“Silverdale Road Planters targeted by anti #stopkillingcyclists activism”
Looks like someone decided they didn’t like the idea and have taken it upon themselves to vandalise a planter. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was an angry mob but clearly some people think they can take the law into their own hands and don’t care for health and safety of cyclists or pedestrians.
This will just end up spending more council money to fix. Sad.
In fairness (unless you or others witnessed it) we don’t know the reason this happened. Could be someone accidentally reversing into it, could be a few people doing it for ‘fun’ after a few too many drinks or an escaped elephant.
Not great whatever the reason though I agree.
I once witnessed a very drunk man who had pulled a small tree out of a planter (well I assume he did tgat) dragging it down the road and down the steps to Aldgate East Station where he appeared to abandon it. People do strange thinks post alcohol…
Yes of course you are entirely correct, it was an attempt at making a satirical post.
Someone has also stolen or rescued the plants from it too, depending how one would want to spin it.
I saw the damage done to that planter. It is a ton of soil screwed (badly) into the ground. To tip that over would require more than an accidental reverse unless it was dangerously top heavy (with false bottom)
Rather than accept the council’s arbitrary closures, it looks like people are taking matters into their own hands in Brockley:
What a shame, let’s all hope the perpetrators are are caught and punished.
So what can we all take from this thread? A lot of London’s drivers are selfish arseholes and Lewisham Council are, as per usual, absolutely useless. I’d honestly like to see how some of Lewisham’s employees and elected officials would fare in the private sector.
The link to that tweet takes you to the original which is of a couple of kids enjoying cycling down the road…
“Kids are now safely playing on roads in Lee Green where last week thousands of vehicles sped past each day bringing noise and pollution.
This is what Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are all about.”
Some bellend has vandalised the signs and thinks he’s cool for being a rebel and reopening the road. Given the amount of bitching some people do about graffiti this is just plain ridiculous.
“Low traffic neighbourhoods” sound great.
Kids cycling in the street sounds lovely.
But to imagine that’s a realistic proposition within one of most densely populated cities in the world? It’s just completely unrealistic, as much as it’s sad to say so.
London needs its roads. They’re not playthings for children. They’re not the canalside idylls of Amsterdam. They’re vital vehicular transport arteries, all of them.
If the council cherry-picks some roads to close arbitrarily, the council merely pushes traffic onto other roads.
The council are giving to a privileged few by taking from the unfortunate many.
That’s not fair, and it makes people angry. I understand that anger.
Feel free to get angry. That’s fine. It’s the vandalism I object to.
I’m not angry. I just understand the anger of people who are on the sharp end of this council policy.
I wish the council would acknowledge that their policy is harming people’s legitimate interests. They might have been able to avoid conflict if they’d just thought things through and communicated better.
I wish people got as angry about illegal use of spray paint to damage public property as they do about its lawful use to paint murals!
London isn’t one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
A lazy Google search does list London in various rankings for city density e.g. at number 43 in this list from USA Today, noting that the first European city in that list looks to be Athens, Greece at number 40.
Next up the list is Madrid, another European capital.
The density of Madrid and London are somewhat similar, but in terms of square miles, London is much larger.
I think it’s this combination of density and sprawling scale that makes transport such a problem for London, though all cities have their challenges.
Either way, the government message is still to avoid public transport if possible, so alternatives are needed. Unfortunately I think the road closures are arbitrary and costly for what they achieve - I would prefer to see the money spent on directly addressing the issue of safe travel on public transport e.g. by increasing the number of buses and frequently deep cleaning as much as possible and remodelling passenger flows in tube stations where possible.
The government indicated there is a further £20m to be allocated between London Boroughs & TfL for phase 2 of this ‘emergency’ active travel fund (phase 1 was just £5m), so I guess there is much more to come.
Arterial roads are by definition ‘high capacity urban roads’. I think anyone would struggle to define Silverdale Road as such, for example. With all the parked cars it’s barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass in some places. I don’t think it’s an ‘arbitrary’ choice.
the council merely pushes traffic onto other roads.
The council is trying to encourage behavioural changes. Better to walk or cycle 2-3 miles rather than drive as opposed to pushing traffic onto other roads. The idea is to make you think ‘did I really need to drive there’. It’s like smoking campaigns or wearing seatbelts. People generally don’t make healthy choices and sometimes they need a nudge.
Edit: just to add, I’m not anti car by any means - I’m a big car nut, but I just don’t drive unless I have to.
It’s arbitrary because the system and reasons for choosing certain road closures over other suggestions has not been published or explained.
While the intentions maybe good, the survey for the Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe modal filter showed that the majority of respondents didn’t respond positively with the question "How effective do you feel this scheme is in helping you socially distance and walk or cycle more?”. The average response way 39.7, with 0 being strongly disagree and 50 being neutral.
Perhaps they should try something else?
In case anyone is interested, I found this PDF plan of the scheme online which shows it was drawn out in April and approved in May. I’m not sure all the closure signs are actually in place as there wasn’t one further up Silverdale before Dacres Road last time I cycled up there. I will check again later.
A lot of closure signs exist, except they chose to use yellow words instead of the international no through road sign. They often don’t put in the no entry sign.
The yellow signs are for information and I guess to some extent the closures are ‘temporary’. I don’t think a ‘no entry’ sign is appropriate as you can drive right up to the barrier/planters if you need residential access or for deliveries etc.
No, but John mentions a no through road sign like one of these, which would be right:
