Loughborough Junction public space improvements - consultation begins

[bimble]

prunus Agree completely about the cut and pastes, and I defer to your greater reasonableness.

 

[CH1]

Who do you think most stands to loose their job?

GW. He is a traffic engineer.
LJ has been a PR disaster.
Rosendale road has been withdrawn.
Streatham is delayed whist the flack on LJ dies down.

How is he value for money right now (as a head of section)?

 

[xsunnysuex]

I got a cab this morning from Kabbee. My driver was very vocal in his disgust. Made it quite clear he wouldn't be coming to take me anywhere again.

 

[CH1]

PS the implementation of our review is not an appeal.
It is a delaying tactic akin to dealing with something following a complaints procedure. Can't see the review recommending the scheme be abandoned.

Let's hope I am a gnarled old cynic - and completely wrong.

 

[bimble]

I got a cab this morning from Kabbee. My driver was very vocal in his disgust. Made it quite clear he wouldn't be coming to take me anywhere again.

I had the same thing on Saturday, cab driver from addison lee took notes on how to contact the relevant people at Lambeth !

 

[bimble]

Let's hope I am a gnarled old cynic - and completely wrong.

I feel the same way CH1. A lot of more informed people though do seem to be saying that they expect the decision on 19th to be to revoke the closures. I am watching various spaces.

 

[concerned1]

On the subject of the traffic counts.
George Wright said they were only doing a limited number of traffic counts for the review at key points.
That is the 23. 71 had been done PRIOR to the closures.

 

[AlexH]

Just wow. I like a guinness as much as the next person but.. really?
1) this bit says the number of 'before counts" seems to be 71.
It then says "repeat counts will be taken in KEY LOCATIONS".
View attachment 79437
This is not saying they will measure them again one day in the future, it's saying that for the review (i.e. this review now) they have only done 'key locations'.
I agree the tenses are a bit messy but I blame that on incompetence/ obscurantism .


2) It then says
View attachment 79438
What are you seeing here that I'm not? It says 23 locations have been surveyed for speed & volume during the closures. Not 71. 23. You think that some other sort of mysterious measuring was used at the missing 48?
What people noticed in the area a couple of weeks ago was sets of double rubber lines. These measure speed & volume.
Because they were in so few locations (& different from the 'before' counts) I mistakenly assumed they were not to do with this road closure thing at all but instead something to do with the 20MPH introduction, but seems I was just wrong about that.

Thank you Bimble for a forensic dissection of this: that is how a Judge in Court is likely to read it. Teuchter you are wrong on this point I'm afraid.

 

[bimble]

teuchter

On the subject of the traffic counts.
George Wright said they were only doing a limited number of traffic counts for the review at key points.
That is the 23. 71 had been done PRIOR to the closures.

 

[bimble]

Funny little moment just now: The CCTV car is parked below my window & it's dark, so quite hard to spot him, but a car approaching the NO ENTRY sign on Gordon grove managed to react in time, a sort of standoff for a bit before the car managed one of those Uturns that have become an art form here.

 

[concerned1]

People keep saying about it is not early enough to know about the road closures and their effects, let them settle in blah blah well on Lambeth's own site "Loughborough Junction all you need to know" it states:
"Road changes such as these experimental closures always take time to ‘bed in’ and settle down – true reflections of their impact would take at least three weeks after the closures begin. Therefore we would encourage respondents to wait until further into the study to make representations, people can contact the project manager on"
Oh I see 3 weeks THREE for anyone not able to read 3 weeks for "true reflections of their impact" guess an 8 week review will show sufficient "true reflections" and I guess all those opposing it have been commenting on "true reflections of their impact"!

 

[teuchter]

Thank you Bimble for a forensic dissection of this: that is how a Judge in Court is likely to read it. Teuchter you are wrong on this point I'm afraid.

I said it was unclear. Are "key locations" a subset of the 71 locations or the same thing? I don't know.

When it says following that, "also...traffic survey counts...including 23..." the "also" suggests that the counts which include the 23 are additional to the number that may be 71 or less.

The whole thing is so unclear it's not worth doing forensics on it. The only conclusion we can come to is that it doesn't really tell us anything. Like I say, we will find out what information is going to be presented, once it is presented. Debating about the meaning of an ambiguously worded statement will not change anything.

My point remains

Things, at any rate.

 

[teuchter]

People keep saying about it is not early enough to know about the road closures and their effects, let them settle in blah blah well on Lambeth's own site "Loughborough Junction all you need to know" it states:
"Road changes such as these experimental closures always take time to ‘bed in’ and settle down – true reflections of their impact would take at least three weeks after the closures begin. Therefore we would encourage respondents to wait until further into the study to make representations, people can contact the project manager on"
Oh I see 3 weeks THREE for anyone not able to read 3 weeks for "true reflections of their impact" guess an 8 week review will show sufficient "true reflections" and I guess all those opposing it have been commenting on "true reflections of their impact"!

(1) "at least" 3 weeks
(2) The closures were not actually enforced until several weeks in.

