Devonshire, Tyson, Ewelme Traffic Volume

Hi All

I lived here for about 4 years. Due to lockdown, working from home etc. i’ve barely been going outside, and i have become really aware of the amount of traffic on Tyson, Ewelme and Devonshire Road etc.

I notice that other local streets (Garthorne, Stansted Road, Manor Mount etc.) have had initiatives implemented to reduce traffic. None of which i remember being implemented.

I appreciate closing roads etc. is a very divisive subject so dont want to get into that

But i wondered if anyone knows the history regarding this, has there ever been any measures introduced and removed, or any consultations etc. Were the residents on the other streets just lucky or was there community action to get the council to do something about it etc?

Thanks

Important questions. I have tried to find out what surveys there were, impact assessments etc. but I’ve been pushed back or ignored by councillors and Highways Dept. I’ve also tried to find committee records of discussions and decisions, without success.

I’ve currently got an overdue FOI regarding the criteria used to make recent closures. If you look at the thread on Bishopthorpe Rd, Councillor Gibbons pretty much concedes that decisions have been made on the basis of lobbying by well-organised homogenous owner-occupier enclaves.

I would really support a one-way system being put in place on Devonshire Road. It’s far too populated for a two-way road which causes congestion. The one-way system will also prevent people cutting through to get to Sydenham instead of following Honor Oak Road or Honor Oak Park. It’s about time the noise and air pollution in our road was reviewed by the council. Too many of our cars are being damaged by reckless drivers zooming through.

The recent pavement upgrade hasn’t helped matters and on top of that the new proposed development at Ewelme/Devonshire Road is only going to add further traffic congestion.

Not more road blocks! Just adds to the congestion in surrounding roads and make it much harder to drive to and from my home!

We’re now at a point where if we did close Devonshire or make it one-way etc. it’d be chaos, so it’s tough s**t if you live on one of those roads.

Meanwhile if you live on the next street where there are measures implemented, you’re alright Jack, and you dont care as long as all your cut-throughs remain open, and you can do the school run and get to pilates on time.

It seems that the measures have been implemented piecemeal without consultation, or the consideration of the impact on the neighbouring streets.

Residential streets were supposed to be just that - for residents to get to their residences. They’re not designed for through traffic. Sat Nav algorithms seem to be pushing more and more people onto these residential roads. We should find a way to push back on these algorithms.

Re Devonshire, I actually think a one way would just mean people speeding down the road faster as they won’t expect to encounter any oncoming traffic. The right turn onto Devonshire is a nightmare as it’s almost on a blind corner - so may times I’ve cycled down the hill and a car has turned across me into Devonshire.

Instead of one way, why not simply ban turns into the road from the circular coming up the hill, and ditto ban right hand turns from Devonshire exiting onto the circular. That would cut out a lot of traffic and make the entire junction a lot safer.

• Are these rules written down somewhere?
• Seems all roads in London (certainly in SE23) are residential roads, so it’s not so easy to justify pushing traffic from one road to another on the basis that some roads are residential and others aren’t

Putting traffic restrictions on Devonshire would result in people taking longer journeys and more congestion in neighbouring roads.

As far as i can tell it’s already been pushed from one road to another and now all that’s left is Devonshire, Tyson, Ewelme, Benson etc.

Tale of 2 sides of the tracks1012×1146 314 KB

Just as a side note, the bottom left ‘enclosed area’ is one of the more famous rat runs in town. The Waldenshaw Rd racetrack around to David’s Rd lets you cut off the Circular through the main part of town. Unfortunately it is also the access road to Sainsburys so little can be done about it.

Manor Mount was cut off at the top with a ‘no entry’ and made one way up the hill to prevent people cutting the whole corner from Honor Oak Rd through to David’s Road connecting back to the Circular however people still use it to cut through. You have to be very careful turning out of Waldenshaw onto Manor Mount as people frequently come down the hill at speed against the one way. The HOR light on the circular is too short - maybe a 10 second cycle versus over a minute for the main road.

The whole section is a high value cut through, it’s just a different problem to the whole HOR, Devonshire Borckley Rise direction.

It seems these problems have remained unsolved for years, I’m not sure if there’s a real solution except to reduce overall traffic volumes.

Seems when i walk down Manor Mount the traffic is quite quiet in comparison to Ewelme, Tyson etc. So seems it has some effect.

I had a random conversation with a plumber a while ago and he said he knew Ewelme because it was the “Forest Hill Bypass” him and his mates use. Saves 2/3 minutes, and is “f’ing no-brainer” as he put it. I was quite surprised but it’s very effective.

Northbound Rat-Runs975×919 235 KB

The only solution is fewer cars, but getting to that point will cause a good deal of discomfort for many car drivers. I guess many people will make arguments why their situation is particular and not part of the problem.

I was recalling that as a kid I used to know all the back doubles in south east London, but over the last, say 40 years, these have gradually been closed off. The current throughway closures are part of a much longer process.

The issue is there are too many cars for the road space in London. Roads nowadays are lined with parked cars not doing anything but blocking the road and quite often the pavement too. As Cllr Leo Gibbons said a while ago, if you are sitting in traffic not going anywhere, then you are part of the problem.

Like it or not, there will have to be a significant reduction in the number of privately owned cars, some of the side effects of which will be less pollution, a fitter populace, and … quicker movement around London. Ironic, but I think it is an arguable case.

I agree - I think we’re on the cusp of a driverless electric car shuttle revolution - when I can use an app to get a clean ride to Sainsbury’s then get another one home to cart a load of heavy bags then I would concede I wouldn’t need a car. One of my kids can’t even be bothered to learn to drive - he cycles everywhere anyway and gets an Uber when he needs to. The culture shift is starting but will take a generation.

