Residents Melbourne Grove, Adys Road, Bromar Road - Traffic increases due to Champion Hill

[Townleygreen]

from mrwb:

There are 4 schools on the new route this traffic is taking. The new Charter campus, Alleyns and Alleyns junior, pre prep and Judith Kerr.

also JAGs

[Sally Eva]

Also the 37 bus

[cella]

betternowthanthen Wrote:

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

> FOR THE ATTENTION of rendelharris

>

> I've noticed that a lot of people here are utterly

> annoyed by your 'TROLLING' style, as I've said to

> you before on this forum, your helping nothing,

> only distracting the attention of other people's

> comments here, turning it against them, your

> sarcastic style is making for bad reading (when

> they are right, and your totally wrong IMO). I

> really wish you went elsewhere....

>

> Your making things negative, (again), and spoiling

> good conversation, (again), your name is just

> coming up everywhere (again..

>

> Why not start a new thread for yourself, so you

> can be center of attention for your self, perhaps

> call the thread 'the rendelharris only'

> conversation, and you can spoil that section all

> you want!! hurray!, and then you can just do what

> your doing here, totally interrupting and changing

> direction of the what people here are posting

> about, a very bad decision of the council

> regarding the road closure....Please troll style

> your way..away :)

Horrible post. Best to examine your own trolling style and have an attitude rethink. I hope Admin steps in here.

[betternowthanthen]

To cella,

I was simply fighting fire, with a bit of fire, and please see other people's post regarding the rendelharris posts.

[snowy]

betternowthanthen Wrote:

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> To cella,

>

> I was simply fighting fire, with a bit of fire,

> and please see other people's post regarding the

> rendelharris posts.

No, you're choosing to attack the individual, not their comments - so you are just trolling.

[betternowthanthen]

To snowy,

Please read through all the comments rendelharris posted on.....

[cella]

I sincerely hope that Rendelharris has not felt he had to leave the EDF though I wouldn't blame him at all. Please return and continue with your intelligent and robust posts.

[carlafindle]

cella Wrote:

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

> I sincerely hope that Rendelharris has not felt he

> had to leave the EDF though I wouldn't blame him

> at all. Please return and continue with your

> intelligent and robust posts.

He is a pompous and obnoxious individual with little or no regard to other people's views... dry your eyes

[cella]

Again, hideous and intolerant.

[carlafindle]

cella Wrote:

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> Again, hideous and intolerant.

Sorry you're correct, two more words to describe rh.

[cella]

Think you've demonstrated your true colours so probably best to leave you alone with your sadness.

[sdrs]

In hope of getting this thread back on topic, here is a letter that was published in Southwark News about the Champion Hill trial and the congestion it is causing in East Dulwich:

https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/comment/letters-to-the-editor-14-02-2019/

[talfourdite]

I generally try and avoid social media, as my experience is that it seems much less reasonable, more combatative and generally more argumentative than we are in our dealings with others in the real world, where I really do think people try not to offend other strangers, are generally interested in their opinions / perspectives and would very rarely say barbed or snide comments to people they know nothing about.

In this case, I thought I would make an exception as I feel this topic is worth highlight and EDF would be a good place to raise this (local road closure), as the consequences, to my mind, were far reaching and disproportionally impacted the streets in question. Whilst I think it is a terrible idea, I have tried to be polite and impersonal (although I did lose my cool at the end) - I certainly can't change the council's mind - and I presume most people know the streets and will understand the impact involved, but might not actually know about the recent changes made upstream of them, and therefore about the knock on impact towards them. I brought this topic up towards these affected streets to highlight the opportunity for them to make their feelings on the matter clear on a Southwark provided website.

I have tried to be balanced in my points of view in this debate. Choices are always complicated and I can't pass judgement on others, who's shoes I do not fill. I have re-iterated time and again that I try and be mindful and responsible in our choices of driving. I have an electric car, cycle, try and use public transport as much as possible and even gave up our newish diesel long before the debate started raging about particulates / No2 as I felt owning this car was unjustifiable once I understood the science. Notwithstanding all of this, because of our circumstance we have to do this drive regularly and now that that it is now longer and slower it appears overwhelmingly more negative in the whole. I do not believe cars are going to disappear, just look at the conditions people are already prepared to endure driving, and therefore I believe there is a better case to be made for supporting cycling / electric cars, removing polluting cars etc. rather than shutting roads and exacerbating the problem. Particularly when the losers are already suffering what I believe to be already high volumes of traffic.

