Wednesday 19 March 2008

Roadworks and a little bit of Schadenfreude

Yesterday I was on my way out to the Doctor's surgery. As the first time in several days that I have left the house I was interested to observe the progress of the roadworks. Along the main road they have progressed a long way with what I call their 'rolling roadblock' towards Woolwich, progress seems to have slowed a little now that they have branched off into several of the side streets. Best of all was the restoration of the bus stop heading towards Blackheath with it's attached Live Timing board. I think that they may have been a little premature in the restoration of the bus stop though. The roadworks (on the other side of the carriageway) are only a matter of yards further down. This means that every time a bus stops the traffic behind it backs up through the lights as it can't pass the bus due to the traffic waiting for the lights in the other direction. This means of course that traffic then misses its phase and the queues build up, and we are only one step away from gridlock!

Talking of bus stops, despite the email I received from London Buses the Cemetery Lane bus stop has not been put back into service and the Council has not cleared the now dead flowers. Clearly their 'Infrastructure Controller' has not visited the area as promised, or simply does not care.

In our street they have started works on the water mains too, for this to be facilitated, and that our already congested street is not further inconvenienced the powers that be have suspended the parking bays on one side of the road, just past my front drive.

I felt a little frisson of schadenfreude when I left the house to see a traffic warden (yes, really) taking photographs of the number plate of car which was parked in one of the suspended bays, and of the signage suspending the bays.

Seriously though, if you are going to park in a suspended parking bay, would it not be better if you didn't do it directly under the sign that suspends the bay? That might be considered 'asking for it'.