Category Archives: Transport

Rail Strike on Tuesday

Regular commuters have probably logged this already – but  other travellers may want to know that  a rail strike is scheduled for next Tuesday 30 January.

The train drivers union ASLEF has called a series of strikes next week. The stoppages will affect different operators on different days.

But Tuesday 30 January sees the train drivers on strike for the two operators that service Herne Hill: Southeastern (serving Victoria) and Thameslink.

 

 

 

 

 

The full current strike schedule is as follows:

  • Tuesday, January 30: South Western Railway, Southeastern, Southern, Gatwick Express, Great Northern and Thameslink
  • Wednesday, January 31: Northern and TransPennine Express
  • Thursday, February 1: no strike
  • Friday, February 2: Greater Anglia, C2C and LNER
  • Saturday, February 3: West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast and East Midlands Railway
  • Sunday, February 4: no strike
  • Monday, February 5: Great Western, CrossCountry, Chiltern and LNER

As the strikes are being staged by train drivers, it is likely that there will be no services on the affected lines on strike days, as well as disruption on days either side.

Lambeth looking to roll out 191 new parking bays for e-scooters and bikes

The excellent Brixton Buzz news site has a detailed report, based evidently on a press release from Lambeth, stating that the Council has decided to introduce 191 new dedicated parking bays for e-scooters and dockless bikes. The estimated cost is £97,150.

This amounts to an extension of the existing e-scooter trial, and seemingly echoes a similar scheme inaugurated earlier this year by Southwark Council.

The initiative is part of Lambeth’s Kerbside Strategy Implementation Plan approved by the Cabinet earlier this year, which has the goal of repurposing a quarter of the borough’s kerbside space for sustainable uses. [Snarky comment: In their little world, “sustainable” simply means not using fossil fuels, but clearly does not take into account the environmental, economic and indeed human impacts of extracting rare metals for lithium batteries, building heavy bikes in China, and shipping them over here in fossil-fuelled cargo ships.]

The proposed expansion aims to address concerns about e-scooters and dockless bikes cluttering footways: there has been some discussion about this on our street WhatsApp recently.

Lime bike on the pavement on Fawnbrake Avenue this morning

By introducing dedicated parking bays, Lambeth Council claims it will offer a more organised solution, reducing street clutter and making the environment more pedestrian-friendly.

Currently, 56 parking bays are operational as part of the trial in the borough. The proposed plan seeks to make the Experimental Traffic Management Orders supporting these trial schemes a permanent fixture in the borough.

The long list of proposed sites or such parking bays identifies, for the most part, new bays for e—scooters and dockers bikes, for which an ‘experimental traffic order’ will be made and eventually published.

Nearby sites for dockless bikes

Most of the streets listed  – Lambeth is of course a very big borough – will be of little interest to us here, but some streets named are quite close:

Deepdene Road (just off Ferndene Road, near Ruskin Park)

Bicknell Road (quite close to the bottom end of Ruskin Park)

Lowden Road (just behind Fawnbrake Avenue, where Jessop School is based)

Railton Road (two sites)

Brantwood Road (two sites)

Rymer Street (near Herne Hill station)

Hurst Street (near Herne Hill station)

 

The Brixton Buzz report is worth a careful read. But to some of us, the ambition of corralling all dockless two-wheelers in specific licensed sites has a fundamental weakness. What has made the dockless bikes such a rapid success is the fact that riders can leave them anywhere their journey ends. And for that matter, using the clever app, can often pick up a new bike at random locations. (I have a friend who, after a festive evening in Soho, can easily find a Lime bike within three or four minutes and ride it home to Nunhead. Rather her than me, but she has survived so far. And much cheaper than and almost as fast as an Uber.)

If the rider or the company is to be penalised unless the bike is deposited in some “official” location, I’m not sure how this will work. For example under the Lambeth scheme just announced, the nearest official site would be either in Brantwood Road or one of the streets near Herne Hill station.  Are London boroughs trying to make dockless bikes work in the same fashion as Santander bikes?

