serious accident on lordship lane (February 10)

[dimples]

does anyone know anything about the accident that happened on lordship lane near the harvester this morning ? the road was completely blocked off and buses diverted down underhill road and police everywhere !?

[trident]

I wasn't there when anything happened but I walked past and there was a grey car with a large dent on the bonnet, that was about 9.45 - they were just removing the police tape.

[daveknows]

hope no one was seriously hurt

[Dorothy]

I took my cat to the vets opposite the Harvester at about 10.10 this morning. At that time the road was just starting to be cleared. Some of the staff in the vets had witnessed a young male being hit by a car - and were worried that he had died. But while my cat was being seen the news came through that the accident wasn't fatal.

This is all anecdotal and I don't know any hard facts whatsoever.

[Pugwash]

When are we going to see improvements to the traffic lights up by the harvester - Lewis Robinson did mention last year that TFL (I think) we going to improve safety at this dangerous junction,

[Burbage]

Pugwash Wrote:

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

> When are we going to see improvements to the

> traffic lights up by the harvester - Lewis

> Robinson did mention last year that TFL (I think)

> we going to improve safety at this dangerous

> junction,

I know the answer to this. It goes, or went, as follows:

Date: 08.06.2009

Dear M......

Thank you for your email dated 9 May, concerning the lack of a pedestrian phase at the junction of Dulwich Common and Lordship Lane.

....

I can confirm that funding has been secured to implement the provision of a pedestrian facility at the junction in question. A proposal has been drafted and we are currently auditing the safety of the design. The implementation should start towards the end of this financial year with completion programmed early next year.

....

Yours sincerely

Eva Rozmahelova

Customer Service Advisor - London Streets

Transport for London

[GinaG3]

Its dreadful this junction. I think there have been about 10 accidents there in the time I've lived here (not even 2 years yet). I hate the thought of even crossing at the lights so always use the island just before the shops. We had flyers delivered telling us it 'should' (taking into consideration funding) be upgraded by TfL within the next 5 years, this was last year.

This incident, I believe involved a bus. Not hard fact though!

[prdarling]

This junction is ludicrous considering there is The Harvester on one corner and in the cricket pavilion opposite, there is a nursery and oppsite all iof this there is a parade of shops

My son attends the nursery and I tend to drive to avoid running the gauntlet of the LL/South Circ traffice lights...but for heavens sake a pub, shops and a nursery mean people and lots of them. Does it take a genius to work this out?

Don't get why this could take 5 years...what is the problem?

[Burbage]

prdarling Wrote:

> Don't get why this could take 5 years...what is

> the problem?

Sadly, I think I know this, too. After I got their promise, I got a follow-up, as pasted below, which seems to hold some clues. At the time, I wasn't expecting anything to happen till Summer 2010, so I didn't read it too carefully. But, reading it again, and given GinaG's leaflet, it looks like I should have done.

In February 2008, TfL had published a big list of surveyed junctions without pedestrian phases (of which the Grove Junction was one), and a pledge to deliver an implementation 'framework' by the Spring of 2009. Because that framework hadn't appeared by June, I asked the Transport Scrutineer about it, and got a brush-off. So I wrote to TfL and councillors and things, and then I got TfL's first reply. Given their promise, the fact that the junction had been surveyed and prioritized and that funding was available, I thought it would happen. I thought the bit about the Six-Year Plan just meant their documentation was redundant, not that they'd cancel live-saving work they claimed to be already doing. I even stopped bothering councillors about it.

It now seems I was wrong. But if my new interpretation is correct, TfL's response to Boris' plans was to scrap the previous work, and start it all again more slowly. If so, that's odd behaviour. When you consider the list of junctions ran into hundreds (many of them worse) and the work was prompted by national guidelines from the Department of Transport, surely it would have sparked a city-wide scandal if they really had ditched everything?

Perhaps the emergency services had a good reason to keep the junction as it is. Perhaps it's been difficult to schedule works around the non-stop pipe-bodging that's had that end of Lordship Lane in bits for the last three years. Or maybe I'm just rubbish at holding TfL to account.

Does anyone fancy having another go?

23 July 2009

Dear Mr ...

Thank you for your further email. Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying.