Sorry, probably wandering off topic here regarding solutions for the Devonshire area! My bad.

Are you in Devonshire yourself? I think one-way would simply increase traffic speeds, and probably increase volume of traffic. Volume of traffic is the primary problem, not congestion.

Michael - the former chair of the Forest Hill Society drew up a plan for reorganising the traffic in the area, whiich I feel has potential. I gather that Michael himself subsequently had doubts about some aspects of it.

Although TFL has received a bailout, it’s only for six months. If the ULEZ extension goes ahead, I would guess that the Congestion Zone extension may also be back on the agenda at some point. Unless Lewisham organises its own congestion zone (I mean charging commuters for driving through, not residents for parking), I would support it.

Yes. And from walking along the road every morning to work and evening from work and I can see that the main issue is congestion. Congestion every day that backs up halfway up the road.

At the Devonshire Road/South circular junction. From people cutting through. If the road was made one-way system in the opposite direction it would get rid of this congestion every evening. Stopping the right-hand turn onto the south circular won’t do much improvement either as it’s mostly congestion from people waiting for a break to turn left onto the south circular and also backs up cars entering Devonshire road from the south circular. So it’s the congestion at the south circular end that causes most of the problems.

Speed is another matter as cars speed along here all the time regardless.

And this is caused by? Excessive volume of vehicles in narrow 100% residential streets. If the volume was reduced, there would be no congestion, and more importantly there would be a very different environment and quality of life. If you have traffic flowing anywhere is the area, Waze will direct more traffic there and congestion will build up. Some streets are having measures to reduce volume of traffic or prevent thru traffic, our street should have similar consideration. But the Council refuses even doing a traffic survey.

I completely agree, there comes a point where the volume of traffic just overwhelms the roads. That happens every evening on Devenshire Road when the traffic backs up 100s of meters.

On Ewelme the Road often gets to the point where there’s too many cars to filter through the parked cars and there’s a chaos for 5 minutes while cars reverse etc. I have witnessed a fist fight where drivers have got so angry.

I have counted traffic and about 220-230 vehicles pass through Ewelme an hour at peak times, so let’s say 500 over morning and 500 evening rush hours. Thats car after car 4 hours a day. Ewelme / Woodcombe is only one of the routes that lead to and from end of Devonshire Road, so must double or triple that there.

These roads are just too convenient to cut-through, ironically and the only thing that act as a deterrent is other cars when they block the roads. Apart from a few ineffective speed bumps there arent any measures to disrupt the traffic flow, no chicanes, one-way streets, no entries etc. Woodcoombe even has pavement parking down both sides, so cars can pass more freely.

Making the streets to handle the volume of traffic is exactly the opposite of what’s needed, we need measures to close the rat-runs or add 2/3 minutes to any journey through which might disincentivise their use.

Actually what needed is that a full consultation and investigation into all the streets around Forest Hill to make a hositic cohesive plan to manage traffic through Forest Hill and Honor Oak.

And there’s the catch 22. Everyone wants less traffic on their residential street, nobody else wants it displaced to theirs. Close a few roads and encourage people to walk to cycle and people get rapidly militant about their right to drive.

I know there was a study a few years ago - I think @Michael can comment. Also maybe ping @LeoGibbons re kicking off another consultation (Leo does this fit in FH ward - if not who could we talk to). People will always have diametrically opposed opinions about these sorts of things.

But not militant enough to ignore existing measures or lobby to get them removed.

What I proposed for discussion was effectively a low traffic neighbourhood before the term was so wide-spread. Perhaps with the ‘popularity’ of LTNs it is worth reviving the idea, at least to see if it has any merit.

A version is available at Google Maps

image636×569 114 KB

Cameras could be used to prevent southbound traffic on Honor Oak Road and Devonshire Road, and northbound on Wood Vale (Honor Oak is a bus route so buses would be exempt). They could even be used to prevent people who don’t live in SE23 from using certain roads rather than shutting them completely (I’m thinking particularly of Langton Rise which is a handy exit for residents in the Horniman Heights but not a suitable rat-run).

By making three roads partially one way, it shares the traffic burden between the different roads stretching from Barry Road to Brockley Rise, as these north-south roads are used to avoid east-west traffic that is forced through three pinch points at Sydenham, Forest Hill and Honor Oak railway stations.

The map also appears to have options for a tunnel to bypass Forest Hill Town Centre, a second road through Catford, and a tunnel under Wandsworth. The aim is to remove three major pinch points on the South Circular.

4 posts were merged into an existing topic: Tunnelling the A205 South Circ through Forest Hill

Yes this covers FH ward. LBL has a Healthy Neighbourhoods programme - these programmes are funded by TFL primarily, through Local Implementation Plan/LIP bids, which are currently paused due to TFL’s financial position. The area in discussion here is the Honor Oak ‘Healthy Neighbourhood cell’ https://lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/roads-and-transport/our-traffic-reduction-programme-healthy-neighbourhoods.

Assessments on prioritisation of Healthy Neighbourhoods focus on assessing personal injury and collisions, air quality, levels of obesity and deprivation, and appetite in the community. @SophieDavis has been working hard to organise supporters of a Healthy Neighbourhood in Honor Oak and help ensure their voices are heard. However, local support for these schemes is just one of the factors assessed. And on that note, can the admins please act and stop @DevonishForester from misrepresenting my words.

Sophie can speak to this issue better than I can - as she can for most issues to be honest!

