E.D.Station controlled parking zone

[gsirett]

Below, email response from Barrie Hargrove

I feel like I'm being given, as my Grannie used to call it, "the cold flannel"

"Go away, council tax payer, we'll decide whats right for you."

Well, I've had a glass of St Emillion (1/2 price Sainsburys) and the gloves are OFF

THIS SCHEME WON'T F**KIN WORK YOU FOOLS, IT WILL P*SS A LOAD OF PEOPLE OFF WHO WONT WANT TO VOTE FOR YOU ANY MORE.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE LISTEN TO WHAT EVERYBODY IS SAYING

(and, oh, this doesn't have to mean that you're no longer "green")

======

"Thank you for your comments and concerns. I am copying in Tim Walker, our Senior Engineer, who is responsible for collating responses to the consultation.

Both Tim and myself are essentially neutral on the outcome of this. As a responsible local authority we do recognise that the ever growing numbers of vehicles on our roads is becoming increasingly unsustainable and that restrictions on commuter parking is one way to combat this.

However, our policy is to install Controlled Parking Zones only where residents want them. If the outcome of the consultation is that residents do not think the benefits of a CPZ outweighs the possible disbenefits"

[Loz]

garnwba Wrote:

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> Ahh - so one of you against the CPZ finally admits there is a problem....!

Most people realise there is a problem with parking in ED. Most people also realise that a CPZ is a piss poor attempt at a solution.

[Siduhe]

I've also had a detailed response to my query about the apparent commitment by Southwark to consult outside the CPZ which was recorded in the minutes of the Camberwell Community Council on 22 September. Apparently the minutes are in error, no commitment to consult outside the zone was given and Southwark requested that the minutes be amended.

The minutes have been updated on the Southwark website and now only refer to "Councillor Stephen Govier recommended that officers should consider the Albrighton Community Centre as an exhibition venue. In addition the consultation should record any comments received from those that reside outside the CPZ consultation area. The presenting officer explained that Grove Vale library was more central to the consultation area.".

All this underlines that if people feel strongly one way or the other, it is really important to attend the next CCC meeting on 10 January to make your views known.

[James Barber]

Hi first mate,

In an ideal world lots of streets near to the proposed streets would be consulted.

Hi Bobby p, Peterstorm1985,

I wish Southwark Council were even half as coordinated as you suggest. It would save bundles of money being so joined up and connected and I wouldn't discover so many daft things going on. But frankly the left hand of Southwark rarely knows what the right hand is doing. If you pop along to Grove Vale library to meet the officers leading the CPZ public consultation you'll discover they didn't know about any road closures. And if you do pop along be nice to them they are only doing their jobs.

Hi gmckenney,

I keep getting answers to peoples questions. Those answers don't seem to fit their argument so they ask for more answers.

The evidence seems clear that a CPZ would help BUT is the price in money etc worth paying?

I encourage as many people as possible to answer this question by responding to the consultation - https://forms.southwark.gov.uk/ShowForm.asp?fm_fid=698

[gmackenney]

James - you and Paul Gellard have been very helpful in trying to get answers to peoples questions. However, I think the statement "Those answers don't seem to fit their argument so they ask for more answers. " is somewhat unfair and frankly dismissive. We are looking for more detail to understand exactly how a CPZ is going to help. Naturally as you look at the dribbles of info coming out it is going to lead to more questions. And in fact in many cases the data you've provided does fit our argument!

For example, in an earlier post you provided the details on how full the roads are in percentage terms. Naturally people are going to ask how those percentages are derived, and what space will be left once the design is in place. That's not to say the data doesn't fit an an argument - it simply says the data is incomplete to draw a well reasoned conclusion. We've now subsequently been provided with an aggregate number which shows how many spaces are going to be in the CPZ overall, and how many residents cars there are overall. This would be fine if parking levels were uniform across all streets in the CPZ - but they're not.

Simply dismissing people because they're asking awkward questions is unlikely to make the noise go away. If the evidence clearly was showing that a CPZ will have a positive impact, those against simply wouldn't have the ammunition to cast doubt on the benefit case. The fact that things are less than clear and that the council has been less than transparent from the start of this consultation is going to arouse suspicion. Frankly it's disappointing that the council aren't doing the level of analysis required to make the benefit case clear.

My understanding from Paul Gellard is that more detailed information about how the parking analysis was done will be available at the open day at GV library. I'm looking forward to seeing it!

[gmackenney]

One other thing...

The evidence seems clear that a CPZ would help

I think the evidence is far from clear - that's why there's so much traffic on this thread. 11 pages on this issue alone, most of it unequivocally opposed to the CPZ. At what point will the council start to listen to popular opinion? Oh, I forgot - those outside the CPZ aren't entitled to one.

Who exactly does this CPZ help? The few streets near the station that have a parking issue. Who does it adversely impact? Those streets surrounding. As I stated earlier - shifting a problem to other streets is not a satisfactory solution.

[mastershake]

just on the topic of those who disbelieve that commuter traffic is a problem. I live in a road immediately adjacent to the current proposed CPZ. This morning at 7am there were 5 spaces on our road. Just coming and going, I noticed that all were taken in the subsequent hour. Of these, 4 were taken by people dressed in suits, who proceeded to walk in the direction of the station; one person seemed to be walking, dressed for work, in the direction of the hospital.

Now there are no spaces on the road at all.

the roads near the station are dsensely-populated, and some of them provide parking for people who live on (for example) East Dulwich Grove which is largely comprised of flats near the station. As such, places are at a premium at the best of times, and these (relatively few) commuters tip things over the edge into unmanageable - if we take our car out in the daytime we usually have to park at least 10 minutes' walk away. any spaces left by commuters are taken up by hosptial traffic.

I have no idea why people drive to park near east dulwich station - maybe they're lazy, maybe they're trying to save on rail fares, maybe it's close to their children's school - but they do it and it is a problem.

and those who say 'you knew parking was difficult when you moved in' - we moved in two years ago and there wasn't really a problem then. it's got worse, and it is the commuter traffic that makes all the difference. a 10-12 charge time will solve the problem as it did in herne hill, where i lived before.

[James Barber]

Hi gmackenney,

I agree shifting a problem isn't satisfactory. If an shifting occurred it would at least be spread over a much wider area. But still not satisfactory. We've also seen arguments on this thread that no problem exists - so perhaps no shift would occur!

What would you propose instead of a CPZ if the consultation comes out against?

In fact a credible alternatve would very likely encourage a no response from the proposed streets. And I'd be delighted for an alternative solution.

The only thing I could think of was ensuring we have as many car club cars as possible to reduce second and primary cars for people living here. But that appeasr so far to have only a marginal difference and any released spaces are liekly to be filled by commuters.

[peckhamboy]

James

Thank you for obtaining answers to previous questions. I have said it before and repeat here, that I appreciate your efforts to engage. I live in South Camberwell Ward and have written formally to my own councillors to express my views, but have not had so much as an acknowledgement from them let alone an answer to my questions. So thank you.

The response that you received, and passed on via this forum, shows that, according to the council, the most appropriate figures to use are the figures showing occupancy rates at 11.00 am on a Thursday, since that would be during the hours of operation of a CPZ. That seems reasonable. The figures provided show that there are 564 "safe" spaces, including a stretch of single yellow line on Melbourne Grove which presumably accounts for 8 spaces, giving the figure you have quoted previously of 558 parking bays. They also show that 503 cars were parked in the zone at that time.

In my view, having 61 empty "safe" spaces at 11.00am on a weekday within 5 minutes walk of a Zone 2 mainline station does not constitute a parking problem. That is a "problem" that an awful lot of people living in Zone 2 would give their right arm for. These figures also don't take into account the number of "unsafe" but legal spaces that will be lost to time-restricted bays, double yellows etc. That suggests the current spare capacity is probably closer to 80 or more spaces.

It also doesn't take into account that roads directly adjoining the zone (including my own) are also within a 5 minute walk of the same station and provide significant additional capacity.

I realise that your role is to represent all of your constituents, and you have to present both sides of the story, but I do think that it is dangerous to simply accept the council's interpretation of its results without challenge. Given that the figures above are taken from the council's own data, i would welcome your thoughts on how much of a problem there really is. In my view, which I think is borne out by the council's figures, only two roads appear to have over-capacity. Disregarding percentages, which are horribly misleading when we are talking about such low numbers, those two raods are over-subscribed to the tune of 14 cars, whilst no other road is currently over-subscribed. Is a CPZ across 11 streets, involving costs of ?60k to households within the zone (assuming full take-up), really a proportionate response?

And of course, without the CPZ, those 14 cars could still park there...

[Penguin68]

Here's a scenario:-

A street is (quite) parked up. Some of the people who park in the street use their cars for work - they go off, come back in the evening - creating spaces.

Commuters (normally betweeen, say, 7:00 and 8:30), arrive. They park in available spaces.

Residents are either already parked-up and have gone to work by public transport - so aren't effected, or are still in their houses and haven't driven off, yet.

Residents drive off - at any time after 8:30 their space is unlikely to be taken by an onward commuter, who have already parked up and gone.

So if they then 'lose' their space it is likely lost to someone coming in to the area to either work or spend money in the shops. They may also lose their space to those choosing to travel into town out of commuting hours, so, not really commuters.

