wulfhound

Eh? It's ?7 per hour. Personally have found their Golfs and Fiestas are great for family trips. Granted, easier once the kids are old enough to get in and out by themselves, but that could be said of, well, everything in life. Waiting for the day that the Flex model expands further south and west - so far the zone is so small, I can adequately make most of those trips on public transport or bike. But places like the M25 belt, Richmond Park, Wimbledon Common, Kew Gardens etc. are easier by car, and hiring a regular Zip for a whole day is kind of pricey.

rendelharris Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Porsche Cayennes and Range Rover Vogues edcam Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > These things are so ugly. There are many higher priorities. YES.

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > (hoping so)? +1

Luddite. Just kidding - these things are, potentially, a massively less wasteful way to deliver small items than a person in a van/car (even one running on renewables). (This is, however, partly because the private courier firms used by Amazon et al are quite poor at consolidation, compared to the good old Royal Mail which of course began in an age before cheap, plentiful energy). Whether the stuff being delivered is itself a good use of resources is another matter...

I've done it once or twice. It's not actually as dangerous as you might think if you're reasonably quick (20mph camera-enforced limit and much of it too narrow to overtake) but the air quality is beyond awful - even at quiet times, far worse than anything you'll experience above-ground in London. Not worth it. A couple of other options worth considering are to hire a Brompton from Peckham Rye which you can take on the Overground at all times of day, or Overground to Shadwell and then walk (25 minutes) or grab a Boris Bike from the dock right outside the station (10 minutes).

@rahrahrah Depends. Ill health, poor mobility? Sure, no problem. Ten miles, fifty kilos of stuff, ditto. But for routine, sub-five-mile hops around the city - which is what most of what's on the road is doing? How about people stop being blind to the consequences created - which for school run distances, if you're able-bodied, are just plain unnecessary. Air quality - even if you don't believe the Clean Air Campaign's somewhat hyperbolic statistics about tens of thousands of deaths, it reduces quality of life for many times more. Noise. (Which, thanks to its effects on blood pressure, may well be responsible for more premature deaths than bad air - and if nothing else, makes the otherwise-lovely outside tables at the cafes on a Village pretty rubbish experience much of the time). Danger to others (#1 killer of under 25's in the developed world). Kids losing much their freedom to walk, run, scoot and cycle around the place independently. Wasting of road space, causing congestion for those trips/people for whom a car really is essential (and the concomitant increase in noise, emissions, etc.) Healthy habits for life - in the context of the school run, what they learn in their early years sets patterns that are hard to change. And all for what? Saving a few minutes here and there, keeping your hair dry, maybe avoiding breaking a sweat, not having to sit next to yoofs playing loud dubstep on the number 37. Worth it...? We live in a crowded city, our choices have consequences for others. Why on earth would you tread more heavily than you have to? The moral dimension here should be glaringly obvious.

.. but please watch David Hembrow's response (from the supposed cycling paradise of the Netherlands): .. and read the comments below the first video (never thought I'd say that) e.g. from Tom Gardner: Again, to see how it works in practice without going all the way to Poynton (or Assen), I'd really recommend a trip to Seven Dials (Covent Garden) or Leonard Circus (Old Street). My personal view - as an unqualified observer, regular pedestrian/cyclist and occasional driver - is that "sharing" works well for young-ish adults (with good awareness and mobility, and for whom a being hit by a car doing 10mph will likely not be life-changing). Fashion-shoppers and tourists at Seven Dials, office workers and hipsters at Leonard Circus, they seem happy with it. But in Dulwich we have a high proportion of young children and older people - both on foot and, in the case of the latter, some behind the wheel. I'm not convinced that intentionally sowing confusion and making people look in five directions at once is at all helpful if you're eight or 88.

@SpringTime yes, that is daft - preventing turns between one main A-road and another increases pressure on side roads which aren't built for it.

