21 February - New Road nonsense
It has been a quiet week and there is nothing very urgent to report today
either; but just to keep the pot boiling…
Various rants about the dangers that Bexley Council has created In New Road, Abbey Wood
provoked some correspondence from people who live there but there were
differing opinions. The common factor is that New Road used to be a minor
residential road paralleling Knee Hill. Knee Hill is the direct route (A2041)
between Bexleyheath and Thamesmead favoured by Sat Navs but which
small-minded Councils
are determined to keep narrow and dangerous.
I witnessed a minor accident on it this week but that is another story.
Because Knee Hill is so dangerous in service TfL buses do not use it but it would not be a good
idea (SL3 excepted) anyway because if they did, the so called Abbey Wood Village
would totally lose its North/South services. (Photo 1.) The not very frequent 229 goes to
Bexleyheath via Erith and takes around three times as long to get there as a
301. The newly introduced SL11 which terminates in the Village goes to Greenwich.
Without the New Road route not only would Abbey Wood Village lose its
most useful bus services, residents living at the top of New Road would have a long
wait for a bus to Abbey Wood station. Just one service reduced from the present three.
Why some people object to them is a mystery to me.
Buses
using New Road is a good thing in principle but there are problems and as usual they are created by Bexley Council.
Not directly related but once again indicative of Bexley Council’s
inability to
think things through is the daily queue for Abbey Wood station. (Photo 2.) Everyone wants
to drive there and it is the terminal for the SL11 and 244 buses which wait
right next to it. (Photo 3.) There are sometimes four buses parked there.
The queue for the station doubles back on itself via
one-way Wilton and Florence Roads and
grid-lock is inevitable. There are mitigations available but Bexley Council is too stupid to look at them.
Bexley Council deliberately creates further dangers in New Road.
The four foot wide carriageway (Photo 2 below) before a blind bend
is tolerated because it provides for extra paid parking spaces. Money comes first in a broke borough.
The
same is true at the Woodland Way bus stop. (Photo 3 above.) It is
built out into the road because to do otherwise would require the loss of at
least two more paid parking spaces to allow a bus to pull in. It causes a hold up whenever a bus stops and
at night, when there is no parking, bus passengers are likely to stand in the
path of on-coming traffic with no lighting to protect them.
Bexley Council's Highways Department simply doesn’t care.
Lower down the same road (Photo 4 above), opposite another bus stop
and authorised parking bays, parking is
allowed (note the single yellow line) except for the middle two hours of the day. It is convenient for Abbey
Wood station parking especially at the weekend when there are are no restrictions at all.
The result is that it is impossible for two buses to pass and one has to stay back,
often on the footpath, until the other bus moves off.
Bexley’s parking arrangements allow the road to be totally blocked at this point and occasionally it is.
It is crazy and so is Bexley Council.
And inevitably the road is cracking up. (Final Photo.)