It would be a BMW

A car overturned and hit two pedestrians after careering out of control in central London last night.

Three people were injured in the incident involving a powerful BMW car, in Brompton Road, Kensington.

According to the BBC it happened in Old Brompton Road.

Transport for London ‘improves’ Walthamstow

Wood Street, Walthamstow. Two mighty steel legs appear from nowhere, obstructing the footway. Is it a scene from The War of the Worlds?

In a way, yes. This obstructive pavement clutter has been installed to inform passers-by that two of the deadliest species in the universe have joined together for 'improvement works'.

It says on the notice that the works will be completed by April. Which according to my calendar was last month. Perhaps TfL are using Northern Line Time (you know, ‘next train in 8 minutes’ and half an hour later you are still waiting for it to arrive).

(Below) The ongoing TfL/LBWF improvement works give blind pedestrians the chance to brush up on the necessary skills required to walk the streets of the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

Whether or not these new ‘improvements’ involve anything more than the renovation of the grisly Wood Street pedestrian precinct beside some lacklustre local shops is not yet clear. Hopefully not. Wood Street between the station and Lea Bridge Road has already been ‘improved’ by converting the old cycle lane into parking bays and pushing cyclists closer to traffic on the new smooth, high speed road. The result (below) is the kind of cycling ambiance which is unattractive to everyone apart from cycle campaigners. And as Will Self once remarked, there is no sadder term in the English language than ‘cycle campaigner’.

They’ve got the message in Sitges. But not in London. Because as you can see, Wood Street is far too narrow for a segregated cycle path. So there's no point at all in asking for the impossible.

Take a trip down Walthamstow Avenue

No, this is not the aftermath of an earthquake. It’s the footway on Walthamstow Avenue E4. Just another scene from what the pedestrian-friendly Council is pleased to call Walk’em Forest.

Not that it’s much smoother by bike… Essex Road E17 (below)

Cycling, St James' Health Centre and the car-sick NHS

The NHS is a diseased organization with extraordinary levels of car dependency among its management and staff.

Commuting and business journeys by NHS staff account for a staggering 0.12% of all carbon emissions in England. (source: NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy, 2008)

As those NHS staff members who do cycle have observed:

so much NHS ‘support’ for cycling is mere lip service. There is no overall promotion of sustainable transport in the NHS and many Trusts neither know nor care what cyclists need.

The NHS has the hypocrisy to run a website extolling the virtues of cycling. When you click on the Cycling Safety Tips link you get crap like this:

On busy or narrow roads don’t cycle next to another person.

[Because after all, you might hold a driver up and that would be intolerable. This isn't Denmark or the Netherlands you know.]

Be visible
Make sure you’re visible to other road users and pedestrians. Keep away from the kerb, wear bright or fluorescent clothing in daylight or poor light.

[Advice to cyclists to wear bright clothing colludes with reckless driving by blaming the victims of criminally inattentive driving.]

Always wear a helmet as this reduces the risk of head injury if you’re in an accident.

[This is advice which would be better applied to the occupants of motor vehicles, who statistically are more at risk. So why this silence on the part of the NHS?]

Legal issues
It's against the law for cyclists to:
Cycle the wrong way up a one-way street, unless there's a sign showing that cyclists can do so.

[One-way streets are designed exclusively to promote the smooth flow of motor vehicles and extensively discriminate against cyclists.]

The NHS colludes with motor danger and the car-centric status quo and demands that cyclists adjust their behaviour to it, not that the source of the danger be removed. Ironically the safety tips website is illustrated with a photo of three cyclists alongside lethal railings. Why isn't the NHS demanding that the street environment be designed to benefit the benign road user groups?

Which brings me to the shabby, depressing and profoundly car-sick St James’ Health Centre in Walthamstow. Just wandering around this building made my spirits sink.

Literacy is not the strong point of these highly paid professionals:

We are a eight doctor practice 3 males and 5 females. We also have a Nurse Practitioner, 2 Practice Nurses and a Health Care Assistant.

The practice is car-sick to its core. It is situated by a train station and a bus station but contains no advice on how to get to it other than by car. It contains no cycle stands at all.

