Pedestrian Crossing - Abbey Street / Tower Bridge Road

Thanks James.
argh Boris is such a bufoon! I doubt he has to do much road crossing on foot!
That is ridiculous that they won't put a crossing there just because there haven't been enough accidents! Are they waiting until a few more old people or kids get knocked down and killed?
I cross that road daily and nearly everyday I see near misses between traffic not to mention me and other pedestrians having to make a mad dash across the road between the lights changing!

It's only 100 meters to a proper traffic crossing at Grange Road. I do think pedestrians should be prepared to travel that far for their own safety and stop blaming this issue on the planners, I'm constantly amazed by the suicidal people crossing outside Sainsbury's and unwilling to walk 30 steps to a safe crossing.. There are 6 pedestrian crossing points on TBR and the traffic flow is impeded by each, this is the ring road and in many other countries you would find a far longer gap between crossing points.

I don't mind walking (in fact I walk 50 mins to work everyday) but it seems silly if you are coming out of Abbey Street and want to cross to go up Long Lane that you would have to walk down to Grange Road or up to Tanner Street and back just to cross safely.
I think the issue with this junction also affects traffic as there is no separate light for vehicles turning across the road into Abbey street.

I would respectfully suggest that what was said by Boris, according to the news report on here, is that there are other junctions/hotspots where there is a higher priority when allocating what are presumably limited resources - not that the death/maim rate is not high enough.

Actually I would agree that that junction is difficult to cross but think perhaps the debate should be kept in context.

it may sound counter intuitive, but if there were a pedestrian crossing, fazed, or activated, you'd probably get more accidents. People would think that it's safe to cross on a green man, and pay less attention to other traffic, and be less aware. Car drivers would assume that people won't cross the road when the walking man is red, and also be less aware when they do. currently all road users have to pay a lot more attention at this junction, and that's not a bad thing. of course, you could walk 10 yards along TBR in either direction and then cross it like you'd cross any other normal road, by looking both ways, and waiting for a gap in the traffic, and you'd only have to be aware of traffic from two directions rather than from four at the junction. The fact that a previous poster has had and seen several 'near misses' and hasn't seen any actual accidents would make me think that the junction is 'safe enough' already. they're near misses because people are paying attention, which I believe they wouldn't if they thought it was 'safe' to cross because the lights told them it was. It's the unexpected things that happen that cause accidents, and the more aware of your surroundings you are, the more likely that you'll notice something unexpected earlier, and react quicker.

There are worse junctions in Southwark, and there are worse junctions on the TLRN (Transport for London Road Network).

that junction is a traffic bottleneck enough as it is ... a pedestrian crossing there would just add to congestion and slow the flow of traffic to a ridiculous level... a good decision

Very disappointed that this has been turned down.
All those years struggling to cross there with buggies and young children.
Nothing more proves the point that they regard car drivers and through traffic with more concern than local people and pedestrians. Incredible. Maybe a very serious accident will change this.

boroughpaul wrote:

that junction is a traffic bottleneck enough as it is ... a pedestrian crossing there would just add to congestion and slow the flow of traffic to a ridiculous level... a good decision

Peace on earth, goodwill to all men, and may you never have to try to cross that junction as a pedestrian when slightly infirm, or pushing a pram.

In case anyone forgets, it's a popular pedestrian through-route, as well as one for cars. I have no idea why cars should get a monopoly over it. Currently, the lights have very little time gap between going red for East/West traffic, and going green for Nth/Sth traffic (and vice versa).

If the cars are kind enough to stop on red (ignoring that they should actually stop on orange - but that bit of the Highway Code is so widely ignored let's not discuss it here), then a pedestrian gets about 2-5 seconds to cross that junction.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to have a 10 second pedestrian crossing slot every few times the lights change? (i.e. install pedestrian lights which go on once in every 4 or 5 phases.)

I'm well aware that there are some junctions where traffic is held up between every changing of the lights for no good reason, only to sit and watch an empty crossing with seldon any pedestrians on it (e.g. this is often my experience when waiting as a driver to cross between Harper Road, Borough Rd, and Newington Causeway) and I'd support a move to increase driver priority there.

But there are also crossings, like this one on Long Lane/Abbey St, (also one on Borough Rd/Southwark Bridge Rd, by the Shepherds Neame pub) where it's well-used by pedestrians and there is NO provision for pedestrians to cross at all.

I'm all for free-flowing traffic. But I think you've got to regard pedestrians as traffic, and aim for a solution that accomodates them as well.

TfL has had a partial change of heart and agreed to look at this junction in more detail:

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/5188

In the light of the tragic accident on Friday 2nd December I hope we will we see a change for cyclists and pedestrians finally around this junction.
Sadly it is too late for this cyclist and my thoughts go out to family and friends of the person involved.
Boris you should put safety of vulnerable soft targets above neat statistics for flowing traffic around the congestion area. I hope you are ashamed of not improving this zone months and years ago.