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Post by snoggle on Oct 9, 2017 21:25:55 GMT
It’s an absolute pants response from a council that only appears to show interest after the fact. These changes shouldn’t be a surprise to the council and the council would have had opportunity for dialogue with TfL in the lead up to proposals. It isn’t TfL’s fault that Greenwich’s (aka “The Royal Borough”) only meets once in a blue moon and doesn’t seem to care much for road improvements using TfL cash. Indeed the support for an x161 is entirely political. The Conservatives seated in Eltham are lobbying hard for their area - like any good councillors should - and Greenwich Council want to be seen to fight for Eltham. There are some daft things in the response. The fact that buses between Abbey Wood and Greenwich Town Centre are being halved without replacement along a very busy corridor has been ignored by the council. Also the assumption that people will travel to Zone 4 Woolwich when Crossrail opens instead of sticking with Zone 2 North Greenwich isn’t even challenged robustly. The bleating about the roundabout congestion caused by the Woolwich Ferry isn’t even relevant to the consultation. The real North - South links missing are between Abbey Wood and Welling/Eltham. They might have scored points for specifically flagging this up in the planning process, but instead they bang on about an x161. No mention of the unreliable 469 having a lengthened route and no change in peak or daytime frequency despite being the only direct service to the local hospital for much of it’s route. That doesn’t sit very nicely alongside TfL’s strategy to improve bus services to hospitals, but then again I wouldn’t expect The Royal Borough to know that. Sorry to quibble but have we read the same documents? The remarks about the 469 do express concern about reliability and its longer length but cede most of the responsibility to Bexley Council as main respondent. I do think they express some concern over cuts to the 472 and also the 177/180/129 issue. I would agree they seem more worried about ensuring easier interchange away from North Greenwich for the 129/180 than fighting to keep the main route. I suspect this is precisely because they *have* had briefings from TfL who have no doubt said you can't have the improvements further east on the 180 (albeit they're in Bexley Council's area) and retain a link to Lewisham. I also suspect they want some juggling of the 129 and 180 in the vicinity of the Charlton Retail Park to get more people to that area but in the guise of "better interchange". The council have had yet more money from the developers of the latest phase but seem reluctant to do anything to improve pedestrian, cycle or bus access. They also want to keep the 129's current frequency which is x8 in the peaks which rather ignores the cost of doing this. Otherwise the 129 is unchanged as it's x12 M-S daytime. The time they should be concerned about interchange are evenings and Sundays when frequencies are lower but no one ever seems to pick up these issues. Greenwich Council can hardly turn round and say people won't use Woolwich XR stn given they lobbied for it to be built and financially supported its construction. Even if there are concerns over people continuing to use NOG it won't make the public domain in a response to TfL. You could even say the Council are being "consistent" for once! The other thing of interest is that the entire set of Crossrail bus consultations have vanished from the TfL website. Wonder why that's happened?
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Post by danorak on Oct 9, 2017 21:53:25 GMT
The time they should be concerned about interchange are evenings and Sundays when frequencies are lower but no one ever seems to pick up these issues. Erm, someone may have mentioned it this time For all the good it'll do....
