Consultation on ?improving? the junction of East Dulwich Grove, Townley Road and Green Dale

[edhistory]

edhistory Wrote on 30 November 2014:

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> Does this mean that the end-game is a very large

> roundabout with Townley Road, Calton Avenue (part)

> and Woodwarde Road becoming a one-way system?

James Barber Wrote on 01 Decdember 2014:

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> Hi edhistory,

> No it doesn't.

It was Court Lane!

[Charles Notice]

Cllr barber will MG have a barrier?

No

OK

[macutd]

I keep hearing "ignored by Southwark officers" Who are these unelected high and mighty people who represent themselves and ignore the people that they should be representing. Can't we get rid of them and put people in that do what we want?

[richard tudor]

Did anything come out of this meeting that we should worry about for the future regarding the clearway and one way, roundabouts etc?

Unable to get there would appreciate any update

[Tessmo]

Hello, Richard Tudor. The second Sustrans workshop on Saturday was a general introductory one again - the same as the first one - and people were invited to put symbols on maps to show where they'd like pedestrian crossings, etc. The four TfL designs for the junction of Court Lane/Dulwich Village were presented again - all giving priority to Calton Avenue, and two making Court Lane one way. It was stressed that these TfL designs were only the first stage, to help discussion - but how four designs that were essentially the same was supposed to help discussion I'm not sure.

The 'concept design workshop' which looks at everything people have said so far, and tries to narrow down the options, is this Saturday 3 October from 1pm to 3pm at St Barnabas CHURCH (not parish hall) in Calton Avenue, SE21 7DG. As far as I'm aware, you can still turn up and object to the whole process if you want to. As someone at Saturday's meeting said, the Court Lane/Dulwich Village junction is key. If, for example, Calton Avenue is given the priority, so it becomes a much more attractive short cut for cars, fiddling about with pedestrian crossings is all a waste of time.

[hopskip]

Tessmo Wrote:

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> Hello, Richard Tudor. The second Sustrans workshop

> on Saturday was a general introductory one again

> - the same as the first one - and people were

> invited to put symbols on maps to show where

> they'd like pedestrian crossings, etc. The four

> TfL designs for the junction of Court Lane/Dulwich

> Village were presented again - all giving

> priority to Calton Avenue, and two making Court

> Lane one way. It was stressed that these TfL

> designs were only the first stage, to help

> discussion - but how four designs that were

> essentially the same was supposed to help

> discussion I'm not sure.

>

> The 'concept design workshop' which looks at

> everything people have said so far, and tries to

> narrow down the options, is this Saturday 3

> October from 1pm to 3pm at St Barnabas CHURCH (not

> parish hall) in Calton Avenue, SE21 7DG. As far as

> I'm aware, you can still turn up and object to the

> whole process if you want to. As someone at

> Saturday's meeting said, the Court Lane/Dulwich

> Village junction is key. If, for example, Calton

> Avenue is given the priority, so it becomes a much

> more attractive short cut for cars, fiddling about

> with pedestrian crossings is all a waste of time.

Tessmo. Very helpful. I am going to post this to the Quietway thread too.

thanks for the summary and reminder for next Sat.

[rch]

Unfortunately I missed last Saturday's session... is there any way that someone could post scans of the options??

We went through this exact exercise back in 2008 when we consulted on a join-up scheme of five junctions in the area in order to get the traffic to flow more eloquently while also incorporating improvements for pedestrian and cyclists, so I'm wondering if all this is going around in the same circle or if it's being directed in a way that will hamstring the overall situation even more?

[wulfhound]

I keep hearing "ignored by Southwark officers" Who are these unelected high and mighty people who represent themselves and ignore the people that they should be representing. Can't we get rid of them and put people in that do what we want?

Officers ultimately answer to elected councillors (whether directly, via cabinet and/or via community councils). However, if a different party controls the council to the one your ward representatives belong to, getting them to do what you want can be challenging. Assuming everyone wants them to do the same thing, that is.

Did anything come out of this meeting that we should worry about for the future regarding the clearway and one way, roundabouts etc?

No roundabouts. Some suggestions that the Village end of Court Lane might become one-way. I understand why they came up with that (trying to make the right turn from Calton Ave in to Dulwich Village less difficult for cyclists) - but it risks creating a de-facto gyratory / one way system with Woodwarde Road, which is in nobody's interest. Simply moves the problem 80 yards north.

If, for example, Calton Avenue is given the priority, so it becomes a much more attractive short cut for cars, fiddling about with pedestrian crossings is all a waste of time.

I was at a table with a couple of Calton Ave residents, they seemed pretty fed up with traffic levels as-is.

