Quietway junction - crowd funding (Dulwich Village)

[Bicknell]

There's a new crowd funding page started up at Just Giving for a better junction for Quietway cyclists and pedestrians. (The same Quietway running down Champion Hill through Townley Road junction.) The story is (taken from the JustGiving page) -

Southwark Council's plans for a 'Quietway' for less confident cyclists through Dulwich Village include a new design for the junction.

But this new design:

* doesn't put pedestrian safety first

* doesn't help less confident cyclists

* will increase traffic queues and rat-running

* sets pedestrians, cyclists and motorists against each other by making them race for the lights

* should be trialled before any expensive construction takes place

This junction has two schools with primary-aged children. Hundreds of children walk and cycle through it every day.

Two-thirds of locals have already objected to Southwark's design in a public consultation.

We want a better design. We want Southwark Council and TfL to look at an alternative - a design based on a low-speed environment and continuous traffic flow that suits the middle of Dulwich Village with its schools and shops.

We need to raise ?4,000 for the first part of a feasibility study by traffic experts to persuade Southwark Council and TfL to look at an alternative design. If 400 people gave ?10 each, we would reach our target within days.

If we do nothing, Southwark and TfL will stick with the design that the local community has rejected, and start building it next summer.

Please go to http://www.dulwichvillageforum.org.uk for more information.

[Bicknell]

Its at www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/dulwich-village-junction-alternative. They're up to ?2000

Can't see how you make it so that you click it and go straight through.

[intexasatthe moment]

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/dulwich-village-junction-alternative

[Bicknell]

Thanks intexasatthemoment

[sally buying]

Why is it that there always has to be a crowd funding appeal when Southwark should actually listen to residents concerns?

Who does Southwark work for, themselves or residents? This should not be necessary.

As an after thought what has happened to the mass crowd funding for the Peckham High Line. Seems to have died a death ofter the money was raised.

[edhistory]

> As an after thought what has happened to the mass crowd funding for the Peckham High Line. Seems to have died a death ofter the money was raised.

Has it died?

[spider69]

Could have paid wages for a time whilst sitting in a coffee shop.

What is the story?

[Bicknell]

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/dulwich-village-junction-alternative

[Scootingover]

I hope this raises the needed funds to support an alternative proposal backed with expert opinion. The Southwark approved one will not work and they've been told that but don't listen. Great idea to commission this work.

[BrandNewGuy]

edhistory Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> > As an after thought what has happened to the

> mass crowd funding for the Peckham High Line.

> Seems to have died a death ofter the money was

> raised.

>

> Has it died?

It's very much living - the initial crowdfunding drive a year ago was successful and the project is currently in a full feasability study phase. I was at a Spacehive meeting last week ? they're the organisation 'partnering' with Southwark to help crowdfund local community projects.

[wulfhound]

While there's lots to dislike about Southwark's proposal, this one seems equally concerning. Double and triple roundabouts are bad news for pedestrians & cyclists unless everyone is patient and considerate. And unless there are plans for mass medication of the water supply...

As a pedestrian - there are simply too many directions to look in at once. Yes, most drivers/cyclists will see you and stop for zebra crossings. "Most" is nowhere near good enough, though.

As a cyclist - approaching northbound from the south on Dulwich Village, as many do. Currently to make the right turn on to Calton there's really one significant point of conflict - merging across the traffic to the right turn lane. Usually there's a queue at the lights, so this isn't too bad. It's not perfect, but it's manageable. Everything else happens under signal control. The design proposed has so many possible ways to get hit making that one simple turn.. I think four or five conflict points in what's basically one manoeuvre. Same for Quietwayers approaching from the north/east and heading south/west -- four or five potential conflict points, compared to maybe two at the moment.

The only way that can possibly work is with raised tables across every junction, with bike paths alongside the pavement and cycles crossing next to pedestrians on priority "bike zebra" crossings with waiting areas. A "delineated lane" (i.e. paint) with so many conflict points & without priority crossings or waiting refuges is an accident waiting to happen.

The junction is dangerous because, contrary to their supposed priorities, Southwark puts traffic capacity before pedestrian & cycle safety. We should be asking why they are putting in extra pedestrian crossing stages to increase or maintain vehicle capacity.

[Tessmo]

Hello wolfhound. Thoughtful reply, as ever.

I'm not a technical expert, and Phil Jones Associates, who are doing the feasibility study for the design, are bound to have better answers.