Wouldn’t it be better to organise public consultations to enable all views to be heard, rather than organising just the supporters?

I just checked and there doesnt appear to be an ‘Honor Oak’ cell on the map, do you mean the Forest Hill cell?

Oops my bad, that yellow on yellow is very hard to read!

There will be a public consultation on any Healthy Neighbourhood.

But if you’re a local councillor who thinks part of ward would benefit from Healthy Neighbourhood schemes, then its your imperative to campaign for it. In my opinion.

Isn’t it a conflict of interests for you to organise the consultation whilst also organising activists from one side to “ensure their voices are heard”

How will residents be able to trust the consultation?

Oh no, those pesky activists again, campaigning for safer streets and healthy neighbourhoods. Why don’t we invite some people who want to campaign for speeding down residential streets, breathing more pollution and generally in favour of making neighbourhoods more unhealthy. Feel free to join the consultation. Everyone welcome.

I think I’ve addressed that reductionist rhetoric and those straw man arguments before, the last few times you used them. I’m not going to repeat myself by responding to them.

You may not want to do that, the result may go against what you feel is right.

This post was flagged and is temporarily hidden.

The traffic throughput limit has been reached this afternoon, traffic was all the back all the way from the south circular, the whole length of woodcoombe cresecent to Ewelme Road. And all the way along Devonshire Road to the bottom Ewelme Road, according to google that’s 600m of standing traffic.

Very few narrow residential roads (in a supposed conservation area) have an unregulated junction with a major commercial / commuting route.

I would hope that the moderators would address your attack on me rather than on something I have written. Please let me know where the misrepresentation is.

Total chaos out there tonight, backed up to the top of Ewelme that’s about 1km of standing traffic.

Folks, please contact @moderators with any concerns rather that spoiling the topic here. The usual way to do this is to flag the specific post you have issue with and then select the reason why, as detailed in the FAQ: https://se23.life/faq#flag-problems

Hence the one-way system in the opposite direction. They need to use Devonshire Road to cut-through to the south circular and they won’t be able to if it was only in the other direction. It’s the simplest and quickest solution to stop this traffic.

This is the current traffic in Devonshire road. It is like this every evening.

image3024×4032 3.82 MB

image3024×4032 3.06 MB

Personally i dont think one-way system is the right way to go, it will just encourage the north bound rat-runs unless it’s in combination with a number of other measures, but it would at least stop the south-bound rat-runs. I am glad that some agrees that something needs to be done about it though.

Was rather bad tonight for sure, and seemed to stay bad for a lot longer than usual. Even worse than the traffic is the amount of road rage that goes on, people getting out of cars to shout and swear at each other, its not great!

Here’s a quick clip of what it looked like, absolute standstill:

Very similar view down Ewelme this evening too, total standstill, I took a video but it was like a photo as nothing moved for about 5 minutes.

Really busy this evening and seemed to start much earlier too, I took this at about 16:30 and the traffic
was backed right up to Ewelme Road.

IMG_25651334×750 184 KB

On a positive all the unneccessary lung busted pollution made for a stunning sunset.

Lovely sound of persistent car horns and drivers screaming at each other. How lovely for us residents.

Yes I think for a long time we’ve needed something doing to stop this rat-race.

It isn’t dispersing the traffic to other roads like people are suggesting it’s the opposite - it’s stopping the main road traffic from South circular and Honor Oak road being dispersed along predominantly single-lane residential streets like Devonshire, Benson, Ewelme and Tyson Road.

I am sure @SophieDavis will read this thread with interest.

There was a discussion in the House of Commons, finished just now, about similar issues across London and the introduction of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods which has proved contentious in places - I think the reasons are very specific to local circumstances and cannot be generalised.

Which is illegal but never enforced. A car passed us a couple of weeks ago - we thouight the window glass was going to break as the vibration was so extreme.

Can only hope.

We have raised this issue many times before on this forum. Along with improving the highstreet crossings to favour SE23 pedestrians. Neither of which have had much traction, unless I’m to be corrected…

Not to deter from the main issue causing this traffic but the snail-like pace of the poxy pavement improvements doesn’t help the flow of traffic.

We live on Devonshire Road between Woodcombe Crescent and Ewelme Road, and have only been caught in traffic a handful of times this year, which tends to move reasonably quickly, and I don’t personally think the situation is that dreadful - partly also because I can’t see a scheme that would make matters much better without being a significant inconvenience for people living on the road. But something has happened in the last week or two to greatly worsen the issue. The only thing I can think of, as @HillLife alludes above, is the gradual moving of the pavement works back towards the South Circular, which narrows the road to much more of a pinch point where they’re currently doing the works. Hopefully matters will improve greatly when that work is finished.

The traffic is there every evening. Not as bad as it was last night, but it’s always there in the 7 odd years I’ve lived here.

It’s not so much residents getting caught in traffic that’s the concern but mostly the noise and air pollution damage it’s doing to our road.

Just highlights the volume of traffic and how effective it is normally is as a rat-run. Also, highlights that the council dont see it as a major road otherwise there’d have put in traffic management provisions. Worst of both worlds.

It seemed the traffic was worse than usual everywhere I went yesterday. I found getting around by bus from early afternoon onwards took much longer than usual and coming home was a nightmare with a lot of buses serving Forest Hill being turned round before their usual destination as they were running so behind schedule. Apparently it was caused by the number of people worried lockdown won’t finish on December 2nd and who were driving to shopping centres and retail parks trying to get their Christmas shopping done!