[Tessmo]

@rch

Here are the four TfL draft designs for the junction of Court Lane and Dulwich Village http://turneyandburbage.org.uk/2015/09/24/dulwich-village-junction-possible-redesigns-photos-of-drawings-for-discussion/

Southwark didn't want to circulate the draft designs more widely, so a resident took pictures on a mobile phone.

Basically, they all give priority to Calton Avenue, and two of them make Court Lane one-way. (As far as I know, we weren't told how far up Court Lane the proposal for one-way traffic extends. Also, there had been no modelling as to where traffic would go e.g. up minor residential roads? on to Woodwarde Road?)

There also seems to have been no attempt to link this junction to congestion or capacity at other junctions, particularly....Townley Road.

There's discussion about all this on the Quietway thread, too.

[Zebedee Tring]

In other words they have implemented a remodelling of the Townley/EDG junction which seems to have had the effect of making traffic worse in Calton Avenue, which effect they have ignored when coming up with a further proposal that will increase the traffic in Calton Avenue even more. And that's just talking about the potential chaos for Calton Avenue, let alone many other roads in area.

The words "brewery","piss up", "organise"and "couldn't" spring to mind.

[rch]

They are all quite shockingly bad. Every single one of the options makes the provision for pedestrians worse in an area where there is extremely high pedestrian footfall.

You'd think they would have learned their lesson with staggered pedestrian crossings at the old Townley junction and the relatively new pedestrian island at the junction of Half Moon Lane and Herne Hill.

Pedestrians will always circumvent the longer crossing distance caused by the staggering by running out in front of cars, which is really unsafe.

Why does improving cycling have to inconvenience pedestrians? They've even just done it again up at the Calton buildout at the Townley junction.

[christgill]

Tessmo Wrote:

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> (As far as I know, we weren't told how far up

> Court Lane the proposal for one-way traffic

> extends... )

The extreme right-side of the "one-way" plans seem to show the bottom of Court Lane continuing round into Dekker Road.

[bawdy-nan]

Doesn't the reallocation of Calton as the through route just come down to fixing what looks like an ongoing problem: that much of the traffic already assumes that it is the through route i.e. that they don't need to stop for cars going "straight on" down Court Lane?

Locals know the peculiar layout but I find you have to be extremely cautious when crossing the junction and going straight on / right into court lane. In a car I always indicate right and make eye contact with any car waiting to cross the yellow box, as a cyclist it's pretty scary and I've been "nudged" on a number of occasions and as a pedestrian trying to cross court lane or Calton it's extremely hard to judge the intention of cars because very few indicate to go "left" off the main road and onto Calton. I can't see how reconfiguring it will increase the traffic into Calton.

Also, don't the plans show widening of the pavements at the crossing outside the school?

I do agree with you about the segregated crossings being a likely problem, especially in the morning and at pick up when the pavements and crossings are full of not just pedestrians but buggies, scooters, dogs, bikes being wheeled across by children not confident enough to navigate the junctions on the road - I can't see how they'd all fit into the islands.

[bawdy-nan]

RCH I'm not surprised this junction has been looked at before as it is awful. What were the suggestions when you were involved in looking at it?

[intexasatthe moment]

" Southwark didn't want to circulate the draft designs more widely " - how bizarre .Either you bring plans along to a public meeting with the aim of disseminating info and provoking discussion ,or you don't .

Consultation lite ?

[Tessmo]

@bawdy-nan

If you give Calton Avenue the priority, I'm pretty sure cars will behave will less consideration. At the moment, because Court Lane has the priority, people have to slow right down and, as you say, indicate, be very cautious and use eye contact. That's exactly how we want cars to behave at this difficult and congested junction.

Yes, it can be improved. Definitely should be improved, I agree, for both cyclists and pedestrians. But it feels to me as if TfL engineers haven't given the complexity much thought. Will giving Calton Avenue the priority make it better or worse as a Quietway for less confident cyclists? How does it all link with Townley Road and the tailbacks and congestion that already exist on Calton Avenue?

[rch]

Calton Avenue used to have the priority - the main reason behind the current narrowing build outs (which residents campaigned for) was precisely to divert the traffic priority away from Calton while also narrowing the entrance to Court Lane, making it easier for pedestrians and schoolchildren to navigate.

Where this narrowing tactic went wrong is that it was meant to be part of a whole junction redesign which got politically obstructed because the new junction design (which had majority vote in the consultation) narrowed the three lanes going into Dulwich Village into two lanes, which ironically all these newly proposed options also do. So, only implementing half of the design had a knock-on effect on the traffic build up, which now looks like it's all being removed.