But the main point of the alternative proposal is that it's a low-speed environment. The problem with the official proposal from Southwark is that it encourages higher speeds through the junction - partly because of the change of priority, which makes it easy for cars to come fast down Calton Avenue, but also because everyone is segregated by their own separate light phase, which will encourage queueing cars to race through before/as the lights go red. The trend all over London is to move to lower speeds and more interaction between road-users, and we need a junction that makes it clear (through whatever design features are necessary) that cars give way to cyclists and pedestrians. (What's on the website is only a sketch and a starting point.)

Yes, take your point about a zebras. But there are already two zebra crossings nearby, one of them used by very small children from the Infants school. You're right that drivers (and cyclists) don't always stop. But they don't always stop at red lights, either. So, again, we need to build a junction that makes cars slow down rather than speed up.

The cycle lane round the whole junction could be extended to make the Quietway cycle path really clear, and there certainly could, should and ought to be 'tiger' crossings (with maybe a toucan crossing?) that allow both pedestrians and cyclists to have priority.

Your last point is right, too. No way should a new design for a junction put in extra pedestrian crossing stages (especially at a junction where there are two schools with primary-aged children) just to increase capacity for cars.

[mockingbird]

wulfhound Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> As a pedestrian - there are simply too many

> directions to look in at once. Yes, most

> drivers/cyclists will see you and stop for zebra

> crossings. "Most" is nowhere near good enough,

> though.

>

The DV junction, whether supporting a Quietway or not, has to serve a very large number of pedestrians, particularly young children travelling to the adjacent schools. They are not an afterthought and they will want to and should be able to cross a carriageway in one go. In the longer term, it seems that an effective quietway-type cycling environment can only be fitted into places of such particular pedestrian demand like Dulwich, by a widespread use of shared space features. Southwark have made some moves in this direction already, with build outs and shared-level crossings (ie tables) particularly on ends of ordinary residential streets. But their proposal for DV junction has little or nothing of that. I support the efforts to look at this by commissioning a feasibility study with PJA and have contributed to the crowdfunding. I want to see just what is possible when delivery of the Southwark ?policy? of a Quietway is approached by an independent and balanced professional team. I hope they can inspire us.

[micromacromonkey]

I cycle through here every day (from Turney to Calton) on my way home from work. It is an immensely frustrating junction because the phasing of the lights causes you to wait an age (at least from Turney). However I can't honestly say that multiple mini roundabouts is the answer to anything.

On the same journey I also go through a dual mini roundabout system in Fulham, and it's often gridlocked. I think this is partially because it isn't clear whose right of way it is since people (myself included) approaching one roundabout can't work out whether the person at the conjoined roundabout is in fact to their right, and so has right of way, or whether they can be safely ignored since they are on a different junction. This just ends up in hesitation. 3 roundabouts would exacerbate this issue.

I also can't visualise how those green snakes work as cycle paths, I forsee more hesitation and angry drivers (and cyclists too perhaps).

[Bicknell]

I don't know all the detail about what could be done, but theres an update on the Just Giving page and they're up to 75% of what they need for the expert study. So it looks like its something people want.

[Mugglesworth]

I don't want to appear negative but, if the perceived problem is that Southwark will not listen to residents/stakeholders and just goes ahead with what it wants regardless (i.e. spend like there's no tomorrow as long as it's someone else's budget), why should we assume it will take notice of a feasibility study financed by one stakeholder group?

[rch]

The irony is that I tried to get Southwark to solve this problem roughly ten years ago, when I was a Village ward councillor. We contructed a "holistic" plan to improve the flow of cars, cycles, and pedestrians through the Village by reconfiguring four junctions in tandem (including Townley/EDG and Dulwich Village!)... the engineers came up with a brilliant plan, which even had funding, but it was undermined by political machinations.

This is one of the reasons why I gave up on politics and only work through amenity societies now... so I completely support what the Dulwich Village Forum are doing. Well done, guys!!

Back in 2007, engineers drew up three variations of the Dulwich Village junction scheme - including two improved versions of the current signalled junction, which were both much better than the scheme that Southwark have announced that they are going ahead with.

But their recommended version was a double roundabout scheme which improved flow better than the two signalled schemes.

I'm attaching a photo of the roundabout scheme in the hopes that it saves funding on reinventing the wheel.. it may need tweaking to comply with new highway policies, but it's a good starting point. Humorously, one of the current senior Southwark highway engineers may actually recognise it... as he was the same one who oversaw my project ten years ago!

