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Post by busman on Apr 11, 2017 16:13:24 GMT
Thanks for that document. It still talks about new routes (plural) and a turn up and ride frequency of every 12 minutes. I think that is reasonable commitment at this stage for new routes that have yet to be established. I haven't had a chance to hear the recording, but I do feel for TfL right now. They might be in the firing line, but the document is clear on what budgetary pressures they are faced with. 1. Government funding gone by 2018 2. MoL fare freeze until 2020(!) 3. Local travel concession granted by the MoL costing £2M - what the heck!!! That was news to me. Sadiq is just giving things away. He can't keep on spending without increasing revenues. TfL is having to make those tough choices by cutting services before making improvements elsewhere. 4. Councils will have to do their share of the lifting by negotiating large enough S106's revenues to pay for bus network improvements. There are some huge developments taking place either side of the tunnel. Newham seem to be competent, but I fear that Greenwich council will not make sufficient demands from the likes of Knight Dragon, IKEA etc Greenwich Council are already sitting on millions and millions of pounds of past S106 contributions. For whatever reason it won't spend them on buses or public realm or cycling or walking. It's not as if there are not a myriad of improvements that could be made in the Borough. I've lost count of the amount of criticism that is directed at the Council / councillors and yet nothing seems to happen. It's not as if the money can be used for other things - it's effectively hypothecated so why not spend it and deliver some benefit to residents? I live in the borough and have seen this first hand. I have zero confidence in Greenwich council's ability to handle anything to do with public realm or infrastructure improvements. When they do do something, it's usually very badly implemented. The borough has the 3rd highest minimum housing target in London (incidentally Tower Hamlets which will also be a contributor has the highest), so the potential for raising and spending S106 contributions on bus improvements is vast. To date Greenwich council have not demanded any significant contribution from IKEA as part of their planning process. IKEA are stating that a new store on the junction of East Greenwich roundabout and the Blackwall Tunnel approach will not cause significant increases in traffic and the council are letting that ride. If that development goes ahead without enough S106 funds to implement significant improvements to road infrastructure, bus service reliability will go down the pan. Traffic will get worse too with IKEA customers and tunnel works coinciding. Sorry for the rant, but the incompetence of this council does my head in at times. |
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Post by snoggle on Apr 11, 2017 16:47:10 GMT
Greenwich Council are already sitting on millions and millions of pounds of past S106 contributions. For whatever reason it won't spend them on buses or public realm or cycling or walking. It's not as if there are not a myriad of improvements that could be made in the Borough. I've lost count of the amount of criticism that is directed at the Council / councillors and yet nothing seems to happen. It's not as if the money can be used for other things - it's effectively hypothecated so why not spend it and deliver some benefit to residents? I live in the borough and have seen this first hand. I have zero confidence in Greenwich council's ability to handle anything to do with public realm or infrastructure improvements. When they do do something, it's usually very badly implemented. The borough has the 3rd highest minimum housing target in London (incidentally Tower Hamlets which will also be a contributor has the highest), so the potential for raising and spending S106 contributions on bus improvements is vast. To date Greenwich council have not demanded any significant contribution from IKEA as part of their planning process. IKEA are stating that a new store on the junction of East Greenwich roundabout and the Blackwall Tunnel approach will not cause significant increases in traffic and the council are letting that ride. If that development goes ahead without enough S106 funds to implement significant improvements to road infrastructure, bus service reliability will go down the pan. Traffic will get worse too with IKEA customers and tunnel works coinciding. Sorry for the rant, but the incompetence of this council does my head in at times. No need to apologise for a sensible rant.  Well I can't speak for the Croydon IKEA but both Tottenham and Brent Park have the small advantage on being on the A406 and having a reasonable but not high capacity set of feeder roads into their stores. It doesn't mean there are never traffic jams or delays because there are. The other issue in both cases is that there are other clusters of "out of town" units and a big supermarket which also push up traffic levels. It's certainly the case with Tottenham that the local feeder roads and junctions not too far away are quite badly overloaded at times - Tottenham Hale, Hall Lane junction, Cooks Ferry can become congested and overall there is far more traffic in that locality than there used to be. As Meridian Water develops near Tottenham IKEA the traffic demands will become very difficult to handle IMO but we'll see. It strikes me that the Greenwich Peninsula may have the A2 / A12 nearby but neither are high capacity, the tunnel is an ongoing nightmare and the roads in and around East Greenwich / Westcombe Park / Charlton etc are not good on even average days never mind weekends when everyone wants to go to IKEA for shelves and meatballs. That junction under the A2 flyover which many bus routes go through is on a knife edge half the time - IKEA traffic flows will easily disrupt it. I guess the problem is that there are no easy, quick solutions that Greenwich Council can implement so they go for "three monkeys" approach. La la la what problems?   |
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Post by busman on Apr 12, 2017 15:52:30 GMT
I've just listened to the audio. This is a scale back of dramatic proportions. From 37 bph to 20 and a commitment period down from 3 years to 1. The TfL guys seemed pretty flustered by the line of questioning they faced. Is that bph figure a total for both directions? If so, by joining up the info in the strategy document this looks like TfL are committing to 2 routes serving the Silvertown tunnel at a frequency of every 12 minutes. With such low frequencies it would mean that any routes travelling long distances through busy towns and roads could be vulnerable to delay and no longer operate at TfL's turn up and ride minimum frequency of....wait for it.....yes you guessed it....every 12 minutes. As we know, if buses have reduced reliability, people either switch to car or tube. Austerity comes to London's buses. Interesting times.
