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Rockets

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Everything posted by Rockets

  1. And Labour went out of their way to make sure they didn't mention anything about LTNs or Healthy Streets in their election push. So maybe the reverse applies that as they didn't lead on it does it mean the CPZ plans weren't part of their manifesto and no-one was given the chance to vote on it?
  2. The consultation document that the pamphlet leads you to is, once again, designed to give the council the positive outcome they desire. Here are the only two questions on parking restrictions on your street - it comes as no surprise to anyone that nowhere can you click: I do not want a parking zone. Again like so many consultations before it if you don't want parking restrictions you are forced to leave your comment in a comments box that then does not get registered by the council. The brazenness of it is beyond belief. 4. What would be your preference for the days of operation of the new controlled parking restrictions? Monday to Friday Monday to Saturday 7 days a week 5. What would be your preference for the times of operation of the new controlled parking restrictions? All day (e.g. 8:30am - 6:30pm) Longer hours (e.g. 8.30am - 11pm) Part of the day (e.g. 11am to 3pm) 24 hours
  3. DulvilleRes - but it does nothing for the claims of her impartiality does it? You can't behave like that if you want to be perceived as impartial in your research. Rush of blood to the head, impulsiveness is no defence - it is not the behaviour of anyone who should be trusted to report impartially on LTNs. Also, the bigger story is her admission that she has been "engaging" in LTN issues locally - if that means campaigning positively for them then it is a huge conflict of interest and one she should have been smart enough to recuse herself from and steer well clear of. You can try to brush it under the carpet all you like but what she did has given all those who have suspected that her research is tinged by pro-LTN bias a smoking gun in the form of video. And why do the media report on it - cos it is a "gotcha" the classic "don't bring me a story about a dog biting a man but one of a man biting a dog"? Of course the Torygraph and Fail report on it because their readership relate to it and click on it. The same is true on why Peter Walker and the Guardian would report on her findings at length to celebrate LTNs and why they didn't report on her indiscretion. Media is not impartial and writes stories, not based on the newsworthiness, but whether it resonates in their echo chamber. Given we had a Southwark pamphlet dropping through our door today announcing the plan for borough-wide CPZs in the next year I suspect the noise will ramp again. And guess what....yup...the council is running a consultation on CPZs....and guess what...it's as skewed in it's questions as the last ones have been.....here we go again....
  4. Mal, no what this thread shows is that slowly but surely the playing field is starting to be levelled and some of the things we have been saying, that many of you have been challenging us on for tne last three years. are being proven to be 100% true. And the downfall has been concocted, accidentally, by the very people who were instrumental in plotting and executing LTNs in the first place - it looks like the power, and the unwavering support from their supporters, went to a few people's heads and they couldn't help themselves and showed their true colours (TFL bullying, Turney Road submission debacle, Anna Goodman). The last few months haven't been the greatest for the pro-LTN lobby - the house of cards is looking a little precarious right now.
  5. Good luck Matil - quite the community centre-piece you have developed at The Grove - well done to everyone involved and have a great day. And just remember Dave Grohl's quote when you talk about the noise they are emitting: Musicians should go to a yard sale and buy and old drum set and get in their garage and just suck. And get their friends to come in and they'll suck, too. And then they'll start playing and they'll have the best time they've ever had in their lives and then all of a sudden they'll become Nirvana. Just a bunch of guys that had some old instruments and they got together and started playing some noisy-ass ****, and they became the biggest band in the world.
