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Post by capitalomnibus on Dec 3, 2014 18:43:19 GMT
Is there still a weight restriction on the bridge?
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Post by snoggle on Dec 4, 2014 19:20:47 GMT
Is there still a weight restriction on the bridge? Don't know as I've not been down the road. The big sign was showing a revised opening time of midday today when I was on a W11 just after midday. 40 minutes later on the return jny all the roadworks and "bridge closed" signs had completely vanished so it must now be open. Cue even bigger delays at the Palmerston Road / Higham Hill Road junction as traffic levels build back up on Palmerston Road and the traffic lights adjust the times allowed for each flow. The W11 driver confirmed that things go back to the old ways on 13 December.
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Post by mondraker275 on Dec 8, 2014 9:59:08 GMT
From local MP Stella Creasy Newsletter:
In May 2012 Palmerston Road Railway Bridge in Walthamstow was closed for maintenance work. Transport for London have now stated that these works have been completed and they expect that Palmerston Road will re-open on Monday 8 December 2014. As a result the routes W11 and W15 will return to their original line of routeing via Palmerston Road from the first bus on Saturday 13 December 2014. They state that as a result of these changes there have been requests to keep route W15 on its temporary diversion once Palmerston Road was re-opened. TFL say that this was looked at in detail, but keeping route W15 on the temporary diversion and returning route W11 to the original routeing could lead to crowding on route W11. Furthermore route W15 is currently experiencing reliability issues on the temporary diversion. Therefore returning the W15 to its original route is seen as the preferred option and as such these requests have been declined.If any of these routes change I will be sure to update residents of any developments through my e-newsletter.
Agree with the reasoning by TfL.
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Post by snoggle on Dec 8, 2014 10:29:58 GMT
From local MP Stella Creasy Newsletter: In May 2012 Palmerston Road Railway Bridge in Walthamstow was closed for maintenance work. Transport for London have now stated that these works have been completed and they expect that Palmerston Road will re-open on Monday 8 December 2014. As a result the routes W11 and W15 will return to their original line of routeing via Palmerston Road from the first bus on Saturday 13 December 2014. They state that as a result of these changes there have been requests to keep route W15 on its temporary diversion once Palmerston Road was re-opened. TFL say that this was looked at in detail, but keeping route W15 on the temporary diversion and returning route W11 to the original routeing could lead to crowding on route W11. Furthermore route W15 is currently experiencing reliability issues on the temporary diversion. Therefore returning the W15 to its original route is seen as the preferred option and as such these requests have been declined.If any of these routes change I will be sure to update residents of any developments through my e-newsletter.Agree with the reasoning by TfL. To be fair the W15 has permanent reliability issues because it has been under resourced for years. It ran badly under Arriva and under Tower Transit when routed via Palmerston Road. I agree the traffic via Blackhorse Road doesn't help but TfL added a bus to the PVR to allegedly cater for that. The real reason, apart from wanting to serve Palmerston Road, is to save money by removing that extra bus from the PVR. TfL will always seek to minimise the peak PVR and avoid adding to it if they can. That's fine from an economic viewpoint but it can mean we end up with routes that struggle to cope if demand rises as it has done on the W15 and W19 corridor.
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Post by snoggle on Dec 10, 2014 15:37:34 GMT
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Post by routew15 on Dec 10, 2014 16:39:59 GMT
I can't express how annoyed I am about this desicion to restore buses along Palmerston Road without consultation or introduction of a new bus route. Just yesterday I got a 34 and as it passed through Crooked Billet I saw the large housing developments that continue to rise from the Higham Hill / Blackhorse, I honestly do not know how TfL expect buses to cope when 2 out of 3 routes are single deckers (these routes are overcrowded, there is a small amount of spare capacity on the W15 from the start of the route until St Andrews Road, however if this capacity is used up then there will be problems further along the route) and the only double decker route to serve the area is already struggling with overcrowding and can often be unreliable. I recognise that these changes are happening regardless of my ranting, so i would assume if you remove the problem the route should run better, however if that doesn't happen I will be complaining because not only have I lost good connections on my local route, it running bad on the section that is mean to be faster and better.