That would be amazing. No, it doesn't. Traffic is a product of human choices. That much is true. But that's an argument for fixing it there & provide further stick/carrot for "through" users to stay on main roads (as an occasional driver, I'd like both please - "stick" to prevent rat runs, and the carrot of road pricing to reduce jams on the main arteries).

@Tessmo The problem isn't so much zebras per se, but zebras where you're required to look in more than two directions at once. That's difficult for kids, and for people with impaired eyesight and/or joint mobility. There is something to be said for the island-style zebras where you only have to look in *one* direction at a time, but two is generally OK. Imagine using this junction as a pedestrian with kids - "Where are all the possible directions a car can come from? Are they going to turn or not? Are they going to stop or not?". Broadly agree, but shared space only works in practice when traffic speed *and volume* are reduced to a point where pedestrians dominate. If not, it's too easy for them to be bullied out of the way. Exhibition Road is what happens when you don't do that - it certainly looks much nicer than before, but is shared in name only. Leonard Circus in Hackney is one very much worth looking at - it kind-of works: particularly at lunch time when there are lots of office workers and little traffic (and, being Hackney, a bunch of hipster street food stalls). At rush hour / school run time it's not so good - more traffic, commuter cyclists bombing down towards the City, and smaller / less assertive pedestrians - not much sharing going on really. At least that's my take on it. I'd really recommend paying it a visit to see how much "sharing" you get, and by whom, at different traffic levels. I'm kind of sceptical that you could reduce north/south traffic on Village enough to make sharing work there - it's an "A" road in all but name. Perhaps on Turney, Calton and Court - with access restrictions on those roads, one might hope to bring volumes down low enough for everyone to share. Same here, but fundamentally it comes down to capacity, which comes down to politics. Southwark themselves could, I believe, come up with a much better design if they weren't committed to maintaining today's traffic capacity and access. A design that puts pedestrian capacity/safety first, then Quietway and commuter cyclists, then traffic access/capacity would look very different.

While there's lots to dislike about Southwark's proposal, this one seems equally concerning. Double and triple roundabouts are bad news for pedestrians & cyclists unless everyone is patient and considerate. And unless there are plans for mass medication of the water supply... As a pedestrian - there are simply too many directions to look in at once. Yes, most drivers/cyclists will see you and stop for zebra crossings. "Most" is nowhere near good enough, though. As a cyclist - approaching northbound from the south on Dulwich Village, as many do. Currently to make the right turn on to Calton there's really one significant point of conflict - merging across the traffic to the right turn lane. Usually there's a queue at the lights, so this isn't too bad. It's not perfect, but it's manageable. Everything else happens under signal control. The design proposed has so many possible ways to get hit making that one simple turn.. I think four or five conflict points in what's basically one manoeuvre. Same for Quietwayers approaching from the north/east and heading south/west -- four or five potential conflict points, compared to maybe two at the moment. The only way that can possibly work is with raised tables across every junction, with bike paths alongside the pavement and cycles crossing next to pedestrians on priority "bike zebra" crossings with waiting areas. A "delineated lane" (i.e. paint) with so many conflict points & without priority crossings or waiting refuges is an accident waiting to happen. The junction is dangerous because, contrary to their supposed priorities, Southwark puts traffic capacity before pedestrian & cycle safety. We should be asking why they are putting in extra pedestrian crossing stages to increase or maintain vehicle capacity.

Perhaps because modern kids grow up on push-button gadgets, and modern cars are plush, comfortable, well-insulated push-button machines which don't give you much of a sense of connection to your surroundings -- and, at in-town speeds, protect their occupants from most of the consequences.

There's also the option of taking an overnight bus from Victoria Coach Station. 27 hours on a bus with a toddler is a slog, admittedly, but if your friend can't raise ?700 it's worth considering - much cheaper than flying. Good luck!