  6. DKHB - and to be fair, if you are able to ask a question to the One Dulwich twitter account that is more you can do for many of the other accounts - who only allow those they follow or they have replied to to engage with them! 😉 Yes, not many people coming on here to defend Anna Goodman today (I am surprised Peter Walker didn't cover it as an exclusive - most other things from that group get his undivided attention! ;-)). In fact, many of the pro-LTN lobby seem to have lost their voices. I was interested to read that she claimed to the Daily Fail that she was "engaged with local LTN schemes" but that she "maintains a professional standpoint when conducting academic research". I wonder what she means by engaged - surely being engaged in any local LTN scheme (either for or against it) would be a massive conflict of interest given her role and the "impartial" nature of it and something she would have been encouraged to avoid? I wonder if Anna did the honourable thing and resigned from her role on the LTN review project today or whether she got lots of #solidaritycomrade messages from her friends and supporters and then helped arrange a boycott of the shop that dared release the footage.....;-) In all seriousness her actions do pose a big dilemma for the £1.5m LTN review as she has been one of the lead researchers and, surely, nothing can now be published in her name and she has tarnished all of her work to this point? I wonder if everyone involved in the project will be asked to declare any conflicts of interest as a result as it is very embarrassing for the funders of the programme. It is also a headache for Cllr McAsh in his new role because a lot of the data on cycling numbers in East Dulwich came from her research (which I hasten to add was roundly criticised at the time by many) - I wonder if One Dulwich will be asking him whether that research cannot now be considered impartial?
  7. To be fair does anyone know, or care, who is behind Clear Air Dulwich, Clean Air For All Dulwich, Dulwich Roads or Mums for Lungs or any number of the various lobby groups there are involved in this debate? It seems to me that people fixate on trying to establish who is behind a group when they don't agree with their position and they use it as a tool to try and position them as some shadowy organisation with links that go beyond the local community they purport to represent. There have long been rumours about many of the aforementioned groups and the links, of many of those supporting LTNs, to the council but no-one has ever been able to prove it (although of course Cllr Pollack did get caught with his, shall we use Anna Goodman's term "impulsive", long running social media programme using the @SouthwarkYIMBY account to abuse and deposition residents in another part of the borough in a issue over housing). As I said previously if Cllr McAsh, Cllr Newens and Cllr Leeming were happy to engage with One Dulwich so they must have established that they are who they say they are and are representing local residents (am I right in thinking Helen Hayes refused to meet with them until she established who their supporters are?) - especially Cllr McAsh who was very explicit about only responding to constituent questions when he communicated via the forum in his role as Goose Green councillor.
  8. DKHB yes it is. Its not actually blocking any spaces in front of the charity shop but outside the cafe so makes sense for them to be there rather than cluttering up the pavement in front of Suoerdrug. Probably a case now to remove the e-scooter parking in front of Superdrug as the one outside the cafe is for both bikes and scooters and repurpose the space outside Superdrug for private bikes.
  9. But Mal, at the time of you removing the anti-vax poster were you being championed as an impartial academic, part of an organisation being paid £1.5m to, impartially, report on the success, or otherwise, of the vaccines and someone who had been accused of having a vested interest in the vaccination scheme? What Anna Goodman has done is ludicrous and completely invalidates any of the claims around her impartiality. Her actions show she is anything but impartial and doesn't want there to be any resistance or debate around LTNs. Those are not the actions of someone who should be entrusted to report fairly on the matter in hand. But the problem with relying on activist researchers is that they tend to remain as activists and put that ahead of their research responsibilities. Just a few posts up we have people lamenting the vandalism of planters and the actions of a minority of the anti-LTN lobby and the criticism of said academics and then this breaks - one of the leading researchers being touted by so many of the pro-LTN lobby, and pro-LTN media, as proving the success of the programmes being caught red handed. It leaves a lot of egg on the faces of those who backed Dr Goodman's research and pleaded that she was impartial - this is a massive "gotcha". What was she thinking, someone in her position should not have been so foolish? And I am not buying the impulsive defence being touted, she knows what she is doing and this has been happening a lot in the area. I wonder if others are now looking at CCTV to see who else might have been behind this. I suspect this will likely ensure that people really question the validity of her research and put pressure on councils to review research provided by her (she did the Calton Avenue cycling research for example) but ultimately make Cllr McAsh's job more difficult because she let the side down. What if, for example, some of the missing data One Dulwich have asked for had been collected by her?
