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News and Comment January 2020

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31 January - It’s Bollox to Broadway Day

I got to the top of Gravel Hill around 2 p.m. yesterday afternoon, checked the light was green and stopped at the boundary of the roundabout to wait for the traffic coming up from Watling Street until a gap appeared, pulled on to the roundabout and raised my gaze to look further ahead just as the next set of lights went red.

The driver in front of me decided to block a bus coming in from Broadway which was lucky for me because I was able to stop against the central island and able to claim it wasn’t me who was blocking the whole roundabout. It seemed to be gridlocked for ages but when the light eventually went green I let the bus, which had edged forward as far as it could, out in front of me, earning a quick blast on someone’s horn for my patience.

The Highway Department’s expertise had done its job once again. It is absolutely sure it knows what is best for us, something that became all too clear at the last Transport Users’ meeting when the cyclist took them to task for causing eight serious accidents in two years.

For my part I am sure of the incompetence because I have the expertise of the UK’s EU safety consultant to draw on. (I wonder if he is losing his contract today, I will ask when I see him tomorrow.)

I am not alone in thinking that Bexley’s Highway’s Manager is not really up to his job, a Bonkers’ reader sent me this a month or so ago. He reveals that he is one of the cyclist thrown off his steed by the lack of road design skills within Bexley Council. His opinion of them is very obviously much the same as mine, isn’t everyoneֹ’s?


1) Bellway towers continue to climb skyward. Fortunately I cannot actually see them from my house. Standby though for more traffic chaos when residents start to move in and expose the obvious folly to anyone with even half a brain cell but swallowed by Bexley Council planning that only a few will have cars. Many more parking spaces over and above the few included in the scheme will actually be needed from somewhere. Standby for even more draconian parking measures in surrounding roads.

2) Still waiting to hear whether Bexley Council intend to reintroduce the bee in their bonnet about closing Highland Road. For no particular benefit that can be seen only because they can.

3)The magic roundabout opposite Trinity Church which Bexley Council insist is a tee junction continues to cause confusion and a multitude of near misses. Many drivers have been observed having exited Church Road towards the Clocktower but actually wishing to go towards Welling then doing U turns in the tee junction to the consternation of everyone. Even police cars have been seen doing this!

4) The abnormally wide island on leaving the magic roundabout/tee junction towards Welling only allows one traffic line and unnecessarily obstructs traffic which wishes to turn into Church Road. It also continues to cause tailbacks up the Broadway and Albion road

5) Still waiting to see the anticipated hoards of cyclists (even a single solitary one) using the wide vastly expensive Albion Road cycle lanes. Even my very occasional use has now ceased since its poor design caused me to fall off and I do not bounce as well as I used to.

Between the vehicle lane and the cycle lane there is a line of kerb stones. No idea why since a white painted line would suffice. In some places the two lanes are flush and in other places the kerbstones are approximately two inches high. From a cyclists elevation the different sections are not obvious and if they try to move from the vehicle lane to the cycle lane where there is a two inch kerb then the cycle wheels follow the kerb instead of crossing over it and the rider falls off.

In addition whilst vehicles are provided with a smooth top surface cyclists are provided with a rough surface with granite chippings partially embedded no doubt especially designed to scrape off maximum skin when they can induce a cyclist to fall off.

The cyclist rep on the transport committee has been made aware of the above and he agrees poor design but whether he has raised them with the Committee is not known.

6) Mr. Bashford, the manager, promised wild flowers on the Albion Road roundabouts and the verge near the Bowling alley. It was said though that it was not the right time of year for planting and to be patient. That was two years ago. There is still not much to see of wild flowers merely furious weeds.

7) The usual Bexley Council Highways Dept. inability to design roundabouts is also very obvious as evidenced at the Albion Road roundabouts and the deep ruts caused by heavy truck wheels mounting the kerbs.

8) The provision of roundabouts at Gravel Hill to replace traffic lights was thought a good move. But then Bexley Council had to spoil it all by installing traffic lights as well as roundabouts and then to doubly complicate matters installed traffic lights both on and off the roundabout. A recipe for gridlock.

9) Royal Oak Road where it circles round behind Central library and Travel Lodge hotel was resurfaced recently but they omitted the section between the Working Men’s Club and the side of Primark. Now whenever it rains huge puddles form on the corner. This has been reported to the Highways Manager but no action taken, not even an acknowledgement.

Not much of the above is likely to change until Mr. B. can be induced to inflict his ‘talents’ on to some other local authority as far away as possible.

 

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