In initiating / participating in this debate, I really did not want it to be personal and have provided almost no facts around our circumstances. Yet I feel that I have been under sustained attack by RH from the outset, prying, passing judgement and generally being quite unpleasant towards my posts. It has actually convinced me once more, that I would rather not participate in these debates and I will be coming off EDF as a result. I guess you can read the threads, and see if I am being over-sensitive or not. However, these quotes, I think do show your generally hostile attitude to others.

"It's so good of you to be so unselfishly concerned about others and not about your own ability to send nanny on the ratrun. Does you credit."

"Indeed, life is all about choices. And when people make choices about their lifestyles - where they want to live, work, send their kids to school etc - that necessitate polluting and congesting other people's neighbourhoods, they shouldn't be surprised if other people exercise their right to make choices in terms of asking them not to and asking for environmental protections. "

"Talfourdite - if as your name implies you live on Talfourd Road, how did you previously access Denmark Hill without driving through other people's neighborhoods, viz Lyndhurst Grove, Macneill Road, Camberwell Grove, Grove Hill Road and Champion Hill? As for having "no choice" but to drive through other people's neighbourhoods, you could easily drive via Peckham Road and Denmark Hill. As a point of interest, that route is almost exactly the same distance (1.36 miles) as your previous route (1.3 miles). I get that people are annoyed that their convenient ratrun has been sealed off, but trying to scare everyone into objecting with claims that there are no alternatives to driving through their neighbourhood isn't on."'

"And your point, if any, is...?"

No, I didn't edit it as I thought it was rude (unless I remember incorrectly, the bit I deleted was commenting on the fact that the OP employs a nanny to drive her children to private school, wasn't it?) but because I knew on reflection it was offering the OP and others the opportunity to accuse me of being off-topic, personal etc to distract attention from from the hypocrisy and weakness of their position. Which they have now successfully accomplished."

[sdrs]

In hope of getting this thread back on topic, here is a letter that was published in Southwark News about the Champion Hill trial and the congestion it is causing in East Dulwich:

https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/comment/letters-to-the-editor-14-02-2019/

[betternowthanthen]

Thanks srds for forwarding a very nicely pointed out letter to the from Southwark News. This is very helpful in pointing out the matters we are discussing.

I'm sorry to hear the that talfourdite has felt that he/she has been exausted by events that was posted above, I praise the efforts made by the good people here like this, and talfourdite.

I think we all owe some kind of thanks and respect to talfourdite for letting others know what's going on in our wonderful community by starting this tread.

The sad subject of this road closure has caused us sadness in our lives by trying to get from A-B using roads that are clogged with speedhumps and having to dodge islands and by voluntary of choice.

Using this road instead of the main and already congested roads as the only alternatives, is our way of using the roads we have to us wisely, and lessening the impacts of it, by using Champion Hill.

The council has lots of bad reps here surly, and should be taught a lesson by not doing things officially and brushing things under the carpet. The Council have to be taught a lesson that they simply cannot do as they wish by not involving the people who are impacted directly, and around area's locally (mentioned in the letter to Southwark News)

The legacy of this tread and others on EDF will testify to this, and is the begging of people getting together and stopping this and making things better once again. Sometimes when the council does nothing to roads as they are, makes it better.

I welcome people here getting together and helping one another. Let us all correct this. It is obvious this road closure is not working and was a bad idea done wrong by direct fault of Southwark Council.

[James Barber]

I used to make the journey from Champion Hill to Tulse Hill as only place we then found for a nursery place. With a pushchair I found the journey fine via E.Dulwich station to Tulse Hill and then took train to work in central London. This was easy enough and straight forward. I could have driven but I always found public transport much more fun with kids.

We have air pollution problem, child and adult obesity problem and Climate Change disaster. These will only ever be solved by changing habits. This is a tiny nudge towards making those critical changes we all need to make for the good of ourselves, our children and if our children are going to have any chance of a decent future.

[Angelina]

I completely agree. What people determine to be essential and what is really essential are very different.

There are hoards of children outside Parliament begging for climate change - and here we are complaining about how inconvenient it is that we have to take longer in the car to get to where we want to go. This is a clear demonstration of why we are where we are - we EXPECT to be able to drive everywhere - at our convenience.

We should be looking at only making ESSENTIAL journeys - and not what is convenient (although we do like to say it's essential).

When there are no trains, no buses as we have seen - London still moves.

[dogfenneldill]

Was watching this thread was a while but unsure of posting anything as the debate has not been entirely good-natured (!).

The Southwark News letter made a good point in the need for a wide-view of road management in order achieve a real improvement in pollution. Whole-heartedly agree with this.

However, not sure about pointing to a few well-connected residents in Champion Hill swaying the council is helpful. Or true?

