What are peoples thoughts on proposals to close to traffic Turney rd, Court lane & Rosendale rd??

[bawdy-nan]

BrandNewGuy Wrote:

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> But you don't need convincing about bike use.

> Millions do and if they see Chris Boardman,

> they'll think it's not for them. Show Jo Brand

> cycling and I'll back your campaign ;-)

Yes, of course! But I think his focus has been on lobbying decision-makers to look at cycling infrastructure rather than getting nervous potential cyclists to get on a bike and pedal out into the traffic and for that a bit of celebrity status and jazz hands seems to do the trick.

[Pevara]

bawdy-nan Wrote:

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> I do take your point about side streets

> potentially becoming through routes and I think it

> is important to have proper modelling and trials.

Let's not gloss over this point so quickly (as you and Townleygreen seem wont to do - Wulfhound, I salute your taking a stand on this and saying you'd find the closure of Court Lane difficult to fathom).

There is no rocket science modelling required - if you close an arterial road, traffic (just like water) will find a way through the side streets. This is common sense (also, see recent experience in relation to Loughborough road if common sense is too much of an ask).

What is completely unclear (and very unlikely in my opinion, at least in my lifetime) is whether forcing traffic through side streets will reduce traffic as drastically as the cycling lobby would like to assume.

I, for one, am not willing to tolerate an unverifiable central assumption underlying the cycle quietways - forcing traffic down side roads will reduce overall traffic - to inflict unjustifiable noise and localized air pollution on residents of various side streets surrounding the arterial roads under discussion.

[wulfhound]

Quietways, by definition, aren't supposed to run along arterial roads.

However, what's pretty clear here is peoples' idea of an arterial road varies.

As someone who tends to drive only when I've got a long way to go, but uses buses quite a lot, arterials mean Red Routes, "A" and "B"-roads and a few other of the busiest roads. Dulwich Village / Red Post Hill, Half Moon Lane, Peckham Rye East Side etc. Not coincidentally, those routes are the simplest to navigate in a car & are usually the main bus routes too.

The intent of Quietways was never to force traffic down side streets - quite the opposite, they want to keep it on the biggest roads & out of the side streets. Granted, some of the designs we've seen so far clearly fail to do that, and seem likely to work in the unfortunate way you've described above - but I've never met anyone from the cycle lobby who wanted more traffic on side streets.

To me, Calton Ave & Turney Road shouldn't be used as arteries - indeed, for 20 out of 24 hours, they mostly aren't. But you're absolutely right to be concerned about bad designs displacing traffic from middling-sized streets to smaller ones. What they should be trying to achieve, if anything, is displacement from small and middling-sized to big.

[Pevara]

wulfhound Wrote:

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> - but I've never met anyone from the cycle lobby

> who wanted more traffic on side streets.

I do wish others in the cycle lobby were as tempered in their views as you. As this thread has shown me, they aren't. It's not that they positively want more traffic down side streets, it's more that they don't care this will come about if a road like Court Lane is closed to traffic one way (see TownleyGreen's comments somewhere above that he was ok if the side streets took on the extra traffic - no care for the residents of those side streets at all).

Coming back to specifics, the problem with Calton is, if you close it down from the Court Lane side, people will definitely get to Calton (and thence to ED Grove ) via the smaller Dekker/Desenfans/Druce Road connections into Woodwarde - so closing Calton (Court Lane side) or Court Lane will cause a side street/"rat run" (loaded term alert!) problem.

I am not as familiar with Turney Road, so won't comment on the proposals relating to that road.

[wulfhound]

How about the block they've proposed at the top (Townley) end of Calton as an alternative?

I can't see anyone from the Village junction using Dovercourt Rd to get to EDG, nor vice versa.

If you're on Lordship Lane, you might do Court Lane / Dovercourt Road / Townley instead of Court Lane / Calton Ave / Townley, but as far as I can see, most people stick with LL all the way up to Townley if they're headed that way - not much traffic turns right from Court Lane (westbound) in to Calton Ave (northbound).

It's maybe an annoyance for those living at the north end of Calton Ave, as to go north you'd first have to double back via Village or Woodwarde - but assuming you're going to end up on Half Moon La, Red Post Hill or LL eventually anyway, it's not actually that bad, doesn't add more than a couple of hundred metres.

[Townleygreen]

Pevara, before you keep having a go at me please read what I actually said. I was talking about where cars might be PARKED when I mentioned side streets. Not that traffic should use them.

SIGH!

[Pevara]

Townleygreen Wrote:

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> Pevara, before you keep having a go at me please

> read what I actually said. I was talking about

> where cars might be PARKED when I mentioned side

> streets. Not that traffic should use them.

