In the news

Think I posted this elsewhere, it's the only reason I recognise that picture. I was surprised at the viewing numbers but I guess people have been locked in their houses quite a bit.

https://youtu.be/CrNWLE3OIGk

Good link.

I wrote to Weetabix about it as a daily consumer (3 with warm coconut milk, raisins and occasionally summer berries), and they said they're reviewing their advertising to meet their values. Fingers crossed.

I think UTAG lost?

Yep, black cabbies are threatening all sorts of revenge:

" how do these judges sleep at night . They want the roads closed let's close em .When's the next protest. "

always last
@lastnotlost
Looks like #TfL has won its appeal in court re #StreetSpace and #Bishopsgate restrictions. Court has quashed the previous rulings - #StreetSpace etc is legal.

Interesting implications for remaining pandemic schemes, and pending anti-LTN cases.

(News out on cabbie twitter

https://twitter.com/CabvisionTaxi/status/1405185094340464647

I cycled fifty thousand miles in London and never hardly had a problem with black cabbies. Black cabbies on twitter are the vilest bunch of horrible scum you can imagine.

You kinda described Twitter in a nutshell really.

The loudest people are in the minorities despite sounding like there's a majority of people have a similar viewpoint when in reality, it's very much the opposite.

Case in point Lawey Fox.

Bought my road bike from a black cabbie. About the only nice interaction I've had, out of the few.

Hope he straightened the wheels and wiped off the blood.

In the likely murder case of Agnes Akom, who disappeared suddenly, but whose case has attracted much less attention than that of Sarah Everard, human remains have been found. In Neasden Recreation Ground close to the Welsh Harp.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/agnes-akom-missing-police-human-remains-neasden-b940807.html

I mean, there are always too many murders in London, but there are always some that seem particularly awful. This is one of those for me.

I just don't get the Streestspace furore. At least in my immediate local area. We've had quite a few road changes off the back of it in Greenwich. I spent a bit of time talking to people protesting against it but after a while it became obvious, at least with the schemes very local to me, that most of the objections were based on absolutely nothing.

For example, they have blocked off about four roads leading to Royal Hill to reduce rat running. In the immediate aftermath local residents were screaming about lost trade to local businesses, difficulties of access for the disabled etc. This is bollocks. You can still drive to literally everywhere, you just can't drive down certain roads to get to where you want to go. There are still accessible parking spaces in front of all the shops. Everybody can still go where they want to go. They just might have a detour of a few hundred meters to do it. The biggest difference I can see is that there is no longer a steady stream of vans and cars driving above the speed limit on relatively narrow residential streets and bombing through recreation spaces.

Interestingly the local businesses in these areas seem to be in support of the changes as they realise that not much has really changed in terms of footfall and accessibility to their shops. It only seems to be wealthy locals who can no longer drive the 500m directly to little timmy's primary school without joining a main road who seem to be losing their shit.

https://mobile.twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1405203455183044624

He's right. This is an important judgement.

I live on Royal Hill, and I'm a big fan of the LTN's.

Then again, I don't really drive much.

The furore in the cabbies' case was mainly aimed at the introduction of these schemes without consultation. Obviously, they'll also be unhappy about what exactly has been done, but this was ostensibly about procedure. Highway authorities have every right to introduce traffic orders, and wide leeway as to what they can contain, but it has to be said, and I say this as a supporter of modal filtering, that many of the schemes are terrible and not on the right principles. The Greenwich one is a rare example of a well-conceived scheme, but most contain the usual problems with filtering--filtering on the edges of cells, making cells too large, leaving loops, failing to filter cells properly, etc. Also, some of the measures aimed at widening footways essentially created conditions comparable to ones you find at roadworks, which are known to be more hazardous than ordinary conditions, and generally prevented people from crossing the street.

Anyway, I didn't expect this case to go the cabbies' way, and I was surprised when the first judgement did, but it's certainly not the last word on this.

I live on Royal Hill, and I'm a big fan of the LTN's.

Royal Hill could do with a bit less traffic though!

We're just up the road from you. Might I have seen one of your bikes propped up against the wall in the Union in the past?