Hi all,

Firsly, @Runner_Rich I assume you’re the same Richard who has emailed me. If so, thank you for all your work and suggestions on this. I was going to send you an email response but thought it would make sense to reply here for all to see.

So, by way of update (apologies in advance for the long post):

• Many local residents (and previous councillors) have been campaigning for this for a while. Much of the funding we have for traffic schemes come from TfL/ the (London) Mayor’s Office. My understanding is that, when Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London, the focus for this spending shifted towards creating healthier neighbourhoods (rather than facilitating traffic flows), which enabled us to start more of these kinds of schemes.

• Our focus, as Leo said, was on the Healthy Neighbourhoods Programme. The idea of these is to make areas more pedestrian/ cycle friendly and prevent rat running but with a focus on an area as whole, rather than individual street(s). This is because, as many people have already said, addressing traffic in one street often has consequences for the neighbouring streets; flows of traffic are quite complicated to anticipate/measure and this has to be looked at in the round. The borough was divided into 18 “cells” for the purposes of the HN programme - Forest Hill ward straddles two cells (with the relevant cell for our purposes being the one whose edges are London Road /Wood Vale/ Honor Oak Park/ Devonshire road)

• The work involved in the creation of an HN (or LTN) is significant (it involves extensive surveys, consultations, engagement, iterations etc) and costly and we don’t have the funding to deliver all 18 at once. So these were prioritised (as Leo says on the basis of things like air quality and collision data, as well as feedback from residents and resident engagement). FH wasn’t in the first 4 being prioritised.

• Building on the work that residents (and Michael A) had done, we started a working group to focus on (1) developing ideas for reducing traffic in this area (2) campaign for FH to be prioritised. We held a number of meetings, organised for officers to come and see the ward and met with Sustrans to look into working with them on a survey/ map of ideas. The next steps, prior to COVID, was for residents to canvass as many streets in the area as possible to understand whether there was local support and work with Sustrans to develop ideas to then put to the community. The reasoning behind this was to evidence community engagement, and existing proposals, both of which would be factors in prioritisation. @anon5422159 although this came from residents who are favourable to HN programmes (as I am), the idea was very much to engage residents and seek views, as these kinds of programmes don’t often work without local engagement and support (eventually none of this would go ahead without a full consultation anyway).

• COVID has paused our work; partly because as a Council we’ve had a lot of work elsewhere and partly because funding shifted from the HN programme towards the streetspace one (creating space for people to walk/cycle during COVID - read about it here - https://lewishamcovidtransport.commonplace.is/)

• Under the current scheme, residents can suggest schemes on Commonplace (same link as above). These will then be taken into account and prioritised by officers. As ever, the funding is limited so the priority has to be the worse roads, and not all road can be looked at a once.

• I’d encourage people to submit ideas and engage with Commonplace. Alongside this, I’m still keen to explore other options - I’m arranging a call with officers to discuss what these could be. Happy to update on this thread.

Hope this is helpful.

Sophie

I understand your concerns, but would disagree with the assertion that the traffic is there -every- evening. Quite frequently on a Thursday I drive down Devonshire Road at around 5:30, and most of the time it takes a minute at most to turn right onto the South Circular.

Hi @SophieDavis, yes, that’s me, thanks for the update.

I understand from Ellie Reeves’ office that a second tranche of the Emergency Active Travel Fund has been made available to Authorities to fund a well-thought-out Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, I believe there’s an opportunity here to consult the community, and implement a smart and well considered scheme.

Please let me know if you need any help in engaging the community.

There was also the gas pipe replacement work on Waldram Park (A205). Many vehicles used the whole length of Devonshire Road to avoid that section of the South Circular. And then there were a couple of exceptionally busy days, when everyone was shopping before the lockdown started.

I think that the one-way traffic option would be creating an efficient streamlined slip-road to the A205, and much appreciated by commuters, but nothing good for residents, however.

The Highways Dept regards Devonshire Road as “strategic” and Councillor Davis did agree with that assessment at one of the traffic meetings I attended. But if Devonshire Road is strategic, please can the strategy be made available? I did ask Highways, but they were unwilling or unable to disclose that information. Finding out what the policies are, how decisions are made, always seems to be met with either silence or tons of irrelevant information.

Personally I would favour closing both ends of Devonshire Road, which would put an end to ‘rat running’ in the entire grid of residential roads between Devonshire Road, Honor Oak Road, and Honor Oak Park. It would be much slower for residents who drive, to get in and out of the grid, but a price worth paying.

I think the ‘strategic’ nature is that over-height vehicles need the ability to turn off before the bridge.

But that doesn’t mean you need to allow right-turns onto Devonshire Road from the A205 (or right turns out of Devonshire Road onto the A205). In fact if it is only strategic for that reason you could block the exit onto the A205 and only allow entry from Eastbound A205 - no more rat-run.

Yep this is why I think my suggestion of a one-way system in the direction of FH end to HOP end would work. This will have no impact on other roads apart from the south circular - which is as it should be anyway that the traffic is kept to the A roads instead of spilled out onto the residential roads

Also with introduction of no right turn from south circular into Devonshire road. Lorries can still divert before the bridge coming fromso it ticks that box.

This stops Devonshire road being a rat race in the morning with cars coming off the south circular and cutting through in HOP direction and also stops the rat race from HOP direction in the evenings.

Residents get their road back…
No annoying car horns beeping at each other every evening at the A205 junction and at each other because the road is too narrow for them to drive down.
No idle traffic sat outside our houses.
No two-flow traffic that results in cars damaging resident’s parked cars.

Congestion on main roads affects every ajoining road.

Traffic congestion causes a ripple effect and cascading failure.

