Elephant & Castle road changes

[Earl Aelfheah]

healey Wrote:

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

> Camberwell badly needs a tube link.

There is no money for existing communities in the transport budget under Johnson. Unless public money can be used to line the pockets of property developers it aint being invested in infrastructure.

[Grok]

They were known as Mugways. If you want to use one there are some just down the road below the flyover.

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?

[alice]

ankle deep in water too

[JohnL]

rahrahrah Wrote:

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

> healey Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > Camberwell badly needs a tube link.

>

> There is no money for existing communities in the

> transport budget under Johnson. Unless public

> money can be used to line the pockets of property

> developers it aint being invested in

> infrastructure.

..

[bodsier]

So was it designed by the people who impose parking restrictions, is this what they are doing with the money ?

[healey]

Indeed, looks like it, but simply not good enough.

What makes it worse is that Walworth Rd seems to have lower priority at the lights than Kennington Park Rd which appears to carry far fewer bus routes.

rahrahrah Wrote:

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

> healey Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > Camberwell badly needs a tube link.

>

> There is no money for existing communities in the

> transport budget under Johnson. Unless public

> money can be used to line the pockets of property

> developers it aint being invested in

> infrastructure.

[malumbu]

It makes me grumpy grumpy sweary sweary. And I have been through it on a bus, in a car and my daily commute by bike. It is illogical, the phasing is awful, the queue from the South from the New Kent Road is extended, the new right turn onto St George's Road means a long wait for the lights and then you almost come back on yourself, and then you get onto St George's Road and there is no traffic (ie it is all stuck before then). It has yet to make a jot of difference (compared to before the roadworks started) on my bike.

The bus lane means that traffic turning left coming from London Road has to cut left at the junction causing more chaos. It is chucking awful. Who the chuff designed it - have they any skills about traffic management. It beats the pointless traffic lights at the Forest Hill Road junction, and Dunstans, and Mostyn/Akerman Road (Brixton) hands down.

The only comparable traffic nonsense is the unecessary lights on the Lambeth Bridge Southside.

[Nigello]

I have written to Helen Hayes MP telling her about the general frustration with transport - especially bus and rail - in and around SE22, and alerted her to this thread. I will forward it to the GLA Transport head, whose name escapes me for now.

[Huggers]

Strangely i had the fastest ever 176 journey home from Charing Cross Road last night, whizzing down empty roads. The approach to elephant was empty. Maybe it's succeeded in putting everyone off driving.

[BrandNewGuy]

Although going out on the first working day back after the break is seriously hard core ;-)

[Huggers]

another blink of an eye journey today-this evening the 176 took 24 minutes from The Strand to Ondine Road.

[JohnL]

Maybe they will take/took some time to get the traffic light sequences right.

or maybe there are still NY stragglers.

[Zebedee Tring]

Judging from recent comments on this thread, it seems that it's much more congested coming through the Elephant from Walworth Road in the morning rush hour than from the West End in the evening. Is this correct, and if this is so, might this have something to do with the phasing of the lights with the result that traffic coming from Walworth Rd has lower priority than traffic coming from Kennington Park Rd?

[Earl Aelfheah]

This all sounds rather positive. So is the Elephant 'fixed' now?

[bobbsy]

Going from Walworth, towards London Bridge in the mornings - once you're through E&C, traffic is much better than it used to be as all the congestion is before E&C. Going south on same route in the evenings, it does block a long way back for cars - buses get all the way down in the bus lane and then merge into the car lane, thus moving faster than non-bus traffic.

[Siduhe]

My journey home via Blackfriars/E&C has also been much quicker in the last few days. I don't think it's the road layout so much as the fact there's less people and less traffic than normal. Not everyone seems to be back after the New Year yet (quite a few people away in our office until next week, for example).

[healey]

Better today. Perhaps the phasing is being tweaked....

[Sue]

healey Wrote:

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

> Better today. Perhaps the phasing is being

> tweaked....