The practice has 23 members of staff

I counted 32 cars in the car park on a weekday last week but perhaps the extra ones were visiting health professionals. How many of these vehicles had been driven distances of less than 5 miles? Probably most of them. How many had been driven less than 2 miles? Quite possibly more than half of them. And why not? Unlimited free car parking is a great incentive to car dependency.

As a diseased institution St James’ Health Centre naturalises car-sickness and infects others:

We are proud to be recognised both as a Teaching Practice for Undergraduate Students from the Royal London and Barts & Royal Free/University College London Medical Schools and as a Post Graduate Training Practice for GP Registrars.































(Below) Visitors arriving with prams or buggies are advised to lock them to a railing outside the entrance. Advice which is unlikely to be followed, since no one I know who pushes a pram or buggy ever carries a padlock and chain around with them. There’s plenty of space by the entrance to the health centre for bike stands, if anyone working here had ever heard of those quaint devices. Naturally the pram parking area has no protection from the rain.


























(Below) Judging by the architecture, this health centre opened in the 1960s. And in all that time no one has done anything about this kerb by the entrance, which presents a major obstacle to anyone in, or pushing, a wheelchair. The management of this practice really is stupefyingly mediocre and the doctors who work here should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of insight into the needs of those with a mobility difficulty, apart from their indifference to anyone who chooses to arrive here by bicycle.

Crap walking in Leeds

Author, journalist and blogger Owen Hatherley takes a stroll around Leeds:

Leeds – 'Motorway City of the 70s' (!) is almost as much a motorcity as Birmingham, and it's that hostility to pedestrians (outside the ring road) that helps make it so obnoxious.

Partly there's the sheer obstructiveness to pedestrians, with what are already baffling even by English standards lines of movement made worse by plenty of impassable surface car parks – three times I had to clamber over fences just to get from A to B, and I'm really not an athletic sort.

How Waltham Forest Council and Ascham Homes sponsor footway obstruction by lawless lorry drivers

A recent Housing Needs Survey found that 24.2% of households in the London Borough of Waltham Forest included a member with a disability. Furthermore, 44.1% of these with a disability suffered from mobility difficulties with 6.2% containing a member who is a wheelchair user.

You might think, therefore, that the Council would be keen to ensure that its pavements were kept free of obstruction. Not a bit of it. When I asked how many shopkeepers had been prosecuted in the past year for obstructing the footway with advertising boards, back came the answer: none.

Worse still, Ascham Homes, which is the council’s privatised housing department, contracts work out to scaffolding firms which have no standards at all when it comes to blatant obstruction of the footway and displays of total indifference to pedestrians with a mobility difficulty (which can be anything from being blind, pushing a double buggy, using a wheelchair, or being on crutches).

Today I encountered this Griffin scaffolding lorry (above) parked completely across the pavement on Addison Road by the junction with Beulah Road. Scaffolding is going up on the block of flats here, which I’m pretty sure is local authority housing under the control of Ascham Homes.

This is quite a lethal bend as drivers come round it fast, making the complacent assumption that the unseen road ahead will always be clear. This lorry is also parked right by a nursery, and there are a lot of parents/carers pushing buggies or walking with toddlers.

Griffin claim to be particularly concerned for the safety of pedestrians ‘walking by’ sites where their scaffolding is erected:

it’s an area we take really seriously.

We operate a tight health and safety policy.

The scaffolding industry strikes me as being completely out of control as far as its attitude to health and safety for cyclists and pedestrians is concerned. Indeed, even quite rudimentary matters are neglected. For example, I spotted this Mattison Scaffolding lorry (below) in Walthamstow High Street on Saturday. A green lorry working for an ostensibly ‘Green’ firm (they are still working on their spelling).

This lorry has no rear numberplate. And its load appeared to be unsecured.































A firm which seems to get a lot of business from Waltham Forest Council, via its proxy Ascham Homes, is AJ Scaffolding. This firm boasts that

Due to the importance of Health & Safety all our scaffolding operatives receive ongoing training and have passed their health & safety test. All operatives are trained to current statutory legislation.