The closure of Beadnell / Garthorne to through-traffic would have contributed directly to the problems on Devonshire Road.

By closing roads and forcing longer journeys, more roads become saturated with traffic. Closing road A doesn’t just move traffic to road B. It moves traffic to B, C and D.

It’s worse than a zero-sum game.

But the whole reason people are coming down Devonshire Road is because it’s just there and available to use as a cut-through. What other roads would people use as an alternative other than to have to follow the south circular or Honor Oak Road? I can’t think of one…

Well, yes. The FH-HOP traffic used to be shared between three routes.

Now it’s shared between two.

And you’re proposing it’s funnelled down just one.

Honor Oak Road is a residential road with three schools on it, for goodness’ sake!

Yes but it is also designed for its purpose - its wide enough for buses!!

I also meant Honor Oak Park not Honor Oak Road but both of them are suitable for two-way traffic, have zebra crossings and traffic lights.

Well there is actually only one school on Honor Oak Road. It is a better road to drive on than Devonshire Road, which has become a nightmare. I agree that no-right turn into the Forest Hill end of Devonshire Road would be a start. And removing the rat-runs between Devonshire Road and Honor Oak Road would be rather nice too. Maybe blocking Devonshire Road at the south side of the junction with Tyson Road would work. I’m sure there are lots of things to take into account, but looking at the problem is a start.

The big problem is that there are too many cars for the space available, let alone issue of pollution and noise. This is being looked at Europe wide, so it is not local to SE23, nor London, nor the UK. In the end there have to be fewer cars in cities.

Fairlawn Primary, Honor Oak Pre-School, and St Francesca Cabrini (technically on Honor Oak Park, but right on the junction with Honor Oak Road)

Screenshot from 2020-11-12 16-34-36709×835 135 KB

Yes! So let’s avoid making even less space available!

I don’t think it even needs that. I’ve had a chat with a couple of people on this and it seems that the main rat-run aka FH bypass as identified above is turning right off the Circular into Devonshire, then up Ewelme Road and across to Westwood Park and up over the hill. Ewelme Rd seems to have an astonishing amount of traffic on it based on videos I’ve seen.

Stop the right turn and it would make the junction safer (practically a blind corner) and cut down on people cutting through. Seems to me it should be up to the residents to decide if they can live with that inconvenience in return for reduce traffic volumes.

Shouldn’t it also be up to the residents of Honor Oak Road? They’re the one’s who will really suffer if Devonshire Road is closed to through traffic or made one-way.

It’s not just congestion we are talking about.

Do you know how many residents cars have been damaged along Devonshire road? Residents avoid parking on their own road because of it. I know many people who don’t feel safe parking outside their house! The road is simply not wide enough to facilitate two-way traffic. Every week I hear drivers screaming at each other, it’s really relentless and exhausting hearing that outside your front door regularly.

Unless you live along the road it is very hard for you to understand the negative impact it is having on people’s lives.

Were Devonshire Road residents consulted when Beadnell Road and Gabriel Street were closed off? I personally don’t know. But I support their closures.

Honestly, I sympathise. And hey, I personally benefited from the Beadnell/Garthorne closure for five years. But now I see the effect that my self-serving closure had on you, it gives me some perspective and I realise we have to see the road network as a shared resource, not something we can carve up into little gated communities at the cost of everyone around us.

The argument over the schools is futile. The point is that the successful production and marketing of cars for private ownership has led to too many being produced for the space available.

There are many reports on traffic in towns but one by the RAC¹ from 2012 shows private cars on average being used for 3% of the day spending the other 97% of the time parked. It ain’t improved since and there’s the root of the problem.

The mal effects of car use such as pollution is only going to be dealt with by less car use. That will cause upset and inconvenience but there’s not much avoiding that. The solution for neighbourhoods and schools is simply fewer cars and the logic for that is difficult refute.

¹ https://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/spaced_out-bates_leibling-jul12.pdf

Well, if you buy a power tool it’ll probably spend 99.99% of its life on a shelf. Does that mean we should be banned from owning power tools?

The broader ideological arguments against motorists are getting a bit circular. Is it worth raking over the same coals?

Come on. My power tool doesn‘t get in the way of yours. Nor does my washing machine. But my rather large Range Rover does take up road space which then slows traffic and denies a parking space to someone else. Most cars sit around in the way of others. That‘s when idling in queues sets up much more significant pollution problems.
I‘m not sure what you mean by ideology. I‘ve found this a fairly unhelpful term. We are faced with more cars and consequently less space available for them to drive, because 97% of the time they are in the way, parked. We can make wider roads, knock down some houses, and gradually pave paradise and turn it into a parking lot. The logic is there is not infinite space. Not much we can do about that except recognise that ultimately there will need to be fewer cars, in towns in particular. What is the counter argument to that?

The problem is broader than that. We’ve massively overpopulated our cities. Road congestion is just one symptom of that. I’m not gonna take this topic any further off topic, but I’ll summarise: we need to stop advocating increased population density within the M25.

I would estimate that a plan to block right turns on to Devonshire from the South Circular and vice versa would add five to ten minutes to any car journey made to or from our house, when travelling in those directions, and would not be keen on the idea. I certainly hope that residents of Devonshire Road would be fully consulted before such a scheme is proposed and supported formally by local amenity societies etc.

I also fear that diverting traffic from Devonshire to Honor Oak Road would make what can already involve a very long wait to turn right onto the South Circular a much more lengthy proposition.

