Obstacles making life harder for pedestrians and the disabled again in Greenwich

Yet more examples of obstacles installed on pavements are being installed by Greenwich Council making life harder for the disabled and parents with pushchairs.

I can hear the reasoning already. “It’s to stop mopeds”.

Courtesy Google. June 2019

Well it wont, and anyway you don’t penalise disabled people and parents on the off chance a moped may come this way.

It’s not too far from this in Greenwich:

West Greenwich

There’s ample space at both locations for mopeds to speed through anyway, so what’s the point in this clutter? Are they going to block off every single path? Well, we shouldn’t give them any ideas.

The example at the top of the page is Horn Lane in Greenwich. This is a road where for years there wasn’t even a dropped kerb at the junction with Bugsby’s Way.

Path alongside road suddenly ends. Not clear where way ahead leads

The whole area is extremely poor design. Pedestrians are forced away from obvious, legible routes when heading to Ikea or the Peninsula from east Greenwich and Westcombe Park station (and the other way). Pedestrians are pushed away from Peartree Way into a cluttered, badly designed area with no clue where it goes.

No path ahead alongside road – people forced away from road towards back street and pavement obstacles or can dash across the dual carriageway

Making life harder for pedestrians is a surefire way to encourage active living.

Red arrow is where pedestrians would naturally walk – but paving ends. Orange is the route they are supposed to take

Street furniture here is equally pointless.

None of the £1.7 million in transport income received by Greenwich Council from Ikea solved the mess. It seems to have only added more clutter.

Just ahead is where people are supposed to cross to reach retail park if approaching from the other side of road

What they want pedestrians to do is cross over at the awful junction near the Angerstein roundabout before reaching Horn Lane. A couple of problems there:

  1. Many people arriving in the area won’t know that’s a good option
  2. It ignores human nature – and no amount of clutter and obstacles alleviates that

The obsession with clutter and waste remains in the borough.

Even at new builds in Greenwich pointless railings are going in:

Funny how in a time of cuts the authority never has trouble finding money for this isn’t it?

 

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J Smith

I've lived in south east London most of my life growing up in Greenwich borough and working in the area for many years. The site has contributors on occasion and we cover many different topics. Living and working in the area offers an insight into what is happening locally.

3 thoughts on “Obstacles making life harder for pedestrians and the disabled again in Greenwich

  • Hope you’ve seen the bizarre footpath at the new builds behind the Greenwich Centre on Vanbrugh Hill. Somehow the developers (Mace) have got away with putting steps into the pavement and making the south side of the development inaccessible to anyone in a wheelchair or with a pushchair who isn’t prepared to be in the road. There’s a fine array of wooden bollards too. I thought we were supposed to be encouraging walking but obviously these jokers didn’t get the memo.

    Reply
  • What a waste of money. Motorbikes will be the response to why they did this I bet you any money. Its no justification for making things worse for the most vulnerable pedestrians trying to reach shops. The jokers in this council havn’t a clue.

    Sack ’em. They clearly are not up to the job. Get some new blood in.

    Reply
  • Pingback: TfL awards Greenwich another £711,000 for transport projects | Murky Depths

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