Siduhe

zerkalo, very welcome - it's a subject close to my heart. What really comes out to me from the TFL response is that this is all about funding (and the news that they have to buy some land to make the crossing work - presumably a bit by Cox's Walk to expand the pedestrian area, but who knows?). There's no way TFL is going to have the full funding in the near future - 2023 seems aspirational at best. What might make sense is getting the Dulwich Wood Councillors and Helen Hayes involved to see what alternative sources of funding there are - CGS or similar? If Southwark would come up with part of the funding, then maybe TFL could find the rest? So definitely worth engaging with Helen Hayes but the one thing that would make this happen more quickly is some cold, hard cash it seems to me.

For anyone who wants an update on the long-planned pedestrian crossing point at Lordship Lane/Dulwich Common, I got this response to an FOI request from TFL today:

KidKruger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > wow, pretty ,much the entire of the common, once > you account for those outside doing a whiteout. > why did they change from the area at the back > where its usually held, just to enlarge the event > ? > I think it's uncool in this area of the common. It's a one off change of location, apparently because of the existing works on Peckham Rye to put in flood/drainage defences.

I highly recommend watching a few of the Ogmios School of Zen Motoring videos (as recently seen on TFL adverts) - I'm a pedestrian, cyclist and driver, and yes - there are a lot of muppets on and around the roads. But every time I'm tempted to get wound up by someone else on or around the road, this is how I try and react. It's a small thing but it works for me. Although the 45 year old Dulwich Dad (wearing a Carhart jacket and riding a fixie) who threatened to get off his bike and "teach you a f**king lesson about how to ride a bike, that you won't f**ing like" earlier this week because I stopped at a red light with a green pedestrian phase (and pedestrians crossing) that he wanted to cycle through at high speed can do one.

It's not a new scam - I had this a few years back when someone opened a load of fake online shopping accounts in my name - but I'm sure is more prevalent now. It works like this: Scammer orders expensive goods in name of ED resident using credit or cloned card details. DHL or similar deliver parcel with expensive goods in. As soon as possible after real delivery, fake DHL driver knocks on door and says "oops, did you get a wrong delivery - our fault - I've come to take the parcel back". If the resident hands back the parcel, then the scammer gets to go off with the goods. In my case, I knew I hadn't ordered a tonne of men's clothes from Very and was on the phone with them when the scammer rang my door, but even though I had a strong suspicion it was a scam, he was totally convincing - even tried to take the phone off me to speak to Very to explain it was a delivery mistake. I can understand why people would hand back the parcel, even if they opened it and didn't think they had ordered it.

The last update I saw was that TFL "tentatively" had scheduled work on the crossing around Lordship Lane/Dulwich Common to start in late 2020. However, the project has fallen off the TFL list of open or closed projects, because they now only list projects from May 2021, which I suspect means the project is no longer going ahead. So frustrating. https://haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/hub-page/healthy-streets

These are by far the best masks I have found to wear with glasses. Very limited fogging and easy to adjust so you don't get any. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09J92GRXR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

TB600 - see No idea how credible this is.

I had an interesting experience yesterday crossing OKR into a cycle only lane with a pedestrian crossing across the cycle lane bit. The pedestrian crossing across the cycle lane is light controlled, but I don't think that matters for the new highway code. Street View link below hopefully. As the lights changed to green for cyclists to cross OKR, several pedestrians (one with a pram) crossed the cycle lane up ahead with their pedestrian light phase on red, so the lead cyclists stopped, with the result that those of us at the back were left in the road on OKR, as the cyclist lights changed from green to red, allowing all the heavy traffic on OKR to proceed right at us. Needless to say the OKR traffic did not give way and we all had to pull left/right up on the pavement to be safe. Am I missing something about the new Highway Code - does it apply even to a crossing point that is pedestrian light controlled or is it right that cyclists need to give way to waiting pedestrians at a crossing even when the pedestrian light is red? If it is, then I assume the answer is that the OKR traffic should have waited for us to wait for the pedestrians, but that feels...unlikely to happen in practice.

I really enjoyed Come From Away too - not that much of a musical fan but it's really well staged and the music comes from a live band on stage which was great. And the fact that it's based on a true story is both incredible and pretty heartwarming.

This, this, a thousand times this. I am constantly amazed at the cognitive dissonance of neighbours and friends who are passionate about the state of the environment and London air quality but still light up a wood burner most winter evenings. Having a liner installed may help but in no way offsets the issues with air quality and it?s so noticeable for others if you have an asthma sufferer in your family.

No specific experience but as I understand it, a key issue is how well insulated and draft proof your house is (as then the overall lower heat output matters less). How airtight is your home currently?

It rather depends on the force, the area and their respective priorities. I've posted before about City of London and Met Police who are big on policing the cycle lane and crossings around Blackfriars Bridge from time to time, both for private e-scooters and cyclists running the lights. I've seen them ticketing e-scooter riders and (in one case) confiscating an e-scooter (I suspect on safety grounds as it looked like it was on last legs).

There's a great article in the Times today by a senior QC (behind a paywall, so sadly can't share) but he explains why juries can and do reach conclusions that aren't obviously consistent with the law as passed by parliament in certain cases. In this case, the prosecution told the jury that Colston?s background was entirely irrelevant to the trial and they had to disregard it. Both the jury (and the recorder) seem to have taken a different view - this was not an ordinary, criminal damage trial but one that had to be considered in context, which is the right of every jury. The QC describes it as the inalienable right of a jury of peers to put "justice before the law". You can agree or disagree with whether the decision is just or not, but I don't think there's any basis to say they didn't have the right to make the finding that they did.