And this, below, was the scene on Westbury Road E17 on the afternoon of February 21st. Scaffolding was dumped across the footway, and a lorry was parked across the footway all afternoon, forcing pedestrians out into the middle of the road. These scaffolders were working on Hatherley House, which is very definitely under the care of Ascham Homes.



























I emailed Ascham Homes that very afternoon with a copy to Chris Robbins, Leader of Waltham Forest council. I complained about the situation on Westbury Road and asked

Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what standards Ascham Homes requires of contractors who work for it, and if they cover such matters as respecting the rights and safety of pedestrians and obeying traffic laws designed to protect them.

Neither Ascham Homes nor Cllr Robbins have since troubled to reply, but then I note that even a member of the Ascham Homes board grumbles that Currently there is a lot of indifference to residents’ views and complaints.

No surprise, then, that nothing has changed. Here they are again today – AJ Scaffolding, working for Ascham Homes, with a lorry parked quite unnecessarily across the footway on St Stephens Close E17. This footway provides a useful short cut for pedestrians through to Grove Road.


























(Below) Parked both across the cycle lane and on the footway on a double yellow line ‘no waiting at any time’ restriction. Today. POSH Scaffolding, who seem to be based in Essex. Ah, well, an Essex driver – that would explain it.



























And look what's the other side of the road! Walthamstow Police Station. But as we know, anti-social behaviour and lawlessness involving a driver isn't really of any interest to London's finest.




























Lastly (below), here’s J&A Scaffolding in action on a property off Pretoria Avenue.

A large proportion of our current work is for local Councils and our reputation has been built on trust and reliability. We take Health and Safety as a priority. Yeah, right…

shared space update

Blind and partially-sighted people are at risk on London's streets as planners push through “lethal” designs that value style over safety, a campaigner warned today.

lawless Broadstock lorry driver obstructs cycle lane

The southbound A112 (Hoe Street, Walthamstow)


Isn’t it touching that this lorry driver’s employer has an Environmental Policy, which promises

to minimise any environmental impact on customers, supply chain partners and neighbours.

It is also the pratice [sic] of the company to ensure that all personnel involved in the company's operations receive and understand the requirements of this policy and have the appropriate training. Additionally it will ensure that each employee understands the environmental aspects and impacts of their job function.

It is the responsibility of all employees to understand those sections of the company Environmental Management System which relate to their activities within the organisation.

For at least one of their lorry drivers and his mate this understanding not only doesn't encompass obeying loading restrictions but also involves a casual attitude to driving unlawfully on the footway (and possibly damaging it – HGVs this size on flagstones tend to shatter them, leaving the council tax payer to foot the bill) and complete indifference to the safety and convenience of cyclists.

The driver ignored the double yellow line No Loading 7 am – 7 pm restriction. He drove across the footway (an offence) and he parked on it. He also created danger for cyclists by obstructing the cycle lane - the bus in the first photograph is heading directly towards any cyclist who might emerge from behind the lorry. Altogether I’d say that adds up to two criminal offences and two parking offences. Yesterday, 11.35 am. Registration number MX07 ETO.

If you look at the pavement at this location you will see that the flagstones are shattered and the council regularly has to repair them. Waltham Forest council tax payers are effectively subsidising firms like Broadstock, whose drivers cause damage then drive off into the sunset. And a lorry driver who parks like this is displaying an attitude which I strongly suspect is expressed in other aspects of his driving.

If you have any comments about Broadstock’s contribution to the environment you can send them to the company at the only email address they provide.

sales@broadstock.co.uk

Fictitious grit

Alison Nicholls, 34, from Bromley, said: “We never see gritters in my road. I heard Boris Johnson say there was 60 per cent more grit this year, but I've seen no evidence. I haven't been offered any or a shovel, just a link to the council's website.”

Bromley said that either end of Ms Nicholls's road had been gritted.

But not the bit in the middle where Ms Nicholls lives. The enormously talented officer responsible for this response is wasted in Bromley and should be instantly recruited by Waltham Forest. And there is only one consultancy capable of spotting talent of this order – in a word, bung the task to Rockpools!

Walthamstow High Street is a load of rubbish

Waltham Forest Council boasts that it is ‘disability aware’. This is why special sacks are placed across the footway to cushion falls which blind pedestrians might suffer as a result of tripping over objects left across the footway.




