Thanks Oliver, I appreciate the info. I don't really know about it other than my observations from local schemes so every little bit helps.

There was a modal filtering point introduced to South Row in Blackheath village last year. The end of the street blocked off to cars was/is an accident hotspot. Several fatalities and quite a few more serious accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists. As a local I thought it looked like a sensible change. The backlash it generated was huge. Initially the council stuck to their guns but got sick of having to replace the planters every day as angry locals dragged them out of the way. Would be interested to understand why the locals seemed so opposed that particular scheme.

Edit: Maybe it was more of a case of being poorly implemented https://853.london/2020/06/19/south-row-blackheath-walking-and-cycling-scheme-suspended-after-drivers-ignore-signs/

Might I have seen one of your bikes propped up against the wall in the Union in the past?

Possibly, but as I'm literally just a couple of doors down, I'd normally take my bike home.

The Union has now of course sadly been swallowed up by the Tolley - sad times.

difficulties of access for the disabled etc. This is bollocks. You can still drive to literally everywhere.

That's the key point, they didn't closed the road, just mean people need to go the long way round to get to that road if they need to go on that particular road.

Well, as you mentioned upthread the twitter response, possibly even involving black cabbies, is endless yelling of

Try delivering 4 tons of concrete by bicycle you ponce. I am literally shaking.

I always like to just show them this next time they make that point.

I'm just surprised they never heard of e-bikes.

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Well, that's just a classic case of filtering in the wrong place. The single principle for getting it right that gets violated by far the most often is to filter at the edge of a cell instead of inside, but this isn't even a case of that, as South Row functions as a cell boundary street. I wouldn't filter it. Sure, that junction may have had its fair share of crashes, but the reason for those was people making fast, injudicious turns, whether into or out of the junction, and your first remedy there is to simply square off the junction. You can see how the corner was built out there before, but that's not nearly enough. The traffic engineer involved will have had a brief not to make turns too slow, and it's true that if you make them very slow you may get rear-enders, so you'd need to make sure the junction is very obvious to drivers on Montpelier Row and Prince of Wales Road. However, that crash potential would be a much more minor problem compared to the existing problem of the aforementioned fast turns. It's often the junctions with the sweeping angles that cause so many crashes from those, and that problem would be removed almost entirely if you extend the existing build-out so that South Row meets the B212 at a right angle. The junction of South Row and Paragon Place so close to the main junction is a slightly complicating factor, but not impossible to design right.

It's certainly daft in the extreme to stick a single filter there while leaving Paragon Place and Wemyss Road unfiltered. Whoever did that job evidently didn't see the Obvious Problem.

I think filtering further back in the cell, i.e. around Morden Road/Blackheath Park would make the cell to the south too large. (The main culprits in the lack of permeability to the south are the large private estate there, the railway lines, and the fact that Blackheath Park does not connect to Kidbrooke Park Road, only to Morden Road.) I'm sure you already have the problem there that drivers accessing their houses drive too fast to get to them, which is what usually happens in very large cells, and were Morden Road filtered (as Pond Road and Fulthorp Road/Morden Road Mews undoubtedly were a long time ago), the resulting cell would be massive (bounded by the A2213, Weigall Road, the A20, the B212 (including the immensely annoying Blackheath one-way system), as well as South Row, Kidbrooke Gardens, and Westbrook Road). It is already filtered in the usual number of places were older problems were undoubtedly addressed in this way, e.g. between Casterbridge Road and Moorhead Way.

Paragon Place/Wemyss Road could be filtered, but I'd guess that they don't often have to take overspill from congestion on the Blackheath one-way system. It's really up to what the locals think. Of course, further filtering could be introduced in the cell south of Blackheath Park. The large number of private roads, e.g. Manor Way probably means that there's no existing rat-running problem.

I need to get you to look over the Levenshulme LTN.

There is a fucking protest march happening next Saturday against our LTN in Bethnal Green. I hope they appreciate the nice quiet car free roads as they march in protest against them.

How can people get that upset about something so beneficial is beyond me.