buses going up crystal palace road

[jim_the_chin]

Just followed a 185 going past the uplands, a strange sight. I imagine it is related to an incident outside the row of shops near the harvester at the plough junction. The road was shut at 3.20 and must still be.

[local estate agent]

I saw a 185 at 8.30 this morning on Underhill Road - expalin that one then?

[teg]

The road is still shut from Harvester down towards ED (don't know how far) - or was when I passed through a short while ago. Anyone know what happened?

xx

[AcedOut]

All those road works probably?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Acccording to local radio news, a very bad accident (no more details). Lordship Lane closed in two directions up near Plough.

[katietatie]

Nope, definitely some kind of police 'incident'. The whole of Lordship is closed and there's a policeman on Underhill directng traffic.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Apparently someone got off the 197 bus around 3:30pm walked in front of the bus, got hit by a passing car, flew over the bonnet and was then dragged under another car. He was taken away in an ambulance according to my source, so lets hope he is going to be ok.

[Nero]

That sounds horrid. And that's why I wait for the green man and try to cross at a zebra. I see mums with prams and kids in tow scurrying across LL and I think 'why not just go to the crossing?'.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Reopened now according to bulletin.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

I saw a 185 pick up passengers every day at Vassall Road,Camberwell b4 the days of progress..

[Applespider]

Nero Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> That sounds horrid. And that's why I wait for the

> green man and try to cross at a zebra. I see mums

> with prams and kids in tow scurrying across LL and

> I think 'why not just go to the crossing?'.

Although if the accident was near the Harvester, as opposed to the Plough, that junction has no pedestrian crossings. To get from the Harvester to Cox's Walk on other side of the road safely, you'd have to walk a couple of hundred metres to the crossing beyond Melford Road and then walk another few hundred metres back the way to the crossing near Underhill Road and then back down the road again. And you'd still have had to cross two roads without the benefit of a green man. I can see why someone just crossed here. Further down LL where there are numerous crossings, it's harder to excuse - especially where kids are around.

I'm guessing traffic flow on the South Circular is why the junction doesn't have any pedestrian features that allow pedestrians to fully cross a road. If you know the sequencing, you can just about time it to cross to the traffic light 'island' and wait but it's definitely not a pedestrian friendly area.

[citizenED]

fully agree with that Applespider. That junction is terrible if you have young kids.

[Burbage]

I did notice a certain disturbance up my end today and wondered briefly what it was, but not urgently enough to stumble to the window*.

Applespider makes a useful point, however. Although I've crossed there every week for a year and not got dead yet, it's a particularly murderous junction. Since at least February, it's been on the map of 'sites without pedestrian phases', marked as requiring modernization, suggesting TfL might be going to do something about it.

I am pessimistic. The reason for this pessimism is that the Grove** junction used, until fairly recently, to have a pedestrian phase (a fraction of a minute in which all the vehicles were supposed to be stopped), but this has vanished. Turning the phasings back, and possibly upsetting the more infanticidal motorist, is presumably an option, but clearly not their favourite, so they put it on a map instead.

Blinkered optimists might thing that being on the map is a good thing. But there are 140 other junctions on the map, all of them against the Department of Transport's guidelines. And, although TfL were very keen about compliance, they were only this bold:

Our next step is to develop a framework for selecting which of these should be prioritised for review. This will be based on an analysis of pedestrian accidents at these junctions, current traffic volumes and consideration of what effect providing a pedestrian phase would have on traffic operations and congestion on the road network and how this might be mitigated. This information will be made available in spring 2008.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that's not three steps from fixing anything. That's just about working out how to work out which ones are going to get on the list they'll be having a think about considering. Naturally, no such report has emerged (see here), and frameworks still butter no parsnips.

If I had a conscience, I might think of stirring TfL with some sort of campaign, but I'm allergic to futility and have seen enough vacuous boilerplate to last a lifetime. I have no objection, however, to any bright young optimists following this up. Not, if my experience of bright young optimists is anything to go by, that they will.

*None of the following is about buses or Crystal Palace Road. If you don't like it, skip it.

**The Grove is the large and proper pub that lent its name to the junction and is currently being forced to masquerade as a peeling 'Harvester'.

[SimonM]

I fear it will need a couple of pedestrians killed at that junction before the PTB see some sense and restore a pedestrian phase to crossing the road in any one of the three ways there. There is just no safe way to do it at present.

[Pugwash]

Many years ago there was a campaign to get a green man phase on these lights, This stemed from the local community and went to Southwark's Traffic Management Section. They tried to get something implimented but because road came under (then) Ministry of Transport and was being designated a 'red route' they were not interested.

Suggest that our MP should take it up again or Boris.

[Jah Lush]

I walked past this incident yesterday evening around 6pm and spoke to a senior officer who was getting a bar of chocolate in one of the shops opposite and he said it was a man of around 40 who'd gotten run over. It looked very bad and he didn't think the guy would make it.

How many more road accidents at this junction will it take before something is done about it?

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

It is a really scary junction.

I've nearly been run over taking my kids and the dog to the woods there.

[Horsebox]

Jah Lush Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I walked past this incident yesterday evening

> around 6pm and spoke to a senior officer who was

> getting a bar of chocolate in one of the shops.....

I hope he wasn't in uniform. (6)

[solstice]

There was another accident there a few months ago, even if there was a crossing there people are to lazy to walk to a safe place to cross, also I am amazed the amount of people that run from the other side of the road infront of buses because they missed them.

[Clinker]

Horsebox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Jah Lush Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > I walked past this incident yesterday evening

> > around 6pm and spoke to a senior officer who

> was

> > getting a bar of chocolate in one of the

> shops.....

>

> I hope he wasn't in uniform. (6)

Maybe he was on duty and he was diabetic and forgot his sweets and didn't have a change of clothes with him...