TfL consultation: Pedestrian crossing at junction of Lordship Lane and Dulwich Common

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/a205-dulwich-common-lordship-lane/

Depending on what your views are, this one could probably do with some supportive votes to outweigh the usual opposition by the cabbie/delivery lobby which will no doubt be voiced.

TfL propose "to introduce formal pedestrian crossing arrangements at this junction as part of the Mayor’s commitment to making London’s streets more comfortable to walk and cycle.

Our plan is to make this busy three-way junction on the South Circular more accessible to pedestrians, particularly those with young children and/or with visual impairments. At present there are informal crossing arrangements at all three arms of the junction, meaning pedestrians can only cross when there are gaps in the traffic. We are proposing to introduce signal controlled crossings across Lordship Lane and Dulwich Common. […]"

Good to see they are reinstating the ASL’s for cyclists at this junction. They were removed during the resurfacing work carried out a year or so ago and it can get a bit dicey at rush hour trying to filter across into the right hand lane to get to Dulwich…

This has been a long time coming. I cycle through that junction and regularly see people coming down Cox’s Walk and trying to cross.

Do we think the black cab lobby will be out for this one? Surely too far south of the river for them

They are going to create a horrible bum fight when the cars merge farther up the A205 when the bus lane is in operation. That will reduce the flow of traffic from Lordship Lane onto the A205 as a green light to that traffic will be into a preformed queue.

It will be a greater number of cars through the junction around the A205, but just create more queueing on the hill so more pullution. There is already a capacity issue at the petrol station past the horniman, and also through forest hill centre traffic lights, so they will be made even worse.

In summary, yes to the junction changes except the addition of the second right hand lane.

I made that point in my reply a few weeks back. Some cars already do it which holds up buses coming into the bus lanes.

Just found out about this consultation.

This is really important to me because it’s right outside the cricket club that I help to run. Many of our secondary school aged players make their own way to and from the club, and this junction has been a real worry for a long time. Even for adults crossing either on their own or with young children it’s a pretty terrifying junction to cross.

We also have a lot of adults using the crossing as pedestrians under the influence of alcohol. This includes both senior players after matches and a period of time in the bar, and parents of kids every Friday evening during the summer when we also have the bar open and many parents enjoy a good few glasses of well deserved refreshment.

I enquired about this junction to local councillors many years ago and was told that they had already been lobbying TfL (who control the South Circular, not Southwark) for years without success. It is, in my humble view, many, many years overdue that this absolute no-brainer of a safety improvement gets done.

In my view, the following two changes should also be made to the proposal:

a) Turn the third crossing point (the one nearest the church) into one that has pedestrian signals also. Why would you not? It’s not in the nature of people (especially young people) to walk extra yards in order to use another crossing. They will use the shortest route. I would say it’s a ‘must have’ that all three crossing points have pedestrian signals.

b) Add ‘KEEP CLEAR’ areas on the road opposite the cricket club and tennis club so that cars can more safely pull out, rather than having to dart out into the moving line of cars. I have been doing this manoeuvre about twice a week for the last four years, and it’s nearly always a case of having to drive into the westbound lane in order to try to get motorists in the eastbound lane to let you in. It is often a slightly hurried and precarious move. A ‘KEEP CLEAR’ area would make this substantially safer, especially during periods such as 7pm on Tuesdays and Fridays, when we have a change-over between two junior training sessions and we have 20-30 cars trying to leave the car-park at the same time.

I’d be hugely grateful to anyone filling in the consultation form to support the changes, and especially if you could back up my two proposed changes mentioned above.

Thank you.

David Cook
Streatham & Marlborough Cricket Club Juniors (https://www.smccjuniors.co.uk/) and I’m also a local resident who would like to use the junction with my two kids aged 8 and 10 to get to Dulwich Park.

I wrote to our local councillors and am delighted to have received the following response showing how strongly they support the proposal, which I reproduce here with Councillor Andy Simmons’ permission…

Dear David,

Thanks very much for your email.

We’ve been campaigning on this for a very long time now and it has been a huge challenge to persuade and cajole Transport for London into bringing forward this proposal for consultation. In the end it took meetings with Sadiq Khan’s Deputy Mayor for Transport and TfL’s Head of Surface Transport to get this moving. TfL have a very strong focus on keeping traffic flowing and have used this issue repeatedly over the years as a reason to refuse to take action.

The design that TfL has brought forward involves a two stage crossing with a change in turning priority for westbound traffic on Dulwich Common at the junction. This means that, for example, when pedestrians are crossing halfway from the east side of Lordship Lane towards the Harvester there will be two lanes of traffic turning right from Dulwich Common into Lordship Lane. TfL claim that three straight across crossings would lead to grid lock on the South Circular.

We asked for a straight across crossing at each arm of the junction and will include this desire again in our consultation response to Transport for London and continue to lobby for this.

We’re also very happy to support the request for a Keep Clear area on Dulwich Common.

Best wishes,

Andy

Councillor Andy Simmons

Labour Councillor for Dulwich Wood Ward