Tessmo

Personally, I would have thought that a scheme that introduces more congestion in the morning, and more congestion on Townley Road, and therefore Calton Avenue, throughout the day - which 8A will - is likely to cause harm to children rather than keeping them safe... Good point @BrandNewGuy about lollipop people. I wonder what Safe Routes to School thinks about crossing wardens, and what they'll do if the funding for them suddenly disappears...

Hello, Edanna. The idea that this was a way of getting rid of lollipop people was mentioned right at the beginning, but it all got lost in the miserable mess of the Council pushing through plans that nobody local wanted. I don't know the answer. Maybe contact the planner [email protected] and see if he knows? Please post up what he says - it's a good point, and it would be good to find out what the plans are.

DEADLINE TODAY FRIDAY 13 MARCH FOR THE RE-CONSULTATION Only 500 characters on the online form (http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200308/current/3729/townley_road_junction_scheme_re-consultation), which doesn't allow you to say much. For me, what's most important is that nothing is done that makes the junction less safe. If you haven't replied already, this fits: ? the design is experimental. If the new cycling features don?t work, or make the junction less safe/less efficient, is there a budget to put them right? ? the pavement build-outs are too sharp. They will slow down long vehicles and make them swing out into pedestrian and cyclist paths ? one lane for Townley Road, with cars turning right stuck behind cars turning left, will cause tailbacks, increased air pollution, and congestion throughout the area ? the LinSig modelling must be checked

@ wolfhound I don't think I've misunderstood. School travel plans cannot demand re-building junctions or road closures. What they can demand is that parents re-think the way they take their children to school.

@ wolfhound Sorry, you weren't talking to me directly, but the point is that school travel plans need to say what they're doing to persuade parents not to bring their children to school by car. You can provide school coaches, even improve local transport, but if parents prefer to drive their children to school (maybe because they then go on to work), then the schools have a responsibility to try to make them change their minds. The schools could say, for example, the local roads round Alleyns and JAGS simply can't cope with all the traffic, it's creating problems for all the children trying to cycle and walk to school safely, it's increasing air pollution and causing congestion at all the local junctions, and we need to find a better solution. Otherwise it's a bit like having a water pipe with a hole in it flooding the road, but instead of mending the hole, or replacing the pipe, you insist that the only way to minimise the flooding is for everyone who lives nearby to stop having baths or showers. I think you'll find that local people don't use their cars much to get to work, and are lucky to be near enough to primary and secondary schools for their children to walk or cycle. So I'm not sure the locals reducing their car journeys would have much impact on the problem at all.

Gabe, I really don't think people are being unpleasant. It's just frustration, I think. Some people have the view that we don't need to do anything to the junction at all. Personally, I don't agree. I think it could be made safer. But I don't think the council should railroad through a scheme that introduces hazards and make congestion worse - at this junction, at surrounding junctions, and in the area as a whole. The most important thing is to get this junction right.

@Gabe The discussion on this thread is focused on the junction because it was the initial re-design of the junction, including the banned right turn, that started everything off. I think most people are so concerned about changes to the junction because, like you, they care about the knock-on effect on other roads and other junctions. The point has always been that the Townley Road junction doesn't work in isolation - the changes you make here affect the whole of the surrounding area. There's now a new design for the junction out for consultation. Personally I feel the Council has chosen the wrong option, and that either 10A or 10B, with the huge pavement build-out softened so that coaches can turn easily and without swinging out across pavement and cyclist paths, are far better than 8A. With respect, I don't think that means "hectoring more or less any proposal". I think it means trying to choose the proposal that gives maximum safety for pedestrians and cyclists, but also allows the junction to operate efficiently. Southwark Council doesn't seem to like having a pre-planning stage, where various options are openly discussed with the local community. In both the first and second consultations, the only thing you can do is say yes or no to what's put forward. We're trying to be constructive. The first time we said, not option 7 (with the banned right turn) but option 5. And now we're saying, not option 8A (which we think will make congestion worse), but option 10A or 10B. I completely agree that we need to look at how traffic works in the area as a whole. Like you, I think the junction of Calton Avenue and Court Lane is hazardous - and accident statistics support this. The Dulwich Society has called an open meeting this Saturday 14 March to discuss traffic in Dulwich - come along and have your say.