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Post by snoggle on Apr 12, 2017 16:14:38 GMT
I've just listened to the audio. This is a scale back of dramatic proportions. From 37 bph to 20 and a commitment period down from 3 years to 1. The TfL guys seemed pretty flustered by the line of questioning they faced. Is that bph figure a total for both directions? If so, by joining up the info in the strategy document this looks like TfL are committing to 2 routes serving the Silvertown tunnel at a frequency of every 12 minutes. With such low frequencies it would mean that any routes travelling long distances through busy towns and roads could be vulnerable to delay and no longer operate at TfL's turn up and ride minimum frequency of....wait for it.....yes you guessed it....every 12 minutes. As we know, if buses have reduced reliability, people either switch to car or tube. Austerity comes to London's buses. Interesting times. No I think the bph is the number in each direction if you add the numbers for the routes in the Bus Demand calculation (in another volume I looked at) they total 37.5 bph in each direction. That number does, of course, include an augmented 108 service. I suspect that the 20 bph is really only 12 or possibly 14 bph depending on what you assume will be done to the 108 (augmented freq or no change). I suspect TfL have an option "under wraps" that does away with creating the new routes from Eltham and Grove Park. That leaves you with a choice of extending the 129 and revised 104 through the tunnel plus the 108. You get 20 bph is you have the 108 at 6 bph, 104 at 6 bph and 129 at 8 bph (peak freq today). That leaves the putative extension of the 309 and the two brand new routes on the shelf. Looking at the demand analysis the strongest performer by far is the idea of getting the 104 through the tunnel to North Greenwich. This will be a short extension from Custom House most likely only needing 2-3 extra buses but with high demand levels. An improved 108 will do well most likely whereas the 309 is a bit runty and new routes involve a lot of cost and take far longer to show any benefits. The 129 over to Canary Wharf is also likely to be popular and is not overly expensive to achieve if TfL route it via the faster roads from Blackwall to Leamouth and then via the D3 into the Wharf. TfL will want to back "certain winners" so they can demonstrate in the "Monitoring Period" that they are helping to deliver the objectives they've set themselves. Of course much of this will fail the political test from local councillors who clearly want as much service volume as they can get for "their patch" with no detriment or impact on existing services. Those demands are understandable but the problem with them is that they totally ignore the point you make - there will be no money. TfL know this but they're in a difficult place partly of their own creation but largely the result of the loss of revenue grant and the fares freeze. They can't criticise the Mayor or his policies hence all the flowery words about flexibility etc. It's just a code for "we will be in the sh*t financially in 2021, we can't tie our hands now to vast expenditures in the future when we will be lucky to be keeping the existing network going never mind expanding it or improving it".  |
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Post by snowman on May 10, 2018 13:14:25 GMT
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Post by snoggle on May 10, 2018 17:02:44 GMT
It is interesting that TfL seem to be struggling to secure finalised agreements with what are known as "host boroughs" for the link. Agreement with Newham is nowhere near being finalised although Greenwich and Tower Hamlets have progressed but not yet finished. You may recall that TfL tried to pull a little stunt during the enquiry to weaken their commitment to the extent and duration of enhanced services operating through the Silvertown Tunnel. Unfortunately for TfL the Secretary of State has noted the concerns of the host boroughs and has imposed a new condition in the Development Consent Order that requires the previous more generous level of bus service links to be provided. A similar condition about providing for pedestrian / cycle services through the tunnel has also been added because TfL had not addressed the concerns of the Host Boroughs effectively. Oh dear.  I wonder when the Mayor will take a final decision about this and whether TfL have actually got themselves any sort of financing deal which will see the thing actually built. There is certainly no capital funding for it in the Business Plan / Budget as the assumption is that it will be a form of PFI deal. |
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Post by snowman on May 30, 2019 9:11:29 GMT
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Post by busman on May 30, 2019 14:47:42 GMT
I would suggest the 129 and the oddly numbered 335 would be contenders to run north of the river. The 304 might be an option to extend south of the river. Who knows, TfL might even be forced to cut back on the 20 bph originally promised.