And also maybe people are getting used to it?

I haven't driven round there yet, I'm dreading it because everybody will be hooting at me because I won't know where I should be going :(

[Huggers]

today -11am, not peak time- had to drive daughter to Euston as she had so much luggage.

Approached elephant from New Kent Road, huge queue, then at the actual Elephant it seemed there was only one tiny lane curving round to the right, the other fork seemed to be cut off.

Then once across the Elephant and round the one way system to Blackfriars/Waterloo it was ridiculous. Not that much traffic but all of it made to wait for about twenty minutes to get through lights. You cannot take left to Waterloo until you have crossed the lights for traffic to Blackfriars, as it is all bus lane up till then. About three cars could go through green at a time. It seemed to be deliberately artificially manufacturing a traffic jam. Once through to Waterloo, hardly any traffic.

I kept thinking why? is it pleasant for hotel residents to have all that traffic snarled up under their windows, or local residents? Bus lane completely empty which explains my lightening bus journeys from the other direction of late. And cyclists using the one way system? Back to your expensively laid out cycle superhighway please!!

[Blah Blah]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/elephant-and-castle-crash-air-ambulance-lands-at-roundabout-after-lorry-hits-elderly-woman-in-south-a3174026.html

So much for safety improvements. No pedestrian ever got hit by a vehicle in an underground crossing.

[rodneybewes]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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

> http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/elephant-and

> -castle-crash-air-ambulance-lands-at-roundabout-af

> ter-lorry-hits-elderly-woman-in-south-a3174026.htm

> l

>

> So much for safety improvements. No pedestrian

> ever got hit by a vehicle in an underground

> crossing.

I agree. They should make all vehicles in London drive underneath in tunnels so the rest of us can enjoy ourselves.

[Nigello]

I am not excusing poor or dangerous driving but do want to point out that congestion and works make for impatience and - sometimes - bad habits. It's now pretty normal for buses and other large vehicles to speed up to get through an amber, rather than slowing down. Plenty of vehicles go through on red, thinking that it's OK because they are travelling at slow speeds. Pedestrians crossing willy nilly** - sometimes pushing buggies and carrying children - don't help either.

**I have no idea whether this applies to Friday's poor accident victim.

[PennyDreadful]

I work between the Elephant and Waterloo and my commute (originally usefully straightforward for someone with chronic health problems) has been getting more and more tortuous. It used to be one bus ride, but that began to take an impossibly long time; so I began getting the bus to Peckham, then train to Elephant and Castle, then walking the rest of the way. I still recall my sense of disbelief the day I found the pedestrian subways blocked with no alternative crossing except some temporary lights way off in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go, with roadworks & dust & cables all around and crowds building up as the lights remained unchanged for ages. It's astonishing that more people haven't been killed yet.

That Evening Standard article that Blah Blah posted a link to has some interesting comments under it. One comment asking why the pedestrian underpasses were removed before the crossings were complete - recipe for disaster. Another comment led me on to this site: http://saveoursubways.org which I wish I'd discovered earlier! It sums up the works with this succinct phrase: "...a misguided piazzafication of a major transport hub." Damn right.

[Blah Blah]

Yes I read the comments and found them interesting too, especially the one that suggested the new layout was designed to attract investment over any kind of sensible traffic/pedestrian management.

Even cyclists had an easier time before because they could use assigned pathways crossing the roundabout. Now they are forced to go with the rest of the traffic, trying to cross lanes to get to the right filter lane, amongst more densely packed vehicles.

The fact still remains, that if pedestrians are forced to cross traffic, there will always be the risk of accidents. When pedestrians can avoid traffic altogether, there are no accidents. The same is true for cyclists. How the designer of this new layout thought either of those two groups of users would be safer is mystifying.

[malumbu]

I've been away a week and now they are digging even more up. Not sure what is going on, perhaps it will be OK when it is finished.