Consultation on ?improving? the junction of East Dulwich Grove, Townley Road and Green Dale

[Townleygreen]

I understood that the point of changing this junction was to allow the Quietway - which runs from the Elephant to Crystal Palace - to be developed. If the cycling element has been removed, where does that leave the Q-way?

(a Q-way is meant to be a road where cycling and walking is relatively protected from motor traffic, to encourage children and older people and women more generally to cycle safely. those groups are currently under-represented on our streets apparently.)

[Bicknell]

Curmudgeon Wrote:

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> I don't understand what has changed apart from the

> diagonal pedestrian crossing and a bugger of a

> left hand turn that makes it more dangerous for

> cyclists rather than less unless they are supposed

> to go on the pavement to go left

>

> The school kids aren't even using the diagonal

> crossing as far as I can see

Agree.

[wulfhound]

I understood that the point of changing this junction was to allow the Quietway - which runs from the Elephant to Crystal Palace - to be developed. If the cycling element has been removed, where does that leave the Q-way?

A very good question. I am a huge fan of the idea of Greenways and, to an extent, Quietways, but the planning and implementation has been far from ideal. No discussion or debate of what's going on and whether it's a good thing for London as a whole before they started parachuting in to neighbourhoods with design ideas.

It seems there's little in the way of minimum standards for a Quietway - at its most basic, it can be nothing more than signs and paint, like the old LCN - so the lack of facilities doesn't necessarily change the Quietway status, it just makes it less accessible and useful. Some of the proposed Quietways in Kensington and Westminster (ok, so "quiet" is always going to be relative there) are entirely useless.

(a Q-way is meant to be a road where cycling and walking is relatively protected from motor traffic, to encourage children and older people and women more generally to cycle safely. those groups are currently under-represented on our streets apparently.)

No doubt they are under represented - but actually getting any TfL, council or Sustrans official to put their head above the parapet & declare that Quietways must be usable by children and older people seems to be difficult. Whether this is a result of a lack of minimum standards, or its cause, I don't know. Bit of both perhaps.

[James Barber]

Hi wulfhound,

At a quiet ways meeting I asked if they had the aspiration that the London Cycle Network originally had of cycle routes safe for unescorted 12 years olds. They don't. They should have such an aspiration if we're to collectively try to stem global warming. But they don't. Appears targeted at nervous adults - which is a useful start.

[Penguin68]

if we're to collectively try to stem global warming

There are two issues - those of cyclists' safety and impact on climate - I suspect that the carbon cost of all the work that has gone on to create cycle roads in town (including the traffic hold-ups etc. etc.) will require a huge amount of cycling replacing motorised transport to even reach neutrality.

You need to look at the whole carbon cost (if you care about these things) not just the headlines. BT, in a study done a number of years ago, determined that teleconferencing was carbon positive compared with travelling to meetings, but not nearly as much as you would initially have thought, once you costed in the carbon costs of the technology needed to support teleconferencing - from power to terminal equipment to transmission and switching equipment etc. etc.

Cycling (the process) may be more carbon friendly than motor powered transport - but do not think that cycles, cycle clothing and (very specifically) cycle specific infrastructure does not have a carbon cost. Where this infrastructure causes motor vehicles to drive inefficiently, including lengthening driving or waiting times these are additional carbon costs which can be attributed to cycles.

[xeno.be]

I've reserved judgement for a few days but have had time to conclude the new layout is a disaster. The junction is much worse for those on bicycles. It will be criminal if any cycling budget has been spent on this work as the only way it will benefit safety is by discouraging anyone from getting on a bike.

Cars turning right from Townley Road can now just start turning much earlier. Riding the other way you have no idea which path any vehicle will take, the new layout definitely encourages the first car to race across to beat oncoming traffic.

Advanced cycle lights might improve this for those waiting at the lights when they change, but does nothing for those who arrive when the lights are green.

Really unbelievable.

[wulfhound]

There are two issues - those of cyclists' safety and impact on climate - I suspect that the carbon cost of all the work that has gone on to create cycle roads in town (including the traffic hold-ups etc. etc.) will require a huge amount of cycling replacing motorised transport to even reach neutrality.