The other thing that needs thought is the increased traffic volume this proposal would cause to the Honor Oak end of Devonshire Road. It would become the de facto alternative route onto Devonshire from the South Circular, and would increase traffic on Honor Oak Park. That end of Devonshire is far less suitable for two way traffic than the Forest Hill end; back in 2014 I got stuck in a jam there for 20 minutes that required getting out and becoming a traffic manager, walking up and down the road asking people to back up and get out of the way to clear the route.

Right idea but something similar at Honor Oak end required too. I actually think that @Michael had a great idea for this a long while back that addressed the issue on west of the tracks (link added Devonshire Road closed at junction with A205). There have been accidents and there are daily arguments as traffic can’t get through. Low traffic neighbourhood required!

Plus one for consultation but extra few minutes in the car is a small price to pay if the nuisance of the rat running can be fixed. Please consider signing this petition if you agree: https://councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=48

Just be clear about right turns, that’s not me wearing any hats, just me as a road user who’s had frequent close encounters whilst driving or cycling past the Devonshire junction. As I said it’s a trade off for residents - inconvenience versus reduced traffic volumes and as others have pointed out should not only consult Devonshire residents but also other streets that would be impacted.

Thanks for that clarification! And I’m not trying to minimise the issue, but I do think any plan needs really careful thought and analysis of trade-offs and knock-ons.

I think the issue with this junction is being masked by the option of Ewelme, Westwood park etc. as soon as the traffic starts to build up the traffic diverts down the side roads.

I actually think this is true of the whole of Forest Hill as soon as the traffic builds up there’s an overflow down the back streets.

I think any scheme’s success relies on improving the flow of traffic through Forest Hill.

I agree with all that. Google Maps and other traffic-aware satnavs have quite a bit to answer for. But I also think that the situation has been made much worse by the extensive roadworks that have been being carried out on the South Circular near Sunderland Road for the last few months, combined as I’ve said before with the pavement works on Devonshire Road. I think it would be good to see how things are once those two issues are out of the way. And I do think that the widening of Devonshire Road at the Forest Hill end a few years ago improved the situation quite a bit.

This has been a problem on Devonshire for well over 15 years from my own personal experience.

Agreed, but I think a lot of the people know the routes and they use them regularly, of course Waze etc. may have taught them it in the first place.

I often wonder if the blanket 20mph speed limit was a mistake for satnavs. If the more main roads were kept at 30mph and just side-roads made 20mph, that would be something of a signal to sat-navs not to take back roads so much. Otherwise all these roads and streets just look like the same classification, without any additional data.

Having said that, the TfL roads are not covered by the blanket 20mph limit, so the South Circular should be a preference, but I guess when that is clogged sat-navs still look elsewhere, and thus we end up at the problems we have here.

An interesting thought would be to try and work with the sat-nav providers and implement ‘virtual roadblocks’ and then see what effect that has on rat-running.

Virtual road block would be a great start. Especially in London I do follow my sat nav rather blindly. For the sake of saving a tiny amount of time I have been taken down so narrow roads with speed bumps etc which I would not have chosen to be on. Not sure what the setting is for time saving when it is switched but would say should be at least 5 mins before sending down more residential roads.

Edit: aware locals will know short cuts but if can keep away people driving through, uber driver etc would improve matters slightly. Aware doesn’t tackle overall congestion

I’m pretty sure the majority of the rush hour drivers in question are “locals” so not sure this would have a great effect on the issue. It also doesn’t address the issue of the road being too narrow at both ends for two-flow traffic.

I’m not convinced that these drivers are diverting through Devonshire road from HOP solely because of traffic I think this is the most direct route to Waldram Place for drivers heading towards Lower Sydenham.

And no traffic lights, speed cameras etc. to halt their their progress, except for other cars, ironically.

The sat nav issue is an interesting one. I was coming back from Deptford at the weekend and the route it wanted to take me was devonshire road, 2nd choice was honor oak road, i stuck with my preferred route and went down Brockley Rise.

i was a little shocked that devonshire was even an option (including a right turn onto the south circular), but all of these routes are 20mph roads - even the one with nasty speed humps every few meters and too narrow to allow cars to pass.

I wish satnavs had an ‘avoid speed bump’ option! I would have that on by default

What’s the process for this petition? Does it require a certain number?

Is it worth advertising this to the residents via post as I’m not sure how many residents are actively using this site. Would be interesting to see how many more residents are actually fed up with the issue…

IMG_31471242×1785 334 KB

Me on Waldenshaw wondering why everyone is racing down the road at 5pm… ah yes - traffic backed up so rat run is open for business to avoid the sCirc corner. Come down Waldenshaw and cut through Davids Rd to bypass the traffic.

Oh look - Devonshire is a huge train wreck. End of HOP backed up so Ewelme/Woodcombe bypass is in full swing too. Happy days! You can literally map it out.

As long as it cuts 5 minutes off their commute.

South circular has some of the most impatient and aggressive drivers I’ve ever experienced. I stopped driving into work a few months ago during lockdown because of this reason. Not worth the stress!

On a separate note the paving contractors on Devonshire Road are still bloody awful. I hope they don’t intend to leave these speed bumps in the asphalt…

image3024×4032 5.01 MB

image3024×4032 5.26 MB

I wonder if the council know how bad the quality is!

Ewelme is exactly as busy despite the lock down, the 6:45 morning song of white vans screaming up the hill remains reassuringly in place, along with a few beeps of drivers who were ever so slightly inconvenienced.

Perhaps sometime in the past that was the case. I don’t think an over-height vehicle would get far along Devonshire Road now, even with a police escort. Over-height vehicles are usually extra wide as well as high. There are overhanging trees, and there are cars parked on every junction which would need towing before a large vehicle could make any of the 90 degree turns (all roads off Devonshire are sharp turns).

