Having made the Ewell Road a congested,obstructed route into Surbiton and Kingston,TFL have decided to make the KCR Bridge a single lane and thus make everyone who wants to turn left for Surbiton centre wait behind those turning right or going straight on.
From 14th July this nonsense will start as an experiment and if it causes huge jams it will,no doubt ,be made permanent.Does no one employed in the TFL drive? Or are they all "bikes and boots"?
We are facing an economic slow down,how will the Surbiton shops cope if more folks are put off by crazy road schemes that are designed to annoy motorists and congest the area.
This country has built one railway line since 1899,a few hundred miles of motorways,one runway since the war and barley improved its ports and underground.How on earth did our forefathers build an empire,canals,roads,sewers etc.
Comments
Apparently it's an experimental cycle route to improve safety for local school children. I'm guessing they have problems from drivers like you who use it as a rat run:
http://www.kingston.gov.uk/news?id=77764
Pupils at Hollyfield School in Surbiton will be granted a wish later this month when Kingston Council introduces a temporary two-way cycle route across King Charles Bridge.
As part of their School Travel Plan, students made a wish list of improvements that could be made to popular walking and cycling routes near their school to encourage sustainable travel. King Charles Road is a very useful link route for cyclists travelling from central Kingston to Tolworth however cyclists travelling southbound across the bridge have to push their bikes on the footpath due to the one-way system.
Stephen Chamberlain, Head at The Hollyfield School & Centre for Continuing Education said: “We look forward to the new cycle tracks on the bridge as we believe it will improve bike safety considerably for the many pupils and staff who cycle to and from school each day. The children will be especially pleased that their thoughts about road safety have been taken into account.’’
The temporary scheme will be in place until February 2009 to decide whether the cycle route across the bridge should become permanent.
Sadly you are quite mistaken if you think this proposal will improve driver behaviour.
The cut through brigade will be so frustrated by single line queuing that they are more likely to pull out in anger and frustration.
Keeping traffic moving is the secret to improving road safety not making it more and more congested.
Try and spend 5 minutes in the morning rush hour observing the drivers exiting the KCR bridge onto Lamberts Rd. The 'cut through' drivers are in a great hurry and pull out dangerously in to the path of oncoming traffic. I cycle (on the road !) past the bridge and often have drivers pull out on me. For safety this makes sense, though I do agree that RBK are very good at mucking up our roads - and spending millions of our council tax doing so.
Si
This is a stupid idea. Why do they need to experiment? Any one who lives in Berrylands will tell them that one of the few roads exiting the area will now become completely blocked. Should I be suspicious that they are starting the experiment just as the schools go off for the Summer break?
I presume that they are doing this because of the lobbying by cyclists to have a cycle path installed. Well, I cycle all the time and I see no need to have a cycle path across this bridge - I just get off and walk the 30m!
Totally agree as I too live in Berrylands,the problem is the Ewell Road is just not freeflowing enough to allow the free movement of goods and services from the A3 to Surbiton and Kingston.
My problem is that I walk to Surbiton so my views are unimportant,the fact that the lycra louts on bikes find the pavements much less obstructed and so can reach speeds in excess of 15 mph with ease does cause many near misses and it will only get worse unless the Ewell Road is improved.
Advisory signs indicating a 14th July start for this nonsense are now covered,perhaps the penny has dropped that this scheme will not improve safety or congestion,nor can it increase the revenues for TFL or Kingston.
Too early to celebrate as the cretins are probably on an away day to formulate a new mission statement explaining how they intend to curb all non state motoring in Surbiton.
As a Berrylands resident, I've no problem with anything that discourages ratrunners through our area.
The KCR is a densely populated residential area, with loads of kids.
Road safety should be put ahead of lazy cretins who can't be bothered getting the bus.
I'd also prefer it if they closed KCR north of berylands road, forcing all rat runners back onto the ewell road.
I could not agree more but to deliberately obstruct traffic that has been forced to look for better routes from the Ewell Road and increasingly from the A3 coming along Elmbridge,Surbiton Hill Park and then onto the KCR bridge,is madness.
Anyone who drives a vehicle regularly on any route will always look for cut throughs as the main arteries are increasingly cluttered with street furniture,chicanes,humps,useless bus lanes whose access times all differ and traffic light junctions where a roundabout would serve to speed the flow of traffic.
Many roads in Berrylands have grass verges that could easily be cut into to allow parking slightly off the carriageway,maybe then the K2 could get around without knocking off wing mirrors etc.
It is Ewell Road that needs to be sorted out first, in my opinion.
KCR is not capable of carrying all of the cut through traffic that it does now. The traffic should not be encouraged to cut through KCR, but this can only happen when the Ewell Road is improved.