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Post by stuckonthe486 on Oct 10, 2017 0:25:00 GMT
It’s an absolute pants response from a council that only appears to show interest after the fact. These changes shouldn’t be a surprise to the council and the council would have had opportunity for dialogue with TfL in the lead up to proposals. It isn’t TfL’s fault that Greenwich’s (aka “The Royal Borough”) only meets once in a blue moon and doesn’t seem to care much for road improvements using TfL cash. Indeed the support for an x161 is entirely political. The Conservatives seated in Eltham are lobbying hard for their area - like any good councillors should - and Greenwich Council want to be seen to fight for Eltham. There are some daft things in the response. The fact that buses between Abbey Wood and Greenwich Town Centre are being halved without replacement along a very busy corridor has been ignored by the council. Also the assumption that people will travel to Zone 4 Woolwich when Crossrail opens instead of sticking with Zone 2 North Greenwich isn’t even challenged robustly. The bleating about the roundabout congestion caused by the Woolwich Ferry isn’t even relevant to the consultation. The real North - South links missing are between Abbey Wood and Welling/Eltham. They might have scored points for specifically flagging this up in the planning process, but instead they bang on about an x161. No mention of the unreliable 469 having a lengthened route and no change in peak or daytime frequency despite being the only direct service to the local hospital for much of it’s route. That doesn’t sit very nicely alongside TfL’s strategy to improve bus services to hospitals, but then again I wouldn’t expect The Royal Borough to know that. Sorry to quibble but have we read the same documents? ...and this is why I posted Greenwich's response without going off on one. I'm a frustrated resident, I wanted to see others' interpretations first. And you've seen different things in it. It's so badly and ponderously written - it doesn't help that Greenwich has an absurd house style of referring to itself in the third person as "the Royal Borough" - that I read different things into it the first two times I read it. The first time I thought they'd ignored the bulk of the 129/180 issue, the second time I spotted they were unhappy about it, but was it down to the interchanges or just the 129 being less frequent or what? Any why is access to Abbey Wood station (on the eastern boundary of the borough) from the east more important than the loss of capacity between Greenwich and Woolwich? Is this about politics in the marginal Bexley wards? (After all, much of the response is, as has been correctly pointed out with the X161, about Eltham politics.) The elephant in the room concerning the 129/180 change is that the interchange will end up being in the car park of the under-construction Ikea in east Greenwich - which is likely to end up being a traffic jam. Greenwich's transport planners can't directly criticise the idiotic decisions of Greenwich's political leaders, who pushed through that Ikea development.
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Post by snoggle on Oct 10, 2017 9:39:46 GMT
...and this is why I posted Greenwich's response without going off on one. I'm a frustrated resident, I wanted to see others' interpretations first. And you've seen different things in it. It's so badly and ponderously written - it doesn't help that Greenwich has an absurd house style of referring to itself in the third person as "the Royal Borough" - that I read different things into it the first two times I read it. The first time I thought they'd ignored the bulk of the 129/180 issue, the second time I spotted they were unhappy about it, but was it down to the interchanges or just the 129 being less frequent or what? Any why is access to Abbey Wood station (on the eastern boundary of the borough) from the east more important than the loss of capacity between Greenwich and Woolwich? Is this about politics in the marginal Bexley wards? (After all, much of the response is, as has been correctly pointed out with the X161, about Eltham politics.) The elephant in the room concerning the 129/180 change is that the interchange will end up being in the car park of the under-construction Ikea in east Greenwich - which is likely to end up being a traffic jam. Greenwich's transport planners can't directly criticise the idiotic decisions of Greenwich's political leaders, who pushed through that Ikea development. Interesting. I've only read it twice and obviously, as a non local, won't get all the local nuances. I do see enough tweets and blogs to know Greenwich are not exactly loved by certain observers! (ahem). They do go as far as saying the 129's frequency cut is "unacceptable" but don't say precisely why. My assumption is that they want equalised frequencies with the 180 even though the 129 doesn't have those with the 180 now. Without reigniting a debate we keep having here I doubt much harm will result from trimming back the 129's peak frequency. I also assumed the interchange criticism was based on assuming people change under the A2's flyover which is a truly ghastly place to change buses even though several routes meet there. I suspect you're right that near IKEA is where most will change but that may add a good 20 mins or so round trip time given the local roads are not exactly lacking in congestion now never mind with IKEA open. TfL are clearly hoping the 129 to Lewisham will provide relief to the 108 but I doubt it will do much given how horrible traffic is in Greenwich Town Centre for much of the time. The 108 is not exactly speedy but I suspect the route via Blackheath will be faster than