East Dulwich Road CLOSED 3-5 November

East Dulwich Road will be resurfaced 3->5 November each night between 8pm and 5am between Grove Vale and Crystal Palace Road. This assumes no surprises or bad weather.

Noisy work will be, as much as possible, contained 8pm to midnight each evening.

I’ve asked what the diversions for bus route 37 & 484 will be and other traffic. I’ve also had an extended dialogue with council officials over the summer about taking this closure as an opportunity to renew all the road marking and zebra crossings at Goose Green roundabout. Fingers crossed this all goes to plan as well.

Importantly if you park your car of off East Dulwich Road you’ll find access harder and may wish to park elsewhere for these two nights.

If you have any problems or concerns please let me know.

 

Cycle Green Wave – not coming to London…

Copenhagen the main routes in and out of the centre have traffic lights working to encourage cyclists to go at a consistent 20km/h or 13mph. They do this by all the lights going green in a coordinated wave. Too slow and you keep missing green lights. Too fast and you keep coming up to red lights. Some lights have count down green LED’s in the road for cyclists to encourage them to catch the green light.

They do this partly to support people cycling. But partly to make cyclists more predictable for other road users.

Transport for London say they can’t introduce this in London. They say to do so they’d have to remove Bus Priority that triggers traffic lights to go green for buses. They also say it would limited their ability to doctor traffic lights to support extra demand. Considering the prize at stake- potentially seeing a leap in cyclist numbers and safety this seems very negative.

Anyone out there who can do the maths to analyse this properly?

 

London Bridge Station – missed opportunity

I can’t express how disappointed I am that the new London Bridge station re built platforms are just as low as the previous ones. The very large gap between platforms and trains still remains on terminating platforms that are straight. Network Rail don’t even have the excuse of curved platforms on the terminating platforms.

This is so weird. It costs almost exactly the same whatever the platform height.

Campaigners have been told by Network Rail that they couldn’t get a straight answer from the Dept. of Transport to make a decision to have level platform. So they erred on caution in their opinion and replaced like with like platforms of the same low height.

Why is this so important?

Level access to trains means people in wheelchairs, with pushchairs or just a bit less able can easily use our local train services. It means staff don’t have to be assigned to placing mobile ramps and helping people get on and off trains. It also means the speed at which trains can be turned around is greater. Able bodied people can get on and off of trains much more quickly.

 

Peckham Lorry Death

I was initially very saddened to hear of the lady killed crossing the road in Peckham by a lorry 4 September. What a waste.

This has now turned to anger from the reports that almost no one did anything to help the tragic lady concerned in her last moments of life. Instead they gawped taking photos and videos. That’s bad enough but then posted them on online. At best this shows crass disregard for a fellow human being. At worst is just plain evil.

This case has really shone a light that we need UK laws to enforce the good samaritan principle but more importantly to create a duty to rescue that so many other, it would appear, more civilised countries have. Without this the culture of bystanding will only increase and get worse.

In the mean time I hope local newspapers can help name and shame the terrible people that didn’t allow this lady to die with some shred of dignity.

 

North Cross Road Improvements

So works are finally underway to improve the junction of North Cross Road with Lordship Lane.

NCR_LL Junction Improvement Scheme Proposals

It should dramatically improve the entrance to NCR, slow traffic and improve the look and feel of this gateway into our local street market. It will also reclaim some dead space from Lordship Lane from cars that don’t use it to pedestrians who will use it. Lastly, the bus stop currently doesn’t work – with parked cars blocking buses getting to the kerb. The two car parking space are being relocated and buses will be able to pull in properly.

Do you know any other spots where we could reclaim road space that isn’t used for pedestrians?

London Taffic Casualties Up

Crashes involving people being injured are up. They’re up 13% on last year.

Killed and serious injuries are down for all categories except motorcyclists. But overall casualties are up due to slight injuries which have been rising since 2007.

One line of inquiry for TfL is that the rising London population and resulting journeys is to cause this. So effectively the rate of crashes involving injuries would be down. I hope they reach a conclusion soon. Those slight injuries could preclude a rapid rise in more serious injuries.

Labour Bakerloo Line Extension Sell-Out

Today’s Southwark News carries a depressing story where Labour GLA Assembly Member Val Shawcross states about the Bakerloo line having two seperate routes from Elephant&Castle “Realistically, only one option will be taken forward.”

Up until the general election one month ago Simon Hughes had been campaigning for the Bakerloo Line to be extended and Lib Dems suggested two separate routes. Labour told everyone it was there idea. Now the election has gone they say two routes was never feasible.

And we wonder why people are cynical about politicians.