I suspect that true onward commuters are not displacing that many residents - who either are themselves commuting or won't have left home by the time the commuters want their spaces. Of course, school run parents may be caught out by this - but then school run parents are encouraged not to school run.

[Chener Books]

Mr Barber:

Thank you for providing the data.

Everyone:

We now have:

Gross Residents' Parking Bay length c2650m.

Design nominal bay length 5m

Calculated bays 530

The 5m nominal bay length is the Tfl guideline lower limit.

A Ford Focus is 4.358m long.

Could you park a Focus with 0.642m margin? (That's 2'1?").

And here lies the major flaw in the Council's calculation of before and after space availability:

The street surveys counted cars regardless of their length (spaces before)

The consultation uses a design length (spaces after)

What should be done with a flawed consultation?

John K

2011-03-11: Edited to correct car model name.

[bonaome]

Cheers Bonaome just emailed all below to tell them what a long overdue and brilliant idea the CPZ is.

Are you sure you know which road you live in though garnwba?

Wino - I'm not sure what road you have been walking down in the morning but it can't have been Melbourne Grove - 3 spaces free everytime during commuter time - Sorry but that is utter rubbish or you work weekends?!

It's not just Wino who thinks there's no problem on Melbourne Grove, the council's survey appears to agree with him.

[pre]

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[gmackenney]

James - I appreciate that the council is in a difficult position here. My concern is that 'something must be done' irrespective of its efficacy. The CPZ is self-funding, but there are also other effective ways to improve parking capacity which seem to be ignored. Motorists pay for the improvements - job done. I am not going to naively claim that alternative solutions would come for free. And I certainly would not claim to have alternative solutions. My beef is that the one alternative that has been proposed is likely to make life miserable for more people than it would help.

I do have one suggestion for East Dulwich Road though - I understand why the bays were removed from the pavement side (to allow people to walk there), but why scatter the bays from one side of the road to the other? Instead, why not make it a one way street (it's pretty narrow) and concentrate the parking on one side? Looking at the passing spots, several spaces could be created with this simple measure. In addition, encouraging properties to convert their driveways (e.g. by dropping the kerb across the whole road as opposed to dropping one drive at a time) could also ease pressure.

[James Barber]

Hi Chener Books,

Why is 5m wrong?

Have you measured the average gaps to show 5m is wrong?

Hi gmackenney,

One way streets typically see speeding traffic as they don't have to consider vehicles coming the other way. It would be a long detour for cyclists so you'd need to allow space for cycle contraflow. The staggered method is designed to slow traffic down. Changing it all would cost money. You could apply for Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding to do that. Pop along to your next communirty council for details abotu that scheme or check out Southwark website.

But what solutions do you propose for all the other streets apart from East Dulwich Road that claim and the parking surveys concur have parking pressures that you don't think should have controleld parking?

[bonaome]

I wish Southwark Council were even half as coordinated as you suggest.

Councillor Barber, are you saying that Barry Hargrove, Cabinet Member for Transport, didn't know that the Grove Vale roadworks would coincide with the Grove Vale CPZ consultation? And that when deciding the timing of the consultation he didn't check to see if there would be anything out of the ordinary going on around the Grove Vale area that might make it a poor time to do the consultation - which, by the way, is being conducted 9 months after the parking survey data was collected? And that the left and right hands to which you refer, belong to the same chap?

I'll ask Barry and see what he says. If what you suggest is true, I'd say Barry's not up to the job. Wouldn't you?

[peckhamboy]

James Barber Wrote:

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

> > But what solutions do you propose for all the

> other streets apart from East Dulwich Road that

> claim and the parking surveys concur have parking

> pressures that you don't think should have

> controleld parking?

James. You may have missed my last post. I would disagree that the surveys show a number of other streets that have parking pressures. There are two streets with parking pressures, which pressure can already be alleviated by using unused space on other streets. The CPZ will not change that.

[James Barber]

Hi bonaoame,

Yes, I'm saying Cllr Barrie Hargrove did not make that connection.

I'd put money on this.

[garnwba]

Bit late but only just logged on. LAst night AVJ posted a claim that at 9pm there was no parking spaces were available on Derwent, elsie or Mebourne grove hence commuter problem is flawed..

AVJ... you might want to note that parking is currently suspended on Melbourne Grove so there are spaces galore available all day and all night at present (aprat from the odd naughty law breaking resident!)

So in short, you are talking utter b*llox to try and create a case

[Chener Books]

Mr Barber:

5m is neither right nor wrong. It is a design decision.

Design decisions have consequences. Sometimes these can be measured objectively.

I have not measured the "average gaps". I have used an example of a well known make of car to put a human face on a large array of confusing numbers.