@wolfhound I can see what you're saying about Townley Road being one lane at the moment. But it's all to do with the planned pavement build-out. At the moment, right-turning traffic only has to move out a little way for all left-turning traffic to be able to get past. It's not marked as two lanes, but cars can turn right or turn left without blocking each other. (Like you, I know this junction well, and I've been watching what the cars do for some weeks now.) If 8A goes ahead - with the much narrower road width to accommodate the cycle lane, the waiting bay for nervous cyclists, and the huge pavement build-out - there is no possibility for a left-turning car to get into position until the right-turning car is way out in the middle of the junction. If two right-turning cars both leave Townley Road nose-to-tail, it's likely that a left-turning car will just have to wait until the next phase of lights before it can move. Given that there are already tailbacks all the way down Townley Road and Calton Avenue in the morning with the current layout, it's hard to see how 8A will do anything other than increase congestion. If you look at 10A or 10B (http://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/4080/townley_road_junction_scheme_re-consultation) - which might, if the LinSig data is correctly optimised, prove the better option for traffic flow anyway - you will see a layout giving Townley Road two distinct lanes. What you lose are the bays for nervous cyclists. Personally, I feel that if the junction doesn't work reasonably efficiently, and actually causes tailbacks and congestion, no one benefits. Finally, of course, there's the issue of coaches. One long vehicle trying to negotiate that very sharp turn is going to slow everything down even further... But that's a different point to the one you're making.

@Duvaller I agree. I support 10B because it has the two-lane approach for EDG westbound. However much Southwark tries to ignore traffic wanting to turn right into Green Dale, it exists. It's not a good idea to have the 37 bus stuck behind traffic turning right. @Bicknell Yes, I agree. 8A has only one lane on Townley. This is going to cause huge tailbacks, with traffic turning right stuck behind traffic turning left and vice versa. Surely we have enough traffic backing up on Calton Avenue and down Townley Road already. @Wulfhound The Quietway budget may be huge. But that doesn't mean we should tap into it to spend money on things that make junctions worse. Make junctions safe for cyclists. Make junctions safe for pedestrians. Encourage people to leave their cars at home. Improve public transport. But don't build in congestion to local junctions, cause traffic jams and increase air pollution. That's irresponsible.

What makes me want to weep is that so far thoughtful and considered discussion like this - how will the proposal work? is it the best solution? how will it be monitored and evaluated? - has been completely ignored. Even the experts at the Saturday session didn't seem too bothered about the detail. (Run away now children and let the grown-ups get on with the job.) As @wolfhound says, is there money put aside to put it all right if the new features don't improve the junction - or even make it worse? I am still concerned about the bigger picture. If the new design decreases the efficiency of the junction for cars, lorries, coaches, etc, they won't just disappear. They will find other routes, increasing congestion on residential roads. Or they will sit there, engines idling, increasing air pollution. I am all for encouraging more cycling and walking to school. Great if the 4x4s stay in Wandsworth, and a sea of cyclists appears in Dulwich. But this latest design just seems to me to be a Field of Dreams fantasy i.e. if you build it, they will come. Meanwhile, the few who venture out will find themselves caught up in one huge great big angry traffic jam.

@James Barber James, if you support a fresh pair of eyes reviewing the 8A option, how would you suggest we make this happen? Can you ask Andy Simmons, the chair of the DCC, on our behalf? Interesting what @hopskip has just posted up, too. It looks as if AECOM haven?t modelled the really busy time of day when the coaches are going through the junction. Why? @Woodwarde I?ve had a quick look at the documents you?ve attached. The Southwark Bid Assessment is baffling. The original proposal seems to have got only 3/5 - that is it goes only some way to meeting the criteria that it ?demonstrates how it will increase the number of children cycling to school?. Maybe this means that you have to do much more to encourage children to cycle than reconfiguring a junction? You could, for example, make sure you don?t clog up the local streets where children live with displaced traffic? The original bid scores 0/5 for ?a clearly stated commitment from the schools to not only implement the supporting measures but to take responsibility and implement change themselves?. Which doesn?t sound good. And finally the proposal scores 0/5 for ?A clear and acceptable approach to monitoring and evaluation.? Again, why? Why is no one going to evaluate whether this new proposal for the junction works? When it looks to all of us as if the new design is an optimistic stab at features that might be OK rather than a reasoned and considered proposal based on evidence and consultation? Anyone got any ideas about how to get TfL involved in this? Surely they can?t hand out a quarter of a million pounds without some kind of plan to monitor whether the money was well spent?

