BusAndTrainUser Verify

Saturday 9th March 2024

Contextual Alert: The following blog was written prior to Lambeth Borough Council’s dramatic decision on Thursday afternoon to suspend the Streatham Wells Low Traffic Neighbourhood with immediate effect.

Teaser Alert: I paid a return visit to Streatham yesterday afteroon to see what impact this suspension was having. Read on for the results.

There was never any doubt the story carried by a number of media outlets at the end of last month highlighting massive peak time delays to buses heading south on Streatham High Road was true. First reported in The Times on Sunday 25th February, graphic video and photographic evidence showed stationary nose-to-tail buses accompaning dramatically worded articles highlighting the problem, including one bus reportedly taking two hours to travel three miles, something confirmed by TfL.

Mayor Khan acknowledged all was not well when he appeared on his regular ‘Speak to Sadiq’ slot on LBC on Thursday morning last week which caught my attention.

He told the presenter, James O’Brien, his team are in talks with Lambeth Borough Council about the impact of the ‘Streatham Wells’ Low-Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) scheme, introduced as a 12-18 month trial by the Council in October 2023, which is allegedly “fuelling” the problem.

The media love a good LTN knocking story so it sounded an ideal job for BusAndTrainUser Verify to investigate the veracity of the claims which led me to spend an interesting few hours on Monday checking the traffic flow out from late morning to late afternoon.

I arrived at Streatham station at 11:30 and set off walking about a mile northwards along Streatham High Road towards Streatham Hill station to see what I’d find, before wandering around the LTN itself to see how ‘low’ traffic levels actually are in the ‘low traffic neighbourhood’.

The above map shows the LTN’s three coloured zones and I’ve added TfL bus route numbers alongside roads to demonstrate how much Streatham High Road is a key bus thoroughfare.

Traffic was flowing freely in both directions along Streatham High Road as I headed north, which wasn’t surprising for a late Monday morning, although a broken down van …

… on the northbound St Leonards Church bus stop …

… was causing a problem every time more than one of the 11 bus routes which use this busy stop arrived at the same time as another.

On the other side of the road, loading and unloading is permitted for three hours during the off-peak …

… and owners of a local shop were taking advantage of that facility.

Note there’s not much room on the pavement by the bus stop, including no space for a shelter which will become pertinent later in the blog.

I carried on walking up the 1.1 miles along Streatham High Road towards Streatham Hill station…

… taking note of other busy bus stops (as you can see from the above map, there are quite a few on this short stretch of road) …

… the whole area being a 20mph zone – both the LTN …

… and Streatham High Road …

… and I also noticed signs confirming access to the LTN on the east side of the road. The only restrictions are ban on goods vehicles during late evening and overnight as well as Saturday afternoons and any time on Sundays.

There are no restrictions for other traffic either entering (or exiting) at any time. That’s because restrictions within the LTN itself forbid through traffic and there are full entry and exit restrictions on the other boundary road (Leigham Court Road) along the eastern side as shown on the earlier map.

These either comprise physical barriers…

…. as shown here at the top of Leigham Avenue and Conifer Gardens (at their junction with Leigham Court Road)…

… or at the next junction along – Leigham Court Road, with Culverhouse Gardens…

… where there are just signs and planters…

… with an advance warning on Leigham Court Road of what you’ll face…

… and there’s no doubting what the sign mean and what the fine is for ignoring it, as home made warning signs explain all.

You may have noticed from the first map showing the LTN to which I added bus route numbers, that taxis and buses on TfL’s route 315, exceptionally from all other traffic, are allowed to travel through the area, entering from Leigham Court Road into Valley Road…

… and moving from the purple zone to the yellow and then red zone …

… from where it leaves the LTN (along with other traffic) into Streatham High Road.

Two impressions hit me as I wandered around the LTN. Firstly just how quiet it was with very little traffic moving along the roads…

… making for a very pleasant atmosphere and an easy passage for buses on the 315 compared to many other residential areas of this kind which TfL’s bus routes serve, often with great difficulty, due to parked vehicles, narrow roads and passing other traffic.

Buses on route 315 operate on a hail and ride basis through the area but I only saw one timetable case indicating the presence of a bus …

… and no indication elsewhere of the custom and practice of where buses stop. Indeed, I waited on a clear piece of road (as in the photo above, but one) to hail the bus but the driver pointedly indicated, as he passed me, I should be waiting further down the road, where he waited for me to walk down.

