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…
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…
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.