Here are the lengths of the common Ford models:

Ka 3.620m

Fiesta 3.950m

Focus 4.358m

Galaxy 4.820m

These can be compared against the nominal 5m space allocation.

What the Council should not do is use a car count from a street survey and compare this with a design decision of a 5m nominal space and derive before and after conclusions on available spaces.

John K

[gmackenney]

James

I am not going to naively claim that alternative solutions would come for free. And I certainly would not claim to have alternative solutions. My beef is that the one alternative that has been proposed is likely to make life miserable for more people than it would help.

As stated earlier - I don't claim to have the answers. Does a lack of alternatives mean that the CPZ is the solution by default? No. The other alternative 'solution' would be to leave things as they are. What we're trying to do here is compare a world with and without a CPZ for all those affected, and not just those inside the CPZ. Fundamentally, is the gain for those in the CPZ worth the pain of those outside? If you're on the council it certainly is as it's a shoe-in that the CPZ will extend.

Re East Dulwich Road - what I was trying to point out here is that the council have prioritised road safety over parking capacity - commendable in my view as I certainly appreciate it being easier to walk down that stretch as a pedestrian. However, very little (if any) thought goes into the knock on effects. Why should I believe the council are behaving any differently with regard to the CPZ? As for the cycle detour - please. Irrespective of the way the one way stretch would face, the main part of the East Dulwich Road which runs parallel is not far down. I frequently walk down that stretch of road and rarely see cyclists using it. As for slowing vehicular traffic down, don't other measures such as speed tables work? My point here is that before that change, it was abundantly clear that there would be parking pressure after, and yet the solution chosen does not appear to have taken that into account.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Just walked up Ondine Road, one of the roads in the proposed CPZ. I counted 11 empty spaces (albeit one of them would only accommodate a Mini). And I only thought to start counting once I was a third of the way up the road. That would suggest that it's not a commuter parking problem.

[James Barber]

hi chenner Books,

I'm really not sure what your point is. The council follows recommendations to calcualte the average car length as 5m and you've given a variety of car length that would be part of the 5m calculation. council officers have calculated the length of parking available and divided by 5m.

Hi Gmackenney,

Sorry, I thought you had alternatives to suggest.

Lots of people have been dismissive of any parking pressure problem existing - and I can see spot anecdotal surveys such as Peckhamgatecrashers support this.

So if no problem exists and residents decide they want CPZ then no problems could possibly be displaced.

If parking pressures do exist then we should try and help solve them. No one has suggested anything other than controlled parking. Hence why residents are being consulted about controlled parking. I'm not clear what people will indicate they want.

[Loz]

So if no problem exists and residents decide they want CPZ then no problems could possibly be displaced.

Not true. If the people in the CPZ decide to park in the roads adjacent to the CPZ to save buying a permit, then you actually create a problem. Which no doubt the solution will be 'a bigger CPZ'.

And James, you've not answered an earlier point of mine. If the CPZ is self-funding and TFL is paying for it, why aren't the permits free?

[Siduhe]

Not true. If the people in the CPZ decide to park in the roads adjacent to the CPZ to save buying a permit, then you actually create a problem. Which no doubt the solution will be 'a bigger CPZ'.

This is the crux of the issue for me too. I can completely see that there is parking pressure on certain streets near the station at peak times. I question if the impact of the CPZ will be what certain residents hope it will be (i.e. a substantial relief in parking pressures within the CPZ area) if all residents sign up for permits - the figures just don't seem to stack up.

However, if it is right that Southwark only expect between 11% and 44% of current residents to apply for permits, the impact and outcome seems very clear. The planned CPZ will almost certainly free up parking spaces within the zone but there will be very substantial resident parking displacement around the edges of the zone. Forget displaced commuter parking - 56% of residents within the CPZ will be looking to park elsewhere on Southwark's own estimates (if what has been said on this thread is accurate). This is why the decision only to consult residents within the proposed zone and/or to prioritise the views of those residents seems so fundamentally wrong to me. Everyone affected should be properly consulted and have an opportunity to make their views known.

As others have pointed out, this forum addresses a pretty small cross section of the community. The fact it appears to be the only place that people can get all the evidence available to make up their minds isn't a great reflection on Southwark Council.

[peterstorm1985]

I think we may need to be careful of some of the statistics.

Not all residents have cars. I'm assuming that anyone over 18 is counted as a resident so in a house of two adults but only one car, that's only 50% who might want a permit. In a house with two parents and two children over 18 with two cars between them, that's more car than the length of frontage but still only 50% potential take up of permits.

Perhaps My Barber could clarify the definition of 'resident' to help - it would be amusing if even children counted.

(Apologies if anyone has already ascertained this - the thread's getting a bit long to check every sentence)