Traffic lights problem at Grove Tavern turning right onto Dulwich Common?

[Burbage]

wulfhound Wrote:

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> Might be one to drop Tessa Jowell a line about,

> though - she seems to be making the case for more

> walking & running as part of her election campaign

> - see

> http://essays.centreforlondon.org/issues/technolog

> y/london-a-walkable-city/ - and presumably knows

> that junction?

Jowell has, in the past, been made aware of the problem. However, as TfL are accountable to the Mayor and thus the GLA, rather than Westminster, it really devolves down to GLA reps and however much Jowell can supply in the way of graceful tutting, it makes no discernible difference. The local labour group, which included Helen Hayes, sent out postcards before the last local elections drumming up support for improvements to the junction, but nothing came of it, as you'd expect given the history. Val Shawcross and Caroline Pidgeon have both responded positively in the past but TfL successfully managed to avoid their interest by swifly putting out assurances implying that improvements were already scheduled. This is a favoured TfL tactic as it takes people a long time to notice that scheduled works don't happen, during which time there's usually been a new strategic plan or a revised set of priorities or a new budget or an entirely different administration, any of which lets them throw issues of their choosing into the 'legacy' box and pretend they never existed.

This is broadly how, despite being "prioritised" in at least two separate London-wide junction-improvement plans, under both Livingstone and Johnson, the junction (along with many other examples of TfL's murderously complacent contempt for pedestrians) has not been touched in over a decade, even though a pedestrian-friendly design has been commissioned, drawn up, consulted on, safety-checked and funded. When last challenged on this, TfL (after a long delay) changed tack slightly and decided there wasn't enough evidence that it wouldn't disrupt traffic flows (they put it a bit differently, but it comes to the same thing - in effect, they decided they'd need to analyse traffic flows again, but found themselves unable to bring themselves to do so, despite being the only body that can). Which means, as others have suggested, that TfL won't be doing anything until enough people have stepped forward to dent the safety statistics.