19 July (Part 1) - On yer bike, Frizoni
A reader supplied blog and pictures this morning. When I went to the Civic Centre last Wednesday, having heard of the Mayplace Road chaos, I chose to get the B11 bus rather than the 229 so as to avoid it. If I had known it was so spectacular I’d have gone to have a look.
I decided to drive through Bexleyheath last night at 7 p.m. What could possibly go wrong?
Approaching Erith Road from Mayplace Road East I could see that Mayplace Road West was closed.
The recommended diversion was to turn left onto Erith Road but that way was full of stationary
traffic. I turned right instead, headed north on Erith Road, left into Long Lane, left again
into Woolwich Road heading toward Arnsberg Way.
As I got to the junction of Chapel Road and Arnsberg way, the traffic was gridlocked and
appeared to have been for some time. After about five minutes I decided to walk down to the
junction to see what the problem was. There were two single file road works restrictions
allowing one direction at a time controlled by temporary traffic lights, one either side
of the T-Junction.
I don't receive £108,622 per year myself so I am not qualified to explain to you the
wisdom of this particular arrangement. A local Bobby had been sent along to try and make
some sense of it all. He eventually unblocked it after plenty of manoeuvring. As I returned
to the car I saw that some of my fellow victims had found a bit of kerb space to abandon
their cars and continue their journey on foot. I can't help feeling that the town centre
will need to undergo some regeneration when these monkeys have eventually finished with it.
Map provided for out of town readers. Click to see more of it.