If I can find a similar statement of policy from Southwark Council, I will amplify this report accordingly. To date, Southwark has marked out two such sites on Half Moon Lane.

We’re getting better connected tomorrow

Herne Hill’s travel options into and around London are improving this weekend, with the joining up of the Elizabeth Line (formerly known as Crossrail), which we can of course access via Thameslink trains to Farringdon (except when Thameslink’s all too frequent weekend maintenance works rule this out, as on this Sunday).

This latest improvement means that from tomorrow, the lines from Reading, Heathrow, and Shenfield will connect with the central tunnels of the Elizabeth line – opening up new direct journeys across London, without having to change at Paddington.

In addition, customers will be able to use the Elizabeth Line seven days a week: Sunday services through central London will also start from tomorrow, Sunday 6 November.

 

Train frequency has improved too: between Paddington and Whitechapel, it goes from 12 trains per hour to up to 22 trains per hour in peak times and 16 trains per hour during off-peak. The final timetable, which will see 24 trains per hour during the peak between Paddington and Whitechapel, is on track to be in place by May 2023.

And there’s a new convenient interchange. Bond Street’s Elizabeth line station, which opened on 24 October, connects with the London Underground Bond Street station, accessing the Jubilee and Central lines. The new station is step-free from street to train with two lifts, further enhancing accessibility on the Elizabeth line and across the TfL network.

elizabeth-line-map-6-november-2022

Caution: There are some future planned engineering works when sections of the Elizabeth line will be closed:
Saturday 12 November – no service between Shenfield and Liverpool Street / Whitechapel
Saturday 19 November and Sunday 20 November – no service between Shenfield and Liverpool Street / Whitechapel, or between Hayes & Harlington and Heathrow

Penge tunnel restored

It appears that the much-heralded work to replace the railway tracks in the Penge Tunnel, which closed our rail link to Victoria last week, has been completed enough to allow the reopening of the line.


But there are some restrictions in place until Sunday 7 August. Passengers are advised to check before they travel – updated timetable information for Monday 1 August is available in journey planners.

This is all because there is still some work in the tunnel to be completed by Network Rail, which means that their trains will run at a reduced speed through Penge tunnel from Monday 1 to Sunday 7 August.

Accordingly, the Shortlands and Bromley South/Victoria stopping service via Herne Hill will have only two trains per hour to London Victoria in peak times this week.

Electric cars – where can we charge them (and other problems)?

I’m afraid I have shamelessly lifted this article from a recent Spectator website. It attracted a very high number of interesting comments, which I cannot begin to reproduce.

But the many problems of electric vehicles – including not just the initial cost but also their weight, the environmental impact of the raw materials, their high demands on the electricity network and of course, as mentioned below, the obvious problem of where they can be charged especially in a crowded city – are beginning to dawn on people. True, some houses on Fawnbrake Avenue have been able to convert their front gardens to a parking space, thereby solving one of the problems. But a majority of residents don’t have that option. And lamp-post charging sets off a whole number of other complications.

 

“With their private jets and gas-guzzling mansions, delegates at Cop26 have been widely criticised for an elitist attitude towards the environment. Nothing better demonstrates the gulf between policymakers and ordinary people than over the charging points for electric cars. It is one thing to install a home charging point for your car if you own a large house up a crunchy gravel driveway – indeed, according to the property website Rightmove, owners of such properties have been fitting charging points with great enthusiasm, with a 541 per cent increase in the number of homes being advertised with such a facility over the past year.

But what do you do if you live in one of the 43 per cent of homes which do not have off-street parking? In fact, you don’t necessarily have to be of modest means to live in such a house – there are plenty of city centre homes, in Belgravia and such places to boot, which open straight onto the pavement. Owning a car in a city has not been easy ever since controlled parking and traffic wardens started to appear in the 1960s, but it is just about to get a whole lot more difficult. Even if you can find somewhere to charge an electric car the electricity is likely to be several times more expensive than plugging it in to your home supply.