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Post by snoggle on Dec 10, 2014 17:07:19 GMT
I can't express how annoyed I am about this desicion to restore buses along Palmerston Road without consultation or introduction of a new bus route. Just yesterday I got a 34 and as it passed through Crooked Billet I saw the large housing developments that continue to rise from the Higham Hill / Blackhorse, I honestly do not know how TfL expect buses to cope when 2 out of 3 routes are single deckers (these routes are overcrowded, there is a small amount of spare capacity on the W15 from the start of the route until St Andrews Road, however if this capacity is used up then there will be problems further along the route) and the only double decker route to serve the area is already struggling with overcrowding and can often be unreliable. I recognise that these changes are happening regardless of my ranting, so i would assume if you remove the problem the route should run better, however if that doesn't happen I will be complaining because not only have I lost good connections on my local route, it running bad on the section that is mean to be faster and better. I'm still waiting to hear from TfL about the consultation issue. Something tells me the reply won't arrive until after the change has happened making it all a fait accompli. Your points about housing development in Higham Hill are well made and I think there will be more of a struggle to get on buses in the area once they're all populated. As you say the 158 is already overloaded in the peaks and not that reliable. It's been enhanced in recent years but that's still not enough to cater for the growth. Even the W11 I caught today at lunchtime to the Central was almost full to the front doors - partly because of buggies and loads of luggage which made it a bit late. There are still people waiting for the W11 on the bit that loses its service and I imagine they will be very disappointed come next week. People need to complain to TfL to make sure they know they have made a mistake. It's also worth bearing in mind that Waltham Forest Council will soon start digging up Selborne Road to narrow it, add in cycle lanes and remove the bus lane. Quite what that's going to do for bus reliability one can only imagine.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Dec 11, 2014 11:25:47 GMT
From local MP Stella Creasy Newsletter: In May 2012 Palmerston Road Railway Bridge in Walthamstow was closed for maintenance work. Transport for London have now stated that these works have been completed and they expect that Palmerston Road will re-open on Monday 8 December 2014. As a result the routes W11 and W15 will return to their original line of routeing via Palmerston Road from the first bus on Saturday 13 December 2014. They state that as a result of these changes there have been requests to keep route W15 on its temporary diversion once Palmerston Road was re-opened. TFL say that this was looked at in detail, but keeping route W15 on the temporary diversion and returning route W11 to the original routeing could lead to crowding on route W11. Furthermore route W15 is currently experiencing reliability issues on the temporary diversion. Therefore returning the W15 to its original route is seen as the preferred option and as such these requests have been declined.If any of these routes change I will be sure to update residents of any developments through my e-newsletter.Agree with the reasoning by TfL. I too also agree with TfL (very rare of me, lol) But keeping the W15 on the diversion route is very long and the traffic on it could be ridiculous. The W15 already goes though many traffic corridors already.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Dec 11, 2014 11:30:14 GMT
From local MP Stella Creasy Newsletter: In May 2012 Palmerston Road Railway Bridge in Walthamstow was closed for maintenance work. Transport for London have now stated that these works have been completed and they expect that Palmerston Road will re-open on Monday 8 December 2014. As a result the routes W11 and W15 will return to their original line of routeing via Palmerston Road from the first bus on Saturday 13 December 2014. They state that as a result of these changes there have been requests to keep route W15 on its temporary diversion once Palmerston Road was re-opened. TFL say that this was looked at in detail, but keeping route W15 on the temporary diversion and returning route W11 to the original routeing could lead to crowding on route W11. Furthermore route W15 is currently experiencing reliability issues on the temporary diversion. Therefore returning the W15 to its original route is seen as the preferred option and as such these requests have been declined.If any of these routes change I will be sure to update residents of any developments through my e-newsletter.Agree with the reasoning by TfL. To be fair the W15 has permanent reliability issues because it has been under resourced for years. It ran badly under Arriva and under Tower Transit when routed via Palmerston Road. I agree the traffic via Blackhorse Road doesn't help but TfL added a bus to the PVR to allegedly cater for that. The real reason, apart from wanting to serve Palmerston Road, is to save money by removing that extra bus from the PVR. TfL will always seek to minimise the peak PVR and avoid adding to it if they can. That's fine from an economic viewpoint but it can mean we end up with routes that struggle to cope if demand rises as it has done on the W15 and W19 corridor. It did run bad when it was by Arriva, but nothing as bad as when First took over the route. It went from bad to worse. The best the W15 got was the last year of Arriva when it got a badly needed 2 bus extra on the pvr taking it to 21 buses. When it was operated by [LI] it was not uncommon to see 4 or 5 buses running together. Then when the Palmerston Rd diversion came it, it went 10 times worst. They eventually did put 1 or 2 extra buses, but still not enough imo. Although when the route was cut back to Hackney Town Hall it should have retained the same pvr, but I am sure one bus was pulled away.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Dec 11, 2014 11:40:15 GMT
Thanks for the info on weight restriction. Many HGV's helped to punish the bridge. I always wondered if it would collapse one day if two fully laden 40 tonne HGV's went over the bridge the same time in either direction. Many seemed to ignore the 10 tonne limit until the road had restriction barricades put in place. It had been 10 tonne for years. There had also been instances that rail replacement double deckers on Gospel Oak to Barking used it. Pre LOROL days.
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Post by snoggle on Dec 11, 2014 12:23:27 GMT
Thanks for the info on weight restriction. Many HGV's helped to punish the bridge. I always wondered if it would collapse one day if two fully laden 40 tonne HGV's went over the bridge the same time in either direction. Many seemed to ignore the 10 tonne limit until the road had restriction barricades put in place. It had been 10 tonne for years. There had also been instances that rail replacement double deckers on Gospel Oak to Barking used it. Pre LOROL days. I see I'm not alone in thinking that the old bridge might have collapsed given the traffic that went down that road. As I expect we will have a long blockade of the GOBLIN for the electrification works in 2016 I wonder if the RRS will be diverted via Palmerston Road and if they will run with double decks (as is typical these days).
