Cycle Superhighway 4 from Greenwich to Tower Bridge: Building work starts next month
Building work on forthcoming Cycle Superhighway 4 from Greenwich to Tower Bridge is to commence next month.
Previously we only had a “summer 2019” date to go on but firmer plans are emerging. Whilst trial hole investigations are ongoing bigger street changes will start to appear next month on Tooley Street and Jamaica Road from 5th July.
Alterations to roads and removal of the centre island will begin from Tower Bridge road to Bermondsey. From September work will then pick up further on that stage. It will eventually see:
- Segregated lanes on Tooley Street, Jamaica Road, Evelyn Street and Creek Road
- New and altered pedestrian crossings
- A rebuilt Rotherhithe roundabout
Work will then progress past Rotherhithe towards Deptford and Greenwich. A contentious element is removing part of a bus lane:
“We are proposing to reassign the westbound bus lane between Lower Road
and Jamaica Road as a general traffic lane to improve traffic flow at
Rotherhithe Roundabout”.
The original scheme ran to Woolwich but now ends after Creek Road bridge near Waitrose in Greenwich.
A separate scheme will see the removal of Greenwich town centre’s one-way system.
The Mayor has promised work on other areas between Greenwich and Woolwich such as the notorious Angerstein roundabout yet no firm date is yet in evidence.
In addition, smaller-scale interim schemes from Greenwich Council scheduled in the area have not happened in recent years, with a separate project planned for the last financial year also not commencing at time of writing.
It is due to be funded through the Local Implementation Plan which TfL award boroughs each year and authorities then top-up using their own funds. It is this top-up element where Greenwich borough are behind almost every other London council when it comes to allocating parking and developer income.
In better news east Greenwich has seen some raised “armadillo” bumps and wands installed on the Trafalgar Road cycle lane in a form of light segregation.
Fell off my bike due to those armadillo lumps. They are very dangerous.
They are fine if there is nothing blocking the cycle lane, but if you have to join the traffic, you have to look behind, ahead and now at your wheels.
You have to match the speed of the traffic to merge – so its really difficult to judge + if you suddenly have to go back into the lane (like I did) you hit the lumps and fall off your bike.
Bumps are NOT cycle friendly. They are the cheapest way to slow traffic.
TfL should be able to solve this problem here and all over London.