Tom Crispin wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:38:49 +0000, JNugent <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Tom Crispin wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Weaver <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> My ride yesterday afternoon was spoilt by an accident outside Crofton
>>>>> junior school in Petts Wood. Apparently a guy was run down and killed by
>>>>> an old woman. The road is narrow, windy and had cars parked waiting to
>>>>> pick up their kids. No way was it safe to drive at anything above 20.
>>>> People have it driven in to their heads that 29 is good, 31 is bad.
>>>> It's a sad reflection of the modern lazy way of enforcing decent road-
>>>> using standards.
>>> The message I keep on getting is that 20mph in a residential zone is
>>> more appropriate than 30 or 40mph. Certainly 20mph should be an
>>> absolute limit in a park.
>> That has to depend on the sort of park and the sort of road. Some
>> A-roads go through parks (though I guess you mean relatively small,
>> urban, parks rather than National Parks).
>>
>> From memory, unless vehicles were allowed north-south through Greenwich
>> Park, the area would be even more gridlocked than it already is. The
>> immediately neigbouring north-south routes have been badly hobbled,
>> meaning that there are no real alternative N/S routes (A207/A2) between
>> Deptford and Blackwall and the E/W routes are laughably inadequate.
>
> Hahahah - you don't have a very good memory at all, do you?
>
> The A207/A2 is an east-west route, not north-south. It flows
> reasonable freely from Welling to Deptford.
"Flows reasonably freely" meaning "like treacle most of the day" - and
the important point is that the N/S routes between them are wholly
inadequate.
> The A208/A200 is a nightmare east-west route from Woolwich to
> Deptford. Using the Park as an alternative is really no use as it
> would involve a convoluted diversion of about 2 miles.
Ah... did I get the road number wrong?
For "A207", read "A200/A206", ie, the lower route between Rotherhithe
and Woolwich, though for these purposes, I refer only to the stretch
between Deptford and Blackwall (ie, the bit where Greenwich Park lies to
the south). Mea culpa.
> The A2/A102 flows freely south-north from the M25 to the Sun-in-Sands
> roundabout where it grinds to a sluggish crawl to the Blackwall Tunnel
> during the rush hour. Coming off the A2 at the Sun-in-Sands through
> the park then along the sluggish A208 would be simply nuts.
Unless you were going to Deptford or Surrey Docks or Southwark, in which
case not turning off there would be the silly thing to do - wouldn't it?
Of course, traffic heading for the wide-open spaces of the
A2/A20/M20/M25/Dartford from Southwark/Rotherhithe has the "choice" of
the A2 (with horrific bottlenecks at New Cross, Deptford, Blackheath
Hill and the heath) or the "lower road" which flows better down to
Deptford but still dumps the traffic at the foot of Blackheath Hill just
in time for the slow queue across the heath itself.
A way to take advantage of the lower road and avoid Blackheath Hill
(which is well worth avoiding) is to continue via the Greenwich one-way
system and go south through the park, especially as it then avoids the
slow crawl toward Blackwall and lets traffic merge with the A2 to the
east of the narrow part of Blackheath itself. As a route, it makes a lot
of sense, whereas you seem to think it doesn't. Perhaps you think that
none of the people using it and similar routes are just irrational and
that only you are qualified to judge their best interests.
> The A2211 flows reasonably freely south-north between Lewisham and
> Greenwich, though it can be a little slow where it crosses the A2, and
> then again when it hits the Greenwich Gyratory. Again, using the park
> is of little advantage.
Is that the road which crosses the A2 just east (about six hundred feet
east) of Deptford? If so, would you recommend anyone intending to travel
east along the A2 to use it - and join the queue to ascend Blackheath Hill?
> What you neglect to recognise is that the road through Greenwich Park
> is perpendicular to the Thames.
Au contraire! Given that the main routes there are E/W, that is the
road's main attraction.
> Its only useful purpose as a through
> road is an altenate link between the A2 and the A200, or for cyclists
> using it to reach the Greenwich Foot Tunnel or the Thames Cycle Route.
Yes... and?
> Other more direct links between the A2 and A200 include Maze Hill and
> Crooms Hill, both of which are traffic calmed
....and badly-congested at rush hour because of the effect of that
traffic-calming and the effect of parked vehicles which cause gridlock.
The N/S routes are totally inadequate (as are the E/W routes, though you
seem to suggest that they aren't).
>> I always think of the parks in Liverpool. Most are not on through
>> routes, but two always were. The Liverpool Ring Road (as originally
>> built and laid out) terminated on the north-east fringes of Sefton Park
>> and traffic could only reach the most southerly route in the city (the
>> A561) via that park. The route is still open to traffic today (luckily),
>> though the official Ring Road route has been diverted away to the east
>> via the A562 at Allerton. Providing better alternatives is always the
>> best way to reduce through traffic in places where it particularly isn't
>> anted.
> Therein lies your mistake. Trying to justify the use of Greenwich
> Park as a fast commuter route by comparing it to a park road you know
> in Liverpool. It makes you look ridiculous.
The "park in Liverpool" lies on the city's ring road (as was). It was
meant to be used as a through route (though not for the last forty years
or so).
I know the road through Greenwich Park - I have used it. I would not
decribe it as "fast" and I'm not sure why you do.
It's a road. It's available to traffic. It's supposed to be used
lawfully. Had the driver in the recent incident complied with that, the
collision and death would not have occurred.
