Dulwich residents! Need your help

Hi all,

It's come to my notice that Southwark Council have a £2M grant pot for "Cleaner, Greener, Safer" improvements to the borough, and cycling projects are eligible. See here for info:-

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/cleanergreenersafer

I have an idea for an eligible project - a Toucan crossing of the A212 to link Crystal Palace Park to Fountain Drive (which gives you a pretty safe route, as in an 8 year old could ride it outside rush hour with an adult, all the way to Dulwich Park & points beyond). Apparently Toucans cost about £50k so it's quite a small slice of the £2M pie.

However, projects can only be submitted by people who live or work in the Community Council area that the project is to take place in. I live just over the border in Croydon, and work in SE1, so I'm not eligible. Have asked Southwark Cyclists for help, but so far nobody has come forward.

I don't mind doing the bulk of the work - filling in forms, getting supporter lists signed etc. - but would need somebody local to the Dulwich Community Council area (anywhere in Southwark Borough between Crystal Palace & the north end of Dulwich Village) who supports the idea to actually apply to the council to make it happen.

Applying is no guarantee of success, but I know quite a few people in Palace & elsewhere who'd support it, just haven't found anyone in the immediate area yet. Realistically it'll take half an hour of your time to apply, and it's not the end of the world if it gets knocked back, but "don't ask, don't get" and all that. I think there's a pretty good case for making it easier & safer for cyclists & pedestrians to cross a dual carriageway to get to a park, but I'm not TfL...

Google map of the location here:-
https://www.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Westwood+Hill%2FA212&daddr=Fountain+Dr&hl=en&sll=51.422962,-0.07169&sspn=0.013487,0.033023&geocode=FfOyEAMdy93-_w%3BFZe0EAMdU9v-_w&t=h&mra=dme&mrsp=1&sz=16&z=16

Old Cople Lane is an access road in to the park - as you'll see on Street View the A212 is pretty nasty.. I don't mind it as a fast-ish roadie, but it stinks for pedestrians, and child cyclists.

Let me know if interested. If you're not a forum member you can reach me on email angushewlett (at) gmail (dot) com.

Thanks!

I like the idea but do you think they would put one between the roundabouts?

Don't know. Given that it's an on-demand (push button) crossing & likely to be fairly lightly used at the times when the roads are busiest, I don't really see why not, but I'm not a highway engineer.

The Fountain Drive junction arguably shouldn't be a roundabout in any case - it's a low-traffic, minor, 20mph road adjoining a major "A" road, and the geometry is kind of weird (3 exit lanes for Fountain Dr..? the mouth of the road is like 3x wider than the road itself) - never mind that turning right out of Fountain on to CP Parade, or right into Fountain from the north/east, is kind of intimidating even for an experienced cyclist - however, it's my understanding that even a minor junction rebuild costs 10x as much as putting in a crossing, so a Toucan would be a relatively easy fix here.