A fair point - but in the overall scheme of urban quality-of-life, of the benefits resulting from more cycling & fewer cars on the road, carbon's not the most important piece of the puzzle IMO. If we're talking in pure carbon terms, going vegetarian / vegan, eschewing air travel & cutting back home energy consumption to the bare minimum might make as much difference. Certainly as a regular cyclist, occasional driver, annual long haul flyer & unreformed carnivore, my own co2 footprint isn't markedly different to a non-flying veggie who drives a few times a week.

Cycling (the process) may be more carbon friendly than motor powered transport - but do not think that cycles, cycle clothing and (very specifically) cycle specific infrastructure does not have a carbon cost.

Nor does that same infrastructure for general traffic. Assuming the vehicle lifespan is the same, how does a steel framed bicycle weighing 15kg stack up against a 1.5 ton Golf? Not that the former can do all the jobs of the latter - but surely that's an argument for shared-ownership ZipCar schemes and the like. Road wear, maintenance & surface renewal.. yes, those roads need to be maintained anyway for goods vehicles, but discretionary & local trips account for a fair bit of the wear.

Where this infrastructure causes motor vehicles to drive inefficiently, including lengthening driving or waiting times these are additional carbon costs which can be attributed to cycles.

Again, I'm not sure if that's true of discretionary journeys. When applied to essential traffic, your argument makes complete sense - but the same could be said (to a far greater degree, I might add) of discretionary or substitutable motor traffic delaying essential motor traffic.

[Gabe]

I've been through on the bike a few times since it re-opened. It's not much different. It's tempting to blame the bed-wetters on here for the compromised design, and then Southwark Council for listening to them. But I suspect the major problem, and the reason the cycling safety aspects have gone missing, is TFL.

Still, hopefully it's nicer for pedestrians. There seem to be less railings to hem everyone in.

There's a good example of what I think might be a Quiet Way running along the north of Old Kent Road to Deptford. Quite a bit of it is on normal roads, but with bollards at certain points to restrict through traffic for cars, but keep it open for cyclists. It's really well done (for the most part) and I'm happy riding along there with my kids. So clearly it can be done in Southwark.

[Penguin68]

Dear wulfhound - the points I was making were specifically in response to Mr Barber's assertion/ implication that the London Cycle Network's point was to fight anthopogenic global warming. I must admit I see it as more important to allow the safe® use of bicycles and to encourage people thus to use bicycles - the greatest impact I believe being on their own health - with, I suspect, virtually no measurable impact on either CO2 or world temperatures. Most of those I know who cycle regularly (children apart) do so instead of using public transport, which itself continues to run whether very very full or just very full in rush hours. [some may cycle rather than drive to stations, in which case their saved car journeys are relatively moderate].

[Curmudgeon]

I'd like to know the councils response to how dangerous this junction now feels compared to before the work

Turning left is seriously hazardous due to the angle

I'm pretty sure the coaches employed to ferry the private school kids are going to cause snarl-ups and traffic jams and more danger for pedestrians and cyclists as they attempt that left hand turn

Turning right looks more, not less, safe for pedestrians and cyclists

[Zebedee Tring]

When someone describes other people as "bed-wetters", it says more about him/her than the people being insulted and is totally unacceptable language.

Clearly the blame for what has happened falls fairly and squarely on Southwark. And had pressure not been applied by local residents, we would have been faced with a no right turn from Townley Road into EDG, which would have proved even more chaotic than the present outcome.

[fazer71]

It's all the fault of the unaccountable socialist elite.

They're at home counting their money and laughing at us.

It's not a complete disaster (no right turn) but a disaster all the same

It wasn't broken now it's slightly broken.

Funny as fuc? .

Everyone who wasted their time and effort at the meetings to get served up a plate of F U.