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Post by snoggle on May 30, 2019 15:52:40 GMT
I would suggest the 129 and the oddly numbered 335 would be contenders to run north of the river. The 304 might be an option to extend south of the river. Who knows, TfL might even be forced to cut back on the 20 bph originally promised. Certainly the 304 is a possibility. I agree the 335 is now a contender. I believe the bph number through the tunnel is fixed as a condition of granting approval for the tunnel. TfL did try to reduce it but this was turned down. The boroughs each side of the river lobbied hard to prevent TfL reducing bph. EDIT - having seen some online comment it seems that despite the condition it only kicks in from year three after opening and TfL have bought themselves wriggle room over "budgets" (no shock there). Expect a bun fight in 2027. |
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Post by rif153 on May 30, 2019 15:57:48 GMT
I would suggest the 129 and the oddly numbered 335 would be contenders to run north of the river. The 304 might be an option to extend south of the river. Who knows, TfL might even be forced to cut back on the 20 bph originally promised. Good choices. I think the 335 has a good chance of being extended north of the river, however for the 129 perhaps TFL will shy away from extending it because Lewisham already has the 108 but anyway, who knows! |
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Post by I-Azusio-I on Jun 26, 2019 22:49:06 GMT
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Post by rif153 on Jun 27, 2019 5:50:46 GMT
Shelving the Bridge was inevitable with tight constraints on TfL finances, the electric ferry idea sounds quite innovative and exciting but I can’t see it happening any time soon. Shaun Bailey’s idea to reallocate money from this bridge to Hammersmith Bridge for repairs is the first good idea that’s come out of his mouth, I think he probably views this crossing as a luxury |
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Post by ronnie on Jun 27, 2019 7:47:59 GMT
Shelving the Bridge was inevitable with tight constraints on TfL finances, the electric ferry idea sounds quite innovative and exciting but I can’t see it happening any time soon. Shaun Bailey’s idea to reallocate money from this bridge to Hammersmith Bridge for repairs is the first good idea that’s come out of his mouth, I think he probably views this crossing as a luxury Although needless to say more crossings are needed in east London. To be dependent on the vagaries of rotherhithe tunnel, blackwall tunnel, Woolwich ferry and the QE bridge in Dartford compared to the number of bridges on the west side is somewhat unfair .... although of course there are unique circumstances : challenges in east london |
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Post by capitalomnibus on Jun 27, 2019 8:39:29 GMT
Good, it wasn't needed. All it was just for the cyclist brigade with their usual brownie points. Just like the Old St roundabout, now the cycle lanes are there, they hardly even use it, go figure! As I have previously mentioned, there needs to be four river crossings built east of Tower Bridge. It would only get worse with Sadtick Khans stupid ULEZ to North and South Circular Roads, They are not a proper boundary, the North Circular nearly touches the Greater London border at Woodford, while other locations east are way far from it, i.e at Beckton. At the current moment because of the ULEZ Tower Bridge is VERY busy all day. It was made worse some years ago with the congestion charge being on the boundary, now it has to contend with the ban on vans from Rotherhithe Tunnel and ULEZ, CC boundary. Dartford Crossing would be extremely busy after ULEZ expansion as people avoid paying for it.
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Post by ronnie on Jun 27, 2019 21:51:20 GMT
Good, it wasn't needed. All it was just for the cyclist brigade with their usual brownie points. Just like the Old St roundabout, now the cycle lanes are there, they hardly even use it, go figure! As I have previously mentioned, there needs to be four river crossings built east of Tower Bridge. It would only get worse with Sadtick Khans stupid ULEZ to North and South Circular Roads, They are not a proper boundary, the North Circular nearly touches the Greater London border at Woodford, while other locations east are way far from it, i.e at Beckton. At the current moment because of the ULEZ Tower Bridge is VERY busy all day. It was made worse some years ago with the congestion charge being on the boundary, now it has to contend with the ban on vans from Rotherhithe Tunnel and ULEZ, CC boundary. Dartford Crossing would be extremely busy after ULEZ expansion as people avoid paying for it.
Ya it was an expensive and unnecessary item like the garden bridge. Big waste of money benefitting no one - can easily be solved by extra ferries at a much lower cost Those extra river crossings are needed |
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