Tuesday.

Discrimination against those with a disability

One in 10 Londoners cannot access large sections of the public transport network in London because of mobility issues, a report has warned.

The London Assembly study found step-free access to stations falls far short of demand.

Val Shawcross AM, chairwoman of the transport committee, called the situation "simply unacceptable".

But for Transport for London and Waltham Forest Council to convert a cycle lane into parking bays, that is quite acceptable. And at £10,000 per free unlimited parking bay this is excellent value for money, leading to an enhanced footway situation for wheelchair users. Forest Road E17.

There may be trouble ahead

David Hembrow tries to impress us by showing how the Dutch are already preparing for the possibility of winter snow.

I’m afraid I can’t understand a word these funny foreigners are saying. But in any case those of us who are blessed to live in the London Borough of Waltham Forest are unlikely to be impressed. Here, the council has long had a policy of locating grit bins alongside cycle stands, and this one on Vernon Road E17 shows how the most progressive cycling council in outer London is already making grit available to cyclists should inclement weather sweep in unexpectedly.




























Only kidding! This winter everything will be just as crap as it is every year

Scramble hogs

More than 90 million people have used the X-shaped pedestrian crossing in Oxford Circus in its first year, Westminster Council has said.

The £5m junction, inspired by a similar crossing in Tokyo, opened in the West End shopping area on 2 November 2009.

The redesign increased road space for pedestrians by 70% and allows people to cross diagonally by simultaneously halting traffic from all directions.

And it works so well, as these pics taken a couple of weeks ago show. This is the green phase, when pedestrians pour across the crossing from all directions.




























As I swing the camera slightly to the left the sign in the background tells pedestrians they have 8 seconds left to get to the other side.

That’s if they don’t get knocked down by the black estate car, or the Boris Biker who has merrily jumped the red light and is about to force his way through a line of pedestrians, doing wonders for cyclist-pedestrian relations.

Pedestrian refuges of Waltham Forest

Raglan Road E17 and James Lane E10 (supposedly a 20 mph zone).

Cycling on the pavement

This blog has always been unequivocally opposed to cycling on the pavement – yes, there’s no question that it’s dangerous.

Some police forces, especially those with a tradition to uphold, take a commendably robust attitude to pavement cyclists:

Great grandfather and World War II veteran James Gresty was chased into a bank by two police community support officers after they accused him of cycling on the path outside.

The pair ordered Mr Gresty outside for a ticking-off but when he refused they called for back-up from two officers in a nearby police van.

The police drove over the paved area outside the Halifax in Sale, Greater Manchester, and issued him with a £30 fixed penalty. Widower Mr Gresty, who won several medals during his three-year service with the York and Lancaster Regiment, said yesterday: ‘I was shocked at their attitude. They were carrying on as if I had committed a serious criminal offence.

‘They were being aggressive, rude and heavy-handed all over whether I was cycling on the pavement.

‘But I had got off my bike before I got on the pavement. I’m an 84-year-old man, not a teenage hoodie.’

Recently on Monmouth Street WC2 I witnessed this scene (above). A cyclist riding not on the pavement but in the road, enjoying the cycling-friendly environment of a city in the grip of a ‘cycling revolution’. Sadly, everyone but the cyclist and the pedestrians were committing offences.

Various commercial vehicles were parked obstructively on ‘no waiting at any time’ double yellow lines, and the taxi in front of the cyclist (reg LM55 YHJ, black cab 61233) had just driven over the pavement to get past the lorry.

You never hear much about it (I wonder why?) but driving on the pavement is an offence:

Driving on the pavement contrary to Section 72 of the highways Act 1835 as amended became a fixed penalty offence on 1 August 1999. The offence applies to all driving on the pavement.

It never gets enforced, and even parents with children who encounter dangerous drivers on the pavement can expect little sympathy or support from their local police or council.

Oh, look who followed the law-abiding cyclist and also drove on the pavement contrary to Section 72 of the highways Act 1835 as amended!






