If there really is a need for a lorry turn as a last resort before the bridge, this need not prevent closing the road. The road closure could be 50 yards in from the junction, providing a lorry bay, so a vehicle could pull in and wait for assistance to reverse and turn round.

My understanding is that some sort of survey would be more effective than a petition in getting the council do something about it.

I suspect that at least of the displaced traffic actually comes from the Brockley Rise (B218) / Stansted Road (Sth Circ) corridor. There are a couple of reasons why the route might have become less attractive over the last couple of months: firstly the disruption single lane roadworks on the South Circular (which I’m sure they could have avoided using the bus lane) and secondly with what appears to be continuous tweaking of traffic light sequencing at the A205/B218 junction which now often sees queues down as far as Duncombe Hill.

There is another surprisingly popular rat run by the way that I’d add to list of possible schemes: It’s Ackroyd - Garthorne - Beadnell - Dalmain - Wastdale. It’s close to a school, at least two nurseries and part of a popular cycling route. I suspect closing Devonshire will push traffic onto that route too rather than just the “main” routes.

I wouldn’t say it’s limited to the South Circular. I once had a driver getting out of their car threatening me at the following junction after I outrageously hadn’t overtaken a rickety rickshaw on a narrow road full of pot holes, speed bumps and oncoming traffic.

Admittedly, driving around London must be hell for anyone suffering from severe impatience.

I’m no expert in sat-nav algorithms but I suspect that at least the one offered by a well-known search engine/maps provider is based on mobile phone data (i.e. actual speed) rather than speed limits. The first time this became obvious to me was when driving on windy roads through Italy, consistently taking much longer than suggested by the computer.

Standard in-built sat-navs seem to feed off speed limits but don’t consider local traffic which I find renders it pretty much useless for driving in London unless the time it takes doesn’t matter.

I echo the point others made which is that a lot of use of quieter routes isn’t malicious but just drivers following sat-navs. Not everyone has ‘the Knowledge’. A route where I often find myself sent through backyards is getting to the A3 into Surrey. I counted once directly driving past no less than 13 schools when coming back from dropping people at Heathrow in the early hours - it’s just madness. The failure to built a capable trunk road system away from residential areas has a lot to do with it.

A “popular rat-run” has quite a high benchmark around here, i have counted the traffic on Ewelme at rush hour it’s around 225 cars/vans an hour.

Yes - traffic data from phone definitely feeds Google Maps/Waze, but with a blanket speed limit it kinda has to use other sources as there’s little differentiation between all the 20mph roads otherwise.

I’m not sure if this was covered here before, but this guy somewhat proved how Google’s system works - creating virtual traffic jams (which doubtlessly created real traffic jams elsewhere too):

That’s kind of the point. A free-flowing single lane can take a maximum of around 1800 cars per hour. Streets connecting the South Circular through any type of junction will be able to take a fraction of that. So where are the 225 cars supposed to go if alternative options are already hopelessly over capacity?

Closing roads will be trading horses for courses in my view unless you just leave the trunk route network open to any kind of through traffic. This would cause carnage as has happened after the Lee Green LTN was introduced which as a result is now being reversed in part. There is clearly no silver bullet unless we ban car-reliant small businesses, deliveries, school runs and retail parks.

If the aim is to reduce traffic, then maybe addressing this issue would actually be counterproductive?

I think it’s fair to say that there are other large cities which are more densily polulated but have far fewer issues with heavy car traffic in residential streets.

I also observe that grid-lock in such streets isn’t an issue exclusive to London but quite commonly found in smaller towns up and down the country, too. I do wonder if it could have anything to do with systemic planning issues.

My point was that is that Beadnell / Garthorne etc. is not “a popular rat-run” in comparison to ones on the other side of the railway, that’s because they closed the roads to through traffic. This “closing roads” horse has already bolted.

These closures are effective to stop traffic avoiding Stondon Park/Honor Oak Park junction but not any drivers trying to avoid Stansted Road/Brockley Rise junction of which there is an increasing number, and would likely be even more following a closure of Devonshire/Ewelme.

What is the rationale for solving an issue in one person’s backyard at the expense of someone else’s?

That’s not to say I don’t share the frustration of living on a road that is busier than one feels it should be. But it will be a tough job for the council to make a balanced call on this.

Imagine if 200 of these 2000 cars (just 10%) evaporated and people looked at alternative options! We already know that 30% of London journeys are under 2km, so in some instances people are driving around a mile and no more. If 1/3 of those 1 milers walked or even cycled through their Low Traffic Neighbourhood safely then those 200 cars would disappear. Amazing!

Now imagine the next 1/3 volume going 5km/3miles or less…

Anyway to keep it on topic, I’ve spoken to a couple of the local councillors with a handful of residents from Devonshire/Ewelme on both sides of the traffic calming debate and the solution to getting this looked at in earnest is for more people to voice their opinions on https://lewishamstreetsmap.commonplace.is and they’ll be looked at.

That particular Commonplace campaign appears to be closed:

image1170×426 77.5 KB

Hopefully we’ll see the council run a proper consultation soon without the leading questions, and with reliable technology that cannot easily be gamed.

You’re right. It seems you need to navigate the map to log issues https://www.commonplace.is/commonplace-in-action
The basic point stands: use commonplace. I’m just passing on what was suggested to me.

Apart from my own ‘expert’ analysis (Road Closures) does anything material actually result from the commonplace stuff, or is at just a placebo?

