143 of the 174 English and Welsh Highway Authorities have signed up to an initiative t0 make all roadworks details available online through one website:
You can set-up email alerts to warn of roadworks. View online road works Southwark plans. What the main utilities are working on.
So if you see roadworks you can zero in on the location on a map and see who’s doing it and why.
Try it out.
I’m agog but sadly not surprised by the farce that is the huge budget being spent on ‘improving’ Greendale cycle and pedestrian route.
I use this route most days walking or cycling.
From the following pictures you can see demonstrate this section didn’t need any maintenance –Champion Hill to Wanley Road
It is deeply disappointing to see cycle investment money solely being used for what has turned into a maintenance project. No attempt has been made to improve the utility of this section for cyclists or pedestrians – which fails to meet London Cycle Network guidance.
In fact the kerb to be placed instead of a white line will add danger for cyclists and pedestrians reducing utility. The cycle lane is so narrow that for cyclists to pass each other they have to cross the white line. But crossing a kerb at such an angle is likely to see cyclists toppled. The same will apply for people walking. A kerb would only make sense if the route was widened which it isn’t. I predict a rise in people suing the council.
Council Officers have even confirmed this section is already substandard in design and used that as an argument to only undertake maintenance. Adding a kerb will further reduce the quality of this section. And the council claims its short of money!
The route is used by a partially sighted resident who has a guide dog with no stick. So again not even extra utility for the partially sighted existing user.
I genuinely don’t think the responsible cabinet councillor Barrie Hargrove desires this or is trying to achieve this with the very limited cycle capital budgets he has. But he’s fully aware of all these issues and doesn’t appear to be taking any action before workers were on site or now that they’ve stalled because they forgot to order the required materials.
Overall a great deal on money is being sent on Greendale but I perceive zero improvements to the cycleability or walkability of this route. But the southern end will look a little nicer once the raised bed has some planting.
Since being elected in 2006 East Dulwich councillors have been working hard to make our high street Lordship Lane safer. It’s a particularly busy high street. We’ve been successful having two new crossing installed early last year, enhanced Goose Green roundabout with all arms having Zebra crossings, most side roads with raised entry treatments. These are the types of measures that the Mary Portas Review recommended “focus on making high streets accessible, attractive and safe”.
The latest progress towards making Lordship Lane safer is to introduce a 20mph speed limit on Lordship Lane between Goose Green and the Police Station at Whateley Road . We applied and awarded £15,000 towards this from the 2012/13 Cleaner, Greener, Safer capital funding. After a year of working with officers they’ve now agreed that physical measures are not required. This is partly from the governments change in national policy january this year making 20mph easier via its new guidance – Setting Local Speed Limits.
As part of the process we’ve had speed surveys done at two points along Lordship Lane – just south of Frogley Road and just south of Hansler Road. They were done during term time in the Autumn.
The surveys were carried out just south of Frogley Road which had a mean speed of 17.9mph and an 85th percentile speed of 23.9mph and also just south of Hansler Road where the mean speed was 22.1mph with an 85th percentile speed of 28.2mph.
The new guidance says that if the mean average speed is below 24mph 20mph speed limits can be introduced. It also suggests that if a large variation exists between the mean average and 85th percentile speeds then drivers are likely to be confused about what speed to drive at and introducing 20mph speed limits should help reduce this confusion.
The next step is for officers to formally consult on making this happen. Assuming no hiccups I’m hopeful it can be introduced within three months.
Southwark’s Planning Committee meet this coming Tuesday 29 January to decide on Herne Hill Velodrome’s future.
Two planning applications.
This application is to install track lighting so that cycling can go on into the mid evening. 55 x 5.5 posts holding 150W halide lights. Lots of design effort has gone into avoiding light going anywhere but directly down onto the tracks. The designers state that away from the track it will feel like bright moonlight.
This application is to build a 250m flat junior track into the main 400m banked track. Plus a multi use games area – effectively to replace the current football pitch – which can also be used for bike polo.
Overall I’m strongly in favour of these applications. They’re an important step in making Herne Hill Velodrome sustainable going forward. Fingers crossed the planning committee also believes this and grant permission.
Transport for London has done some strategic analysis of transport trends.
Most significant is that the population of London has expanded by ONE MILLION people in the last decade to 8.2 million people. I must admit I don’t remember being asked to vote on this – it’s not from new births.
During the decade the number of jobs has been static at 5 million – with a dip of 250,000 jobs from the recession that has now fully recovered and up 5.2%. This contrasts sharply with the population rise.
During the decade a sharp increase in trips by public transport and the proportion has rise from 30% in 1993 to 35% in 2001 to 43% in 2011. The flip side is private transport has fallen over the same period from 46% to 43% in 2001 and 34% in 2011. Cycling use has risen from 1% to 2%. This is all in sharp contrast with the rest of the UK.
Are you using public transport or cycling more?
Last night a tree from JAGS playing field was blown over and has landed onto Green Dale.
I’ve reported it and a council employed tree team will visit ASAP. What’s particularly worrying is that some pedestrians are walking under the fence end where a gap is present – so I’ve asked the council treat the matter with urgency.