> SIGH!

I see - so in your mind, the side streets will be used for increased parking (bad enough) but won't consequently also become through routes from the same arterial roads where parking and traffic movement have been displaced? Fascinating. You should become a road planner - not. SIGH!

[Pevara]

Instinctively, I am not someone who favours blocking roads that connect two major roads (such as EDG to DV crossing, connected by Calton). The law of unintended consequences means that traffic will not simply follow the larger roads such as LL, EDG and DV (including because they will get more congested as a result over time because of connecting road closures), but will ultimately come down other side streets - Eynella etc, i.e. new connections will be formed and used.

However, I'll have a root around the map and give it some thought. I note there is an option which keeps Calton open both ways - is this not good enough?

wulfhound Wrote:

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> How about the block they've proposed at the top

> (Townley) end of Calton as an alternative?

>

> I can't see anyone from the Village junction using

> Dovercourt Rd to get to EDG, nor vice versa.

>

> If you're on Lordship Lane, you might do Court

> Lane / Dovercourt Road / Townley instead of Court

> Lane / Calton Ave / Townley, but as far as I can

> see, most people stick with LL all the way up to

> Townley if they're headed that way - not much

> traffic turns right from Court Lane (westbound) in

> to Calton Ave (northbound).

>

> It's maybe an annoyance for those living at the

> north end of Calton Ave, as to go north you'd

> first have to double back via Village or Woodwarde

> - but assuming you're going to end up on Half Moon

> La, Red Post Hill or LL eventually anyway, it's

> not actually that bad, doesn't add more than a

> couple of hundred metres.

[Townleygreen]

painful Pevara said

I see - so in your mind, the side streets will be used for increased parking (bad enough) but won't consequently also become through routes from the same arterial roads where parking and traffic movement have been displaced? Fascinating. You should become a road planner - not. SIGH!

Pevara, once again you are talking nonsense, putting words in my mouth etc etc.

ALL I said was that parking might be displaced into quieter roads from the main roads. That was all. the rest is your invention, supposition etc. SIGH.

[Ampersand]

@Pevara It rather sounds like you do not care what road the traffic goes down as long as it is not along the road that you live.

[Townleygreen]

.

[slarti b]

@Wulfhound You wrote

How about the block they've proposed at the top (Townley) end of Calton as an alternative?

This would turn top end of Calton into a dropping off spot for JAGS\JAPS and Alleyns parents' cars. Resulting in loads of cars reversing and doing 3 point turns across the road. Not good for a Quietway!

This currently happens in Greendale outside JAPS at the moment and is dangerous to cyclist and pedestrians.

I can't see anyone from the Village junction using Dovercourt Rd to get to EDG, nor vice versa

I disagree. They would do Court Lane\Dovercourt\Townley or Woodwarde\Dovercourt\Townley to avoid the EDG\DV junction

The problem with several of the Sustrans options is they propose draconian 'point' solutions for the linear Quietway, which will have significant impacts elesewhere. The Dulwich area has complex and finely balanced traffic patterns which need to be looked at as a whole. In particular taking into account issues such as the massive but short lived increase in traffic at school drop-of time during term. But I don't think this is within the Sustrans' remit

[Pevara]

Yes, so sorry for not falling in line and acqueiscing to having my quiet little side street turned into a motorway. And for what? Nothing, other than vague suppositions from morally superior types that the world as we know it will end if we don't. And people will die. And no evidence that what they propose will actually better anything - apparently people will just stop driving their cars and join the cycle rapture en masse.

Ampersand Wrote:

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> @Pevara It rather sounds like you do not care what

> road the traffic goes down as long as it is not

> along the road that you live.

[Pevara]

It's not just parking that will be displaced - the motor traffic will itself be diverted if you start closing the larger roads. Which is what this thread is about - the closure of main roads and the reduction of parking on them. So either you're not paying any attention to the topic on hand and are simply evangelising the benefits of cycling (no bad thing in itself, but not really adding to the discussion this thread is about) or you're supporting road closure and parking displacement - which draws my ire due to diverted traffic. The last option is that you're only suggesting parking displacement but not suggesting road closure. If so, I apologise for having misunderstood you, but I genuinely don't think that is the tenor of your proposals on this thread. Sorry abt typos, phone is acting up.

Townleygreen Wrote:

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> painful Pevara said

> I see - so in your mind, the side streets will be

> used for increased parking (bad enough) but won't

> consequently also become through routes from the

> same arterial roads where parking and traffic

> movement have been displaced? Fascinating. You

> should become a road planner - not. SIGH!

