Waterloo to Greenwich Quietways


I’ve not been keeping up with the consultations so much, but I found 5 minutes over lunch to glance at this https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/cycling/tower-rothsay-webb and scribble the first things that came to mind…

Andrew Gilligan said that things would be "done properly, or not at all." Unfortunately, while some aspects of this scheme look very good, the plans do not yet appear to be done properly.

Specifically, the expected routes for Quietway users at the corner of Webb Street and TBR look unclear and unintuitive — another example of the "fiddly things" that the mayor criticised.

This looks particularly problematic for the route from Rothsay Street to Webb Street, where the crossing appears to feed Quietway users onto the widened footway, at which point the route becomes entirely unclear and could be mistaken for the contraflow cycle lane. This looks like it has the potential to create conflict with pedestrians, oncoming Quietway users, and with road users turning from TBR into Webb Street, as well as placing a large array of pedestrian tactile paving — a known cause of problems for bicycle users — exactly where Quietway users will be making turns, evading conflicts, and attempting to make sense of the intended route.

All of these needless problems and conflicts could be very easily avoided by providing a clear route into Webb Street which could be instantly and intuitively understood by all road users.

The most obvious resolution to this problem which comes to mind would be to move the stop line for southbound TBR traffic back to before Webb Street so that the junction works as a simple, recognisable, easy to understand crossroads, with an intuitive route for Quietway users, no needless conflict with pedestrians, and no chance of conflict with southbound traffic turning from TBR.

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