LTN: Our Healthy Streets - Dulwich: Phase 3

[Rockets]

You know things are bad for LTNs when the Guardian does an article like this! Well worth a read....

https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/01/car-free-neighbourhoods-the-unlikely-new-frontline-in-the-culture-wars?

[Serena2012]

You?ve hit the nail on the head. Personally, I think it?s reckless of the council to trial this sort of experiment in a live environment with thousands of schoolchildren and local residents as unwitting guinea pigs. We should have had proper, transparent modelling from the start. When I wrote to Richard Livingstone over the Summer to voice my concerns about these schemes (all of which invariably materialised), I was repeatedly reassured that if things were as bad as I anticipated (they?re actually worse), the council would tweak or remove the schemes. Months on, it is clear many of these LTNs are failing to deliver benefits to the community as a whole; whilst also causing huge amounts of additional pollution on the area?s main roads, yet rather than stepping back and acknowledging that things aren?t working, there seems to be a drive within Southwark to keep chasing the displacement when it?s abundantly obvious that all that will do is make matters worse on the area?s biggest school streets. It beggars belief. I?m also really struggling with how a Labour council can think it fit to devise traffic schemes that benefit 3 of the 5 wealthiest streets in the entire borough, whilst dumping the traffic onto poorer streets with significant amounts of social housing, schools and struggling families. My trust in politics on every level is completely shattered.

Rockets Wrote:

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

> legalalien Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Another pic

>

>

> My goodness. This is either utter incompetence on

> the part of our council or another deliberate

> attempt to throttle traffic.

>

> This is absolutely why Cllr Newens was pushing so

> hard to get the timed closures in place last week

> as she knew the tailbacks through the village will

> be far worse now.

>

> Let's see how it is for the next three days as

> schools go back and before the lockdown hits. I am

> not a betting man but I would hazard a guess that

> the council will use this next lockdown as an

> excuse to roll out more closures - if any of them

> are working of course!

>

> This goes to demonstrate clearly that moving

> forward there needs to be more consultation on

> such projects. Without any form of consultation

> Southwark have utterly mismanaged this process.

> Any trust and respect they had left with their

> constituents is likely to have completely

> evaporated now (bar the usual pro-closure

> suspects). Our council and councillors are an

> utter shambles and I suspect people will want to

> scrutinise everything they do more closely now.

>

> Legal - your work uncovering so many of the items

> the council has been keen to bury and deliberately

> overlook during this has been brilliant. Thank

> you.

[heartblock]

Thanks for voicing my concerns, it is unbelievable that a Labour Council is putting in schemes that benefit the wealthy streets with fewer schools to the detriment of the poorest streets with the most schools.

[Oldtincan]

Dulwich village currently backed up from the EDG/HML traffic lights all the way down through the village... what a complete shambles..

[legalalien]

I think it is maybe a function of the structure of councils and the fact that councillors look after the interests of their wards (as they perceive them based on their social group within their wards)rather than looking at the big picture - although presumably that?s the job of the cabinet / the various committees. With so many councillors from one party it feels like some of the checks and balances are missing as it would be human nature for Labour Councillors to trust that other councillors would do the right thing in terms of the big picture. That?s just a suspicion. I think it might be dawning on some people hence the good questions that some councillors from other wards have been asking. May be worth emailing them (Cllrs Burgess and Werner) directly.. have been pondering doing that. But then there might be a ?closing ranks? effect. I?m not sure what to think any more.

One thing I have concluded is that it?s important to keep local media healthy and we should maybe all spend more (some!) time reading local news, as they do report on stuff.

See https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/

https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/category/south-london-news/southwark/

heartblock Wrote:

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

> Thanks for voicing my concerns, it is unbelievable

> that a Labour Council is putting in schemes that

> benefit the wealthy streets with fewer schools to

> the detriment of the poorest streets with the most

> schools.

[Rockets]

I think it is important that everyone takes pictures and documents all these impacts of the closures. Send them to your councillors, send it to them on social media as well and make sure Cllr Kieron Williams is aware. Ultimately it is his responsibility from both party-political and council leadership lines to try to show the leadership to resolve these issues. He is the new leader and he needs to clean up the mess that was tolerated/positively encouraged by the previous leadership.