Secondly, whilst the traffic free nature of the area is very pleasant, it also comes across how draconian and prohibitive all the signs are around the LTN.

They’re a bit negative to the point of over powering on every street corner…

… and some are complex to understand as well as the idea Big Brother is looking down on your every move.

Even so, I spotted some chancers which shows if you want enforcement, you have to have high profile methods to achieve it these days. Lambeth Council says traffic levels are down 60% in the LTN with speeds of the remaining traffic 68% reduced. Around £320,000 in fines have been issued since the scheme began in October.

The upshot of all the foregoing was a realisation that all traffic entering or leaving the red and purple zones of the LTN has to do so via Streatham High Road whereas Leigham Court Road (marked in blue) is pretty much an access and egress free road, other than the yellow area. Here’s the map again to explain that point.

This is relevant as my wanderings returned to the scene of the action, or rather inaction, Streatham High Road itself. After my LTN wander I took a bus ride up to Brixton, then over to Clapham Common and back across to Streatham Hill to fill time before the afternoon peak period set in.

And perhaps inevitably this did so as soon as the schools started to turn out. I was returning on a bus on route 50 from Clapham Common which hit the beginning of what was obviously a long queue of southbound buses as we headed down Streatham High Road at 15:28 when the following photograph was taken.

When I left for my little bus tour an hour previously the road had been flowing freely. But now it was absolutely solid. So much so I alighted the bus – the driver kindly opened the doors mid way between bus stops as he could see there was no movement ahead at all – just a long line of buses in the nearside bus lane and stationary traffic in the offside lane as far as the eye could see down Streatham High Road.

I wandered down towards Streatham station to try and establish exactly what was causing the blockage that an hour previously wasn’t there at all. I realised if it was like this at 15:30, in another couple of hours it’d be congestion armageddon.

Others were deserting buses in the queue too as more ex-passengers walked south passing bus after bus. The first thing I noticed, as you can see in the above and below photographs, was the difficulty for any traffic trying to enter or leave the LTN – as it needed to cross a blocked bus lane.

Some bus drivers (the single deck 255 – as above) held back to let a car out, but the problem in doing that can be the car then blocks the bus lane if it can’t access the offside lane (for non bus traffic) due to that being blocked or motorists not giving way. I saw both happening. Furthermore once you let one car out there’s another driver hard on the front car’s rear bumper anxious to take advantage of the courtesy shown and try to get out too.

I reached the traffic lights by the bus stops called Becmead Avenue which control the junction with Pendennis Road with the LTN purple area and came across the next problem. Only one, two or sometimes three buses were getting through on a green light simply because the road ahead was blocked and the yellow box junction needed to be kept clear.

A pedestrian phase on those lights can mean the traffic beyond the junction moves ahead a short distance so traffic then comes out of the LTN on Pendennis Road and tails back round the corner meaning the lights go green for Streatham High Road but the road ahead is blocked again, and nothing moves. And so it goes on.

Pendennis Road itself (above and below) was also in a state of chaos as cars are able to park on both sides of the road close to the junction which, with the queue for the traffic lights taking up most of the road, traffic coming into the road can’t get through and then tails back across the junction with Streatham High Road …. and a mini gridlock occurs until the next Pendennis green phase might allow some movement.

Meanwhile further south along Streatham High Road the two lanes merge into a single lane…

… with cars waiting patiently in the side roads from the LTN, to join that queue.

On this stretch I saw a classic case of a motorist on Streatham High Road rightly keeping the box junction clear, protecting access/egress into/out of the LTN – but the effect was to give priority to the joining traffic which just fills any gap as the southbound queue of traffic (south of the box junction) inches forward. If the joining traffic hogs the corner they can effectively become the main flow and cars coming south on Streatham High Road don’t move as they’d block the box junction.

I realised more traffic must be joining the end of the queue back up at Streatham Hill than was able to funnel through this section of single lane Streatham High Road. At this rate, I reckoned, the start of the queue would soon be back at Brixton. And it’s also telling from the above photo just how many cars have now interspersed themselves into the queue of buses that further back are nose to tail in the bus lane.

I continued my wander and came to the busy junction with Mitcham Lane at St Leonards Church.

