Bic Basher

And here come the stereotypes. Next it'll be about lycra clad cyclists in retaliation for the previous diatribe. Either discuss what the meeting achieved (or not), or it'll get lounged like the previous LTN thread.

So instead of discussing the implications of the meeting between Cllr McAsh and One Dulwich, we're going down this rabbit hole. Right....

There were kids playing with another jacked Lime bike on the Lordship Lane Estate earlier. It does make a really loud repetitive clicking noise.

Looks like I'll be riding via Dulwich Village, Calton Avenue and East Dulwich Grove for DKH Sainsbury's then. LL retail area I can just ride via Crystal Palace Road to avoid the traffic.

Barclays Local has moved from the LL Surgery to Grove Vale Library.

I'm not too bothered about air con, free WiFi or USB sockets on a bus. What they need to be is prioritised instead of being pushed onto the main traffic lane. There is another issue with bus lanes in that taxis are allowed to use them as well. On a normal day on The Strand westbound between Aldwych and Charing Cross station, the 176 crawls along the bus lane alongside black cabs which makes the whole bus lane redundant if they're also stuck in traffic with cars/vans alongside. Now dogkennelhillbilly may be right about the 185 which skims just inside Zone 1 along Vauxhall Bridge Road to Victoria, but the 176 is a mess and has been for years, not helped by Waterloo Bridge losing the bus lane northbound for a cycle lane as well as The Strand. Also remember I'm at the Forest Hill end of Lordship Lane, so don't have the benefit of being closer to the Zone 1 boundary at Vauxhall/Elephant close by using a bus.

I still use Twitter, but it's so hard to find tweets from people I actually follow. Like Sue, East of Dulwich still occasionally pops up in my timeline, but it's a load of blue tick nonsense.

Up until the late 80s, there were bus routes that used to be able to travel from one end of London to another. We used to have the 12 going to Park Royal and the 176 to Willesden Garage when the journey times were acceptable enough to get on a bus from this end of London. Now a 176 in peak time can take well over an hour and a half to get from Penge to Tottenham Court Road, which leaves those without cars the option of rail or bike. Converting what were bus lanes into full cycle lanes or pavement extensions in Waterloo isn't exactly helping the bus be the viable form of transport it should be for longer journeys. Unless you have plenty of time on your hands, it's simply not a viable option during daytime weekdays to travel into Zone 1. I use the Overground and Elizabeth line into the West End which is a much faster option.

At my end of LL, I'm on the London City flightpath rather than Heathrow. The Heathrow flightpath goes over the main part of ED.

M&S was closed this evening as well when I went at 6.30. The Grove Vale store is open.

If the TfL cycling scheme had been introduced across the whole of Greater London complete with plenty of docking stations rather than having them in the north of the borough, we may have had the private sector come in leaving the bikes on pavements in the first place. Yet Lime especially has tapped into a market where local residents have used them for trips locally or into central London where public transport has either been too infrequent due to Covid cuts in rail services or is too slow because of 20MPH speed limits and LTNs clogging up main roads.

Waterloo Road outside the station has lost part of the bus lane to expand the pavement as well, sending cyclists into the main road, which makes all of this a mockery of trying to provide cycle provision. I agree about the loss of the bus lane on Waterloo Bridge though, it makes what was a simple ride across the bridge on the 176 into an unnecessary slog when cyclists and buses could share the bus lane previously.

Isn't this just what Labour run Wandsworth did earlier this year? They started removing Lime bikes from the borough's pavements.

On Melbourne Grove I saw two lads riding Lime Bikes on the wrong side of the road on Sunday afternoon, one had the back wheel clicking which I'd assume is a stolen bike? I used Lime over the weekend and they requested I roll the bike forward and back to ensure the bike is properly locked after finishing my ride.

The first thing to realise about DAB radio is that unlike FM, it uses various transmitters across the country which enable it to work without having to change frequencies like you have to with BBC national stations if driving across the country using FM. (London has three multiplexes with transmitters across London and the home counties for robust reception, plus a Trial small scale DAB multiplex with a transmitter in Honor Oak). The nearest transmitter for the Kent multiplex which has a dozen stations on it including Radio Kent and KMFM is in Wrotham in West Kent which gets into SE London. If you go to Forest Hill, you can receive Kent DAB stations clearly, but becomes more patchy in ED because the hill blocks the signals from the east and we're also in a valley due to the hills below Palace. I can get Kent here occasionally, but it's not meant to be for here, so you either get it or not. Surrey on the other hand, which has stations such as BBC Radio Surrey and Lite Radio uses Crystal Palace as a transmitter to enable reception in places like Epsom, Staines and Weybridge with those of us in London getting the bonus of additional stations. However there's something called a 'null' to the north of Crystal Palace which means again us in ED get a weaker signal compared to Croydon for example which is to the south. In this case, move your aerial or DAB radio and it should work properly.

You can ride bikes on the pavement on Dulwich Common between LL and College Road, there are signs clearly marked that show pedestrians and cycles. It's something that most people aren't aware of as there are cyclists who still use the road and pedestrians who tell off those cyclists, including myself that I should be on the road.

I went past the two docking areas on Barry Road next to Underhill Road. The e-bike bay on the road is perfectly fine, but there's a blitz of Lime bikes alongside HumanForest who use it as a parking bay and it really is a risk for certain people trying to navigate the pavement.

The only Lime bikes I saw today were in the parking bay on Melford Road which has suddenly popped up.

The Cabinet changes are due to the resignation of Newington Ward Cllr Alice Macdonald who is moving to Norwich to fight for a Commons seat in Norwich for Labour. A by-election will be held in Newington Ward in due course.

It appears James McAsh is replacing Catherine Rose as cabinet member for clean air and streets. Yet another Labour Dulwich Cllr responsible for LTNs.

Clearly sticking two fingers up to 13 years of Tory government was more important that getting Court Lane reopened. But for Newens to spin it as an endorsement to their LTN scheme in the Village is stretching it a bit when the consultations for Calton and Turney were both against it.

I doubt they're cheaper than a train. A 60 minute pass on Lime valid for 3 days is £4.99 and HumanForest is £4, valid for 24 hours. While it's possible to get into Zone 1 within 30 minutes for an experienced rider, it may not always be possible to do it within 30 mins each way. Where the e-bikes win is on local journeys. The Grove to Sainsbury's DKH takes me around 8-10 minutes compared to the 15 minutes on a 176 or 185. Sometimes it can take 25 mins during the school run or on Saturday afternoons when the buses are stuck at the retail end of LL. The quickest I've riden from Peckham to the Forest Hill end of LL is 12 minutes. (20-25 mins on the 197).

Existing thread.

I spotted four Lime bikes dumped outside Court Lane Gate this afternoon. Two in front of the gates which appeared to be left by Lime and then another two by the right hand side pedestrian entrance.

Margy Newens posting more nonsense on social media when in both LTN consultations her constituents didn't want either LTN.