15 November (Part 2) - The SL3 to Bexley Village - or not
As
the petition to have the Superloop bus stop at Bexley Village’s War Memorial on
the Western periphery of the Village has become a talking point on X, BiB’s
report on last Tuesday’s Transport Sub-Committee meeting will take another
non-chronological step by reporting now what was said there on that subject.
It will be another verbatim report because I do not wish to influence the issue
one way or another; well not by much!
I have already said that I personally don’t really see the
point of an extra stop as Bexley Village already has many bus services and the railway line to
all the places served by the SL3 although it must be accepted that the 229 to
Abbey Wood station takes a slow and circuitous route.
But who in Bexley Village would want to take the Elizabeth line into central
London when there is a direct Southeastern service on their doorstep? But as
someone who can be sitting on a Liz line train within ten minutes of shutting
my front door it is not really any of my business.
The TfL speaker at the Transport Committee meeting was Rachel Harkes and with
excuses for a horribly muffled sounding audio recording of a less than perfect Zoom call this is
what she said about the SL3.
The SL3 discussion actually started with Councillor John Davey saying he
believed the SL3 went through Bexley Village on its journey towards Bromley
South but uses the A2 from Blackfen in the other direction. [In practice with no
stops between Bexleyheath Library and Sidcup station it goes wherever there is
least traffic and I have seen a Thamesmead bound bus at the War Memorial more
than once. I use that stop myself occasionally.]
He then asked for an additional stop to be made at the Northern end of Brampton
Road where it joins Long Lane. The cynics will point out that this is close to
where Councillor Davey lives but his justification was that “a lot of buses
intersect at that point”. [One of which already goes on the SL3 route direct to
Abbey Wood station (301) with only four additional little used stops and another
(B11) takes the same route to Bexleyheath station as the SL3.]
He thought that Bexleyheath’s three stops were unnecessary. The Station, Lion
Road and the Library. Cut out the “pointless” Lion Road was his suggestion which
I found to be rather annoying as I used it twice in each direction only
yesterday. You only very occasionally see people using the Lion Road stops he
claimed whereas I can tell you that in what must be my well over 50 SL3
journeys since February 2024 it has never yet bypassed Lion Road.
He said the Library stop was a “nightmare” because the same stop is used by both
North and South bound buses. Ignoring the fact that the arrangement is entirely
due Bexley’s idiotic road systems he wanted that stop moved too. To Albion or Townley Road presumably making the SL3 even more of a bloody nuisance for
shoppers wanting to get home to Thamesmead etc. i.e. me yesterday who missed a
301 at the Clock Tower by ten seconds and checking the bus App had to run to just get an SL3 at the
Library. There is no way I would have made Townley Road in time.
That, he said, were his thoughts on the subject “after using the SL3 a few times”.
Rachel Harkes said “in terms of the request for a stop at Bexley Village, just to
update you, obviously it did come up at the last [Transport] meeting and so
Michelle [?] and one of our principal transport planners met with some Bexley
officers following the meeting and we looked again at the options whether or
not we could have a stop in Bexley Village and one of the things we wanted to
do was to be able to provide some data back to yourselves looking at the number
of trips being made on the SL3, where those trips could be served by other
routes and sort of estimate the number of passengers per day that are
[inaudible] at the moment per stop.”
“We have been able to dig that up but unfortunately the data wasn’t available
until the middle of last month October just because of everything that has been
happening, the cyber incident at TfL. So that did [inaudible] at the moment
after our meeting with the Bexley Officers and it still would be our
recommendation not to put an additional stop at Bexley Village, not at this
point in time. It is still a relatively new service; it is still bedding in in
terms of number of passengers, there are other links and routes available to do
the journey, you know, that the SL3 would do but that information is obviously
[inaudible] at the moment and I can provide a little bit more information in due course.
Cameron Smith: “If I could just jump in there, we have been doing a campaign
locally, a petition to bring the SL3 to Bexley Village. Our officers will pass
on the data to me regarding Transport for London. What I think has happened is
that the number of people who would like access to the express service in Bexley
Village has been wildly underestimated. I will put my hands up for being a bit,
when this was first asked of me by a resident a number of months ago, sceptical
to it but I have been really quite amazed by the number of people who have come
forward and asked us and that is why we started the petition and what we have
got is Thomas Turrell our Assembly Member submitted it at City Hall last week.”
“Because of the timeline we have submitted to by the plans [rustling paper noises
obliterated some of that], that is about 1,500 signatures but actually it has
grown now to about 1,940 signatures in the Village and I can share that information
with you because I think it would be quite interesting for you to have a look at
along with the plans [?] because I do think that; I can totally see in what
you’ve provided that you know there is kind of a weighing up of the balance,
will it delay more people than it would benefit etcetera but I think you have
got the estimates wrong in terms of the demand in Bexley Village. It is really quite high, it is really
quite surprising. We have been knocking on a couple of streets over the weekend
and the number of people who mentioned the campaign and signed the petition, I
mean it is, there is barely anyone in Bexley Village who hasn’t signed it but I
will share that with you afterwards. I know that Transport for London will
respond to Thomas Turrell but the number is higher and I think it might be
interesting to be aware of.”
“And the other thing I would say is, I know it is in the response talking about
the delay, the delay is very minor especially seeing it is already running in
one direction past the Village and I do know that Penhill Road just how heavily
congested that can be and while the Village can be, when you actually turn at
the War Memorial you don’t contribute to that congestion nor do you you get
stuck in it because it is on the other side of the Village at the
mini-roundabout where the High Street and Bourne Road meet that is the real
problem area. So I think it needs a bit more work on this but we have some
information we can provide you basically to help with the case and I am happy to
share that afterwards.”
John Davey requested that Rachel Harkes took a look at “the stops in Bexleyheath
which to my mind don’t look sensible. Is that a possibility?”
Rachel: “I can certainly take that back for our planners again and get them to do
a review again and it might be helpful to look at the data that we have provided
back as well as that obviously gives you a better idea of the demand for the
Village stop and passengers as we go along because obviously Bexley Villagers
are rushing out to the stops we are changing and that might be helpful to have
backdated as well but I will take that back to our planners as well.”
Councillor Davey with his only “occasional” use of the service, may be unaware that the Lion Road stop is right outside a pub
called The Wrong ’Un which is probably a pretty fair description of his opinion
of the worth of that Bexleyheath stop.
Councillor Smith is far too young to know that
the congestion in Penhill Road
was deliberately created by Bexley Council’s decision {they admitted in writing
to me that that was their intention] to halve the width of its
exit on to the Blackfen roundabout. Traffic ran freely until Bexley Council’s
usual road design idiocy ran riot again.
And why am I slightly amused by the fact that in the
15 years of Bonkers, Bexley Council has always been reluctant to act on
petitions to them but expects everyone to jump to attention when they start
their own?