12 April - Buses poor. Trains good
What happened at the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee on 25th March when I was
not well enough to attend? With no webcast the only way is to guess after reading the Agenda.
More often than not the police don’t bother to turn up and this time they didn’t
even bother to make a written report for the Agenda. They were supposed to
report on any road watching schemes that might be operating in Bexley but we
will never know if they did or not.
TfL did a lot better but were not the bearers of glad tidings. 17 bus routes kept people waiting longer than they
should; in some cases more than half an hour longer, the worst offender being
the SL3 which I have personally noted twice running a 28 minute interval. A further 18 routes
habitually run late or not at all. The 492 and 428 ran very late for a quarter of journeys.
There is a proposal and consultation on losing route 472 Abbey Wood to North Greenwich
and replacing it with a limited stop SuperLoop service.
I have become a frequent bus traveller and have every sympathy with the drivers
given the amount of inconsiderate parking, dangerous driving and disrupted roads there are in this borough.
South Eastern and Network Rail habitually provide an excellent presentation via
Zoom (or some such thing) but next to nothing in writing apart from
an interesting web link to train punctuality. With Abbey Wood being the
alphabetically most senior National Rail station that link will instantly show
that Abbey Wood provides a pretty good service.
Some road resurfacing has been completed but there is still no date
for Thames Road. A Zebra crossing in Bedonwell Road has been completed and
another in Bexley Road is awaiting installation as is yet another in Slade Green Road.
My local CPZ is now said to be awaiting installation but no one has told the
residents yet. The same is true of the proposed West Heath CPZ but the
Cabinet Member has still not been given any recommendations for a CPZ around Belvedere Station and Slade Green. It is now
nine months since residents were consulted
and left in total ignorance ever since. The only people I know in the Belvedere
area don’t see the need for a CPZ but probably they will change their
minds when the Abbey Wood one creates the obvious displacement problem.