>

> Pevara, once again you are talking nonsense,

> putting words in my mouth etc etc.

>

> ALL I said was that parking might be displaced

> into quieter roads from the main roads. That was

> all. the rest is your invention, supposition etc.

> SIGH.

[TheCat]

At the end of the day?..every single option which involves closing or reducing capacity of roads in order to reduce traffic and congestion is totally perverse logic.

So the roads are at capacity??solution??close more roads??work that one out!!!?

Analogies for this ridiculous logic are?.

Not enough school places in Dulwich?...solution ?Shut down a few local schools so people move away and send their children to school somewhere else?

Power shortages?...solution ?reduce the amount of power generation, so more blackouts, then people will surely use less?

The solution in all these cases is not reducing existing capacity?its about improving the attractiveness of the alternative, WITHOUT majorly compromising the primary option?.

[wulfhound]

However, I'll have a root around the map and give it some thought. I note there is an option which keeps Calton open both ways - is this not good enough?

The question is - good enough for what?

They're spending ?3M of tax payers' money on this route, between Crystal Palace & Waterloo.

If it's mainly for adult commuter cyclists - honestly, the roads are largely OK as-is. "Fine if you keep your wits about you", as Boris Johnson once infamously said. My rough guess is, there must be 500 or so who use it each way on the average day.. two or three a minute from 7:30am-9:30am, & 5:30-7:30pm, and a smattering the rest of the day. That's about what you see on Green Dale.

Say they manage to double those numbers, and get an extra 500 people cycling to work. That's quite a lot - indeed, increase numbers much beyond than that & Green Dale would start to feel a bit iffy on foot. But at that rate they'd be spending ?6000 per user.. I had to double check that calculation, I couldn't quite believe it. Even if you assume that most people only cycle to & from work half the time, it's still a phenomenal amount of money per head.

On the other hand, ?300 will get you a pretty decent bike at bulk wholesale. Money better spent to buy a few thousand of those (?3M = ten thousand good quality bikes), and hand them out free to anyone who'll pledge to ride them more than once a week?

If, however, it's about more than commuter cyclists - kids & families, say, or older people cycling for leisure and exercise - the big, costly & inconvenient changes like road closures & junction rebuilds become more justifiable. But in that case, why do it on what looks to be a commuter route, rather than east/west?

I mean, personally I'd love a weekend leisure route in to town, which felt genuinely relaxing to use, prioritised comfort over speed, and joined up to the gorgeous new fully-protected cycle routes they're building at Vauxhall, Elephant and Embankment; it feels like they might be trying to do that here, but if so they're doing a pretty poor job of communicating it. And ?3m for that at a time when they can't afford to keep libraries or park loos open looks like good value only when compared to the Garden Bridge.

[mako]

Good post Cat. sums things up nicely. Will be ignored by the Zealots but is the correct answer

[davidk]

TheCat Wrote:

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>

>

> The solution in all these cases is not reducing

> existing capacity?its about improving the

> attractiveness of the alternative, WITHOUT majorly

> compromising the primary option?.

Or you could do both? In some places you'll probably have to in order to do anything worthwhile.

[wulfhound]

At the end of the day?..every single option which involves closing or reducing capacity of roads in order to reduce traffic and congestion is totally perverse logic.

Does anyone claim that?

Not enough school places in Dulwich?...solution ?Shut down a few local schools so people move away and send their children to school somewhere else?

The key difference here is elasticity of demand: all kids of school age need to go to school, it's the law. Not all journeys which are currently driven need to be - at least according to TfL, the councils, public health professionals etc.

Power shortages?...solution ?reduce the amount of power generation, so more blackouts, then people will surely use less?

Y'know what? If our energy infrastructure were screwing up the city's public spaces and air to anything like the degree that vehicles are, and if those-who-run-things determined people could reasonably cut back their consumption by 20, 30, 50% without seriously impacting their quality of life, I might be persuaded to get behind that one too :o) - although not if it's promoted by those awful vegetarians as a way to make us all eat more salad.

The solution in all these cases is not reducing existing capacity?its about improving the attractiveness of the alternative, WITHOUT majorly compromising the primary option?.

Spoken like someone who's never paid ?? for a fancy energy-saving LED bulb only to find that it doesn't work with the blasted dimmer switch & that proper filament bulbs now enjoy similar legal status to crack cocaine.

The question, when it comes to cycleways is, HOW? How do you make it safe enough for a ten-year-old to cycle two miles to school, instead of being driven by Mum, without compromising the other options? I can only assume that it's either not possible (and therefore others need to be compromised, if that's what the plan is) or enormously expensive - otherwise they'd have already done it by now surely?

