please empty your brain below

Good article.

Missing "no" in "so cars will see benefits whatsoever"?

Regards

dg writes: My thanks to the three of you who pointed this out.
Hoorah to this! I can still remember how shocked I was the first time I encountered the distopian anti-pedestrian nightmare outside Bromley by Bow station.
I had no idea the big Tesco was being knocked down! Now I'm cross as well, it's also one of my local supermarkets and one of the best because of the size & excellent parking. How can increasing the local population but reducing the supermarket be a good idea? Maybe I'll pop along to th consultation and ask them.
Here's why (at least in Tesco's view): http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/bromley-by-bow-south-masterplan.html which also has a link to the previous 2009 plan for a megastore.
This is an example of how development patterns change, in the past the bomb damage gave politicians an excuse to indulge in Utopian fantasies.

It didn't matter if thousands of existing residents in an area were permanently inconvenienced by a 'road wall', just so that drivers with the money to live somewhere nicer could have a journey with less hassle.
So the idea is to build loads of new flats with lots of new residents and then remove the biggest supermarket within easy walking distance and replace it with a corner shop? I hope there are other options within a walkable distance.

Councils love traffic lights - bossing drivers and pedestrians around, telling them when they can go or must stop, whether or not there is actually any need to stop.
I suggest a boundary change. Use the A12 instead of the Lea as the boundary transferring Tesco site etc to Newham. Newham would acquire 'beautiful' waterside development land and the potential to create a New Venice...all access routes to be oriented to and from Newham. It might also encourage Tower Hamlets to have a better retail delivery plan.
North circular-esque traffic jams. Here they come.
Just more meddling by Tfl. Justifying their jobs with schemes that no-one really cares about or want and will be changed again in 10 years or so. Stratford gyratory the same, been changed 4 or 5 times in my lifetime making it a complete pigs ear and they are about to do it again. Just toys to play with by the road planners who have money to waste that could be spent on more worthwhile isues. Rant over!
Looking at the artists impression of the new junction, they should reduce the A12 from 6 lanes to 2 due to the lack of traffic. Obviously, whoever drew this has never seen the road, but TfL know how busy this road actually is which makes this picture a deliberate lie by them.

Also, it is not just councils who love traffic lights, manufacturers of traffic lights love all the maintenance contracts - they often sell the lights at cost and make the money on maintenance, which makes these sorts of schemes cheaper, but increases council tax to pay for them.
The A12 past BbB station is certainly a very busy route, because it attracts all sorts of long distance traffic - e.g. I used to use it from Milton Keynes to Sydenham, and MK to Canary Wharf. It is also an alternative when certain parts of the M25 are blocked.

Possibly adding lights will not affect the capacity (which is limited by the tunnel and the A12/A13 junction). But it will affect the journey time. That might mean that some of the long distance traffic is diverted away.

This downgrading of some of London's already meagre collection of goodish through routes is part of a general trend. It may be part of a master-plan to make certain road journeys just not worth doing at all. But case-by-case opposition is unlikely to have much impact.
Perhaps the answer is to take out all the infrastructure and just have the Equality Crossroads (that name would certainly appeal to TfL) where everyone has the same priority and no-one has to wait...
"The Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has frozen tube fares (not that real Londoners will notice, because we all have - unfrozen - Travelcards) for a cheap slogan and headline. Tough shit on you little people out there in the real world who hoped for the meaningful improvements to safety etc that Sadiq's cheap shot means can't be paid for ."

But all of you on here still love the twister, don't you?
Dg, You don't have a car though do you? I live off the high street and I'm all for anything that slows traffic and makes walking around the area better. It's a shame about the Tesco's but to be honest I think that the tide is changing against 'going to the supermarket' to 'getting the shopping delivered'
The effect on traffic of light controlled crossings depends very much on how they are phased. I'm not in London, but locally there are some crossings that give a lot of priority to pedestrians and others that make you wait ages and seem to give a red light to traffic when there is nothing approaching.
Apparently online grocery shopping will still be less than 10% of the market in 2021:
http://www.igd.com/Research/Retail/Five-year-forecast-the-grocery-market-by-2021/

Still I am very surprised that there aren't plans for bigger supermarkets with all that extra housing, the area already feels under-served.
Big supermarkets have a car park and a delivery yard. Smaller ones use the roads nearby for both purposes. So they use less of their own land, and more of the "commons". Another tragedy in the making.
Adding on to comment by Malcolm; the real "tragedy in the making" is having more and more people "squashed" into London, regardless of how they do their shopping or the type of building design their homes are/will be.
@ Jack - don't be surprised to see the new Mayor's Transport Strategy postulate restrictions or bans on the scale of home delivery services. TfL have banned internet shopping deliveries to their premises - employees can't have their orders delivered to their workplace. This is all about "setting an example" with a view to reducing the number of vans hurtling round London delivering internet shopping orders. There have also been "warning flags" about pressurising delivery companies to "consolidate" their orders and reduce vehicle movements within Greater London.

The implication from these possible restrictions is that regular access by walking, cycling and public transport to local shops will remain important and may even be "forced" on people. I can understand DG's "moan" about losing the big Tesco. That part of London is badly served by supermarkets with little choice and generally only small outlets. This is in contrast to many other areas where there is more choice and larger stores. The alternative is to endure the nightmare of supermarket shopping at Stratford at Morrisons, Sainsburys or Lidl along with thousands of others and crushing onto overloaded buses to get there.
Most people in Tower Hamlets don't have access to a car. A vast car park (such as at this Tesco or the Crossharbour Asda) seems like a waste of land, only benefiting the minority who do use cars. I'm not saying building yet more rabbit hutch tower blocks is a good thing, but I can't see any reason to bemoan loss of an ugly car park.
You could easily build flats on the less-used half of Tesco's car park without inconveniencing anyone.

But take away all the car park and suddenly there's no point in having a large supermarket, which (as has been pointed out) is a surprisingly rare commodity round here.
While car ownership in central London is low, car clubs have become very popular, and one thing they cater very well for is hiring a car for a couple of hours to do a big supermarket shop. The main car parks at both Tesco and the Crossharbour Asda are very well-used so I wouldn't class them as a waste of space at all.

Tesco's overflow car park, on the other hand, I've rarely seen open let alone full, so that'd be no loss.
@Moogal. Hiring a car from a car club for a couple of hours - £20 or £30. Going online and have someone deliver the shopping to my door at a time I choose - £0 to £5.
Just because lots of people still drive to supermarkets in inner London doesn't make it a rational use of scarce land.










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