Crossing Points on Woolwich Road
Pat points out:
Have you noticed that the council has built in no less than three crossing points along Woolwich Road?
Two are in front of the retirement home and another further down towards Denham Street.All have dropped pavements and a central island. As a pedestrain I appreciate having somewhere safe to cross but can only predict that this will lead to further traffic problems as the road is now significantly narrowed.
And who in their right minds would choose to cross that road at anything thing other than the designated pelican crossings where at least you only have to do battle with the cyclists, generally the other traffic is not going anywhere very fast anyway!
The Phantom sort of agrees:
I wonder whether they are gearing up for the new "Heart of East Greenwich?" Heaven help us. I noticed that one of the big problems with the plans (when they deigned to show them to us for half an hour last autumn) was the exiting point of traffic from the new development straight onto Woolwich Road.
I asked the guy why they thought that was a good idea and he just said ' well there would have been traffic when it was a hospital." Trouble is that whereas that traffic have been on a continual trickle-basis during the day when it was a hospital, when new flats and offices are built, I can see residents (understandably) wanting to leave for school/work at the same time as the council office workers want to arrive and everyone else is trying to use Woolwich Road around them.
But back to crossings. The point outside the retirement home could well be a good thing, thinking about it - especially for frail people to feel a little safer, though as you point out the traffic's nearly always at a standstill anyway. I can't see that there are going to be enough elderly people crossing to make it a big problem.
Woolwich Road is going to be an interesting experience over the next couple of years, methinks. What I'd love to see is a rejuvenation of the dead shops there. The big problem is the traffic, and at the risk of being a controversial old phantom, it's possible that some kind of congestion charging for people just using Greenwich as a rat-run could be the answer...
What do you lot think?
Have you noticed that the council has built in no less than three crossing points along Woolwich Road?
Two are in front of the retirement home and another further down towards Denham Street.All have dropped pavements and a central island. As a pedestrain I appreciate having somewhere safe to cross but can only predict that this will lead to further traffic problems as the road is now significantly narrowed.
And who in their right minds would choose to cross that road at anything thing other than the designated pelican crossings where at least you only have to do battle with the cyclists, generally the other traffic is not going anywhere very fast anyway!
The Phantom sort of agrees:
I wonder whether they are gearing up for the new "Heart of East Greenwich?" Heaven help us. I noticed that one of the big problems with the plans (when they deigned to show them to us for half an hour last autumn) was the exiting point of traffic from the new development straight onto Woolwich Road.
I asked the guy why they thought that was a good idea and he just said ' well there would have been traffic when it was a hospital." Trouble is that whereas that traffic have been on a continual trickle-basis during the day when it was a hospital, when new flats and offices are built, I can see residents (understandably) wanting to leave for school/work at the same time as the council office workers want to arrive and everyone else is trying to use Woolwich Road around them.
But back to crossings. The point outside the retirement home could well be a good thing, thinking about it - especially for frail people to feel a little safer, though as you point out the traffic's nearly always at a standstill anyway. I can't see that there are going to be enough elderly people crossing to make it a big problem.
Woolwich Road is going to be an interesting experience over the next couple of years, methinks. What I'd love to see is a rejuvenation of the dead shops there. The big problem is the traffic, and at the risk of being a controversial old phantom, it's possible that some kind of congestion charging for people just using Greenwich as a rat-run could be the answer...
What do you lot think?
Labels: Debates
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
12:19
2 Comments:
I am astonished that this phantasmagorical provocation hasn't elicited any responses!
Perhaps we're all cyclists and/or public transport users who don't want to set off the apparently tireless wingeing of Britain's "beleaguered" car drivers?
I'll stick my head above the papapet: I strongly support the idea of congestion charging in Greenwich - and not just local congestion charging, but actually extending the central London congestion charge zone all the way to the A102M.
On the "New Heart of East Greenwich" - has anybody heard anything since the autumn "consultation"? I understood that First Base was going to put in a planning application by start-2008, but haven't heard anything since. Anybody know what what's going on?
As an aside, I was v amused to see that - like English Partnerships in 2005 - First Base issued ONE "project newsletter" back in October to coincide with the public consultation and scheduled planning application, to be followed by... silence.
But remember - "The project has been designed in consultation with local residents..." LOL!
As a further aside... the "New Heart of East Greenwich" is going to suffer heart failure pretty quickly, coming complete with clogged arteries.
We went to the consultation, and asked about the number of parking spaces to be provided in the scheme. I don't remember the exact figures, but it's something like 600 houses, of which a third are to be 3/4 bedrooms, and there will be c.200 car spaces provided. The First Base rep told us that 'people won't need cars'. My guess is that the majority of purchasers of 3/4 bedroom homes will be families with small children and at least one car. Even assuming that only 2/3 of homes on the new estate have a car, and that none have more than one, there will be 200 extra cars to be parked on the surrounding roads, which are already congested. The response from First Base is that the council won't be providing residents' parking permits for the surrounding streets - I wonder how long that will last, faced with a couple of hundred angry voters, or else a half-empty development?
The crossing points on the Woolwich Road are in ridiculous places. I agree, they're likely to provoke further congestion - there was just about room for cars travelling from Greenwich to Woolwich to pass cars waiting to turn right into Chevening Road before, but already the crossing point that has been put in just before the road is causing jams. It's not as though pedestrians will use that crossing anyway - they will continue to dash across the road between the bus stops (and shops). Yet another hare-brained scheme that benefits nobody...
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