  10. Yes I stand corrected, I think a lot of people were putting Lime bikes in the space in front of Superdrug. What I couldn't help but notice today was that on Hansler another e-bike and e-scooter Bay has gone in near Lordship Lane and next to it are two bars for people to lock their private bikes. But the two bars are hemmed in by raised kerbs that jut out into the road with two huge bicycle signs on them. They could have added three more bars in the space of the raised kerb. I couldnt help but think why is it the council devotes so much space to commercial hire companies yet doesn't do the same for private bike owners? Maybe the commercial aspect takes precedent but commercial space seems to outnumber private by a significant factor.
  11. As we were saying about the bad behaviour from some on the pro-LTN lobby even those supposed impartial academics are at it...deary, deary, deary me....such a bad look (sorry to have to post a link from the Torygraph) and you wonder why we throw doubt on their "research". Anna Goodman has apologised but she should not be allowed near any research projects in relation to LTNs, the funding for the projects reviewed and a huge asterix put next to any work she has ever published. She has just confirmed what many of us suspected... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/01/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-anna-goodman-removes-poster-cctv/
  12. Isn't that about 20 yards from the one outside Superdrug?
  13. But what do people mean by members? I signed the petition, does that make me a member, I presume it does? Or do people mean the people organising it? Are people being shamed by admitting they support One Dulwich because this seems to be the direction of travel? Cllrs McAsh, Newens and Leeming know who met them so perhaps those so concerned should ask them to confirm it wasn't Boris, Farage or Clarkson. And let's be honest the pro-LTN lobby seemed to have near exclusivity when it came to fake names - Manatee, BooHoo etc. I do wonder whether the people behind that are still posting under their original names, certainly some of the postings are similar.
  14. Dulville - to be fair, similar accusations can be levelled at many of the more extreme idiots on the pro-LTN lobby as well (tearing down the signs of those opposed to the measures, the actions of Tyre Extinguishers, the posters stuck on people’s cars on their driveways). There are idiotic extremists on both sides of argument but the marked difference seems to be that you don’t see the anti-LTN lobby condoning the actions of the idiots on their side. Whilst, and take a look at the thread on Tyre Extinguishers or the XR camp on Peckham Rye, many on the pro-LTN lobby seem to support and condone the actions of some of their more extreme colleagues - seemingly happy to turn a blind eye to anything that matches their ideological viewpoint. if you take a straw poll of some of the posters on here there is far more nastiness, aggression and childish name calling from the pro-LTN lobbyists - you don’t have to scroll far up in this thread to see examples of it. Why? Because someone dared challenge them on something they are ideaologically wedded to. Funding sources are an important question and I have no answer in relation to One Dulwich but that track is also a “right wing conspiracy” trope often used to bash anyone who dares to challenge LTNs. If you support the LTNs you can approach the council to get funding for your events and campaigns (as we have seen locally) but this is not a route open to anyone who challenges them as the council will refuse to fund. For a long while councillors and MPs refused to engage with One Dulwich, citing things like needing to know who all their members were, a measure I very much doubt they apply when someone wants to engage on a subject the council or MPs support. So good on Cllr McAsh for breaking the “no engagement” policy that we have seen for so long. Will anything come of it, unlikely, but good on him for at least talking to them and those 2000+ people locally who support them.
  15. Yes it is very frustrating, especially when you throw in the strike-days too. It does seem ludicrous that for two consecutive weekends there will be no trains along our line and only one weekend out of 4 from the end of June to middle of July.
  16. Earl - honestly, you are starting to embarrass yourself now. Anyone can paste a section of a discussion and make accusations without the context and by posting those supposed offending posts you have validated my point entirely, and made yourself look a bit desperate and daft. Nowhere do I defend SUVs (but I notice how you, probably after reading the posts and realising you don't have any ammo, you have now changed your accusation to be one of "deflecting criticism of SUVs") - I mean you've even been daft enough to post where I say "many SUVs are unnecessary but I am sure there are a variety of reasons why people buy them". Every one of those posts I stand by and are completely in context with the conversations that were happening at the time and do nothing to undermine position but by posting them you do look awfully petty and somewhat obsessed. But, you know, do keep trying....I am sure you can find better ways to spend your time but if it makes you happy keep going....
