East Dulwich proposed speed bumps - any views?

[northernmonkey]

James,

Thanks for the reply. I am on the electoral role and therefore will anticipate receving the consultation document any day now. Please could you post details on here of the process and timeline - ie how will responses be gathered, is there an online option rather than waiting for the documents to be delivered and when will consultation end?

Thanks

[Medley]

I was pretty anti speed bumps until I moved to Forest Hill Road where, as you all probably know, there aren't any. The speeds reached (at night in particular) are absolutely crazy. There are bumps on Honor Oak Park and cameras and bumps on Peckham Rye, so poor old F H Road is the only control-free gap. And boy do they make use of it. Every night there will be someone nearing or exceeding 60mph down there. So now I'm in favour of something - anything - down this road, especially as the Academy will move to its new site in Sept. 2010. I've written to councillors and my Assembly member about it, and something may be possible in 2011 apparently. The response from the council to the councillor was interesting - there have been several fairly recent accidents where speed was a contributing factor on F H Road.

[kford]

JBARBER Wrote:

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> Hi kford,

> I'm afraid I agree and disagree with you. You're

> right to highlight other causes of collisions

> including being distracted mobile phones, drink,

> etc. But the consequences of a collission at 20mph

> vs. 30mph are chalk and cheese. 20mph the victim

> almost always survives, 30mph they nearly always

> die.

>

I'm not condoning speeding, and it's a fact of physics that someone hit at 20mph will more likely survive than someone hit at 30mph.

But someone alert and sober driving at 25mph is less likely to hit a child than someone drunk or on their mobile phone driving at 20mph. DfT's own figures support that.

My point was that - road safety is a complicated subject. We mustn't think: everyone's driving at 20mph - it's all safe and rosy - job done - because it's not.

[Steady Eddy]

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[James Barber]

hi Steady Eddy,

The East Dulwich Lib Dem councillors have arranged for the East Dulwich Police to have the best speed measuring cameras and automatic portable sign money can buy. They have better kit now than traffic police. But they can;t be everywhere all the time.

The public conusltation will ensure the Postal Strikes don't limit full opportunity for feedback.

If residents say they don't want traffic calming then fine. we can spend the money elsewhere. From the feedback I've had I'd be amazed but would be delighted if traffic speeding is not an issue.

Once this is resolved one way or another we wont have the resources to review things again for some years. So determined we get it right.

[louisiana]

JBARBER Wrote:

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> Speed humps cost ?1,400 on average and cover the

> whole road width. The variability being road

> width.No proposals for speed cushions that have

> gaps allowing larger vehciels to straddle the

> cushions and ignore them.

> I've provided mean average speed, 85th percentile

> and mean averaged vehicle volumes per day on this

> forum.

> The speeds of the non 85th percentile can be very

> high. I don't have that data for the recent speed

> counts but has included 99mph (only measures upto

> that) along Barry Road for past counts.

>

> Reference London ambulance 'campaign'. I don't

> believe any measures are implimented in Southwark

> without the agreement of the emergency services.

> Irony is reducing speeds reduces the number of

> emergency call outs for the emergency services.

>

> Final point. No one every admits to speeding. But

> from the data we know that every day around 250

> vehicles speed down Matham Grove. Why should those

> residents have to suffer this anti social

> behaviour?

> Roughly 2 x sinusoidal speed humps would solve

> this Matham Grove speeding for cost of ?2,800.

> This would seem a reasonable price to stop ninety

> thousand speeding incidents a year. Seems like

> cheap policing to me. But importantly the

> residents of Matham Grove would choose whether

> they want this or not.

This seems disingenuous. In our road we protested the humps as completely inappropriate (and Southwark agreed it's a pretty strange road and they wanted to follow this up), but we were told that the council had approached the Met to discuss, and the Met Police had told the council that without speed humps in *every single street in the 20 mph zone at specific intervals of distance, the entire 20 mph zone was legally unenforceable* and so we would have to have them whether we liked it or not.

In the end, after quite a few residents did a street walk with Southwark to show/tell them what we thought, the number of humps was reduced so that we were not forced to have humps on really steep narrow chicanes. So just the number reduced after extensive protest; not choice.

The fastest a vehicle can drive down here is 15-20 mph, so speed humps here a complete waste of money.

(The hump nearest my house as part of this scheme is round-top, not sinusoidal)

[m7post]

The aspects of pro and con re the speed humps/tables are well covered above.

I'd just like to add - perhaps we should be looking toward - all roads in the area other than L.L. E.D.G, Grove Vale and E.D. Road having a 20mph limit - perhaps we could be the first London Borough to introduce a safer streets scheme of this nature across the area.

Would every one / any one support this?

Martin.

[Steady Eddy]

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[ginarog]

Hi J Barber,

I live on Cornflower Terrace, which earlier this year received a brand, spanking new speed bump. Although the road is not more than 120 meters and has very,very low traffic levels, and despite all residents signing a petition the street still received one. Why didn't you listen to us?

[lesalden]

ginarog Wrote:

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> Hi J Barber,

>

> I live on Cornflower Terrace, which earlier this

> year received a brand, spanking new speed bump.

> Although the road is not more than 120 meters and

> has very,very low traffic levels, and despite all

> residents signing a petition the street still

> received one. Why didn't you listen to us?