We could have a whole discussion about this if you guys want, let me know, or maybe start a new thread... I doubt I'd be allowed to speak out at a public meeting as I know too much background.

In the meantime, as a special treat for bawdy-nan, I'm attaching the drawing for the infamous double-roundabout proposal, which was politically undermined before it even could go to consultation...

[bawdy-nan]

thank you rch, a treat indeed!

[James Barber]

Roundabouts are notoriously more dangerous for people cycling and crossing roads. I've heard the number x14 more dangerous.

It would be a travesty to use cycle quietways money to make the junction less safe for cycling and walking.

[rch]

Hi James, ironically, this double roundabout scheme was also preferred by the campaigner who has been active in the pro-Quietways campaign, we often talked about working together to get it looked at again, but there was too much political opposition to it. It was also said to be the best logistical option by highways engineers...

In any case, things have moved on, so I'm going to write to Sustrans to see if they can tweak the staggered pedestrian islands in their selection of options...

I think Design 2 is probably the least worst of the lot, although I think all four of them are pretty bad for pedestrians.

[wulfhound]

Yikes - from a cycling point of view that double roundabout looks genuinely scary, and not much better for pedestrians. Can't believe anyone pro-cycling or pro-Quietways would recommend that.

This should probably get its own thread, but cycling wise the problems with the existing layout are as follows:

* Southbound Calton on to DV: you have to cross 4 lanes to turn left on to Dulwich Village. Much of the traffic turning left up Calton doesn't indicate; because it's a very short distance to the main junction, you're having to look in multiple directions at once.

Giving Calton priority & reducing Court Lane to 2 traffic lanes at the lights will make this a lot easier. You'll still have to be careful as some people may turn right in to Court Lane without looking properly or indicating - but making Court Lane one-way just moves that problem up to Woodwarde Road.

* Northbound DV on to Calton:

This is basically OK, for the type of people that use it at least. Right on to Court Lane & then left on to Calton - no major problems there.

* Northbound from Turney on to Calton Ave:

* Southbound from DV on to Turney:

These two have the shared problem of the staggered shape of the junction - the sight lines are weird, the exact path to take through the junction isn't clear, and there's a good chance an oncoming vehicle turning right either won't see you or will try and push through.

The TfL proposal is to give cycles their own lane with a separate "early start" phase to get through the junction before the traffic starts moving. Provided they can get the timings right, that should be much better than the present situation - the concern though is that it's quite a big distance to cross (30 metres?), a slow cyclist moving off from a standing start needs quite a while to clear it. Southbound they can hold right-turning traffic on red a bit longer to allow for this, but northbound there's no right turn lane on Turney.

@rch agree with you about Design 2 - although would be preferable without the kerb cutback at Turney. Design 4 doesn't have it, so it doesn't look like it's essential to the scheme.

[rch]

wulf, I think the key to any junction design in Dulwich/East Dulwich is to equally balance pedestrian/cycling/car manoeuvres without restricting bus movements.

I think it's progress that we agree on Design 2 from our different perspectives, would be interesting to see what other people think.

It sounds like the Sustrans session on Oct 3rd is going to concentrate on tweaking THEIR preferred option, so maybe it would be useful to attend this?

We probably need a new thread...

BTW, I only posted the double roundabout design to wind everyone up, as I have an evil sense of humour (insert smiley face). If I get around to it, I'll post the design that went out to consultation and got majority support back in 2008, although it doesn't really matter anymore.

[bawdy-nan]

wulfhound Wrote:

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> Right on to Court Lane & then

> left on to Calton - no major problems there.

Hmmm - this is the bit I find most problematic when I cycle- coming from Turney onto Calton and then right up Court Lane because cars coming down from Calton don't always recognise that the turn into Court Lane has priority and will drift across towards the lights. I've had several near misses here despite occupying the centre lane, ringing my bell to alert drivers that don't seem to have seen me etc.

[wulfhound]

If you're headed on to Court Lane as opposed to turning left in to Calton, I can see how that would be a problem, yes.

The new designs don't look much better for you then? e.g. none of them have any marked waiting area to turn right from Calton in to Court.

[bawdy-nan]

From an article in the Evening Standard making the case for improving cycling for London where most residents don't have cars....

"Councillors say the easiest way to attract constituents? ire ? to get the usually-indifferent turning up at meetings foaming at the mouth ? is to threaten to impose or increase parking charges. If you make space for cycling, you often take away space for parking. And it tends to be older people ? the car generation ? who are directors of transport and heads of planning in town halls."

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/rosamund-urwin-councils-need-to-step-up-to-make-london-a-cyclists-city-a2986166.html