  17. Earl - in what context did I defend SUVs? And the temporary pavement widening measures were in for so long it was actually hampering traders. If you had been bothered to find something other than things to attack me with you will also read that I was very supportive of segregated cycle lanes, that I felt Lambeth did a much better job facilitating social distancing on pavements than Southwark did and was challenging the council on why they had not installed more bike parking infrastructure on Lordship Lane during the pandemic. Hey, but that doesn't suit your narrative does it - you are starting to look foolish now and seem to want to just pick a fight and are cherry-picking and deliberately misrepresenting a lot of what I, and other people, have said - you're going to have to try a lot harder than that as that tactic is a well worn path. And you have the gall to suggest I am the one spreading misinformation. And you are now misrepresenting what Admin said about threads.....so maybe check back and take a look at their guidance... It is inevitable that this thread will soon be lounged so you can rejoice then, pat yourself on the back for a job well done, but it won't get away from the fact that One Dulwich is engaging with Cllr McAsh - something you all seem to be so terrified of. Personally I think you're just angry because I challenged you on your 40% cycle growth stat that was clearly you spreading mis-information....;-) Come on Ex- you've been on this thread long enough to know I have posted a lot of ideas - some of which you even agreed with so don't get drawn into Earl's negativity rat hole. But there you go throwing climate change denier into the equation - all you have to add is fascist petrol-head Jeremy Clarkson Tory and then you have the full-house of pro-LTN name-calling! Anyone who dares object to the LTNs has had to put up with this childish nonsense for three years and it paints the pro-LTN lobby in a very, very negative light.
  18. DuncanW - completely agree - it's now very much part of the middle-class social circuit. How many shots do you now see on TV with immaculately presented audience members filming themselves during the main sets - it's no longer about immersing yourself in the experience but sharing the experience? One of the key USPs for some of the glamping sites dotted around the perimeter now is that they have hair and make-up artists on site - I am like...WHAT, whatever happened to washing with nothing more than wet wipes for 5 days!!! I remember going to one of the very wet Glastonbury's and marvelling how my friends and I were dressed like extras from Platoon with ponchos, walking boots and hats and seeing groups of girls in heels wading through ankle-deep mud - it was like how did you not know it was going to be like this? I do wonder what a lot of the crowd now make of some of the fields further away from the main stages and whether they immerse themselves in it or look on it like a bit of a Victorian freak show - my motto was always if you haven't thrown yourself into something Victorian Freak Show'esque then you haven't done it properly. Oh but I was heartened to hear the Cider Bus mentioned in dispatches during the coverage is still going strong - I don't even like cider but always seemed to find myself there! Yes, the mobile companies put huge amounts of equipment on site to ensure good connectivity - EE used to sponsor it but Vodafone has taken it on from this year - some of my journalist friends get to go each year as guests of the mobile phone sponsor.
  19. Ah, we're back to the small vocal minority de-positioning again are we.....it seems the pro-LTN playbook is being dusted down again....here we go again....didn't seem to work the first time so I don't suspect it will this time. And Earl I have been very clear on my position on what I think needs to happen over the years on this subject and I think the only way to properly, and fairly, deter car-use is means-tested road pricing. All of your suggestions about removal of on-street car parking, widening of pavements, 24/7 bus lanes, restrictions on super-sized SUVs (something I do agree with I hasten to add) is just the stuff of fantasy as it is utterly impractical in the real world - and a real world, for right or for wrong, that has become so car dependent it's roots are embedded in the infrastructure of the country. The notion as well that current bus delays are being caused by too much traffic might be factually correct but it is actually because many bus lanes have been repurposed to support more cycle infrastructure thus forcing buses to share the road with other vehicles - and this is where I have a big problem as this sort of disruption to other transport methods can only be justified if the transition to cycling is in the 100s if not 1000s of % - it currently stands at 13% growth from 2019 to 2022 - that's not nearly enough and we can't keep blindly following the Will Norman "build it and they will come" mantra - they aren't and they won't. P.S. Why does Will Norman even have Walking in his job title - he seems to care not one jot about that - you only ever seem to see him on a bike or talking about bikes? I do wonder if the anger of many of the posters being directed at One Dulwich is actually meant for Cllr McAsh for daring to entertain them - the council has stoically refused to engage and him doing so seems to have been the trigger for many to go on the attack. The fact that Cllr McAsh is entertaining a discussion and taking a pragmatic approach to this seems to be really angering a lot of pro-LTN supporters - perhaps they know where the skeletons are hidden and what he might find if he goes looking! 😉 Cllr Rose leaving may be the catalyst for change the council has so needed for a long time. Penguin - you are absolutely right - by Southwark's own measure Dulwich was the last place you put an LTN but it became a local councillor vanity project and no-one in the senior echelons of the council had the gumption to see what might the negative implications of the project might be - they allowed themselves to be led by the pro-LTN, pro-cycle lobby. Additionally, if you told me 10 years ago that a Labour council would repeatedly ignore the pleadings of emergency services about their LTNs I would have not believed you - but this is the mess the council got themselves in over this issue, I think the Turney Road closure debacle shows just how out of touch elements of the council are - to even submit that proposal shows they lost all grip on reality - one day we will no doubt find out who was pulling the strings in the background.
  20. Problem is the young and adventurous have the attention span of a gnat nowadays and spend more time staring at their phone than they do listening to music - yet alone going to gigs and exploring new types of music, I heard Tom Hanks speaking recently and he was saying that the big challenge for the film industry was how do you cater for an audience that is made up predominantly of people who can't sit and concentrate on one thing for 90 minutes, who gorge themselves on platforms like Tik-Tok; the music industry is wrestling with it as much as film. As a youngster if I wasn't doing a gig every couple of weeks I felt like I was missing out (and if I ever went to a gig in a venue bigger than the Shepherd's Bush Empire I felt like the band was too commercial!) I keep thinking I will take the kids to Glastonbury but then wonder if they would enjoy it as much I would and whether I am trying to relive past adventures. I think the days of the £150 festival ticket are long gone - standing tickets at one-off stadium gigs cost around that now and so many smaller venues have closed over the years - Astoria, Hammersmith Palais etc - there isn't the breadth of gig options now.
  21. We'll agree to disagree but thanks for taking the time to respond - that's the beauty of debates - you don't have to agree! I will say this though for a group of folks so steadfastly sure you are right about the data and what's been happening you're all seemingly a little tetchy about Cllr McAsh engaging with One Dulwich - which does make me chuckle and suggests you know it's not as clearcut as you would like it to be....all many of us have ever wanted is for the council to engage with all groups who have an opinion, treat everyone equally, and this seems to be, and have been, a big problem for many on the pro-LTN side. Interesting isn't it - the monitoring just happened to end when another council had to admit/was exposed that it had been manipulating the numbers to its (significant) advantage via the placement of the strips (similar strips to those used by Southwark) - but, you know, that's just a co-incidence and the monitoring in Dulwich had to end at some point and the removal of those strips closest to junctions was purely co-incidental....;-) I was saying for a long time before the Enfield disclosure that Southwark had moved a lot of strips closer to junctions to manipulate the readings and I very much suspect I was correct - the one at the junction of Melford had been located between Court Lane and the bus stop near the junction of Upland in the early days of monitoring (how do I know this, because I would meet one of my children at the bus stop after school every day) and the position it was moved to is the slowest moving part of Lordship Lane South due to the choke point approaching Melford towards the Grove Tavern. An accidental error I am sure. In fact I don't know how accurate the map on the dashboard purports to be but the one at Lordship Lane South was never where it is indicated on the map - probably another accidental error I am sure. If that map is anything to go by when so many distinct points are flawed then it often means the overall analysis is likely to be flawed too...if the supporting pillars are flawed then the roof comes tumbling down...eventually
  22. Northern - as I said the devil is in the detail - look beyond the summary page at the charts below the summary - the traffic data analysis interactive charts. Click on the individual streets and looks at the graph trends and look at some of the trends - some are heading upward aren't they? The summary page also has a very interesting use of colour - seemingly orange for any increases below 5% and red for any increases over 5 % yet green for any decrease - even very low decreases - clever use of colour to help the narrative. You "don't think the council has stopped monitoring because"....surely the council should be telling us why they are no longer monitoring - it just stopped, without any warning, no update from Sept 22 and then many of the strips removed. Do they consider it job done, that the measures have now "bedded-in". Without clearly communicating why they stopped they open themselves up for attack - especially given the pressure on other councils who have admitted the data is not accurate. The council should have been publishing the next raft of monitoring data on the dashboard around the time Enfield council had to admit the monitoring strips had been under-counting slow moving vehicles (and