@ James Barber James Thanks for getting involved in the debate again. But I do want to take issue with a couple of things you said in your last post. I don?t think anyone would disagree with the idea of spending money on a junction to improve safety. The trouble with this particular junction at Townley Road is that the danger is perceived rather than statistical. That?s not a reason NOT to improve safety. But it would be entirely wrong to make changes at the Townley Road junction that just pushed the problem elsewhere ? by, for example, increasing congestion at other local junctions, some of which do have statistical records of danger, or decreasing safety for pedestrians and cyclists on residential roads (which will happen if option 8A turns the whole area into one vast traffic jam). Would you very kindly refer me to the assessment that shows that the Townley Road junction is inherently unsafe? It may well exist, but I haven?t seen it. My understanding was that TfL was willing to fund changes as part of the overall strategy to improve cycling to schools. Yes, I agree, it would be good to see an overall report about all local junctions, showing the order of priority for upgrades. You say that option 8A looks to have the least impact overall. Did you mean on traffic flow? You will know from all the debate on this thread recently that several people are very worried about the accuracy of the modelling that?s been done. Would you be able to ask, as our local councillor, for Southwark?s figures to be assessed by independent traffic consultants? The issue of the effect of the huge pavement build-outs on the turning circles of large vehicles like coaches (swinging out into cycle lanes and considerably slowing down traffic) is important, and council officers at Saturday?s drop-in session seemed unable to provide answers. I think you?ll find that a countdown to aid pedestrians is already in the proposal. Personally ? and I know some people on this thread would take issue with this ? I agree with you that doing nothing isn?t the best option. But I also feel very strongly that doing something that may introduce all sorts of new problems and new dangers is completely irresponsible. Please do let us all know whether you would support the call for an independent assessment of option 8A. I think we?ve all had enough of Southwark officers and AECOM/Conway not being able to answer reasonable and straightforward questions.

@Bicknell Sorry I meant to reply to you, too. Southwark says that the Q&A drop-in session on Saturday is a chance to talk to council officers about why they've chosen this particular scheme. You can call in any time between 11am and 2pm. I have no idea if concerns raised by the public will be taken into account and acted upon (perhaps I'll go to ask just this). Personally, I think a public meeting, where everybody could have heard the questions and answers, with officers staying on afterwards to deal with queries that people didn't want to share openly, would have been a much more efficient use of time. But then I don't work for Southwark... @duvaller Thank you for the addresses. Talking of councillors, have you had time to study the re-consultation document yet, @James Barber? @SlartiB Sorry, I'm assuming you're a 'he'. Like I'm assuming @jennys is a 'she'. Apologies if I've got it wrong.

@Jennys I know what you mean. Who would have thought that we'd have to get so expert at traffic planning... Basically, the re-consultation has come back with one preferred option 8A. This, like all the others, retains the right turn from Townley Road to East Dulwich Grove. But it has a number of other features that cause concern - for example, reducing Townley Road as it feeds into East Dulwich Grove to one lane. If you ask Southwark why they've chosen 8A over, say, 10B (which is not perfect, but is less likely to cause traffic jams), they point to the technical analysis of traffic flow done by AECOM which, they say, shows that 8A produces the best results. @SlartiB, who has looked at the full AECOM report (which has only just been published on Southwark's website), is questioning this. The figures don't look right. He's suggesting, and I agree, that this report should be checked by an independent traffic analyst. I hope that helps.

Thank you, @Slarti B. AECOM's 'technical note' has just gone up on Southwark's website. Dated 18/2. http://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/4080/townley_road_junction_scheme_re-consultation. If there's any possibility the figures might be wrong, I agree they should be checked by an independent traffic consultancy.

Hello, James I can see what you're saying. But this is a junction that's been changed, at great expense, so many times - and the first proposal the council came up with provoked extraordinarily strong opposition. Maybe it's time to be a little more conservative (with a small 'c' - I know you're a Lib Dem) and go for something that definitely works?

@townleygreen @James Barber I don't think there's any question of anyone not supporting the principle of making cycling and walking easier or safer. (I think you should have read the re-consultation document by now, James. It doesn't take long, and it's a big issue for everyone round here.) But my feeling is that the new junction proposal is going to introduce new hazards. This is a junction that's used daily by big buses and coaches (which is good - school coaches mean fewer cars). But because of the huge pavement build-outs, these large vehicles are going to be forced to swing out a long way in order to get round. Is that going to make the junction safer for pedestrians and cyclists? Southwark tells us that the pavement build-outs have to be so huge because the crossing distances must be shorter. But the new diagonal crossing that's been introduced looks pretty long to me... Added to all this, the new cycle features that have been sprung on us all at the 11th hour are not tried and tested. Or at least the two-stage right turns have only been tested in Copenhagen, the signalised cycle gates have been tried at roundabouts, and the waiting bays for nervous cyclists haven't been tested at all. While these features MAY be good news, they could equally be a total disaster. No one knows. In every other area of life (except perhaps falling in love and drinking too much), decisions are based on evidence and experience. If this junction yet again turns out to be an expensive nightmare, hated equally by pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, and eventually Southwark is forced to bow to public pressure and agrees it must be re-done, who is going to pay to put it right?