[BrandNewGuy]

wulfhound Wrote:

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> My rough guess is, there

> must be 500 or so who use it each way on the

> average day.. two or three a minute from

> 7:30am-9:30am, & 5:30-7:30pm, and a smattering the

> rest of the day. That's about what you see on

> Green Dale.

>

> Say they manage to double those numbers, and get

> an extra 500 people cycling to work. That's quite

> a lot - indeed, increase numbers much beyond than

> that & Green Dale would start to feel a bit iffy

> on foot.

The Green Dale path is already a mess in terms of pedestrians and bikes. The council rightly widened the footpath from JAGS as far as the small path to Sainsburys and then it's a complete hodge-podge without a properly marked footpath but with humps across the whole of the path. Then the narrow footpath starts again at the top beyond Mother Goose, before swinging around a tight corner with cyclists whizzing round in the opposite direction.

Maybe they could spend some of the pro-cycling budget on sorting it out properly.

[TheCat]

wulfhound Wrote:

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> > At the end of the day?..every single option

> which involves closing or reducing capacity of

> roads in order to reduce traffic and congestion is

> totally perverse logic.

>

>

> Does anyone claim that?

>

>

> Not enough school places in Dulwich?...solution

> ?Shut down a few local schools so people move away

> and send their children to school somewhere else?

>

>

> The key difference here is elasticity of demand:

> all kids of school age need to go to school, it's

> the law. Not all journeys which are currently

> driven need to be - at least according to TfL, the

> councils, public health professionals etc.

>

>

> Power shortages?...solution ?reduce the amount of

> power generation, so more blackouts, then people

> will surely use less?

>

>

> Y'know what? If our energy infrastructure were

> screwing up the city's public spaces and air to

> anything like the degree that vehicles are, and if

> those-who-run-things determined people could

> reasonably cut back their consumption by 20, 30,

> 50% without seriously impacting their quality of

> life, I might be persuaded to get behind that one

> too :o) - although not if it's promoted by those

> awful vegetarians as a way to make us all eat more

> salad.

>

>

> The solution in all these cases is not reducing

> existing capacity?its about improving the

> attractiveness of the alternative, WITHOUT majorly

> compromising the primary option?.

>

>

> Spoken like someone who's never paid ?? for a

> fancy energy-saving LED bulb only to find that it

> doesn't work with the blasted dimmer switch & that

> proper filament bulbs now enjoy similar legal

> status to crack cocaine.

>

> The question, when it comes to cycleways is, HOW?

> How do you make it safe enough for a ten-year-old

> to cycle two miles to school, instead of being

> driven by Mum, without compromising the other

> options? I can only assume that it's either not

> possible (and therefore others need to be

> compromised, if that's what the plan is) or

> enormously expensive - otherwise they'd have

> already done it by now surely?

Agreed, the question is how? But one would imagine that smart people being paid to come up with these ideas probably could....

Off the top of my head, with 5 seconds thought, Are our footpaths congested? No. do we need footpaths on BOTH sides of every road?...probably not. So what if the routes for cyclesways had one side of the road for pedestrians and one for cyclists. Okay maybe not a perfect solution, as some people might no want a cycle lane outside their front gate, and cycle capacity wouldn't be as large as a whole cycle superhighway; but would make for a safe journey. Anyway, that might not work, and that's not the point, the point is that surely there are other ways rather than closing off roads and making traffic even worse...

[Charles Notice]

Crazy idea unfortunately. Already had one of my children hit by a cyclist on the pavement.

Front door--garden path-- pavement-- bang.

[TheCat]

Charles Notice Wrote:

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> Crazy idea unfortunately. Already had one of my

> children hit by a cyclist on the pavement.

>

> Front door--garden path-- pavement-- bang.

That's terrible. But the fault there is the the cyclist shouldn't be cycling down the footpath. If you know that it's a cycle lane, not a footpath, then you wouldn't let a child run out there, no different to not letting them run into the road I would think...

[Charles Notice]

So it's a cycle lane so what do children do cross the road to the safe side.

Common sense is going out of the window on this cycling rubbish.

Accept one thing no matter what people say any cycling changes it will get pushed through as most people will be unaware it is happening.

Just like the 20 mph chaos.

Unfortunately it seems like we are behind led by children still wet behind the ears with no real life experience.

[rodneybewes]

So we solve the problem of traffic deaths injuries and pollution by squeezing cyclists into the paths of the real non-injuring, non-polluting section of the population - pedestrians. Whilst leaving cars as they are. Tremendous work.