That said, there have been some trials with on-street recharging points, which may be coming to a street near you soon. Under the Go Ultra Low City Scheme, 1000 on-street charging points were installed in London in 2019 – utilising existing lamp-posts. You are not going to get a rapid charging point from the electricity supply to a lamp-post – they are limited to 3.7 kW – but it is enough for an overnight charge. Reading, too, has been experimenting with fixing sockets to existing lamp-posts.

But there are still many problems to overcome. In Reading, many street lamps proved to be unsuitable because there are installed on the nearside of the pavement, which would have required a cable to be dangled dangerously across the footway. Pedestrians face enough obstructions without having to step over an electric cable every few yards. That problem could be overcome by excavating small channels beneath the pavement so that a cable can be run across without tripping people up. One company, Greenmole, in association with Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Salford has been installing just that: channels which lead from a motorist’s own home to the roadside, to enable charging. It comes at a price – such an installation will cost you around £3000. But there is a bigger problem, too: very few people have a reserved parking place directly outside their home – even where parking permit schemes exist they tend to allow parking on a street-by-street or area-by-area basis, not to individually-designated parking spaces.

As more electric cars come into use, there are going to be intense battles over this. Should homeowners be allowed to claim parking spaces directly outside their homes so they can charge their vehicles more easily – and if so, what should they be charged for the privilege? After all, the public highway is supposed to be a facility for all, not for bits effectively to be privatised for the exclusive benefit of nearby property-owners. In any case, reserving parking spaces outside homes is not going to help everyone. If you have a house, say, divided into three flats, who, if anyone, gets to bag the single streetside parking space?

One thing is for sure, until the problem of charging electric vehicles on the streets is solved, properties with off-street parking are likely to command an even greater premium than they already do. The Battle of Cable Steet is long remembered as the struggle between communists and fascists in the 1930s. The Battle of Street Cabling has yet to come.”

Crossrail draws ever closer

The Elizabeth Line, its official name, now seems almost within reach.

Although the full stretch of the route from Reading or Heathrow all the way to Brentwood and Shenfield in  Essex may not be ready next year, we are now being assured that the busiest, central section, from Paddington to Abbey Wood, is on course (fingers crossed) to open to passengers in the first half of 2022.

 

It’s a fiendishly complicated project with many features that need to be severely tested before passengers are allowed on. The ‘Trial Running’ phase (operating timetabled train movements in the central operating section) is almost complete now, and the more real-life ‘Trial Operations’ testing phase is scheduled to open later this year.

At the moment, Crossrail is running 12 trains per hour (tph) in the 42km of tunnels that have been built below London, increasing train mileage, building reliability and flushing out issues with the systems and signalling software. Already seven of the new stations have been commissioned and handed over to TfL following successful completion of testing and integration work. Canary Wharf and Bond Street will follow.

12 tph is the initial level of service on the Elizabeth line, but they will also be testing 24 tph train movements on the railway later this year – this will be the service frequency in the central section when the full Elizabeth line is operational. Which is pretty fast.

But we aren’t on Crossrail

No indeed, so why does this matter to us?

Well, because Herne Hill Station is in the fortunate position of offering not only a swift direct line to Victoria but also the Thameslink route which takes us to Farringdon, where there is a major interchange with the Elizabeth Line. From Farringdon it’s only a few stops west to Paddington or east to Canary Wharf, cutting out some of the tiresome interchanges on the tube network.

Farringdon Elizabeth Line Station (c) Crossrail

A couple of years ago, we asked some local estate agents if they thought Crossrail would make an impact on property values in Herne Hill. We got some blank looks, and the impression that they hadn’t even thought about this.

It’s often true that people buy flats or houses here without first carrying out a deep study of transport options. But those potential incomers who do take such things into account must see these improved travel options as being another positive feature about SE24 – as might many of us who already live here.