[edhistory]

fazer71 Wrote:

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> It's not a complete disaster (no right turn) but a

> disaster all the same

>

Let's not forget what we've lost

[Zebedee Tring]

Fazer, this lot are incompetent, but please don't call them "socialists", which they clearly aren't, what with their apparent accommodation of the distictly non socialist Alleyns and JAGS as well as skyscraper building developers. From your post, it seems that you regard anyone to the left of John Major as a socialist.

[fazer71]

I'm not talking about Alleyns and JAGS.

It's Southwark Council and Tfl.

[Zebedee Tring]

I know that you're talking about Southwark. My point is that they aren't socialists, at least not by my definition. And tFL is run by that celebrated socialist Boris Johnson.

[wulfhound]

@ Penguin68 - fair enough, we largely agree on CO2, at least as far as cycling's impact goes. There are other benefits of cycling that I think aren't just for the individual - less noise, more sociability, perhaps less road danger, reduced NHS costs from obesity etc. - but climate change as the primary argument is a fairly weak one.

At a quiet ways meeting I asked if they had the aspiration that the London Cycle Network originally had of cycle routes safe for unescorted 12 years olds. They don't. They should have such an aspiration if we're to collectively try to stem global warming. But they don't. Appears targeted at nervous adults - which is a useful start.

IMO, whoever made that call ought to be placed in stocks outside GLA HQ, and I want dibs on the first rotten egg.

Because..

i) It should be clear to anyone that you can't do much in the way of meaningful improvements to cycling in a large city without affecting traffic to at least some degree.

ii) As is obvious to anyone who cycles or drives in the suburbs year-round, the school run contributes an enormous amount of that traffic at peak times - in many places it's the majority.

Therefore,

iii) Any major scheme which attempts to improve things for cycling in the suburbs, yet intentionally and deliberately places the school run outside of its remit, is practically certain to fail.

The whole thing is starting to confuse me, tbh. Why are they talking about radical changes at Champion Hill and perhaps Rosendale Road if the aim is only to cater for "nervous adults"? That can't possibly take enough traffic off the roads to justify those changes. It feels like they can't decide whether they've got the huevos to actually go through with it or not. Do it properly, or not at all.

[richard tudor]

The whole thing is starting to confuse me, tbh. Why are they talking about radical changes at Champion Hill and perhaps Rosendale Road if the aim is only to cater for "nervous adults"? That can't possibly take enough traffic off the roads to justify those changes. It feels like they can't decide whether they've got the huevos to actually go through with it or not. Do it properly, or not at all.

Because it works well and has done for the last 68 years that I have lived on and around Champion hill.

It it works well so change it. Young people with a red felt pen and a map in an office and no experience.

Madness.

[fazer71]

Zebedee Tring Wrote:

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> I know that you're talking about Southwark. My

> point is that they aren't socialists, at least not

> by my definition. And tFL is run by that

> celebrated socialist Boris Johnson.

OT ..

My socialist definition see below ..

Tfl may be overseen by Boris but the staff are socialist he's battling their nonsense every day it costs us tax payers huge sums of money inconvenience and waste.

Southwark well we know what they are about job creation and self preservation above everything else.

1) Socialism is a highly authoritarian creed based on envy and class warfare. So it seeks to extort as much money as possible from those who have worked hard and been successful and from businesses that have succeeded by looking after their customers. The maximum that they can extort is never enough to support their dogma so they borrow even more, with no plan or intention of ever paying back.

2) Socialism exercises its authoritarianism by the government seeking to control everything in society. The state owns you and everyone else and issues vast number of commands that you must obey. Socialists in government think that they know better than the people themselves do about absolutely everything. They would tell you where, when and with whom to have sex if they could.

3) Socialism wastes money by throwing it at the indolent and feckless who have not succeeded so as to ensure their votes. It thinks it knows more about business than businessmen so wastes unbelievable amounts of money. From the 1946 Groundnut Scheme, through British Leyland and British Steel to Gordon Brown?s ?rescue? of the banks. So in the end they always run out of other people?s money.