slogging through Greenwich and there is a lot of demand from the 108's corridor for access to NOG anyway. Forget all about reliability once IKEA does open and you get the usual peaks for sales and weekend pilgrimages to the blue and yellow shed. Still I am sure you can have fun standing outside Charlton Stn or at North Greenwich looking for the lost souls of IKEA worshippers as they clutch their smartphones and head off in entirely the wrong direction for the nearest bus to their temple of worship. Sorry but it's a regular sight at Tottenham Hale and I have a near 100% success rate of saying "do you want the bus to IKEA?" to lost looking people and them going "yes" and me pointing them to the sheer horror that is the 192 bus. You also have the added prospect of the already horrific peak time bus loadings at NOG being worsened by people going late night shopping at IKEA and then the utter delight of watching people struggle on to buses, trains and tubes with their purchases. Perhaps the drivers of the 192 and 341 need to give some pointers to their South London compatriots on what they can expect to witness from the "blue bagged hordes"? I agree the emphasis in parts of RBG's reply is a little unbalanced but then I'd say some of TfL's plans are a tad unbalanced too but again that's from a non user of the relevant bus services. I suspect there is a secondary set of issues here that are unspoken and those relate to Silvertown Tunnel. A decision from Grayling is due tomorrow I understand which will no doubt up the ante locally. Greenwich Council are, of course, not happy with the bus plans through the tunnel and these Crossrail changes are no doubt a partial stepping stone towards that end network just as some of the changes north of the river are. TfL have had to make additional commitments on tunnel bus service levels to try to deal with some opposition but I suspect the issue has not gone away nor have issues related to how the rebuilt North Greenwich peninsula is served. Therefore one wonders just how many battles, transport and political, are being fought through this one response.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2017 10:24:00 GMT
The banned left turn from Woolwich New Road towards the Woolwich Ferry also affects terminating buses on the 386 and potentially means the useful pickups in Hare Street and Powis Street on the return journey are lost.
The 161 rerouteing via John Wilson Street is likely to suffer from severe delays caused by the queues for the ferry.
The Council excuse for implementing the ban is that too many people will be crossing the road to get to the new station and a diversion of the 161 is a minor change. I suggested a left turn bus lane with a traffic light phase only activated by a bus would be simpler. They are sitting on a lot TfL money that could pay for this.
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Post by twobellstogo on Nov 5, 2017 13:40:32 GMT
Meanwhile, from my Bexley based friends, the 180 Erith/Erith Quarry extension appears to be broadly welcome, ditto the 301 introduction and the 469 diversion via Upper Belvedere. The rest...hmm...
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Post by stuckonthe486 on Dec 19, 2017 21:07:44 GMT
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Post by vjaska on Dec 19, 2017 21:20:48 GMT
Interesting read - also interesting to note further incompetence of another council. I had to giggle at Bexley proposing the 301 to go via New Road instead - that’s one way to wreck a bus service I guess.
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Post by snoggle on Dec 19, 2017 23:15:38 GMT
Interesting read - also interesting to note further incompetence of another council. I had to giggle at Bexley proposing the 301 to go via New Road instead - that’s one way to wreck a bus service I guess. The man behind that blog has had endless run-ins with Bexley councillors and officials. Assuming we take his word he has been arrested multiple times by Police or summonsed to Police Stations at the demand of Bexley councillors. It's a very bizarre way for politicians to deal with criticism and the implications are pretty horrific. Still it seems that some local authorities in SE London are run on the most bizarre of lines.
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Post by danorak on Dec 19, 2017 23:37:59 GMT
Interesting read - also interesting to note further incompetence of another council. I had to giggle at Bexley proposing the 301 to go via New Road instead - that’s one way to wreck a bus service I guess. The man behind that blog has had endless run-ins with Bexley councillors and officials. Assuming we take his word he has been arrested multiple times by Police or summonsed to Police Stations at the demand of Bexley councillors. It's a very bizarre way for politicians to deal with criticism and the implications are pretty horrific. Still it seems that some local authorities in SE London are run on the most bizarre of lines. All very curious. The B11 used to run that way without any issues in the past. This feels like a mountain out of an almost literal molehill. Edited to add: in case it's not already been noted on here, this is Bexley Council's response to TfL on the planned changes democracy.bexley.gov.uk/documents/s80844/Item%207.4%20App%20C%20Bus%20Issues.pdf
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Post by busman on Dec 20, 2017 9:53:33 GMT
The blog is quite a reliable source of behind the scenes dealings in Bexley Council. There are a couple of similar blogs covering issues in neighbouring Greenwich too. Local newspapers in Bexley and Greenwich are too scared to touch these stories as they rely on advertising revenue and cooperation from the councils.
