Impressed by London Assembly - focus on puddles & transport

Somehow, the question and answer database for London Assembly members has utterly eluded me until today.  In it, I discovered the answers to loads of questions (puddles in Kennington, pier at Vauxhall, re-zoning tube stations) etc.  Here's a sample of some of our ongoing issues:

Q. 17/3/2010 - Cllr Shawcross - "There is a gap in the bus network between Waterloo and Vauxhall Stations. An easy solution to this issue is the extension of Bus Route 381 from County Hall to Vauxhall Bus Station. This would also vastly improve access to St Thomas’s Hospital. Will the Mayor please ask TfL to investigate the feasibility of this proposal?"

A. Answer forthcoming after meeting.

[This is very interesting.  I wonder who submits the questions.  Maybe SE11 lurkers could start tabling some questions.  I recall hearing somebody ask very recently why it's not possible to get a bus from Kennington to Chelsea.  I suppose you could walk/bus to Oval, bus to Vauxhall, and then bus from Vauxhall to Chelsea....  On the other hand, I wonder who actually designs the routes.  Who actually decides whether Lewisham gets connected to Hampstead?]

Q.  27/1/2010 - Cllr Pidgeon - "What work are TfL doing to prevent the pooling of water on Kennington Park Road –particularly by the crossings?

A. Mayor Boris (shortened) - "TfL has arranged for its highway maintenance works contractor to cleanse the adjacent drainage system, which will involve emptying the gullies and cleaning out the culverts to allow the water to freely disperse. The works are due to be complete by 28 January."

[Has this happened? It was still pooling by the tube station, last time week.]

The only thing I can't find on the Assembly web site is an RSS feed, otherwise I could just pipe everything through to Twitter and we could be automatically informed of whenever Val Shawcross or Caroline Pidgeon mentioned issues affecting us.  Anyhow, I'm really impressed that they actually ask Boris about puddles!!

Bendy bus accident (not in SE11)

I decided to take a little jaunt away from SE11 to visit the British Museum today, and on the way, I encountered a bendy bus accident.  Bendy bus incidents (with pedestrians, cyclists, other vehicles etc.) occur at a much higher frequency than ordinary bus incidents, but I doubt that anybody much notices them unless people are killed or  injured.   Since I blogged about a bendy bus incident involving a bollard some time ago at Vauxhall station, (although I never elicited any further details), I've been getting a number of hits on the matter, so I thought I'd satisfy the very few readers that arrive at the blog looking for bendy bus accidents!

I figure that this was probably 90% the fault of the badly / illegally (I think) parked car, but it just goes to show why bendy buses are somewhat problematic vehicles, given various tight corners in London.  I don't know how the  driver/police recovered the situation, since I couldn't see any way the bus could go forward or backwards...  At the back, the bus was utterly jammed against the silver car.  In front of the bus (you can't see this) was a correctly parked motorbike and various other cars.  Even if the cars at the front could have been moved, I couldn't see how the bus could be unjammed without further damage to the silver car.

I've blurred the face of the guy at the back, in case he was involved in any way.  The other thing I didn't quite manage to photograph was the policeman who arrived at the incident wearing a machine gun!

Caroline Pidegon and Tom Brake (MP) campaign to reduce unfair oyster charges

Acknowledgement to Mayor Watch from whom I've co-opted this story!

I went to work from Vauxhall tube station, but entirely missed seeing Caroline Pidegon (Member of London Assembley) and Tom Brake (MP) campaigning this morning at the bus station for a new "one hour" ticket which would see Oyster cards have money deducted from them once an hour, rather than on a "per bus journey" basis.

If they'd been luckier, they might have campaigned yesterday when the Victoria line was down. The whole of South London (it seemed) was catapaulted on to the local buses, resulting in a massive crush. The number 2, which I was on, stopped at Marble Arch, only to throw all the passengers on to the number 2 in front resulting in, you guessed it, everybody on a "pay as you go" Oyster card complaining that they were being charged twice. The driver of the original bus was supposed to give out slips of paper indicating that the journey had been paid for, but the bus was so full that it would have delayed all passengers.

I think it's quite an interesting idea, but (like quite a number of Lib Dem good ideas) would result in (according to the article) TFL losing £50 million revenue. I'd be much more interested in seeing the money spent on more cycle routes, signage, bike lockup points and cycling schemes. However, the fact remains that South London is utterly reliant on its buses, many of which terminate early, resulting in unsatisfactory journey costs all round.

In any case, I do like to see politicians out and about campaigning early in the morning. It shows dedication. I wonder whether they might follow the lead of Labour's Val Shawcross who has been spending time monitoring infrequent buses on routes 1 and 78 with pen and clipboard!

More frequent buses in South London

The chaps and chapesses over at Oval News have got wind from TFL that there are to be extra buses laid on in and around the SE11 area. They report here that:

1. The 155 bus will increase frequency from every 12 mins, to every 10 mins, but only on Sunday. [That seems to me to be a fairly minor change.] In case you wondered, the rough route for the 155 is as follows:

St George's Hospital - Tooting - Balham - Clapham - Stockwell - Kennington - Elephant & Castle

2. The 88 bus is due to increase in frequency from 12 mins to 10 mins on Sundays and during every evening. In addition, the weekly night buses will increase in frequency from 30 to 20 minutes. Again, if you're not sure, the route for the 88 is as follows:

Clapham Common - Vauxhall - Westminster - Oxford Circus - Camden Town

This public transport geek is pleased.

Unfortunately, we've still no update on proposals for the Cross River Tram. I'm getting rather pessimistic as the days go by.