25 November - The folly continues
I
went past this spot, the junction of Abbey Road and
Carrill Way at 2 p.m. yesterday and when I returned late in the evening the traffic
lights were back. The traffic had been held up again during yesterday’s
evening rush hour, all night and again this morning. All that had been done was the new
concrete of the central refuge had been dug out presumably heralding the
installation of yet more unnecessary and life threatening ironmongery. As these
photographs taken at 7.30 a.m show there was absolutely no problem with the road
surface to justify the lights, it was exactly as normal.
After extra ironmongery was installed further east a week ago I
had a word with my Transport Research Laboratory contact to get a quick reaction to placing
metal poles in the middle of the road. Basically he was horrified that insult
was being added to injury. Bexley’s road planning clown, Andrew Bashford,
had claimed that the changes in Abbey Road were supported by T.R.L. research but
comparison of it and the Bexley implementation showed that to be another
falsehood, and now having ignored the
warning that the scheme would result in the accidents
we have since seen, the accident-safe plastic bollards are being
augmented with steel poles to maximise injury in the event of collision. I
wonder if councillor Craske, the buffoon who authorised the scheme with his
signature was consulted again about throwing good money after bad by adding yet
more hazards for drivers to negotiate?
At 9.00 a.m. fresh concrete was poured into the pedestrian refuge and half an
hour later I emailed the council to ask why the road had been traffic controlled
since yesterday without any clear need for it. At 10 the concrete was smoothed over
by a man working on the traffic island for ten minutes which may have justified lights
because they slowed the traffic and by 10.30 the lights were parked on the pavement and
the road was clear again. The odd thing is that there are three more islands towards
Belvedere which are being similarly dug out and then concreted back in without the
‘benefit’ of traffic lights and outside the
Soviet style barracks
a trench is being dug right across the road reducing it to less
than half width and one-way traffic but no traffic control is deemed necessary.
Bexley council not only waste money on countless unnecessary road contracts,
they haven’t the skills to manage them properly.
By late afternoon more pedestrian refuges had been dug out, including another one at the site pictured.