This is happening all the time and it is ridiculous how residents are not listened to. As I said earlier in this thread traffic surveys often do not justify the bumps but they still go in. Why? Whose decision? What control do local councillors exercise?

Nice work for the contractor!

Les Alden

Prospective Labour Candidate East Dulwich Ward

[James Barber]

Hi ginarog,

Cornflower Terrace is in Peckham Rye ward. I'm one of the 3 Lib Dem councillors for East Dulwich ward.

I would'nt hazard a guess why your Labour Peckham Rye councillors agreed this at the local community council.

[Steady Eddy]

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[Loz]

Putting humps on that part of Melbourne Grove is a stupid, stupid idea. Most of the issues on MG are because there are only single yellow lines on the 'dogleg' part of the road, which makes it a blind corner and therefore extremely dangerous. There is little speeding on MG because mostly it is hard to get above 15MPH at the best of times.

Speed humps are just throwing the current all-purpose solution at problem it won't solve.

[Huguenot]

There's an awful lot of people on this forum claiming to speak 'for all the community' having done little work to support such an assertion.

It may well come as a surprise to them that their views are not broadly shared by other residents.

There also seems to be a local councillor who's done an lot of research in to the case making valid observations, has presented well argued cases backed up with accurate data, and has given every reasonable opportunity to the community to make their point heard.

It's not a failure of democracy that suggests that the 'ban the bumps' brigade haven't been heard. It's not because someone hid the ballot papers. Democracy means that they have been heard, and their unsupported, unresearched and frankly weak motor-lobby jibes haven't carried the day.

As for the comment about 'politicking', JB doesn't serve Peckham, so he can't answer you. Pretty clear that one???

Incidentally, I won't vote Lib Dem or any other party until one of them agrees to address the parlous voting system in our democratic system. I don't support any party.

I can see a reasonable bloke trying to do a good job though.

[Medley]

Hugenot, well said.

Proof that the people who want nothing to do with politics - for what sounds like a valid reason in this case - are exactly the ones who should be involved.

[Steady Eddy]

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[James Barber]

Hi Steady Eddy,

I'd be interested to see the evidence the Automobile Association has to offer on the subject.

Could you post a link to it please?

I'm sorry for the touch on politics that offended. The propsective Labour East Dulwich candidate Les Alden critised a decision taken by his Labour colleagues in Peckham Rye. I felt obliged to point this out rather than it be assumed he was criticising me as Lib Dem councillor not listening to East Dulwih residents.

[Steady Eddy]

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[lesalden]

JBARBER Wrote:

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

>

> I'm sorry for the touch on politics that offended.

> The propsective Labour East Dulwich candidate Les

> Alden critised a decision taken by his Labour

> colleagues in Peckham Rye. I felt obliged to point

> this out rather than it be assumed he was

> criticising me as Lib Dem councillor not listening

> to East Dulwih residents.

I am rather pleased to learn from Cllr Barber that local councillors have a Yes or No power over putting in humps. By implication this means he is responsible for all the new humps in East Dulwich over the last three years.

And yet a resident in Hindmans Road came to me to say that she had not been consulted and more or less regarded the imposition of humps by the council as something beyond her control.

20mph seems to be acceptable to most residents. The trouble is that when they are consulted

about traffic calming they are not told all the alternatives including an analysis of environmental impact. It's humps or no 20mph zone! Local councillors should not let this happen!

Some will know that I have been writing to the Southwark News over a long period against the imposition of humps. Sometimes jovial and sometimes about the more serious concerns of disabled people.

The bottom line is that residents should be consulted on all the alternatives - even if putting in more expensive options delays the rollout across the borough. I will not support any traffic calming at all unless there has been full - and provable - resident consultation and acceptance.

Les Alden

Prospective Labour candidate for East Dulwich

[Huguenot]

Hi Steady Eddy, if you are making sweeping unsubtantiated attacks on the council accusing them of defrauding the public then it may have been directed at you, but it's nothing personal.

In the real world our councillors do a pretty good job of engaging everyone practical in the debate. That doesn't mean we don't need to keep a little pressure on.

They're also aware that there are natural limitations to that consultation process in terms of both time and expense.

If Les Alden doesn't recognise that the relentless consultation and research investment he recommends will effectively bankrupt the council, then that kind of exaplains how Labour has such a terrible reputation for fiscal management.

Les would be wiser to realise that there are always some people who won't read the papers, won't read their post and don't see posters. You can't please everyone - God forbid he would be elected and live to regret that empty promise.

There will always be disgruntled onlookers accusing them of negligence for not supporting pie in the sky solutions that are unworkable financially and practically.

It's a shame that these onlookers should be so rude when they do it.

There is nothing on this thread that have suggested councillors are underinformed or failing in their requirement to engage local people in the decision making process.

There have, however, been a number of unpleasant insinuations that verge on a slur from certain other quarters.

If our councillors were engaging in that kind of behaviour then that would be cause for kicking them out!

[Steady Eddy]

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[Steady Eddy]

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[Steady Eddy]

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[ClareC]

Where are the results from the traffic survey? I looked on the website mentioned but couldn't find them

[dogcat]

bit of a double-edged sword, in my experience they just tend to relocate the problem. I live on Landells so the boy racers who can't race on CPR because of the bumps use our road as their little rat run...