Roundabout at TBR and Great Dover

Has there ever been any discussion of improving this horrid traffic circle? Between the subways, flyover and poor landscaping, it is a real hole in the urban fabric between the Great Dover, Elephant & Castle and Tower Bridge road neighborhoods.

While I wish I could snap my fingers and make the totally-out-of-scale-for-the-area flyover disappear tomorrow, it would at least be nice if the landscaping could be improved.

Thoughts?

Hi James

It's called Bricklayer's Arms roundabout, in honour of the pub which stood, along with many houses, in the way of this 1960s road scheme.

There have been many ideas to make better use of this space; although the relatively recent implementation of crossings on the level (before you had to use the highly unpleasant underpasses) has made life much easier, the flyover remains a massive block to crossing the NKR or OKR, as well as being ugly. And without doubt the area of land here could be more productively used if the roundabout was removed - there was an idea (see here http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/3671) on this basis a few years ago.

It's a TfL road, which means that whilst Boris is in power there is probably little that can be done, but I think it is important that we keep pressure up on local politicians to ask them to help us work towards removing this major barrier to commerce and movemment. There is one major possible ally in this - the flyover, as with most roads of this vintage, is now deteriorating and long term structural repairs (it was recently closed for minor repairs) are likely to cost enough to make replacement a viable alternative...

I thought repairs had just been done?

Agreed - this thing is vile and needs to go. But as Luke observes, it'll not be going under Boris's watch (he already reprieved the Elephant and Castle roundabout).

Along with getting rid of the flyover, what would make a real difference is proper public transport. Used to be a station at Bricklayers, but no more. Idea would be extending the Bakerloo from Elephant to Bricklayers then Lewisham via OKR and New Cross. Perhaps somewhat ambitious as it took years just to get surface crossings, but we can hope maybe one day...

After widescale demolition at that end of TBR to accommodate the flyover etc, I think it should stay as it is. The old cinema and various other buildings of historic importance locally were lost when the flyover was constructed. To demolish it now would definitelymean that we would have more of those awful yellow-bricked flats/apartments built on at least part of the 'reclaimed' space.

So why does the mayor support keeping this ugly thing if he is supposedly cycle friendly?

He must really struggle with cognitive dissonance.

The mayor isn't cycle friendly, Boris Bikes and blue paint don't change the reality of BJ's 'smoothing traffic flow' policy - which is all about more motor traffic, moving faster.

Nothing is more anti cycling (and anti pedestrian).

Agreed. Boris bikes are also a good way to look like he cares about sustainability while at the same time not funding the cross river tram.

A huge amount of this seems to also stem from TfL - I got quite into the Blackfriars bridge mess - while BJ was saying the right things, TfL take his direction to 'smooth traffic' as grounds for never increasing congestion anywhere ever, no matter what the benefits, no matter wat 70s mistakes are in place.

I agree with James127: the Bricklayers Arms roundabout separates rather than unite- the place is very uninspiring. Having said that, once you've made the unlikely crossing to the green middle, it's kind of nice: sort of no mans land in central London.