I hope TfL stick to their guns and run the 301 via Knee Hill - otherwise there really isn’t much point. It seems odd that Bexley Council would lobby for a fast route from the borough into Crossrail, only to slow it down.
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Post by twobellstogo on Dec 22, 2017 21:46:32 GMT
The blog is quite a reliable source of behind the scenes dealings in Bexley Council. There are a couple of similar blogs covering issues in neighbouring Greenwich too. Local newspapers in Bexley and Greenwich are too scared to touch these stories as they rely on advertising revenue and cooperation from the councils. I hope TfL stick to their guns and run the 301 via Knee Hill - otherwise there really isn’t much point. It seems odd that Bexley Council would lobby for a fast route from the borough into Crossrail, only to slow it down. Deep down, I’m afraid, like many outer London boroughs, Bexley isn’t a particularly bus friendly borough - never has been. I suspect 301 will still serve Knee Hill, but I wouldn’t put money on it...
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Post by beaver14uk on Dec 23, 2017 16:15:53 GMT
I think the preferred route is via New Road. quote author=" twobellstogo" source="/post/408519/thread" timestamp="1513979192"] The blog ish quite a reliable source of behind the scenes dealings in Bexley Council. There are a couple of similar blogs covering issues in neighbouring Greenwich too. Local newspapers in Bexley and Greenwich are too scared to touch these stories as they rely on advertising revenue and cooperation from the councils. I hope TfL stick to their guns and run the 301 via Knee Hill - otherwise there really isn’t much point. It seems odd that Bexley Council would lobby for a fast route from the borough into Crossrail, only to slow it down. Deep down, I’m afraid, like many outer London boroughs, Bexley isn’t a particularly bus friendly borough - never has been. I suspect 301 will still serve Knee Hill, but I wouldn’t put money on it...[/quote]
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Post by twobellstogo on Jan 3, 2018 19:11:39 GMT
Interesting read - also interesting to note further incompetence of another council. I had to giggle at Bexley proposing the 301 to go via New Road instead - that’s one way to wreck a bus service I guess. The man behind that blog has had endless run-ins with Bexley councillors and officials. Assuming we take his word he has been arrested multiple times by Police or summonsed to Police Stations at the demand of Bexley councillors. It's a very bizarre way for politicians to deal with criticism and the implications are pretty horrific. Still it seems that some local authorities in SE London are run on the most bizarre of lines. This blogger is also utterly against the diversion of the 469 via Upper Belvedere, as are Bexley Council - in the Council's case, because of the loss of a direct link from Abbey Road to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. They also don't want a second route down Picardy Road.
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Post by DT 11 on Jan 3, 2018 19:33:47 GMT
The man behind that blog has had endless run-ins with Bexley councillors and officials. Assuming we take his word he has been arrested multiple times by Police or summonsed to Police Stations at the demand of Bexley councillors. It's a very bizarre way for politicians to deal with criticism and the implications are pretty horrific. Still it seems that some local authorities in SE London are run on the most bizarre of lines. This blogger is also utterly against the diversion of the 469 via Upper Belvedere, as are Bexley Council - in the Council's case, because of the loss of a direct link from Abbey Road to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. They also don't want a second route down Picardy Road. I’m not surprised because if Picardy Road gets double the amount of buses per hour that’s more buses getting stuck. They clearly don’t want to do anything with it otherwise it wouldn’t be like that at all. I think the 469 should remain as it is.
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