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.
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.
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?
I took this photo 6.40am today. Exactly the same traffic managementwas in place at 6pm last night and a number of iterations of this have been proceeding south to north along Walworth recently.
We also had the same issue at Goose Green in East Dulwich recently.
I don’t doubt that all these road works are necessary but why are lanes closed and temporary traffic lights in place for the hours outside when a whole lane needs closing?
Other local authorities I’ve worked with would insist that the lane required by workers when working to ensure their safety are released outside the working period.
Instead we have 16 hours out of 24 hour day where temporary traffic lights are in operation when they needn’t be. Sometimes such pointless traffic management is left in place over whole weekends.
I’ve contacted the Labour cabinet member to ask why this is now allowed to occur. If you also think this is beyond daft email barrie.hargrove@southwark.gov.uk the politician responsible and copy me james.barber@southwark.gov.uk.
I was amazed to discover that Southwark Council is considering switching of Southwark street lighting. Clearly adjusting street lights is an ongoing sage managing over 16,000 street lights in Southwark.
What’s really amazing is that this news is buried in Highway Electrical Newspage 12. The article is titled “42% of Councils in England and Wales Planning Some Street Lighting Cuts”. It shows Southwark as one of of the local authorities in the “Councils planning total or partial night switch off”.
I haven’t knowingly heard this before. Have you?
It’s the only London Authority listed in this category. No public announcement. No public consultation even with the Police let alone residents or businesses.
Another example of no democracy in a Labour led Southwark.
What is particularly galling is that it took me four year to get all the street lighting in East Dulwich ward brought up to modern standards – bright white light rather than faded yellow light. This saved buckets of electricity. So really frustrated to hear they might be turned of.