The TfL design approvals process includes an independent road safety audit to be undertaken for every proposal on our network. Public consultation is only undertaken where the proposal would directly affect residential properties. Therefore, we usually only undertake statutory consultations with the local borough and emergency services.

This proposal does not form part of the overall programme currently being carried out by our colleagues in the Signals Department as specific requests from local residents and the Borough have been made for this location.

Thank you for clarifying the details of the document you referred to previously. Having investigated this further, I can advise that this document is out of date and we are therefore arranging for it to be removed from our website. As you are aware, London now has a new Mayor, who has set out different priorities and commitments with regards to smoothing the flow of traffic. Part of this commitment is to review all of London?s 6000 traffic signals over a six year period. The Mayor has made it clear that traffic signals should be rephased to take into account the needs of all road users, that the safety of pedestrians should never be compromised, but where it makes sense, time can be altered from motorists to pedestrians and vice versa. This is about making junctions more efficient, it is not about favouring motorists over any other form of transport.

...

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

Senior Customer Service Advisor - London Streets

[ianr]

"This proposal does not form part of the overall programme currently being carried out by our colleagues in the Signals Department as specific requests from local residents and the Borough have been made for this location."

Does Mr Hurt mean to say that the proposal is still under consideration, but as a specific one rather than as part of a general programme? He certainly makes you work to get to that conclusion, but it's the only one I can reach that seems to make any reasonable sense of the sentence as a whole, even if I don't have full confidence in it.

[GinaG3]

It doesn't even need a major overhaul. Could it not be as simple as sticking a few 'wait' buttons and green/red men? Is this just silly of me! Surely they can sync the lights to allow one cross each time the lights allow a gap. It's not like the whole junction needs dug up and put down again, or is it?

The problem is the lights never allow for a cross. Saw a mother with a pram trying to cross the other week. Scary, I know the feeling.

[Fuschia]

Suggest someone mentions this to James Barber

[siousxiesue]

My mate, who was a new mother at the time, took sprog out for the first time and was reduced to tears at this junction. I did get some feedback years ago that the reason it's not been made pedestrian friendly is that it 'would slow down the traffic'!

GinaG3 Wrote:

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

> It doesn't even need a major overhaul. Could it

> not be as simple as sticking a few 'wait' buttons

> and green/red men? Is this just silly of me!

> Surely they can sync the lights to allow one cross

> each time the lights allow a gap. It's not like

> the whole junction needs dug up and put down

> again, or is it?

>

> The problem is the lights never allow for a cross.

> Saw a mother with a pram trying to cross the other

> week. Scary, I know the feeling.

[Fliss]

I went past on the bus (towards ED, my bus stop is Wood Vale) at about 08.50. All I saw was two stationary cars, an ambulance and the police talking to quite a few witnesses (about 8 or 10, people who were at the bus stop I guess). The ambulance didn't seem to be "busy" ie attending to anyone, so I was hoping this meant no one was hurt. Traffic going towards ED was not slowed at all.

As I said, my bus stop is Wood Vale so I live very close to this junction and it is a very dangerous junction - over the five years I have lived here I have seen and heard of numerous accidents and I really don't understand why there can't be a proper pedestrian crossing (with green man and red man lights) at the top of Dulwich Common, from the where the War Memorial is to the Harvester corner. I was thinking that because it is such a busy road, the people who decide these things think it would slow down vehicle traffic too much?

I know thread is about an accident that was on the other side of the road, so I hope I haven't hijacked the thread, but accidents happen in the area around that junction, maybe as drivers approach they have too many things to look out for? Not good for drivers either?

[Lollipop]

This junction is a nightmare and lots of people with children and dogs (and both) struggle to get across it. I'm almost tempted to drive and park to take the path up to the woods - and I only live around the corner. I think we should put pressure on to get a green man installed.

[paulino]

One of the things that makes it so hard is that if you are on the war memorial side of the road and want to cross to the harvester, i seem to remember that there is a big tree that blocks your view of the cars in the lane coming down from Forest Hill and turning left to continue on the S Circular.

[Dodo1]

Hi

Cllr Lewis Robinson was dealing with this. E-mail him asking for an update. I have but yet to receive a reply.