Does anyone have any pictures of the traffic queues in DV today?

[exdulwicher]

We should have had proper, transparent modelling from the start. When I wrote to Richard Livingstone over the Summer to voice my concerns about these schemes (all of which invariably materialised), I was repeatedly reassured that if things were as bad as I anticipated (they?re actually worse), the council would tweak or remove the schemes.

Modelling, in its raw form, is never transparent. It's heavily maths and probability based, it gets written up into a technical document and then it gets re-written according to the audience to say things like

"we project a journey time improvement of 90 seconds if [x] is done".

"we project a reduction in traffic of 18% along Road X if Road Y is built".

"we project an increase in traffic of 12% along Road X if the new supermarket is built".

That's the transparent bit.

Under normal circumstances (ie not in the middle of a pandemic), councils have a mix of proposed new schemes (like a new leisure centre / supermarket / housing estate) and various "would like to do" schemes (improving a junction, implementing a 20mph zone or CPZ) knocking around, usually waiting for funding and they run them past planners, modellers etc to gain an idea of what will happen. Models usually require specific programming for specific schemes - there's loads of tried and tested methods and some fairly universal maths for basic stuff like "putting x vehicles through a junction over y time with z roadspace - now change one parameter" but that is not junction specific. Once you get beyond that into area-wide LTNs across neighbouring boroughs, it gets much more complicated much more quickly.

There's not the time to do any of that, the instruction and requirement from Government was that this gets done NOW. The whole point of ETRO is that the consultation and modelling runs in parallel with the temporary measures and you assess, potentially revise, re-assess and so on and you have 18 months to do that.

It CANNOT be done in 2-3 months, that's not enough time to assess the changes and take on board the feedback. If the council react within days or weeks to every complaint, they'd be chasing things around even more and then end up like Wandsworth where they removed the LTNs and traffic is still gridlocked on all the roads and pollution is still just as bad. No time to see the changes, they've lost the funding and they're back at square one except now it's going to be even harder for them to do anything about it.

Be interesting to see how second lockdown affects all this - schools are still open so one assumes that the "school run" will still be happening more or less as normal but that the commute to work and shopping trips will be much reduced and potentially an increase in home deliveries, especially in the run up to Christmas.

[legalalien]

Not sure if this link will work but here?s the ?concerned with the closures? link on nextdoor from folk on the other (HH, Rosendale, Gipsy Hill) side of things...

https://nextdoor.co.uk/news_feed/?post=17592195198437&comment=17592211247165&is=notification_center

A number of them are not thrilled with the knock on effects.

[alice]

It says ?the post you?ve been looking for has been removed?

[Rockets]

But Ex- the council appears to view the ETROs as a licence for stupidly...take a look at the attached...who thought this was going to be a good solution at the DV/EDG junction? You can only presume the person who planned this is 1) really stupid or 2) looking for ways to create so much congestion that people choose another route.

Who would have had to have signed this off? There appears to have been gridlock in DV today as a result - who is being held to account? We keep hearing from councillors let it bed in, we need time to assess but in my mind if the council continues to do things like the attached they should lose the power to do this.

Any sane person can look at that photo and predict what will happen - you don't have to be a planning genius to see what will happen. This is why the council are under so much pressure and why the majority of residents are up in arms about these closures - they're just stupid.

[legalalien]

alice Wrote:

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

> It says ?the post you?ve been looking for has been

> removed?

Hmm. Works for me but I am logged in. Suspect you have to register with the nextdoor site and select the appropriate neighbourhoods to see stuff. Anyway, mainly complaints about delays in Croxted and Rosendale as you might expect..

[KidKruger]

Wow that's simply insane.

Anybody here think this change is good - even a DV resident ?!

Rockets Wrote:

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

> But Ex- the council appears to view the ETROs as a

> licence for stupidly...take a look at the

> attached...who thought this was going to be a good

> solution at the DV/EDG junction? You can only

> presume the person who planned this is 1) really

> stupid or 2) looking for ways to create so much

> congestion that people choose another route.

