Elephant & Castle southern roundabout

The Elephant&Castle southern roundabout will be closed this Friday 8pm 8 October until 5am monday 11 October.

Expect chaos.

Buses will be diverted: Route 12 will be diverted by Kennington Park Road, Brixton Road and Camberwell New Road. Routes 35, 40, 45, 68, 148, 171, 176, 468, P5, N35, N68, N89, N171, 343 and N343 will be diverted by New Kent Road, Rodney Place and Heygate Street.

I do think it very strange the removal of the roundabout can’t be achieved without its total closure for a weekend.

Eitherway, I’ll be avoiding the area this weekend.

Reporting potholes

Unitl now two easy ways to report pot holes in Southwark – 020 7525 2000 or environment@southwark.gov.uk

Now a third way for those with iPhones has been created. The CTC has just released an iPhone app which can be downloaded from the Apple iTUnes stoes called ‘Fill That Hole’.

I don’t yet have one of these prized iPhones but a friend showed this app to me.

Take a picture of the pot hole using the iPhone camera and complete a couple of details. The system knows where you are via GPS and reports it to the correct local authority.

If you have iPhone have a go.

Devolved highway and lighting budgets.

In Southwark under the Lib Dems we devolved a proportion of the highway and lighting renewal budgets. £175,000 for each of the eight community councils in this financial year – the last set by Lib Dems.

We now have to decide how to spend this money in the Dulwich Community Council area covering East Dulwich, Village and College wards.

What roads surfaces, pavements and street lighting do you think need renewing as a priority?

Cycle contra flows

At last.

The formal advert for cycle contra flows has been placed for this financial years planned work. This was agreed with Cllr Paul Kyriacou when he was the exec cllr in charge before the local elections – not long until they’re installed either parts or all of:

Balfour Street
Munton Road
Bermondsey Street
Chapter Road
Druid Street

Guy Street
Highshore Road
Kipling Street
Melford Road
Silvester Street
Stoney Street

Swan Street

Winchester Walk These contra flows will really help make Southwark easier for cyclists to get around. It also gives no excuse at these locations to cycle on the pavements.

What other streets do you think should have cycle contra flows against the flow of current one way streets?

20mph average speed cameras

I understand Transport for London is looking for four more areas in London to trial 20mph average speed cameras. Initial trials have been very successful in having collisions and injuries that involved illegal speeding. In Southwark the only trial we’ve been involved with is on Salter Road. Very successful it feels to. I’ve yet to see a definitive report on it.

Ideally Walworth road, which is meant to be 20mph, would have average speed cameras. We’d then see a further step decrease of injuries and collisions and crashes after its complete rebuild and redesign. It would complete the Walworth road project.

Equally, Southwark Bridge Road. It would ensure Cycle Superhighway no.7 which runs along it would be more successful and that a Cycle superhighway in Southwark means something tangibly better for people cycling. This is certainly what I ensured was put in the Memorandum of Understanding when I was the Cycle Champion councillor for Southwark.

Some people argue cameras should not be used but that a road should be self enforcing. Such self enforcing normally involves speed humps which can cause huge discomfort for people with back problems, etc. I’ve had one Southwark Council Officer say that the cameras and poles are ugly and that is the reason they fought against them.

Speeding vehicles really disect communities and make streets so unpleasant that only the poor and disadvantaged get left behind. So collisions disproportionately involve the poor. Unsurprisngingly the most vocal complaints against speed cameras come from those more well of who don;’t suffer any of the dreadful impacts.

But on balance I truly believe having speed cameras, despite the discomfort of better of people being caught for illegally speeding and the slashing of injuries and collisions is better than putting speed humps down everywhere and the real pain and suffering caused to generally poorer people lawfully going about their lives.

Where will the next trial in Southwark take place – we wait and see. I’ll be making a formal request on behalf of my group.

Side Guards

About three or four years ago I made a request that all Southwark street cleaning and rubbish vehicles have side guards. Side guards stop pedestrians and cyclists being dragged under the rear wheels during collisions and being killed or very seriously injured.

This didn’t prove possible for the rubbish trucks as they were about to become the responsibility of Veolia under a PFI deal. Apparently the Government dept at the time could’nt cope with such clauses in a waste PFI contract.