I assume our bus shelters in ED are TFL owned/managed? According to their most recent report and accounts - there is an ongoing program of bus shelter renewal and replacement, but also an interesting comment that: There a issue going on in Croydon last year where some bus stops got removed because some advertising deal that Croydon had terminated and there was a lag before the new deal with a different advertising business came in. Could it be something similar here (different type of bus stop with more advertising)?

I went to the Rosendale Road vaccination centre yesterday am (so pre announcement extending the program) and there was a 90 min queue due to a whole mix of factors - not enough vaccinators, not enough people to check in appointments, NHS computers kept crashing, people not keeping to the separate queues for appointments vs walk ins and a load of people pushing in to the front of the queue on the basis that they were high risk and couldn't queue outside in a big line. I have no idea if that was a one off "bad day" but it didn't seem like the most organised clinic. May be one to avoid.

I witnessed something similar (but nowhere near as bad) yesterday. I was on my bike stopped at a red light going up Turney Road towards Rosendale Road - a cyclist came up behind me, ran the red light and cut up a car coming the other way on green, car leant on the horn and shouted something muffled but obviously pretty rude, cyclist stuck up two fingers and called the driver something incredibly rude, assuming that the driver would continue driving along. By this time the lights had changed to green for me so I was cycling along the same road as the car and cyclist. Car was driving along slowly, kerb crawling the cyclist who by this time was up on the pavement - both shouting at each other (lots of "come on then, come over here and say that to my face" on both sides), so I went round the outside of the car and carried cycling along. About 45 seconds later the same car comes zooming up the road at high speed, goes past me and does that tiny little zig-zag left that drivers sometimes do to cyclists towards me - felt deliberate but couldn't say for certain as there was a traffic island coming up, so I'm pushed in a little bit closer to the cars on the left. But I'm kind of expecting it like I do every time a car goes past me at high speed, so I'd slowed right down and have no problem avoiding it as the driver zooms off. I don't think my experience is that unusual and it may well have been a similar experience as the cyclist mentioned by the OP. Both the other cyclist and the driver were in the wrong in my view and their inability to accept that they shouldn't have a total right of way to travel on the road as they want, as well as a huge amount of anger and rage at being "disrespected" ended up with a potential issue for other cyclists and drivers that had nothing to do with the original incident. Nothing to do with cyclists vs drivers, but everything to do with poor driving/cycling and that's what I'd like the police to be focused on. Met police do a regular traffic stop at the crossroads of Blackfriars Road and the Cut on my way into work and they pull up cyclists, mopeds and cars who run the lights or go through close on the pedestrian or cycle phase without reference to the mode of transport - and the result is that people don't run the lights any more like they used to and it's safer all round.

The website hasn't been updated for Christmas 2021-22 as far as I can see, but on Bank Holiday Monday 2020 (the equivalent of 27 December 2021) the only CPZ/Residents' Bay restrictions that were enforced was Bankside C1. On Street Parking (so parking on a single yellow) was subject to usual Bank Holiday rules. So if they do the same as last year, you should be fine. Odd that the website hasn't been updated though.

Brideshead, is there a reason you can't or don't want to use the e-newspapers service that Southwark Libraries provide? I hadn't appreciated that Southwark Libraries were obliged to provide free daily newspapers - rather I thought it was at the discretion of each individual library - but the free enewspaper service looks like it could be helpful for you while you are waiting for this to get sorted out.

There are at least two families I see regularly on my cycle in, around Willow Walk SE1 - we're obviously on similar schedules. Both kids tend to ride in front of the parent and both have helmets on, but neither of them can see over the handlebars. Parents ride in the road, not on the pavement and the route is a cycle route but it looks pretty terrifying to me. Not helped by the fact that one of the parents has a phone mounted on the handlebars so that his child can watch Peppa Pig at max volume en route. But that just may be my grumpy reaction given that we often end up at the lights at the same time and I find the noise at that volume really annoying and distracting.

Ah Steven Taylor, how we've missed you and your witty repartee...welcome back.

I can't speak for this year, but in the past you needed to register with the British Legion (as a business that wanted to have poppies available in November) by January of the relevant year. If the process is the same, in Jan of this year we were in lockdown which may have affected things.

I think there may be some confusion about the 90 day testing window including at your GP, although I'm not sure it helps your specific situation. The reason that testing does not take place within 90 days of a positive Covid test is not because you can still be infectious for Covid (assuming you are only infected once) but because there is an increased risk of a false positive result and it would lead to people isolating unnecessarily. So you could well take the test within 90 days and it would be negative in which case you can travel. The problem is that you might test positive, it would likely be a false positive, and you would be in a difficult position (Which is why the recommendation is the letter from a healthcare provider, but if your doctor won't give you this, I'm not sure who could).

I'm also in the commuting cyclist camp that is happy to see buses back on Rye Lane (both because it's the right thing for everyone else and because it suits me as a cyclist) - it's slowed the traffic down a lot (including other cyclists, shop delivery vans and mopeds that were going at really quite high speeds when the lane was closed to through traffic) and there are less pedestrians stepping out into the road unexpectedly. Haven't seen any problems with buses getting stuck between parked up delivery vans yet, but it will happen I'm sure. Out of interest I did try the Bellenden Road alternative that others have mentioned - it's out of the direct route for me (I'm Wood Vale, Forest Hill Road, Peckham Rye, Rye Lane, Surrey Canal Path etc) and I didn't find that route at all quieter for traffic than Rye Lane. I may be doing it wrong, but as a cyclist, the Rye Lane route feels safer to me as it is now (open to buses and deliveries). TBF I'm probably cycling out of peak times - 9am one way and 9/10pm the other way.

You should not cross a fixed camera but there will be spot checks apparently - using the Southwark cars with a camera on a pole for example.