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Post by snoggle on Dec 13, 2014 10:17:24 GMT
TfL have only managed to update Countdown for the W15 via Palmerston Road so we have the nonsense of the W11 still showing at my local stops even though the bus will never turn up. GRUMP.
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Post by John tuthill on Dec 13, 2014 10:23:40 GMT
TfL have only managed to update Countdown for the W15 via Palmerston Road so we have the nonsense of the W11 still showing at my local stops even though the bus will never turn up. GRUMP. How many TFLers have actually driven a bus? "It does not compute....it does not compute"
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Post by snoggle on Dec 13, 2014 13:41:27 GMT
TfL have only managed to update Countdown for the W15 via Palmerston Road so we have the nonsense of the W11 still showing at my local stops even though the bus will never turn up. GRUMP. How many TFLers have actually driven a bus? "It does not compute....it does not compute" I suspect many of the senior people certainly have as they've worked their way up the organisation from LT days. The problem is not about driving a bus it is about attention to detail and making sure boring stuff is done. Boring stuff like updating the service change document in time, boring stuff like loading revised Countdown data, boring stuff like making sure revised schedules come in from operators on time, boring stuff like checking things have happened or that people on the ground have reported back on events or changes. I'm not suggesting this is for the MD or a Director to check but it certainly is someone else's responsibility to ensure that changes happen properly so the poor old passenger is treated with due respect. Given the linkage between I-Bus and performance measurement and then payment to operators you'd also expect both TfL and the operator to have a vested interest in making sure that systems update on time to avoid rework or manual recording of performance. My suspicion about the W11 is that the timetable essentially has not changed but clearly the stopping / timing points have - Londonbusroutes.net has been updated on that basis. I've seen the text of the NOE for the W11 and W15 and it only asks for a revised schedule for the W15. If I am remembering how the various bus data systems link together then a revised schedule is the thing that triggers a load of other updates in other systems. If Arriva haven't been asked to create a new W11 schedule then no wonder all the other bits of the process appear not to have worked. Clearly I am guessing but this sort of thing happens over and over again and, other than in a genuine emergency situation, really should not happen because the underlying processes should work in a routine, timely and predictable manner in 99.9% of cases. TfL sent me an E Mail about the W11 change *1* day before it happened - not brilliant but at least I got one in advance. The service change document on the web remains out of date and not updated. How can they arrange the E Mail process but not check that the service change document is also accurate? I was never allowed to get away with such inconsistency of presentation of information or data so why is it seemingly tolerated elsewhere?
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Post by John tuthill on Dec 13, 2014 15:37:05 GMT
How many TFLers have actually driven a bus? "It does not compute....it does not compute" I suspect many of the senior people certainly have as they've worked their way up the organisation from LT days. The problem is not about driving a bus it is about attention to detail and making sure boring stuff is done. Boring stuff like updating the service change document in time, boring stuff like loading revised Countdown data, boring stuff like making sure revised schedules come in from operators on time, boring stuff like checking things have happened or that people on the ground have reported back on events or changes. I'm not suggesting this is for the MD or a Director to check but it certainly is someone else's responsibility to ensure that changes happen properly so the poor old passenger is treated with due respect. Given the linkage between I-Bus and performance measurement and then payment to operators you'd also expect both TfL and the operator to have a vested interest in making sure that systems update on time to avoid rework or manual recording of performance. My suspicion about the W11 is that the timetable essentially has not changed but clearly the stopping / timing points have - Londonbusroutes.net has been updated on that basis. I've seen the text of the NOE for the W11 and W15 and it only asks for a revised schedule for the W15. If I am remembering how the various bus data systems link together then a revised schedule is the thing that triggers a load of other updates in other systems. If Arriva haven't been asked to create a new W11 schedule then no wonder all the other bits of the process appear not to have worked. Clearly I am guessing but this sort of thing happens over and over again and, other than in a genuine emergency situation, really should not happen because the underlying processes should work in a routine, timely and predictable manner in 99.9% of cases. TfL sent me an E Mail about the W11 chang for every ooassioe *1* day before it happened - not brilliant but at least I got one in advance. The service change document on the web remains out of date and not updated. How can they arrange the E Mail process but not check that the service change document is also accurate? I was never allowed to get away with such inconsistency of presentation of information or data so why is it seemingly tolerated elsewhere? Point taken. ;)We all know the boring stuff can and will be overlooked. Before I retired the company, thru' years of experience, had a flow chart for every eventuality, which had to be adhered to and signed off before the job was passed on. Yes we know its boring and mundane but it did help further down the line.
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