"why not just put a dotted line down the middle of bus lanes, cyclists to the left, motorcyclists to the right?" Because hugging the gutter isn't something you want to encourage cyclists to do, most of the time. If I'm doing 15-20mph in a 20, I'll be in the centre or towards the outside of the bus lane - less swerving to overtake stopped buses; two possible directions to avoid potholes, drain covers etc. Uphill at low speed is a different story of course, as are busy 30mph bus lanes.

As a cyclist I'm fine with sharing bus lanes with mopeds / motorcycles, as I'm aware they're just as vulnerable. On one condition - which is that they comply with the posted 20mph speed limit. Close overtakes at 40+mph are extremely unpleasant, particularly by bikes which have had their silencers removed or defeated.

Thanks for flagging this up fordybee. There was talk of plans to rebuild this junction to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Seemed to be pretty controversial though (and some of the proposed designs weren't very good), don't know if it's still happening. Generally seems a TfL thing lately to get rid of "repeater" traffic lights (those on the far side of the junction from the approach/waiting area), which does cause additional problems for right-turning traffic waiting past the first set of signals. Just to be clear on what happened - Court Lane in to Turney Rd isn't a right turn, it's straight ahead (with priority over Turney-in-to-Village southbound right turns) - so there shouldn't be anything waiting there past the stop line. Do you know which road has the green immediately before the pedestrian green? That will make it clear as to what happened - my guess is it was Dulwich Village southbound traffic which got stuck waiting for the right turn, but only way to know for sure is to check the ordering of signals there. @ P.O.U.S. - in the UK, unlike many US states & some places in Europe, the green man is supposed to (in theory) confer absolute priority on pedestrians - no vehicle/cycle is supposed to be able to cross that line. But it's possible to have badly designed junctions where this doesn't happen, or other road users breaking the law.

Half a mile a day. That's pretty ruddy poor, for the average adult. My two year old does more than that. Lazy so-and-so's.

A lot of them don't, or have tiny plates (so as not to be legible from a distance / ANPR camera / passing police car). And if they're not wearing helmets, hard for the cops to pull them over. Unfortunately they've learned from the 2011 riots (where so many of the perps were ID'ed after the fact thanks to CCTV) & now all wear masks or scarves.

Sadly the case, due to a number of incidents involving poorly trained and supervised dogs, which chased or attacked the horses. Quite a nice surface for running on though - makes a change from endless unforgiving asphalt and concrete. They're fantastic for getting from A to B - but still require pretty close supervision when using them with young / inexperienced riders. Don't get me wrong - until they went in, it was flat out impossible to ride with kids in central London, so it's a massive step forward - but the park is an altogether more relaxing situation, as it should be.

Have heard the same as you Bic Basher, think they were talking about a 2018 or 2020 time frame for this. The small unknown is whether Southern's failure leads to an early TfL takeover of its services, which share the the Forest Hill line.

They're turning some trains around at Dalston Junction - afaik the eventual plan is to have 20 trains per hour between Surrey Quays and Dalston, with half turning at Dalston and half at Highbury. But with 10 an hour to Highbury, it's never a long wait even if you have to change.

Don't worry, you'll be fine! Even when there are dog leads stretched out, there's plenty of space to pass around them & plenty of time to anticipate. It's not like they appear out of nowhere. Second what DuncanW says - also, the park's quieter outside the school hols naturally, and during the nice long evenings we're getting at the moment. I'm a fast cyclist when I need to be, but parks are above all there to be enjoyed.

@ Nigello Bikes don't go in a guided busway, they go in a path alongside. A hard-sided concrete gulley with buses approaching at 50mph is not somewhere to be on a bike.

Just happened to see this on twitter: @SurreyDocksFarm "We have a fantastic opportunity for an 18 mnth Livestock Apprenticeship. Full details here: http://www.surreydocksfarm.org.uk/vacancies/ " Also worth contacting Capel Manor who run the farm in Crystal Palace park - and think about the self employment route too, as suggested above. Can probably do so informally for a couple of months without incurring any grief.