Come on Labour if two routes for the Bakerloo line was good enough for your election campaign – one via Camberwell the other via the Old Kent Road – why isn’t it good enough for the residents of Lambeth & Southwark now?

It certainly makes sense about why Southwark Labour have been promoting a Thameslink station at Camberwell when this station originally closed from competition from a mass transit tram system. It really doesn’t look like they were serious about a Camberwell route for the Bakerloo line as well as an Old Kent Road route.

It isn’t too late to sign the petition to extend the Bakerloo Line via Camberwell AND the Old Kent Road.

Cycle Parking Limit The Cycle Revolution

Cycling in London has dramatically increased for London residents commuting into central London. In 2011 London 8.3% of such commuters cycle – it feels much higher now.

Apart from safer routes to encourage more people to cycle, and they appear to be on the way now, people cycling have to have somewhere to park their bicycles – at both ends. Without such parking the Cycling Revolution will stall.

We need a step increase in cycling to improve public heath helping the NHS cope with its financial pressures, longevity, better mental health, fitter citizens, less social exclusion. Cycling has a strategic imperative for our society.

Home Cycle Parking – Most cyclists have to parking their bikes in hallways, outside homes insecurely, blocks of flats basements – often behind many doors. We will never have a cycling revolution with such crap cycle parking. In East Dulwich we’ve been supporting new Bikehangars which are a start. We’ll need 200 for East Dulwich alone to support half of the 25% cycling levels we could reach within the next 10 years. So far we have 4 on order!

Our planning rules must change to ensure cycle parking is really accessible to all new homes – not hidden away in marginal spaces. New houses in London only have to have 1 or 2 cycle parking spaces but in Holland it would be 5 in a proper 4m2 shed. Flats 1 o2 in London, 2-5 in Holland and easily accessible.

Destination Cycle Parking – We currently rely upon ‘free’ cycle parking – locking bikes to lamp posts, railings and the like which only gets you so far. For a step increase in cycling you must have proper cycle parking and lots of it. In London secondary schools are supposed to have 1 cycle parking space for every 8 pupils or staff or 12.5%. Dutch schools have 50-100%. London offices have 1 space for every 90m2, Dutch offices 1.7/100m2. At my workplace – a modern building – the cycle parking is so obscurely placed in the basement that I ‘free’ park outside. So we must not just box tick that parking has been provided for people cycling but that it easily accessible.

If we get cycle parking fixed at both end we will see a cycling revolution.

Are you going to be part of it?

New London Lorries

I’m really chuffed to see that the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) campaign for a new lorry design they started two years ago to minimise crashes with cyclists is coming good.

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Construction lorries are involved in around 75% of all cyclists deaths in London each year. The cabs of these lorries are high, they have turning movements that many aren’t used to and they weigh so much that if they do run you down you are literally squished. A very dear friend had this happen over and she died.

So LCC came up with a concept from their lorry expert Charlie Lloyd ideas with a much lower cab. This gives much great vision and fewer dead zones where the lorry driver hasn’t a clue what s going on. But with a lower profile it reduces drag for the lorry saving fuel. And fuel is major expense for companies running any commercial vehicles.

Mercedes have just launched a new line incorporating these ideas. I hope it becomes the new standard that other lorry manufactures adopt and literally many lives will be saved…

actual design

Noise Leads To Obesity

Swedish scientists have found what appears a link before road and jet noise and obesity.

Apparently living near a busy noisy road or under a noisy flight path can cause obesity. The mechanism isn’t clear yet but this could partly explain why poorer people suffer from obesity – they generally can’t afford to live on quieter streets.

One suggested mechanism for this is that noise exposure could be an important physiological stressor increasing cortisol production. High levels of cortisol have a role in depositing fat around the middle of the body.

Apparently all noise production – whether motor vehicles trains or aircraft have this impact but aircraft noise was found to have the highest association with increase weight.

Short term I hop this will be the final nail in the Heathrow airport expansion. On so many levels and now this it shouldn’t proceed. But it also suggests Gatwick shouldn’t happen which is almost as bad an idea as Heathrow.

But medium to longer-term we need to make where we all live so much quieter.

How do you think this can be achieved?

Aircraft noise – steeper landing and takeoffs would cut noise, banning the noises aircrafts, working internationally on a replacement for Chapter 3.

Train noise – ends diesel trains coming into London, noise baffle walls along noisy train routes and end noisy platform PA’s that can be hard outside stations.

Traffic noise – get more people cycling and walking, make the London low emissions zone low pollution AND a low noise zone. Add noise pollution cameras along our busier roads to enforce this.