admit that their contractors had been deliberately ignoring the manufacturer's usage guidelines when it came to placing them). Given Southwark had moved many of the monitoring strips closer to junctions (see the one that was very close to Melford Road) maybe they decided that they had to stop monitoring and remove the strips in case they were going to have to admit that had been, ahem, accidentally putting them in the wrong places. At the end of the day I reserve the right to be sceptical about anything they do in relation to LTNs because this is the council that: - brought these measures in under the guise of social distancing - initially decided to only monitor within the closed roads (and had to be forced to monitor outside of the closed road) - repeatedly ignored the input from emergency services on immovable barriers and put lives at risk as a result and kept doubling down on it - created a consultation response document that only allowed people to be supportive of the measures - removed monitoring on Underhill Road early in the process even though it was a clear displacement route and refused to monitor it - extended the consultation deadline and sent squads of activists to lobby residents (many of whom were on the Labour party rolodex) into responding - moved monitoring strips closer to junctions to ensure they were in areas of slow moving traffic - created the EDG Central debacle with some bizarre modelling dreamt up by goodness knows who - got angry and aggressive and reduced TFL staff to tears because TFL dared state in a report that congestion was being caused by the Dulwich LTNS and refused to remove it - dreamt up the idea to close Turney Road with a proposal so expensive it was the same as all of the other programmes combined and got laughed out of the room as a result ....to name but a few....and there are no doubt plenty more so there's more than enough to suggest we should trust them about as much as we trust the Tories! 😉 But despite my whining I am happy One Dulwich is getting a hearing with Cllr McAsh and I know a lot of other people are too so I expect we will be hearing more from them over the coming months.
  23. Virtually all is not all though is it - and remember the council (Cllr McAsh in particular) said the measures could only be considered a success if traffic for all was reduced. And the trend in the data in the dashboard (the devil is in the detail and all that) suggests that many other roads were heading toward the red category before the council stopped updating the dashboard and removed many, if not all, of the monitoring strips. These are not doubt some of the many questions that will be put to Cllr McAsh as the engagement with One Dulwich continues - as I have said before what comes of it who knows Cllr McAsh seems to have his heart in the right place and was trying to be pragmatic in the early days of the LTNs but I sense had to toe the party line as the pressure mounted. Only Cllr Burgess seemed to be more vocal in her questioning of the impact on the plans and measures.
  24. This is a shame as I heard it was going to be some sort of eatery....a dentist is very dull! 😉
  25. Earl - no it doesn't - the fact you claim that the dashboard shows that traffic has fallen "as a result of the LTN" shows just how much of the pro-LTN Kool-Aid you have been drinking and how you are moulding information to fit your narrative - something you seem more than happy to accuse others who don't subscribe to your viewpoint. What the the dashboard actually shows is that from around 2022 traffic, in many places, was lower than pre-pandemic levels but has been increasing and, on some roads, close to or exceeding the pre-pandemic levels - the overall direction of travel is an upward trend in traffic levels on many roads monitored during 2022. Of course the means and location of monitoring strips used to collect the data also throws some doubt on whether these numbers are artificially lower due to the sub 10kph issue but that's another discussion completely. In light of this and per the earlier conversation on TFL boundary roads this is also very telling from the dashboard that: Traffic has been rising across Southwark since the end of the 2021 COVID-19 lockdown, and was at 93% of pre-COVID levels in April 2022 at count points in the north of the borough, and above pre-COVID levels on the TfL network near Dulwich. Let's hope Cllr McAsh provides some of the data to fill in the blanks
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