Elephant & Castle road changes

[Zebedee Tring]

Has anyone travelled through the changes to the Elephant road changes today? If so, how bad (or good) was the situation? It looked pretty on Sunday, especially for traffic travelling from the West End and City to the junction.

Many thanks.

[Nigello]

I was in a car at around 0600 this morning, coming down the New Kent Road. It was slow, adding about ten minutes to the journey even at that early hour.

[Johnjohn]

Disaster!

There is an article on BBC website about it

my 78 bus from Peckham Rye to Tower Hill at 8am took 1hr 15min this morning

It doesn't even go through E&C, just got held up on the Old Kent Road

Same journey was taking between 25-40 mins last week.

Traffic backing up to New Cross and Camberwell in those directions

Hopefully just teething problems for the new design

[northdulmum]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-35026096

[Zebedee Tring]

Thanks for the info. I'll now avoid going by bus through the Elephant tomorrow morning.

[Earl Aelfheah]

To be fair, SE London is the only part of the Capital with high frequency, fast, reliable underground trains, so we should be able to put up with some disruption to bus services.

... Oh, hold on.

[Nigello]

! I did not know that the blockages I saw were part of the actual design. Oh dear. If it was like that at 0600 goodness knows what it will be like when most people are up and about.

I shall avoid till I hear more positive noises.

[bobbsy]

Was terrible circa 8am.

[northdulmum]

it was 'ok' coming home tonight. Congestion in the run up to E&C but frankly not that much worse than normal (which tbh has been bad for sometime).

Once through the old roundabout, the traffic moved quite freely.

i'll still be walking if I have to be in at a certain time but hoping that things will settle once ppl get used to it.

A lot of buses just didn't really know where to go and looked a bit surprised and therefore much slower than normal. Same went for cars and bikes and people! I guess everyone will get used to it and drive a bit more smoothly in time.

[Zebedee Tring]

Why has this thread been moved to the Lounge when clearly the state of the Elephant junction is of interest to commuters living in ED?

[healey]

This junction is always going to be busy and I'm in favour of making it nicer for pedestrians to live with. What really rankles it the lack of will to tackle a major contributing factor to its problems - the lack of a tube link to Walworth and Camberwell.

[bobbsy]

It's not getting better, it's getting worse so far! Trying to get through there on saturday afternoon was horrendous.

['bout now]

Came through at 4pm yesterday, utter disaster.

[Zebedee Tring]

Administrator, why can't this thread be moved from The Lounge back to the General ED Issues section since clearly the state of the Elephant junction after the recent changes is of continuing interest to commuters living in ED?

[Ridgley]

I pass there last week have they got rid of the subways , were you have to go underground to get to the other side?

[Earl Aelfheah]

Queues from Oval Tube to Vauxhall all times of day and night it seems, also due to new road layout. SE London is being cut off from the Capital. No tube, trains into London Bridge and Thameslink terrible overcrowded and unreliable and now bus and car journeys just a few miles to the north taking a minimum of 40 minutes to an hour.

It's totally unacceptable, but there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it.

And now the Bakerloo line extension is going to see huge amounts of money from the transport infrastructure budget plowed into subsidising new private developments /investment properties along the Old Kent Road. talk about giving SE London taxpayers the finger.

[malumbu]

Been doing it for a week now on me bike, and don't like it (or the alternatives). It's just weird and counter intuitive going round what was a roundabout the wrong way (like being in Europe) and some quite sharp turns. Not at all smooth flowing. You lot in your metal boxes can't be that impressed either.

First day was hilarious as loads of us were confused and ended up cycling (by accident) through red lights and being shouted at (in a good nurtured way) by the fuzz.

[se22cat]

The cycle lane on the Tabernacle side looks like it goes into a really sharp and hard to navigate turn opposite the college of communication, not to mention this is bound to cause collisions between pedestrians and cyclists. Were the developers on drugs or something? The whole of the area now looks a lot more dangerous for cyclists, pedestrians and drivers, wtf happened?

[Earl Aelfheah]

Yeah, that bit outside the College of communication is crazy. Bizarre design

[bobbsy]

It all feels wrong. The roundabout design had its flaws, but at least it worked.

[Blah Blah]

I cycled through this yesterday for the first time, from the Old Kent Road and found it to be ok. Haven't tried it from the Walworth Road side yet. But I can also see how it is worse for driving and why there are tailbacks. And before the changes, cyclists had paths accross the central island anyway, for safe crossing. Doesn't feel like the right answer to the problems that existed before.

[bob]

It's catalled who ever planed it must have been on some bad gear.

Bob S

[healey]

Terrible from Walworth again this morning. A long row of buses stuck waiting at lights to get in. Camberwell badly needs a tube link.

[bobbsy]

Yeap, terrible this morning, massive queue back almost to camberwell at 7.45. Can't imagine how it would be later!

[JohnL]

Ridgley Wrote:

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

> I pass there last week have they got rid of the

> subways , were you have to go underground to get

> to the other side?

Seen as mugger tunnels - but I never had an issue.

I walked across the road and dodged traffic to get to the Rockingham Arms.

Seemed to be no Pedestrian Crossings yet - Won't do that again :)