This is the junction where, what has now become two southbound lanes again, has the nearside lane heading south towards Streatham station and the A23 on to Croydon…

… and the offside lane going in a south-westerly direction on the A216 towards Mitcham.

Two lanes of traffic also join the southbound Streatham High Road from Tooting Bec Road and Garrad’s Road (from Tooting and Clapham respectively)…

… and I noticed when a pedestrian crossing phase is called on the junction, the southbound Streatham High Road only gets 25 seconds green time, the first few previous seconds of which are taken up with sorting out the conflict with traffic which hasn’t cleared the junction.

Immediately south of that junction Streatham High Road changes immediately back to a nearside bus lane/stop and an offside lane for all other traffic which just joined the road at the junction in two lanes (from Tooting and Clapham Common).

Sometimes the traffic is backed up from the next junction down (by Streatham Common) and blocks access for buses to the bus lane. This adds to further delays for southbound buses.

Ironically there was all those queueing buses further back in the bus lane, yet here is a free flowing section of bus lane further on (see above photo) but with no buses able to access it due to the aforementioned bottlenecks. It was now almost 16:00 so I thought I’d walk back up to Streatham Hill station again and see how the end of the queue was going.

Sure enough it was even longer with progress by the inch at best. I took some video clips to show the extent of the problem.

Towards the back of the queue I took a photo of a New Routemaster on route 159 inching towards its terminus at Streatham station having almost completed its journey from Marble Arch.

The above photo was taken at 16:03 just past the Kingscourt Road bus stop. Imagining I’d just alighted from the bus to walk to Streatham station instead of staying on it, I set my stop watch and began walking south observing all the issues described above – still evident but to an even greater degree.

And remember that bus stop without a shelter at St Leonards Church? Unsurprisingly it was full of frustrated passengers waiting for one of the 63 buses an hour that pass along Streatham High Road. Twelve of those buses an hour are on route 109 running every five minutes between Brixton and Croydon. Or should I say, scheduled to run very five minutes.

There’s no way you can run a five minute frequency in the conditions I’ve described, let alone 63 buses an hour.

As I got to the bus stop on my walk there was a complete scrum to get on board a bus that had arrived, with passengers pushing their way through the centre door as well as the front door.

I really feel sorry for bus drivers not only getting frustrated with such an excessive delay but having to deal with the impact on passengers. They really are brilliant to put up with such pressure.

After that I soon arrived at Streatham station. It was just after 16:15. It had taken me 12 minutes and 46 seconds to walk 0.7 of a mile.

My plan was to wait at the terminus alongside the station and a huge Tesco Extra and see what time that bus on route 159 arrived had I stayed on it…

… but then I thought, why? I’d garnered enough information, and it might, instead, be interesting to see how far towards home I could get compared to if I had remained on that bus until it reached the terminus, rather than taken the option of walking.

I caught a Southern train at 16:25 to East Croydon and changed on to a Thameslink train at 16:49. As the train passed through South Croydon a couple of minutes later at 16:51 I noticed the vehicle tracking website was showing bus registration number LTZ 1022 had finally reached the terminus, 48 and a half minutes after I’d set my stop watch and started walking.

It had taken four times as long as my walk and instead of me still being at Streatham I was well on the way home down the Brighton Main Line.

Just under three quarters of a mile in 48 minutes. You simply can’t run a bus operation in such conditions.

Indeed I noticed a bus on route P3, which heads south from Streatham Hill to turn at Streatham station (like the 159), do a U-turn at the top end of Streatham High Road to avoid the chaos. It was an understandable action but doesn’t help passengers waiting at Streatham station to head north.

And all this was before five o’clock on a Monday. I can quite imagine once that queue had stretched much further back – up to three miles – later in the peak period on a busier traffic day – it could easily take two hours as the media reported.

But, has the LTN really caused the problem as the media reported and the Mayor alighted on?

Streatham High Road has always been notorious for delays at peak times. Its road layout and junction capacities, as described here, simply don’t facilitate free flowing traffic at peak times and it was plain to see the joining traffic from the LTN was not the cause of the problem but was obviously exacerbating it to a certain degree. Lambeth Council state traffic on surrounding roads has increased by 8% since the LTN began and I can appreciate that has pushed Streatham High Road over the edge.

It does seem a strange idea to funnel all the traffic from the LTN’s red and purple zones onto the already-at-capacity Streatham High Road. It would be interesting to see the impact if access and egress was switched to Leigham Court Road instead of Streatham High Road, where the planters and £130 fine signs could be installed instead.