 

[bimble]

post: 14205502, member: There is no conspiracy
Edited to remove a 'much' - too much hyperbole.

Am I right that the only possible place for a redacted much was after 'it doesn't actually obscure anything [ ][/QUOTE]

 

[teuchter]

If we want to do forensics, why aren't we examining at those petition stats from the LJroadnutters report? The ones that show that the substantial majority of respondents are from outwith the immediate area?

The official consultation results have been dismissed on the grounds that around 50% of respondents live outside the consultation area.

So what about the 69% of the petition signatories who live outside the consultation area?

 

[bimble]

Things, at any rate.

things and time will tell

 

[Gramsci]

View attachment 79413

One of the letters in that report.

Seems to me that the problem here is not that it's difficult to get to the address, but that it is difficult to get there for someone trying to navigate with GPS. And that the problem could be fairly easily solved if the closures were included properly in satnav maps. I don't know what the process is for that to happen, but if there would have been a way of making sure that happened when the closures came in it would have saved a lot of hassle.

Looking at the route to Mr Workshops from Streatham - there's no great diversion. You just have to know the right way to go.

One of the other businesses (garage) talks about customers not being able to get through. Again, the problems seems to be to do with finding their way there. This is a genuine problem but one, it seems to me, that could be solved without abandoning the whole scheme.

The problem is people relying on GPS. Being me I have the old fashioned A to Z. Met someone last night who had used GPS to get to the gym/ boxing club in one of the arches. She, as part of her training, had gone a a run and could not find her way back. Asked her road she wanted. She said she used GPS to get there and could not remember name of road or had any idea where it was.

GPS may seem useful. But its not that good if one has a problem. It also means that people get out of practise of using maps and finding alternative routes. Most people I know who do deliveries do not use them much. It like Black Cab drivers- you get to learn a sense of direction.

 

[Gramsci]

Examples of self sufficient communities are everywhere but mostly found outside of cities, I think Detroit is a fine example of lack of infrastructure a fine place to have a bicycle post peak oil, peak solar power...

Detroit is an interesting case. This was a city which at times a good public transport system. A complicated history which mixes lack of public funding with race and class ( as the black workers were mainly working class.)

A quote from the war years:

But at the same time, ridership of Detroit's streetcars doubled during the war, from 30.8 million in 1940 to a whopping 57.2 million four years later.

"You couldn't get cars, you couldn't get gas, you couldn't get tires," said Joel Stone, senior curator for the Detroit Historical Society. "That meant everybody rode public transportation."

But the post-war years brought not only the end of rationing, but also the advent of the highway system and an increase in wealth that led more Detroit households to own a second car.

And driving became a way for some white commuters to avoid intermingling with black Detroiters, who made up a sizable chunk of streetcar ridership. Keep in mind, Detroit had a race riot in 1943. Racial tensions were fanned by white people angry about the number of black Southerners moving to the Motor City and taking prized factory jobs. Neighborhoods were racially segregated.

With the rundown streetcars and decreasing ridership, it just made more sense to scrap the system all together than try to fix them.

The last streetcar plied Detroit's streets on April 8, 1956.

Goes to show that its political decisions and change in economy that alter transport. Its not inevitable that car ownership or use is the only way.

And this on the race issue:

And that was the same year the fiery Coleman Young took office as Detroit's first black mayor.

There was no way, in that environment, that a move to fund regional public transit — and possibly make it easier for the poor or African Americans to enter the suburbs — was going to pass. The Detroit News wrote about a SEMTA planning meeting where suburbanites protested over the "undesirables, transit crime and low-income housing" that they believed public transit would bring to their communities.

As a friend pointed out to me a few days ago the reason that London has a good bus system is down to Red Ken.

 

[CH1]

Detroit is an interesting case.

I was there a couple of times around 1992/3. The bus service was pretty good at that time. Not all the doom and gloom people assume. They also had the 1 hour tickets (transfers) promised by our own Labour Mayoral aspirant Sadiq Khan.

There is also a high level elevated railway in the central business district.


As regards racial issues - I went into black restaurant early morning near the station - there was ice on the ground and breakfast sounded a good idea.
I was offered "grits" (apparently a black person's food) - and there was general amusement when I accepted. It was a type of porridge - welcome on a freezing morning. I would say porridge has no nationality (apologies to the teuchter

 

[Gramsci]

My admittedly unscientific look at CHL. Been going down to Kings a lot recently. The traffic towards Camberwell back up at the two sets of traffic lights at times. Then after the two bridges the road clears until Camberwell. Looks to me that the timing on the lights needs altering.

 

[teuchter]

The problem is people relying on GPS. Being me I have the old fashioned A to Z. Met someone last night who had used GPS to get to the gym/ boxing club in one of the arches. She, as part of her training, had gone a a run and could not find her way back. Asked her road she wanted. She said she used GPS to get there and could not remember name of road or had any idea where it was.

GPS may seem useful. But its not that good if one has a problem. It also means that people get out of practise of using maps and finding alternative routes. Most people I know who do deliveries do not use them much. It like Black Cab drivers- you get to learn a sense of direction.

