23 July (Part 3) - Scraping the Transport meeting barrel
Apart from the main rail and bus presentations at last week’s meeting a few possibly interesting snippets came to light.
• The 486 bus from North Greenwich to Bexleyheath is to become a 24/7 night service from 29th July. Half hourly between the times of the present last and first buses.
• Councillor Diment regretted
that the new
contract for route 89 does not mandate low emission vehicles.
• He also said that terminating the 269 away from Marketplace which the 229 serves will effectively halve the choice of buses to Sidcup.
• The regular police representative failed to show up and his substitute knew next to nothing. Various questions were taken away.
• Councillor Slaughter asked if there were stats on e-scooter accidents but there were none that distinguished scooters from bikes.
• The Highways Manager chipped in that there had been an accident in Hook Lane back in December 2020 and another with “a powered two wheeler” in June 2021 in Faraday Road.
• A pedestrian crossing survey has been conducted at both locations but the need scored “quite low” on the calculations.
• Bexley has fallen from 6th best to 7th position in the table of accident prone London boroughs.
• No school has pressurised Bexley Council towards the installation of ‘Safe School Streets’.
• Residents have shown no enthusiasm for Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. “It will not go down well with Bexley residents”.
• There appears to have been “a dip in cycle ownership” as measured by Cycling Proficiency Tests and school travel.
• Network Rail has ignored Bexley Council’s latest objection to the long distance and
three month long diversion of pedestrian traffic that will be caused by the planned replacement of the Mitchell
Close footbridge in Belvedere and the closure is imminent. 1·2 miles necessitating
a crossing of Bronze Age Way.