It should be fully removed today.
Southwark Council directly and indirectly are planning some big changes to the incredibly popular Green Dale cycle and walking route.
Cycling alone in the 4 months April to August has seen a total of 39,287 cyclists using this route. That implies over 100,000 cycle movements along this route a year.
The changes at the northern end to reduce car blocking with Champion Hill and at the southern end removing excessive bollards and planting look good. The middle section, Wanley Road junction, sees a hedges usefully cut back to increase safety with further changes of adding bollards which looks daft and dangerous.
To compound the middle proposals a Planning Application has been made that would increase the tunnelling affect by narrowing Green Dale and adding blank hedge frontage just south of Wanley Road junction with Green Dale:
I’ve asked the Cabinet member for Transport Cllr Barrie Hargrove to amend his middle plans and not added unnecessary bollards. I’ve formally objected to the Planning Application.
Fingers crossed common sense prevails.
In London the vehicles that pose the greatest risk to cyclists are lorries. Astoundingly lorries represent 5% of the traffic in London, but are responsible for 50% of cyclist fatalities.
Local council’s such as Southwark are major purchasers of companies that use lots of lorries. Combined they contract 1000’s of lorries to serve our local communities.
The London Cycling Campaign has a great campaign to encourage councilsto ensure that their boroughs’ streets are safer for cyclists. Lorries with trained driver, side-guards, better mirrors. Not big changes in themselves but would make a big change for the safety of cyclists.
Currently no London boroughs that have a safer lorry procurement policy for buying such services or lorries. Icampaigned and managed to get all Southwark Council’s own lorries owned by Southwark to have side-guards and warm promises that they’d work on Veolia to have side guards on their rubbish trucks used to support the Southwark waste collection contract. However on the back of the successful HGV campaigning Transport for London have now adopted a safer lorry contract which LCC are now asking all London boroughs to adopt.
Once one borough has shown a safer lorry procurement policy is possible – ironing out all the legal wrangles – then I see no reason why others can’t follow. Some will argue that they have years left on specific contracts but my professional experience tells me that often negotiating with suppliers comes up trumps.
Talking to my leader Cllr Anood Al-Samerai we will be calling for Southwark Council to do this and it will form part of our cycling strategy.
Lots of guard railings have been removed with most to follow. Scrap metal merchant bonanza. it transpired that guard railings just corralled pedestrians and didn’t make them any safer or other road users – sometimes trapping cyclists and pedestrians into dangerous and even occasionally deadly situations.
So great these guard railing are going. But they were incredibly useful for parking bikes and locking them up.
What to do?
Well they’re not a new idea but cycleloops seem the obvious alternative. Just need to persuade Southwark to roll them out…perhaps not pink ones.
Average speed cameras have been now proven to reduce 73% of deaths and serious injuries – analysis of 15 sites with SPECS average speed cameras. But they’ve also seen improved traffic flow, reduced emissions and greater public acceptability than spot speed cameras.
The first 20mph average speed cameras are up and working in Southend on Sea.
The beauty of these camera systems is they don’t just make single locations safer but whole stretches of roads and areas safer. Smoother traffic means greater flow with less variability between the fastest and slowest vehicles.
A ‘safe-zone’ scheme was trialled of average speed cameras close to a school in Poole. 93% of parents supported the scheme but what parent wouldn’t support making the area around a school safer.
The key is general attitudes choosing to drive slower or accepting average speed cameras to make large safety gains. Here I’m hopeful. Since 2000 to 2010 the number of drivers breaking 30mph in free-flowing traffic has fallen from two-thirds to half. But at that rate it will take 50 years to solve speeding. Research suggests three types of driver – First 52% group largely speed-limit complaint, second type of 33% only sometimes drive up to 10mph above speed limits and the third group 14% who regularly drive above and often very much beyond the speed limit. Any average speed camera scheme has to be aimed at that third group.
Most research has shown that 70-80% of people support speed cameras. This probably stems from the fact people caught speeding are typically twice as likely to have been involved in a crash. This is born out in insurance premiums which often jump with a speeding conviction. Insurance companies have lots of their own evidence and data that they base such premiums on. They spend a lot of money analysing that data tofinely adjust premiums based of risk.
But how to fund average speed cameras them?
Obviously reducing crashes saves money. The West Midlands send people caught speeding on Speed Awareness courses that the speeder pays £80 towards. The course provider costs around £30 and £50 is used to pay for the camera system operation. So they can be largely self funding in revenue terms. So finding the capital is the issue. Each pair of cameras costs around £50,000. So volume discounts etc £650,000 total capital cost. Allowing for Southwark on costs a cool £1M to make Southwark probably the safest borough in London.
Where to start. Most crashes in Southwark happen along Transport for London trunk roads such as the South Circular, Old Kent Road. Such roads also cause a terrible local environment. Placing cameras at around 16-20 locations, at the Southwark borders, would catch the 50% of all Southwark traffic transiting Southwark which is more likely to be speeding through.
Such a scheme would increase traffic flow as people drove more evenly. It would reduce pollution and most importantly reduce crashes and people being injured.
What do you think?