Except, of course, for people who are permanently WFH? Nice if you can get it, and many observers think that it is now embedded in work culture; but  as a total replacement for commuting to the office as well? Maybe not: we’ll still need to get around.

New ULEZ restrictions – and heavy charges – fast approaching

Just a reminder that from 25 October 2021, the existing central London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) will expand to create a single larger zone up to, but not including, the North Circular Road (A406) and South Circular Road (A205).

That includes us, obviously.

TfL have a link which tells us whether our cars meet the emissions standard and the charges we shall need to pay. Four out of five cars, they say,  already meet the ULEZ emissions standards, but they need owners of older polluting cars, motorcycles, lighter vans and minibuses to take action. (Meaning? … sell the offending vehicle to somewhere outside London, presumably  –  and no doubt at a loss.)

This is the link.

ULEZ expansion could cost £12.50 per day when your car moves

Cars, motorcycles, vans and other specialist vehicles (up to and including 3.5 tonnes), and minibuses (up to and including 5 tonnes) will either need to meet the ULEZ emissions standards, or pay a £12.50 daily charge when driving within the expanded ULEZ zone.  You will not be charged for a non-compliant vehicle parked in the zone on days you don’t drive it (how gracious of the Mayor!).

The ULEZ operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year except Christmas Day (25 December).

The current ULEZ emissions standards will continue:

• Euro 3 (NOx) for motorcycles, mopeds, motorised tricycles and quadricycles
• Euro 4 (NOx) for petrol cars, vans and other specialist vehicles (up to and including 3.5 tonnes gross vehicle weight) and minibuses (up to and including 5 tonnes)
• Euro 6 (NOx and PM) for diesel cars, vans and other specialist vehicles (up to and including 3.5 tonnes) and minibuses (up to and including 5 tonnes)

What isn’t clear is how TfL will check vehicle movements (and therefore surcharge liability). Presumably we will see an expanded network of cameras such as already exist within the present Congestion Charge/ULEZ zone.

It’s all happening at Windsor Walk

The construction works on Windsor Walk, running north of Denmark Hill station (see our post of June 2020) are in full swing.

There’s big activity both sides of this narrow street.

Updating The Maudsley

On the north, the rebuild of Douglas Bennet House  –  a major upgrade by the Maudsley Hospital, part of the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust  –  shows infrastructure works progressing fast, within the challenges of a tightly constrained site.  Ready-mix concrete for pouring the supporting structures has to be airlifted into the site from Windsor Walk.

Preparing for the air lift

Scheduled to open in 2023, the new facility will house inpatient services previously delivered in outdated facilities at the now redundant Lambeth Hospital.

That site, on Landor Road, Stockwell, will be redeveloped for housing  –  tower blocks, inevitably, to the distress of local residents.   See also the report in Brixton Buzz.

We can see an architects’ design of the new hospital building on Windsor Walk.

Denmark Hill Station

Across the street, meanwhile, the expansion of Denmark Hill Station is also a very active site.

The £7.5m upgrade  of this busy station will open up a much-needed new entrance/exit that will greatly ease the overcrowding that has caused concern in the past, as traffic at the station has grown exponentially. Indeed, passenger numbers at the station have tripled in the last fifteen years, with the expansion of King’s and the Maudsley and the introduction of London Overground.

It is due to be finished in July/August this year.

Rescuing orphaned bikes

We’ve just heard from one of our Councillors, Becca Thackray, about a new initiative to collect, reclaim or recycle (ha ha) abandoned bikes.

Next week a team will be going out to tag abandoned bikes in the borough. Residents are given two weeks to move the bikes and if they have not been moved, they are collected by the Street Care team. The bikes will then be offered to upCYCLE, who will use them to teach young residents bike maintenance skills. Those that are beyond saving will be taken for recycling.

Not abandoned?

 

If we are aware of any abandoned bikes in our ward, we are asked to let the team know by emailing cycling@lambeth.gov.uk with the location and a description by 5pm 2 February and the bikes will be added to the list.