[Tessmo]

@Mugglesworth

The Southwark cabinet member in charge of making Quietway 7 happen (from Elephant & Castle to Crystal Palace) has said that he will consider the community proposal for the junction, which should involve taking notice of the feasibility study. But you're right. We can't assume anything...

[DadOf4]

Full credit to those people who are trying to get some improvements here and I wont criticise anybody for taking the initiative to raise some money to help a really good cause, but............

it makes my blood boil to see this *having* to happen. Really, FFS, has it got to the stage with southwark council where their own residents are having to go out, raise money, in order to come up with a sensible traffic scheme. I hear the word "consultation" thrown around a lot by Southwark - surely, if they were in any way serious about consulting, they should be hearing and acting on issues like this

[sally buying]

It is the same with most road consultation schemes. In most cases very poor advertising and only those with an agenda put their views forward. If 10 people respond, 6 for and 4 against it is recorded as a majority 60% in favour if it matches the Councils requirement.

The latest one on the same lines is the Bellenden Road system. All previously agreed by residents then Southwark decide to change the agreed plans and advertised very yet again so very few people knew it was on.

The Council should listen to residents and act on their advice.

[wulfhound]

@Tessmo The problem isn't so much zebras per se, but zebras where you're required to look in more than two directions at once. That's difficult for kids, and for people with impaired eyesight and/or joint mobility. There is something to be said for the island-style zebras where you only have to look in *one* direction at a time, but two is generally OK. Imagine using this junction as a pedestrian with kids - "Where are all the possible directions a car can come from? Are they going to turn or not? Are they going to stop or not?".

The DV junction, whether supporting a Quietway or not, has to serve a very large number of pedestrians, particularly young children travelling to the adjacent schools. They are not an afterthought and they will want to and should be able to cross a carriageway in one go. In the longer term, it seems that an effective quietway-type cycling environment can only be fitted into places of such particular pedestrian demand like Dulwich, by a widespread use of shared space features.

Broadly agree, but shared space only works in practice when traffic speed *and volume* are reduced to a point where pedestrians dominate. If not, it's too easy for them to be bullied out of the way.

Exhibition Road is what happens when you don't do that - it certainly looks much nicer than before, but is shared in name only.

Leonard Circus in Hackney is one very much worth looking at - it kind-of works: particularly at lunch time when there are lots of office workers and little traffic (and, being Hackney, a bunch of hipster street food stalls). At rush hour / school run time it's not so good - more traffic, commuter cyclists bombing down towards the City, and smaller / less assertive pedestrians - not much sharing going on really. At least that's my take on it. I'd really recommend paying it a visit to see how much "sharing" you get, and by whom, at different traffic levels.

I'm kind of sceptical that you could reduce north/south traffic on Village enough to make sharing work there - it's an "A" road in all but name. Perhaps on Turney, Calton and Court - with access restrictions on those roads, one might hope to bring volumes down low enough for everyone to share.

I want to see just what is possible when delivery of the Southwark ?policy? of a Quietway is approached by an independent and balanced professional team. I hope they can inspire us.

Same here, but fundamentally it comes down to capacity, which comes down to politics. Southwark themselves could, I believe, come up with a much better design if they weren't committed to maintaining today's traffic capacity and access. A design that puts pedestrian capacity/safety first, then Quietway and commuter cyclists, then traffic access/capacity would look very different.

[exdulwicher]

If you want to see a very similar scheme to that proposed (the double roundabout/shared space thing) search online for "Poynton shared space" or "Poynton roundabout".

I'm not going to provide one link over any other, you'll see why when you have a look!

I can see the idea of it and actually I've seen similar on the continent but that's in already traffic calmed streets where the majority of cars have already been removed (as @wulfhound says above). Anyway, have a read of it, might give you some research, ammunition etc to use against Southwark Council.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Does the Dulwich Estate have a role to play in this?

The road from Crystal Palace past the tollgate and down through village and to North Dulwich station should be one of London's best and safest stretches of cycle route...

[rendelharris]

I think Dulwich Estate only own the road from the tollgate up to Fountain Drive (which is actually an excellent safe section as there's so little traffic, due to the tollgate). From the tollgate northwards those roads belong to Southwark, I believe. I'm no fan of Dulwich Estate but I don't think they're a player in this.

[pop9770]

The Dulwich Village junction was not broken.

It's been purposely broken so Southwark can spend money with the contractors to redesign a fix.

Oldest trick in the self serving Southwark Road "planning" book of fleecing the local tax payers.

Hilarious they screw us everytime and few spot their scam..