>

> Who would have had to have signed this off? There

> appears to have been gridlock in DV today as a

> result - who is being held to account? We keep

> hearing from councillors let it bed in, we need

> time to assess but in my mind if the council

> continues to do things like the attached they

> should lose the power to do this.

>

> Any sane person can look at that photo and predict

> what will happen - you don't have to be a planning

> genius to see what will happen. This is why the

> council are under so much pressure and why the

> majority of residents are up in arms about these

> closures - they're just stupid.

[Rockets]

Looks like there was a big turnout at the Crystal Palace protests - organisers claim 620.

And One Lambeth beginning legal action against Lambeth Council.

https://twitter.com/LambethOne/status/1322960629980942336?s=09

[legalalien]

Yes, some people in favour - Southwark Cyclists and Clean Air for Dulwich.

KidKruger Wrote:

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

> Wow that's simply insane.

> Anybody here think this change is good - even a DV

> resident ?!

>

> Rockets Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > But Ex- the council appears to view the ETROs as

> a

> > licence for stupidly...take a look at the

> > attached...who thought this was going to be a

> good

> > solution at the DV/EDG junction? You can only

> > presume the person who planned this is 1)

> really

> > stupid or 2) looking for ways to create so much

> > congestion that people choose another route.

> >

> > Who would have had to have signed this off?

> There

> > appears to have been gridlock in DV today as a

> > result - who is being held to account? We keep

> > hearing from councillors let it bed in, we need

> > time to assess but in my mind if the council

> > continues to do things like the attached they

> > should lose the power to do this.

> >

> > Any sane person can look at that photo and

> predict

> > what will happen - you don't have to be a

> planning

> > genius to see what will happen. This is why the

> > council are under so much pressure and why the

> > majority of residents are up in arms about

> these

> > closures - they're just stupid.

[JohnL]

TFL has signed a deal with the government for another bailout.

Not sure what the conditions are except for hints of higher council tax.

[Rockets]

The photo I had found had come from one of the cycle activists who was heralding it's arrival as well - good to see a few people are happy with it at least!

Anyone know how DV was coping this morning with these new measures? Not sure I would be too happy if I was a DV resident as this pretty much throttles your ability to get anywhere.

I have also heard that a lot of the Independent schools not in the area that run bus services to pick children from Dulwich are rerouting their buses away from the Dulwich area as the traffic is so bad. One wonders if those children will now need to be driven as a result.

[Metallic]

Rockets Wrote:

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

> But Ex- the council appears to view the ETROs as a

> licence for stupidly...take a look at the

> attached...who thought this was going to be a good

> solution at the DV/EDG junction? You can only

> presume the person who planned this is 1) really

> stupid or 2) looking for ways to create so much

> congestion that people choose another route.

>

> Who would have had to have signed this off? There

> appears to have been gridlock in DV today as a

> result - who is being held to account? We keep

> hearing from councillors let it bed in, we need

> time to assess but in my mind if the council

> continues to do things like the attached they

> should lose the power to do this.

>

> Any sane person can look at that photo and predict

> what will happen - you don't have to be a planning

> genius to see what will happen. This is why the

> council are under so much pressure and why the

> majority of residents are up in arms about these

> closures - they're just stupid.

The local cyclists asked for the protection and lo, it came.

[legalalien]

Lots of traffic on EDG but this is partly due to one Lane being blocked where the water main repair is needed - there?s a temporary traffic light. As a result Carson DV unable to turn right into EDG and because of the new one lane thing cars can?t go straight ahead into red post hill either. I imagine traffic is backing up at the other end of eDG as well. Hard to draw conclusions as to what would happen absent the pavement repairs.