However I was promised that the next purchases for Southwark Councils small fleet of lorries that collect rubbish from street bins would consider having such side guards. On Saturday I spotted the first one with side guards. A Mercedes Sprinter 310 registration WN10 AHL. One very happy ex.Cycle Champion.

I’m making enquiries and making a big thank you to council officers for making this happen.

Next step will be to seek Veolia to voluntarily specify side guards on all new vehicles they purchase making Southwark even safer.

Speed cameras

Oh bloody hell.

The tory side of the national coalition has won out on speed cameras. We all know that they work. People slow down. Point speed cameras have an impact but average speed cameras are fantastic. Average speed cameras result in 99%+ speed limit adherence over the area they cover.

Well documented that speed limit adherence saves lives. Its not just well documented but peer reviewed research papers have proven it. Many are peevish about how safe they are and speed limits should’nt apply to people that drive as they do. Well everyone feels safe until that crash.

The revenue from speeding fines goes direct to the treasury and does’nt touch the sides of the enforcing authority the treasury then allocates funds to run cameras as per politician decisions. This was a silly change made by labour that urgently needs to be reversed.

Tory minsters have stated they’re ‘ending the war on motorists’. With this they mean they’re reducing the funds allocated to run speed cameras. So when we see more children killed, more multiple pile ups you know exactly which person is responsible – tory Secretary of State for Transport Phil Hammond. Of course speeding in our country is considered by most as ok until they’ve had the impact on family or circle of friends of a crash. Hopefully this selfish attitude will change as our country becomes more mature over speed as it did over drink driving all those years ago.

In a sane world local authorities would keep speed cameras fines and have to fund the cameras themselves. If residents think their council is overly zealous in enforcing the LAW about speed they vote them out. It’s called democracy.

In the mean time many local authorities are closing shop on speed cameras – Swindon, Oxford are some of the first.

Motorbikes in Transport for London bus lanes

TfL have just started the second trial of allowing motorbikes in its bus lanes across London. The first trial was a failure in that motorbikes were found to break the speed limit more and have more collisions and more serious collisions. By any measure the trial has shown this idea should end. Repeating a failed trial is abject failure in political leadership by Boris. By repeating the trial he will presumably keep the motorbike lobby happy but at what cost to London.

The first trial suggests no increase in cyclist casualties. I suspect many cyclists have voted with their bikes. I now avoid such Tfl bus lanes and cycle slightly less. It was bad enough to be buzzed by a motorbike before but with such bikers buzzing at greater speeds I am even less inclined to cycle along TfL bus lanes. I’m very fortunate that in Southwark my route to and from work only has Southwark bus lanes.

Do you think motorbikes should be allowed in bus lanes?

Cycle Superhighway CS7

I’ve had much involvement when I was Southwark Council – Cycling Champion as a councillor. The negotiations with Transport for London were more focused on how quickly they could install the highways than how effective they would be. They had been hoping to get them finished in time for the local election earlier this year.

A major achievement was the agreement to make Southwark Bridge Road 20mph. This should ensure the majority of the CS7 in Southwark is along street that are either 20mph or can’t be driven at greater than 20mph. The blue rinse cycle path Boris insisted on will mean something on these streets in Southwark.

Unfortunately, the new crossing over Newington Butts are virtually unusable and I’ve witnessed many who are ignoring them. I’ve asked how we can get Transport for London to install normal safe crossing lights.

My request for the route to use Oswin Street rather than Elliots Row which was ignored and no explanation given.

The new blue cycle lanes appear to be a straight paint over the previous road markings. I’ve had a couple of reports highlighting this new surfacing is much slippier than the previous surface.

Hopefully these routes will prove much safer than before but it wont be from 

Elephant&Castle southern roundabout

Work has started changing the E&C southern roundabout to a signalised junction.

The plans look to more civilise the this area and should make it much better for pedestrians who will be able to cross at street level rather than via forbidding underpasses. Also, should be an improvement for cyclists.

So good for getting from A to B and also good for reducing fear of crime.

I still think it could be even more ambitious but its taken years to get Transport for London to even agree these changes.