It is however permissible to drive on the pavement when it has been turned into a car park, as here on Forest Road, Walthamstow, as part of the ongoing ‘improvement scheme’. The improvements for both pedestrians and cyclists are obvious.

Breaking news: major car smash on Hoe Street, Walthamstow

The crash occurred at 5.55 am today. It appears to have been a Single Vehicle Only collision involving a black BMW. The driver was travelling along Hoe Street (A112) and ‘lost control’ and slammed into a large lamp post outside the Rose and Crown pub, and then apparently careered off and came to a halt in the opposite lane. From the damage done to the lamp post my guess is that the driver was travelling south, towards Walthamstow Central.

I don’t know if anyone was injured or killed.

Hoe Street is currently closed between the junctions with Hatherley Road and Jewel Road. This is having a serious effect on local businesses behind the police cordons and one shop owner complained to me about being unable to open his premises.

Update 1 p.m.

According to the Waltham Forest Guardian a 27-year-old man was taken to Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, with what are believed to be serious injuries.

scenes from Bickley Road, Leyton

A WOMAN was seriously injured when she was hit by a truck.

She was walking in Bickley Road, Leyton, when the vehicle smashed into her at around 4.30pm.

There are no obvious signs of what happened on Bickley Road. There is a lighting column which has obviously been struck by a vehicle and which is leaning at a crazy angle (with one of those sweet little blue ‘quiet route for cyclists’ signs attached) but as this is at the entrance to a business where lorries come in and out, this damage is probably old. Obviously it poses a danger to pedestrians (it might one day fall down and hit someone) but as nobody in the council ever walks anywhere to notice such things, grievously injured street furniture isn't exactly rare in the borough.

By a curious coincidence the firm based on this street is one which employs lorry drivers who deliberately mount the kerb and drive along the pavement in a reckless and unlawful way, so let’s hope the unidentified ‘truck’ which struck the pedestrian wasn’t this one.

Incidentally, the Walthamstow branch of SS Builders overtly breaks the Highways Act, 1980, sections 137 and Section 149. But not to worry – this lawless business is protected both by a council and a police force which are both institutionally hostile to walking and complicit in law-breaking and anti-social behaviour.

As for the walking environment in Bickley Road. This is what it was like yesterday.

I hate Oxford Street

In Mid Town, where pedestrians come first...

I hate cycling on Oxford Street (it’s a sewer for taxis and buses). And I hate walking on Oxford Street, because the pedestrians, who vastly outnumber all other road users, are pushed to the sides. Every time I’m on Oxford Street I want to shout “take over the road, people!” but I know if I did they’d just think I’d forgotten to take my medication.

Oxford Street should have been pedestrianised years ago and its continuing pathological condition is symptomatic of the medieval state of British transport policy. Trams are much, much better than buses. And it’s grotesque that anyone is allowed to drive a private car in central London.

Look who’s in the cycle lane…

Ah, now I understand why ‘the cycling prime minister’ is cracking down on disability benefits. Yes, take their money away and remove the mobility scooter maniac menace from Britain’s cycle lanes. Selborne Road E17, yesterday.

This is not the first time I’ve encountered a mobility scooter in a local cycle lane. What’s wrong with these rogue scooter anarchists? Surely they don’t think that Waltham Forest's footways are uneven and dangerous?

Aftermath of a Walthamstow hit and run

This is where a driver ‘lost control’ on Blackhorse Road, Walthamstow, in the process running down two pedestrians, demolishing a bus stop and three brick walls, and colliding with a house, causing serious structural damage.

The driver was evidently going at excessive speed (this is supposed to be a 30 mph zone) and was presumably driving the kind of large vehicle with airbags (a 4X4, say) which allows the driver to emerge from spectacular wreckage like this unscathed. The driver then apparently did a runner.

Blackhorse Road is a road I generally avoid cycling on. It has high volumes of traffic, often moving at speed (much faster than on traffic-light-dotted Hoe Street) and some drivers get very impatient at being delayed by a cyclist. It forms part of the A1006. In the Leyton section of this 'A' road they also have a problem with drivers ‘losing control’, which is why you can see steel crash barriers at the roadside, cleverly located alongside the cycle lane. Parking is squeezed in wherever possible.