and demonstrates how detached some are from reality because of their ideological blindness.

And Snowy thinks a 4x carbon footprint is funny....well that speaks volumes doesn't it....? They laugh when the council does things that do more to harm the environment...amazingly hypocritical but not at all surprising. It does make you wonder about some on the pro-side doesn't it.....

"4 x the carbon footprint" - good grief, if true, this really is becoming an on-going source of huge embarrassment to the council and councillors - seems to be own-goal after own-goal. Wasn't Cllr McAsh a member of the Green Party for a while - it seems as he signed off on that junction he isn't paying close attention or his green credentials have fallen to the kerb (or the Indian paving ;-)).... And if they have refused to put cycle slow signs at the junction you really have to question why not - and what agenda they are working to? If true, who is pulling their strings?

Does this mean the gate opposite the Grove Tavern is open again now?

Malumbu - you (and others) regularly post things in threads that have no bearing on the subject matter but are just a ploy to move the discussion onto something YOU want to talk about - especially when the subject matter of the OP is something close to your heart and you are ideologically opposed to. It's nothing more than a distraction technique and adds nothing to the debate. How many times have threads been hijacked by people saying the forum equivalent of "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CARS!!!!"? It happens all the time and it's always done by the usual suspects and it's against the forum rules.

The rail service is particularly poor and the weekend traveller seems to take the brunt of it. Whenever we are making plans for any given weekend we always check ahead for fear of the dreaded "Bus Replacement Service" and the frequency of trains not being available has increased markedly at weekends over the last few years.

No, you were doing what so many on the pro-side of the argument do when confronted with a thread that is critical of the behaviour of some cyclists. You try to distract by screaming...WHAT ABOUT THE CARS!!!....which is exactly what you, and others, have done on this thread - and you do it all the time - you go head in the sand about the problems caused by cyclists and try to turn the debate on to cars. Again, another example of why so many people get fed-up with the actions of active travel protagonists because few are keen to address the issues in their own backyard.

What a load of nonsense...and i say this as both a cyclist and driver. This is not even close to being true. But this is a thread about bad cycling so maybe take your comments on bad driving and set yo a new thread instead of trying to throw in a "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CARS" to distract from this thread....

Probably good cyclists go and read it to…not sure many realise this, certainly very few of us obey it - I do and often have been overtaken by other cyclists ignoring it. Some cyclists seem to think they have right of way in every instance. Rule 74 Turning. When approaching a junction on the left, watch out for vehicles turning in front of you, out of or into the side road. If you intend to turn left, check first for other cyclists or motorcyclists before signalling. Do not ride on the inside of vehicles signalling or slowing down to turn left. and here are a few others a large number of cyclists probably need to read up on and obey. Rule 64 You MUST NOT cycle on a pavement. Rule 69 You MUST obey all traffic signs and traffic light signals Rule 71 At traffic light junctions and at cycle-only crossings with traffic lights, you MUST NOT cross the stop line when the traffic lights are red. Rule 81 Do not ride across equestrian crossings, as they are for horse riders only. Do not ride across a pelican, puffin or zebra crossing. Dismount and wheel your cycle across.

Malumbu, are you advocating some type of cycling test and licence for cyclists as well then? You cite left turns across cyclists but there are a lot of cyclists who ignore the Highway Code and proceed to the left of a vehicle that is indicating. Surely if there is no training for cyclists then how are they supposed to know what's safe cycling - many seem to think they are able to cycle to the left of an indicating vehicle.

Because sometimes you have to pragmatic. Whomever took that photo could see what they were doing and why they were having to do it that way. Is the van doing the work at that house not a low-level misdemeanour - you can’t have it both ways? Therein lies the problem…you want every driver to comply with the rules of the road but not cyclists. That’s hypocrisy but there’s a hell of a lot of hypocrisy on your side of the argument it seems to come with the territory. I think the challenge you have is that anyone who dares to challenge your view or perspective you have to attack and try to demonise them, especially when you get things wrong - instead of saying you got things wrong you double-down. It’s sad but so utterly predictable but this behaviour is why so many people are really challenged by the approach of the pro- side of the lobby - a lot of it is downright nasty and that is why it is rabid - because a lot of people have lost all sense of perspective because they are so far in their ideological sink-hole. And I say this as a cyclist and driver who wants to see zero accidents on the road.

I do not hate anyone and to suggest otherwise is a typical low-blow attack we have come to expect from some. What i do hate however is when Dulwich Roads posts things to further their ideological campaign that are either clearly untrue or they have done nothing to determine what actually happened. It seems every time they see anything that they think was caused by "dangerous drivers" they start salivating and post it as proof. The ones I posted yesterday are a classic example - the yellow arrow sign clearly wasn't hit by a vehicle. And there is this one...now that's vehicle is not being driven anywhere, there is no-one in the drivers seat. Notice also the tubing on the back of the "HGV". Now is that driving down the pavement or maybe it's pouring or removing something into or from the building works going on at the back of the house on that corner....go take a look for yourself...the house, with a load of building works going on at the back of it is at the junction of Dekker Road. As I have said a thousand times before I don't want to be hit by either a HGV or a bicycle (but if you're asking which is would prefer to be hit by then I will, obviously, take my chances with the bike). I am someone who would like to see zero road injuries caused by anything. Some seem to want zero road injuries caused by everything except bikes - which seems to be the go to position for many in the pro-cycle lobby the "well let's turn a blind eye to bikes because cars kill more people".

Earl loves putting words into people's mouths....

Cars and bikes may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.... Imagine a world where people spent more time focussing on things that actually make a difference....

No, I just don't think they should be wasting time, effort and resources pandering to people like you who get upset by the word they use.... Just remind me again...how many accidents have been prevented by not referring to accidents.....?