Yeah, I am the same, don't like to rely on it and use it as little as possible so that I can retain some sense of direction and understanding of where I am.

But I think it maybe is a useful technology when it comes to driving. If most people are using it, it allows more efficient/clever traffic management. It means that you can put in systems that help keep certain streets quiet, that 15 years ago might not have been feasible, because they would have caused too much confusion for drivers that didn't know the area. It's now an affordable technology. If you can afford a car you can afford a GPS device.

I suspect that it allows people to drive more safely when they are in unfamiliar territory, too. Fewer sudden turns at the last minute, or distracted drivers looking for signs or trying to look at maps when they should be watching the road.

We're entering a (probably very extended) transitional phase where technology will be taking over more and more of what car drivers have been doing up until now. Hopefully one day humans won't be driving cars any more at all, because they're rubbish at it. And once that day comes we can get rid of all these physical traffic management systems and all the clutter that goes with them. If you could have a adjustable and totally reliably enforced speed limit on all streets, there'd be no need to have no-entry points to stop rat runs - you'd just tweak the speed limits to make sure those routes weren't any faster than the ones designed for the job.

 

[bimble]

As a friend pointed out to me a few days ago the reason that London has a good bus system is down to Red Ken

Not complaining about the buses, definitely much improved compared to years ago but don't think it's very 'red', having ten different private companies running different routes in the city, and competing to outbid each other for the business & profits

 

[bimble]

this is odd. Looks like the plan was only to look at 12-15 locations for this review, so if we've had 26 of them we're lucky. (?)

 

[LadyV]

(1) "at least" 3 weeks
(2) The closures were not actually enforced until several weeks in.

I'm not sure they are actually enforcing, there are no cameras and I seem to remember reading somewhere that they haven't issued any fines at all

 

[CH1]

Not complaining about the buses, definitely much improved compared to years ago but don't think it's very 'red', having ten different private companies running different routes in the city, and competing to outbid each other for the business & profits
View attachment 79451

If your are going to be purist like that - how about the leasing companies which own the physical buses? The operating companies are simply the bus equivalent of NPower, British Gas, Talktalk etc which provide our services on top of a leased infrastructure. The whole thing is designed to give a mirage of competetion/and/or uniformity as the case may be while allowing money to be extracted for investors.

Back to Loughborough Parkway
There is inspiration in your moan about financialisation:

We should tell LJAG and Lambeth Transport Control to come to their senses and make Loughborough Parkway into a toll road. The Dulwich Estate trustees could give advice, based on their experience of this type of venture in former times. This would go down well with LJAG and the council who have a penchant for upmarket consultations.

There are amazing opportunities here, because pricing could be variable.

Motorists from outside Lambeth could be charged penal rates, and those from outside Coldharbour could be charged merely criminally outrageous rates.

Obviously Loughborough Estate residents, and some residents from neighbouring streets ought to get it free. But not those on the south side of Coldharbour Lane who have caused all this misery.

The charging booth would be operated by apprentice Inland Revenue inspectors - from Angell Town or Loughborough Estates, under Evgeny Lebedev's estate rescue scheme.

If Boris can do it for bikes, surely we can do it for community safety?

 

[CH1]

BTW back in the real world I ask a Darth Vader look-alike traffic warden this morning when or if they were reopening the road and he said they are still operating on the basis of a 6 months trial.
Obviously the traffic wardens are provided by another company (Veolia perhaps) but clearly they are not in the loop if any developments are afoot.

 

[cuppa tee]

the traffic wardens are provided by another company (Veolia perhaps) .

I think its this lot
About Us | NSL

 

[bimble]

BTW back in the real world I ask a Darth Vader look-alike traffic warden this morning when or if they were reopening the road and he said they are still operating on the basis of a 6 months trial.
Obviously the traffic wardens are provided by another company (Veolia perhaps) but clearly they are not in the loop if any developments are afoot.

Don't know if there's even a loop to be in (seeing as GW & Braithwaite seem to have had trouble communicating with each other on really basic stuff like when is the review over) .

 

[concerned1]

This scheme has brought together an amazing amount of really wonderful people.
I read with delight each day the dissecting of each morsel that arises from someone's finding's and Lambeth have loads on offer all with assorted variations, and the dessemination of it by the wide audience here.
The varied topics this has brought up have been in some instances quite hilarious but on the other hand some quite serious and others very indepth.
I have learnt daily of some very interesting facts and also some have given some great new ideas and possibilities.
For example the technology and the advancement of it re travel and I look forward to the day we go even further in travel and can move ourselves without a vehicle or any physical contraption but via the mind.
I could just POP up anywhere. The mind is far from being used to it's fullest capacity yet.

 

[irf520]

I have learnt daily of some very interesting facts and also some have given some great new ideas and possibilities.
For example the technology and the advancement of it re travel and I look forward to the day we go even further in travel and can move ourselves without a vehicle or any physical contraption but via the mind.
I could just POP up anywhere. The mind is far from being used to it's fullest capacity yet.