As lowly, unconnected Champion Hill resident I was well-informed (I'm not claiming everyone in ED was, just my own experience) and I think it is well-worth running as a trial.

This trial may not stick. It certainly will need to be connected to other new & existing road management trials and transport schemes to get people to stop using cars for short journeys and switch to alternatives. But I think we should let the trial play out a little longer before damning it as a complete failure.

I expect that mistakes will be made with schemes such as this, and there will be winners and losers, but something has to be done and it is great to see some action taken. We need to change habits.

Lastly, regarding the Southwark News letter, as someone who cycles I doubt that a sign saying no overtaking of cyclists would actually stop people overtaking cyclists along that stretch of road. However, well done for making that trip by bike!

Lastly, lastly; I hope that you switch your engine off if you are stuck in traffic or stopped at the lights during an essential journey. Every little helps :)

[talfourdite]

hi Dogfennelhill, love the name!

I'm just not sure that public roads being treated as private roads is a very good policy to start with.

I would also like to see the costs of these initiatives. I suspect that there is in fact a huge expense in installing road bumps and these types of 'trials', when viewed in the eyes of an average Southwark resident. I really don't think the scheme has been anywhere good enough at demonstrating that it is a quantifiable experiment or what the considered implications were, let alone what would constitute a successful trial. I think it would be a very good idea to agree standards of these schemes and run them in association with a university, or other independent agency and made available to all residents. That would allow us to learn what makes good trials and look at constants in terms of cost and impact.

I also wholeheartedly think that spending resources doing spot checking on emissions (just look at some of the tailpipes of cars driving around), advertising pollution problems, installing displays on emissions and putting in A LOT MORE charging stations would be infinitely better in their environmental returns to Southwark residents. I also think these charging stations would be lucrative for a cash strapped council. Possible we they could be powered, at least in part, but solar panels funded via the council. Now that would be progressive and inspirational.

[James Barber]

my recollections of costs from several years ago...

1,800GBP per hump which should be placed every 20-50m. 5,000GBP for legal paperwork, design and advertising. Road closure 5,000GBP for physical closure.

So closures work out significantly cheaper than adding humps and bumps.

Average speed cameras can be installed for zero pounds as can be self funding. Politics means only allowable within London where London Cameras Partnership allow them - and they rarely do except typically after road deaths which is obviously too late.

Does this help talfourdite?

[talfourdite]

that's really interesting and the first time I have ever heard anyone talk about cost. Although I find it very hard to believe that the crew (Around 10) and equipment could be mobilised to our 200m street for 4 days for GBP 17,000

4x50m costs of GBP 1,800 plus GBP 10,000). How old (ish) are these numbers?

[Dun]

Just before we moved onto Oglander Road the council did a similar thing and closed off the rat run access to Oglander Roas. I don?t know how long it took for traffic to stabilise and for people to calm down by all the old residents said it was such a huge improvement. Based on the success of Oglander I?d be inclined to say there should be more and not less road closures/one way systems.

[talfourdite]

Isn?t this just confirming that the local residents do well, whilst Adys road for example gets a considerable increase in traffic volumes? I also wonder, from your perspective how much the additional journey time to not be able to do a short connection adds to your journey, and the resultant emissions on an annual basis. I just can?t see how the ?main? roads can cope with all the volume of traffic if all these roads shut. We know emissions are at their worst when cars move slowly.

[Dun]

It made us walk more for local trips. Just knew 1 neighbour who still used car to go to local shops, others either walked/biked or tagged local trips onto the start or tail-end of longer car journeys. It has made me think we need to do more things like this to discourage short car journeys. The damage to the environment is not worth the convenience of using cars for short trips.

[sdrs]

It goes without saying that cars should not be used for short trips and when an alternative is possible. But Talfourdite makes important points about the impact of piecemeal road closures on other roads, roads which are in many cases also residential and walking/bus routes used by the whole community. Schemes like the Champion Hill closure rest on a spurious distinction between ??residential?? and ??main?? roads and on the very questionable premise that air pollution on main roads doesn?t matter. The effects of air pollution on children living on or near main roads and using them to walk to school are well understood. The main roads taking the displaced traffic from Champion Hill - Dog Kennel Hill, Grove Lane and Champion Park - together constitute a major pedestrian route to 3 local primary schools, 2 train stations, numerous bus stops, 2 major hospitals and a Foetal Medicine centre. The main Pupil entrance to Dog Kennel Hill School is on Dog Kennel Hill. Two of these roads are also densely residential. Are some residents more deserving of clean air than others? I don?t think so. Nor do I want children - mine or anyone else?s - breathing in the fumes from idling, gridlocked traffic when walking or taking the bus to school.