I am just conveying the message

Apparently the more suggestions there are and the number of “likes” the suggestions have has the more likely it’s to come to the traffic officers’ attention.

Previously I’ve commented on the common place ‘suggest a scheme’ pages, and added to popular suggestions such as:

• A crossing on Perry Vale outside the station / Sfizio
• A crossing on Perry Vale in Perry Village to join the two sides of the shopping parade
• The crossing/junction outside the station
• The crossing between Woolstone/Houston/Cranston Road

Through commonplace I’ve never heard anything back or seen any analysis, tally or ranking of results.

I’m sorry to say that on the basis on my own personal experience, I would be reluctant to suggest people contribute to commonplace with hopes of effecting change.

Instead I’ve found contacting councillors directly far more informative and reassuring.

OK just to re-iterate, the feedback I got from the councillors was that the most effective way to bring new issues to their attention is for as many people as possible to report a particular issue on Commonplace.

I think if 100 people went on there to report the same thing it would get their attention. Contacting them directly definitely works but it may be more efficient for them to have things aggregated in one place, hence that’s why they’re suggesting it. Perhaps there are some things that can’t be effected, and in that case it would be good to get feedback as to why not, I totally agree.

To your point about ranking and analysis and how they sift and prioritise things, I think that would be an interesting question - show us how it works so that we have confidence in the solution.

Seems like there are quite a lot of similar commonplace links… perhaps needs some consolidation… Rich’s one relates to LTNs

@ForestHull we could also suggest setting up some of the schemes you proposed - I think if these are accepted as new schemes in their own right then you can invite more people to comment…
https://lewishamcovidsuggestascheme.commonplace.is , some of them already have topics here on the forum in which case if we can get them set up we can help point people to commonplace to comment.

The things I listed were/are all on previous commonplace’s with maybe tens (but not hundreds) of ‘agreements’ each. The earliest commonplace I registered with was in August 2018.

The Perry Village crossing is listed twice for example here and here, the crossing at Sfizio is also listed here.

In time some of those commonplace sites got closed without comment, disappeared, and replaced with new ones e.g. the ‘Perry Vale NCIL Map’, ‘Suggest a Scheme’ and now ‘Creating quieter and safer residential streets to support walking and cycling’.

It’s hard to see what influence the commonplaces had, and what number of ‘agrees’ is counted to be significant - if that is a useful metric at all. I also found that over the years I’ve actually registered with two different email addresses, so could ‘vote’ twice on these maps…

So due to my experience I simply don’t believe the commonplace sites are effective or fair.

In contrast, when I have contacted Councillors, they have always been respectful and informative in their replies, often with a view of the complexities and challenges they face that may not initially be apparent. I understand that Councillors are generally busy and don’t want to be swamped, so it’s a resource to use sparingly, but in my personal experience the commonplace sites haven’t shown much progress in raising or helping understand issues.

I’m still hopeful that someone is going to shoot my opinion down by pointing at some detailed analysis and results from past commonplace data, and not just back-fitted support for something that was implemented anyway.

So back to subject, if people want to raise the topic of traffic volume on Devonshire, Tyson and Ewelme roads on commonplace, good for them. But you may get a more informed response if you respectfully and purposely contact a Councillor, noting they are busy people and their Surgeries are currently suspended due to Covid.

That is exactly what Rich, myself and a couple of others did last week about exactly this issue. We spoke to Leo and Sophie. So whilst we directly raised the concerns we were told that in general if people raise issues on Commonplace that is a good way to draw things to their attention. @LeoGibbons, @SophieDavis @Runner_Rich correct me if I misunderstood.

Obviously from your feedback it might not be working as designed so they may be interested in your experience too.

That is the what i have understood regarding commonplace, I have received the same feedback from the traffic officers too.

I do share the concern regarding it’s efficacy though, as what gets discussed by the council, and what’s decided etc. is as far as i am aware not public knowledge.

28 people agree with the station crossing needing to be changed on Commonplace…will be interesting to see whether the council will ever prioritise this as an area improvement.

Is this a new commonplace map with new comments, or the reappearance of what was there a year ago, but subsequently disappeared?

Indeed.

I can’t tell from my little iPhone screen unfortunately but it doesn’t look to be deleted if I can see it on the map?

If you log in to commonplace, you can find all your previous comments and ‘likes’ and also download them all (as per-GDPR requirements). However, this doesn’t mean that the same maps are generally available or can be further updated.

I guess that’s at least a bit better than the data all being deleted though.

No process, just as you say an attempt to gain interest in principle.

You make a good point re postal distribution

I think the ‘strategic’ nature of Devonshire Road is that it is reserved (by Lewisham Highways) as a through route for the use of emergency vehicles. This is based on the historic response when I have tried to get engagement on this issue. This makes little practical sense to me, unless such emergencies can be arrange to happen outside of rush hour.

IMO still doesn’t preclude a modal filter, say, which police and fire could access if needed, as happens currently on Bovill and Garthorne to name but 2. This is just a suggestion - am sure many other solutions exist.

I feel the Bovill Garthone road is probably the best solution for Devonshire. I can’t see why this isn’t being considered.

What does that mean exactly? They have a gate at one end - are you suggesting that for Devonshire because I don’t think they’d be able to close it as mentioned above. Cameras and ‘residents only’ virtual gates are probably the best solution although I don’t know if that tech exists yet.

Of course it can be closed. It’s purely a political decision. In fact Devonshire Rd was closed for two months at the junction with the A205 in the summer of 2017.

Very heavy today. Friday is usually the worst day of the week, but today seemed especially bad.