Also, it's a bit late now, in a re-consultation phase - when there won't even be time to report properly on community feedback before the new proposal is rushed to cabinet (in the person of Cllr Mark Williams) - to introduce brand-new features. If Southwark planners really thought these new features were important, they should have been introduced for the November 2014 consultation. Life can be challenging, as we all know, but Southwark seems to excel at making it particularly difficult.

@wolfhound Sorry if I wasn't clear. Yes, I know option 10 doesn't have traffic islands either. I was trying to make the point that it's all about weighing up different options. If you build out great big pavements in order to make pedestrian crossings shorter but, by doing that, you create lots of other problems for 1) large vehicles that need wide turning circles, or 2) cyclists who need plenty of room, good visibility and drivers who can see they (the drivers) don't have right of way, or 3) pedestrians who can't cross the road all in one go, how do you decide which design features to choose? I just think, at the moment, that Southwark is too focused on new and untested features, rather than thinking more practically about what will achieve the aim of cyclist and pedestrian safety at a junction that's crucial for traffic flow in a residential area.

@wolfhound It may not be entirely untested, but that's about as good as it gets. See pages 4 and 5 of the 'Townley Road re-consultation background options' document on the website http://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/4080/townley_road_junction_scheme_re-consultation. As far as I know, the cycle bays for nervous cyclists are also untried. It's not all good for pedestrians either. The crossing distances are shorter, but doing away with traffic islands completely is not good news for those who appreciate being able to stop and rest (the elderly, or people with disabilities). There's also the fact that the crossing distances are only shorter because the corners have been built out such a long way. This means that large vehicles will have to swing out and turn very slowly, which again might cause problems for both pedestrians and cyclists. Traffic planners obviously have a difficult job when they're trying to weigh up all the different features - especially if the money on the table is specifically tied to cycling improvements. But it seems in this case, based on the figures we've seen so far, that option 10 works just as well. Option 10 isn't perfect, but at least it doesn't include lots of new features that haven't been tested. It's also likely to allow for better movement of cars/delivery vans/school coaches (all of which won't go away if you've got a junction between two independent secondary schools that are constantly growing and building). What we don't want it is junction that doesn't work properly, so that we end up with unintended consequences, like large vehicles taking short cuts down residential roads or traffic jams that create pedestrian dangers at other junctions. This is an area where lots of schoolchildren already walk and cycle to school. It's important that Southwark looks at the area as a whole, and makes sure that changes to the junction at Townley Road will not cause safety problems elsewhere.

From what I've read on the website so far (and we haven't seen all the documents yet), the option Southwark has chosen is the one that's full of untested safety features. It's as if the money from TfL is being used to pay for a very expensive experiment. This isn't reasonable. The priority is safety. We need evidence that the proposed changes will work - or, at the very least, that they won't make the junction worse.

I remember when Councillor Mark Williams, cabinet member for regeneration, planning and transport, said: ?My thanks to everyone who contributed to the recent consultation which received a significant number of responses. In light of the considerable local concerns raised by residents the right turn from Townley Road into East Dulwich Grove will remain, and I have instructed council officers to work up alternative proposals to make the junction safer. Further details on the new scheme will be presented to the Dulwich Community Council meeting in March, with a formal decision to be taken soon afterwards. We are committed to further public consultation and engagement on any new options." What's happened so far is that Southwark has 1) started a new consultation without the necessary background documents 2) given tantalising glimpses of all the options it could have chosen, but presented as its favourite the one least likely to win public backing. Feels like we've been here before...

@Robert Poste's Child - from memory, I think 500 characters was all that was allowed last time, too. I get the impression that Southwark is hoping we don't have too much to say... I've been told that there are still some documents to come, so it might be best not to respond until all the facts and figures are out in the open. Deadline is Friday March 13.

Where's Southwark's full report on the first consultation? Surely that's got to be provided before you can expect anyone to comment on the re-consultation?

@wolfhound Yes, JAGS has planning permission for a Community Music Centre. http://planningonline.southwark.gov.uk/DocsOnline/Documents/349676_1.pdf. See also point 66 here http://moderngov.southwarksites.com/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=18934