4) Extortion, envy, authoritarianism and waste has its consequences:

?It destroys the quality of life of everyone in the country. As when Attlee extended wartime rationing to potatoes and bread and turned off the electricity. As when Gordon Brown trashed the British economy with his fiscal incontinence. As in Cuba where most people live in poverty in what was once a rich country. As in oil rich Venezuela where the shelves in the shops are bare even of basic necessities.

?By punishing success and rewarding failure the results are always inevitable.

?Strivers, who work hard and succeed in life, choose to apply their efforts in countries where they are not punished. When the socialists under Hollande took over and started this punishment in France large numbers of rich and successful people left the country. So their enterprise and hard work now benefits other economies.

?People who have earned money do not want it extorted. Piketty?s study of wealth is massively flawed because he used Sweden as a model. Not realising that rich Swedes park their money offshore where the state cannot extort it. And where it does not benefit the Swedish economy.

?Businesses that the state controls no longer have to look after their customers. So they don?t. We saw this in the 1970s when the ?nationalised? companies delivered utterly execrable goods and services to the British public. They were transformed massively for the better when Margaret Thatcher privatised them.

?Businesses that the state controls no longer have to be efficient and to make profits. So they don?t. They end up needing ever more taxpayer?s money whilst their underperfomance always gets ever worse.

?Immense amounts of our money ends up being wasted in interest payments. Thanks to Gordon Brown we now pay more to service our loans than we spend on defence.

?Whole regions of the country are deliberately kept poor and deprived so that they will vote socialist. Labour constituencies are far poorer than Conservative constituencies. George Osborne is now trying to fix this with his Northern Powerhouse.

?Educated people often tend to be strivers. So education is minimised. By using ?progressive? teaching methods and dumbing down exams and degrees. We end up with great swathes of the population who are unemployable and with great swathes who can only find menial work. In Britain we have been forced to import huge amounts of skilled labour, so great is our educational failing.

?Socialists are so venal and nasty that they will enforce extortionate tax rates on successful people, to punish them, even when they know that this will bring in less government revenue. Labour in the 1970s had a top rate of income tax of 98%.

[wulfhound]

I'm not sure that it does work all that well for a kid wishing to cycle to school along there, Richard. In fact I'd wager a large sum of money that that's gotten worse in the intervening 68 years. Sure, it doesn't help that parents are a lot more protective of their offspring than was the custom in those days, but that's not entirely a bad thing.

However, the least we all deserve is for those wielding the red pens to present a clear idea of which problems they're trying to solve and why.

[richard tudor]

To use a Cllr Barber approach what do the statistics show for accidents say over the last 10 years.

If you look at the traffic approach and road markings from Grove Hill Road something is afoot after all the road works.

You are right in saying people today are much more protective than is necessary

[wulfhound]

To use a Cllr Barber approach what do the statistics show for accidents say over the last 10 years.

The accident stats don't paint a terribly useful picture in relation to kids on bikes, because there aren't currently enough of them to have much impact (sic) on the numbers. Does show a smattering of crashes, but nothing out of the ordinary for the area. So although I might disagree with your assertion that there's no problem, it's kind of irrelevant if they're not trying to solve that.

The Grove Hill works don't seem to be cycling related - it reduces space & will increase car/bike conflict - though it's nice for pedestrians to lose the sheep pen in the middle. Someone at the council clearly hates those cages with a passion.

You are right in saying people today are much more protective than is necessary

I'm not sure that's our call to make. The levels of idiocy, impatience, arrogance and sheer incompetence I see on the roads daily gives me a lot of sympathy for the cotton-wool parents.

[Zebedee Tring]

Come on fazer, please tell us what you really think of socialists. Don't hold back!

[fazer71]

Zebedee Tring Wrote:

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> Come on fazer, please tell us what you really

> think of socialists. Don't hold back!

LOL

Socialists are fantasists like religious people they believe in fairy tales.

The junction another fairy tale told by tfl Southwark many believed them.

I said at the start it would be a coc? up a waste of money was I wrong?

If it's not broken why fix it.?

[Zebedee Tring]

You were certainly right about the cock up and waste of money. On that we can agree.