The bikes that have been reported to date can be found on this map.

 

 

Denmark Hill Station expansion

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, people used to go to work on the train, as many readers will have heard. And because they often travelled at the same times each day, trains got unpleasantly crowded. So, inevitably, did some of the stations.

Aspiring City Thameslink passengers at Herne Hill will have felt this pain.

But it was often much worse at Denmark Hill Station. No, it’s not in Herne Hill but for many commuters and other rail travellers wanting to touch down somewhere other than Victoria, or the City, Denmark Hill offered wider options, including the London Overground heading towards Clapham Junction and all points beyond, or north-east to via Peckham to Canada Water, Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Hoxton en route to Highbury & Islington. True, if you lived more towards the Brixton or Tulse Hill side of Herne Hill, it would have been something of a trek, but for those of us close to the Camberwell frontier, a brisk walk alongside or through Ruskin Park would get us there pleasantly. If you’re more central, the 68 bus may be the solution.

More important in some ways, Denmark Hill is a destination for visitors from other points in London and the South-East.  Every day, King’s College Hospital draws in thousands of staff members, out-patients and visitors. The simultaneous arrival of several train loads of alighting passengers is the main cause of the congestion.

Dangerous overcrowding

The station was redesigned and upgraded to ensure accessibility in a programme that concluded in 2013. But contrary to the hopes of many local residents and station users, the redesign left it with only one entrance/exit.

Today’s entrance/exit barriers. Windsor Walk visible across the station.

Meanwhile the number of passengers using Denmark Hill went up from 3.7 million in 2011-­12 to 5.63 million in 2014-15. Much of this increase was down to the introduction of the London Overground services in December 2013.

This surge in traffic meant that the station was operating in unsafe conditions – because its only ex it, accessed up quite long staircases, could present a lethal bottleneck if the station ever had to be rapidly evacuated. Traffic numbers have grown further – at least before the pandemic. Last year (2018-19) the figures suggest that entries and exits totalled some 6.9 million.

Herne Hill station, by comparison, had 2.9 million entries/exits and we know how unpleasant conditions could be at rush hour. As a benchmark, Clapham Junction was running at 29.5 million – but of course it is vastly bigger station, indeed one of the busiest in Europe, some say.

Pressure grew from local groups for the obvious remedy at Denmark Hill – opening a second entrance/exit on Windsor Walk, the quiet street that leads from Champion Park down past the Phoenix pub then, with a sharp right turn, runs just to the north of the platforms and alongside the station to join Grove Lane.

Various groups including the Herne Hill Society and the Dulwich Society lent their support to the Camberwell Society whose committee initiated and from 2016 onwards  have led a persistent and well-informed campaign, building a positive working relationship with Network Rail and Southwark’s planning team over several years.

It now seems to have been a success. A planning application (No 20/AP/0745, for planning addicts, or link here) has been made to Southwark Council for the construction of a new entrance to Denmark Hill Station on Windsor Walk. Listed Building Consent was granted last month, and the rest of the process seems on track for overall approval.

Site of proposed new entrance/exist on Windsor Walk

So if Herne Hillians feels like going to work again on the train, Denmark Hill might in due course be an attractive option. Covid–19 permitting, the new entrance is planned to be open by April 2021. It will have 4 gates plus 2 wide gates and will connect up with the existing modern footbridge. The current one-way system will be dispensed with. Platforms 2,3 and 4 will have extra canopies at the east to encourage people to use that end of the platforms.

New pedestrian access

Separately, Southwark Council has been awarded £1.5m by the GLA’s Good Growth Fund.  One slice of this funding will be used to create better pedestrian connections between Denmark Hill station and the hospitals and town centre. Our friends at the Camberwell Society think that the walk route to the hospitals and Camberwell will go through the Maudsley campus. There is going to be a new ward block on Windsor Walk called Douglas Bennet House, just opposite where the new station entrance will be. The plan is for this to have a walk-through route to the Maudsley garden and thence to the main road.