[Metallic]

legalalien Wrote:

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

> I think it is maybe a function of the structure of

> councils and the fact that councillors look after

> the interests of their wards (as they perceive

> them based on their social group within their

> wards)rather than looking at the big picture -

> although presumably that?s the job of the cabinet

> / the various committees. With so many councillors

> from one party it feels like some of the checks

> and balances are missing as it would be human

> nature for Labour Councillors to trust that other

> councillors would do the right thing in terms of

> the big picture. That?s just a suspicion. I think

> it might be dawning on some people hence the good

> questions that some councillors from other wards

> have been asking. May be worth emailing them

> (Cllrs Burgess and Werner) directly.. have been

> pondering doing that. But then there might be a

> ?closing ranks? effect. I?m not sure what to think

> any more.

>

> One thing I have concluded is that it?s important

> to keep local media healthy and we should maybe

> all spend more (some!) time reading local news, as

> they do report on stuff.

>

> See https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/

>

> https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/category/south-lond

> on-news/southwark/

>

>

>

>

> heartblock Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Thanks for voicing my concerns, it is

> unbelievable

> > that a Labour Council is putting in schemes

> that

> > benefit the wealthy streets with fewer schools

> to

> > the detriment of the poorest streets with the

> most

> > schools.

I don't think for a moment local Ward councillors hold any sway on behalf of their Wards. They do as they are told, vote for what they are told to vote for, and although may have personal misgivings that they voice, it doesn't make any difference to what they do in council. They will find out though, in May 2022.

[malumbu]

This is all excellent news, now it is safer to walk and cycle perhaps parents may walk or cycle their kids to school, and in time let them do this unaccompanied, as we did all those years ago.

Perhaps the post is ironic as the school run is the worst time of the day for congestion.

>

> I have also heard that a lot of the Independent

> schools not in the area that run bus services to

> pick children from Dulwich are rerouting their

> buses away from the Dulwich area as the traffic is

> so bad. One wonders if those children will now

> need to be driven as a result.

[heartblock]

Well..... EDG this morning...an utter disaster. Idling traffic from LL all the way up. If you are waiting for the 42 or 37 bus...live in hope. All pumping out fumes as they sit in traffic and children walk past to school.

[legalalien]

It?s terrible out there. As noted above it?s partly due to a temporary traffic light where repairs are happening - but it does illustrate the point made earlier about the need for some redundancy in the road network - something going wrong on one of the key routes is a frequent occurrence.

heartblock Wrote:

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

> Well..... EDG this morning...an utter disaster.

> Idling traffic from LL all the way up. If you are

> waiting for the 42 or 37 bus...live in hope. All

> pumping out fumes as they sit in traffic and

> children walk past to school.

[Rockets]

malumbu Wrote:

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

> This is all excellent news, now it is safer to

> walk and cycle perhaps parents may walk or cycle

> their kids to school, and in time let them do this

> unaccompanied, as we did all those years ago.

>

> Perhaps the post is ironic as the school run is

> the worst time of the day for congestion.

> >

> > I have also heard that a lot of the Independent

> > schools not in the area that run bus services

> to

> > pick children from Dulwich are rerouting their

> > buses away from the Dulwich area as the traffic

> is

> > so bad. One wonders if those children will now

> > need to be driven as a result.

Malumbu - you miss the point. Many of the independent schools that run bus services through the Dulwich area are schools much further afield than can be walked of cycled - schools like Trinity, Royal Russell, Whitgift, St Dunstan's and Colfes etc. The fact that some are considering cutting Dulwich from their routes should not be heralded as it will inevitably lead to more people using their cars.

[heartblock]

During half term the traffic was less awful, schools back and it?s just terrible out there. A good balanced article in the Observer mentions Rosamund. She campaigns for clean air for ALL. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/01/car-free-neighbourhoods-the-unlikely-new-frontline-in-the-culture-wars?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[JohnL]

Metallic Wrote:

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

>

> I don't think for a moment local Ward councillors

> hold any sway on behalf of their Wards. They do

> as they are told, vote for what they are told to

> vote for, and although may have personal

> misgivings that they voice, it doesn't make any

> difference to what they do in council. They will

> find out though, in May 2022.

But likely deselected if they refuse to follow the party line. Same goes in Westminster.

I'd like to see MPs/Councillors acting independently - but then how would a government or council function - We all know Westminster whips use every dirty trick in the book to make MPs do as they're told.