Granted this might mean Leigham Court Road becoming busier instead and more pressure on the Streatham Hill junction from that road, but the impact on bus passengers would be much less, with only one route, the 417, and a local route at that (Clapham Common-Crystal Palace), being impacted instead of 63 buses an hour on 11 routes with destinations far and wide including Old Coulsdon, Kingston and Marble Arch.

One thing’s for sure, the LTN is really making a difference in the Streatham Wells neighbourhood and it would be very unfortunate to return to a situation where it became a free-for-all cut through for all traffic trying to avoid the congested Streatham High Road. Reading comments online from residents before the LTN was established, it’s clear Valley Road was regularly congested with queuing traffic cutting through the area making for an unpleasant place to live and move around, whereas now it’s much improved.

Let’s hope discussions between Lambeth Borough Council and the Mayor’s team find a sensible solution and soon, particularly for the thousands of bus passengers over a wide area of south London impacted by this.

And for the sanity of all the bus drivers and controllers.

And that’s where today’s blog would have finished, as originally written, before the Council’s dramatic decision to end the LTN with immediate effect on Thursday afternoon leading to more inevitable media headlines.

As explained at the beginning of this blog, I paid a return visit to Streatham yesterday afternoon to see what impact the now abandoned LTN was having on traffic flow.

First impressions as I exited Streatham station at 15:15 was noticing the better traffic conditions. Some of that may have been due to Fridays being a day of fewer commuters with ‘working from home’ and long weekends becoming a thing.

I took a bus ride north to Streatham Hill and noted Streatham High Road heading south was pretty much free flowing. The test would come in the next 45 minutes with schools turning out.

I took a bus on the 417 down Leigham Court Road to see if the ‘no access’ signs had been covered over. They hadn’t. I guess Lambeth Borough Council needs time to organise such things.

Back on Streatham High Road I walked south towards the Kingscourt Road bus stop where I’d taken that photograph of LTZ1022 on route 159 at 16:03 on Monday.

There was a distinct lack of buses.

And a distinct lack of a traffic queue. Maybe this was a Friday factor as the LTN abandonment surely couldn’t have made that much difference.

Where had all the buses gone? Maybe there was a blockage back up at Brixton?

At 16:03, bus LTZ1622 appeared on route 159 in the same spot and time I’d taken the photo of its sister LTZ1022 on Monday. So after a quick photo I jumped aboard to see how long it would take to travel the 0.7 miles to Streatham station.

I set my stop watch and grabbed the front seat upstairs.

It wasn’t all plain sailing. We hit frustratingly slow moving traffic especially at the traffic lights by Pendennus Road…

… and through the single lane bottleneck.

From my birds eye view it was obvious just how disruptive traffic turning into and out of the LTN is, causing delays to southbound traffic on Streatham High Road, especially where junctions are close together.

I was a bit surprised when the driver used the outside lane allocated for the A216 towards Mitcham as we approached the St Leonards Church junction…

… but he managed to cut in just as we reached the traffic lights.

By a neat coincidence we arrived at Streatham station bus stand at 16:16 exactly 12 minutes after I started the stop watch as we’d set off at 16:04 from the Kingscourt Road bus stop.

Much better than the 48 minutes it had taken on Monday but, as I knew from personal experience, even yesterday’s bus journey was only at walking pace.

To conclude this marathon blog, a few random thoughts …

1. The LTN has been abandoned in haste. Instead, it would have made sense to try switching its access and egress to Leigham Court Road to reduce the impact on Streatham High Road.

2. The LTN created a pleasant low traffic environment for residents. Coincidentally The Guardian was reporting yesterday how the Prime Minister has suppressed publication of an official study he ordered into LTNs last July as the conclusions – that they’re “generally popular and effective” doesn’t sit well with his narrative of “being on the side of the motorist”.

3. Streatham High Road is a bottleneck with or without the LTN. Congestion and delays are set to get worse as it’s been announced disruptive roadworks commissioned by TfL will start during the Spring (ie soon) to install segregated cycle lanes along this stretch of the A23 and Streatham High Road. Good luck with that then.

4. One can only imagine the delays which if these works begin had there been no modifications to the LTN.

5. There are Mayoral elections in May.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS

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