Chaos In The Balls Pond Road
The roadworks that caused all the problems with the buses, last week are still ongoing. There are no open bus stops and just one narrow lane for the traffic.
One Narrow Lane In The Balls Pond Road
When I left home this lunchtime, I walked to the next stop, where there was an angry crowd and even angrier drivers trying to get onto the Balls Pond Road.
The diversion on Dove Road was congested and totally inadequate, especially as they were running extra buses as the Overground was closed, so putting a large number of extra passengers on the buses. When I returned later in the afternoon, the problems were made worse, by everybody trying to get to the Emirates to see Arsenal at home to Liverpool.
If they’d wanted to organise chaos, they’d created it, in the best way possible.
I was talking to a bus driver and he blamed Boris, which was a bit unfair.
As my background is project planning and management, I believe this chaos was all down to no co-ordination between the parties involved. The Arsenal match has been in the calendar for months, so surely to do the necessary resurfacing work, on a match day was a bad decision. It was probably costly too, as it meant that all of the chaos, meant that not as much progress as had been hoped was made.
Surely too, the Overground should have been kept open, whilst the road was effectively closed, as this closure imposes extra strains on the road network.
The only good thing about the roadworks, was that I could cross Southgate Road with ease.
A Closed Southgate Road
But crossing the Balls Pond Road is difficult for pedestrains, as there are no lights and we’ve been left to our own devices and wits.
No-one seems to have any idea, how long this chaos will go on. Although this notice mentions that Phase 5 ends on the first of December.
I can’t help feeling, that traffic problems in the area would be helped on match days, if the Northern City line was open between Finsbury Park and Moorgate. Perhaps, when Thameslink is fully established this line will get some long-needed improvement.
A Phallic Lith
Is there any other way to describe this lith at the Emirates Air-Line?
A Phallic Lith
London doesn’t appear to be too dictatorial about the liths, as some like this one seem to go their own way.
A Sad, Lonely Lith On The Regent’s Canal
I encountered this sad and lonely lith surrounded by rubbish on the Regents Canal today.
I was walking the canal to try to see if I could find anything to raise at the De Beauvoir Ward Forum in the evening.
We need more of these at every entrance to the tow-path and I hope the rubbish is cleared up soon.
It’s the first lith, I’ve seen that has been vandalised.
Are Scots More Dangerous Pedestrians?
When I was in Scotland, I saw an article in The Scotsman entitled Scotland is ‘deadliest place to go for a walk’
Here’s the first paragraph.
Scotland has Europe’s worst record for pedestrian deaths in towns and cities, campaigners claimed yesterday, as new official figures showed the total soared by one-third last year.
I don’t know but as a careful pedestrian, who always waits for the green, I found that in Edinburgh and Glasgow, I’d wait and found when it went green, everybody else had long gone.
So perhaps Scots do walk more dangerously!
Walking Around Glasgow City Centre
I had an hour or so before I needed to get to Glasgow Central station, so as it was fine, I walked around looking at the buildings.
Glasgow is easy to navigate, as it has lots of wayfinding liths, just like London.
As you can see, some are megaliths and have a lot more than just a simple map and a few words.
Without doubt liths are the way to go.
This was illustrated, when I came across a group of students and a local, who were discussing in detail, the direction the students needed to go.
In my view, Glasgow’s liths may only have one problem, except for the misplaced Tourist Office.
And that is on Friday, with all the rain, they didn’t stand out, as the colours were too subtle. Perhaps, that is why London’s liths have yellow tops.
Wandering Glasgow In The Rain
I followed the map to the Tourist Office, but as the pictures show it was closed.
In fact, I found out later that it had been moved, but that the maps on the liths hadn’t been updated. Is this a problem with this type of city navigation system?
In the end, the liths got me out of trouble, as I knew that there was a Carluccio’s in West Nile Street, which the maps led me to. I was able to dry out and use the wi-fi to fid out where my hotel was located and have a much needed lunch.
A Solitary Edinburgh Lith
Walking along Princes Street in the rain, I came across this solitary lith called an Edinburgh Navigator.
A Solitary Edinburgh Lith
They are described here on the website of the company that designed them. For systems like this to be truly useful, there needs to be lots of them and they need to be all over a city and not just in the places, where visitors go. This is the opening paragraph from the web page.
Although Edinburgh has a number of renowned landmarks, research revealed that visitors still found some difficulty finding their way around. Our review of existing visitor navigation illustrated a lack of clear and integrated signage. The solution was to develop an entirely new visitor orientation system – Edinburgh Navigator.
It could be said of so many cities, all over the world.
Three Visitors Inspecting A Lith
I took this picture of the lith outside of Russell Square station.
Three Visitors Inspecting A Lith
I also talked to one of the staff inside, who liked the lith, but they said, they still got people asking them for directions.
Most stations now seem to have these Legible London liths outside. I now never carry a map, or use a map on my phone, as I walk around London, as the liths and the maps on bus stops and stations, will get me where I want to go.
What The Hell Is That?
Because my eyesight to the left may not be that good, where fast moving objects are concerned, I’m always careful crossing the road.
I usually put my hand either on top of or on the rotating button of the pedestrian light control, so that I can turn my head to check the traffic properly, whilst effectively seeing the green light with my hand.
It works very well, unless like today, you encounter a control like this.
What The Hell Is That?
What the muck was I do not know, but it looks like some lazy bastard had put the remains of an apple there and left it to rot. As there was a bin about five metres away, and I spent a minute or so getting a clean hand, I hope that whoever they were, doesn’t get a good night’s sleep tonight.
I’ll contrast that with the behaviour I had seen earlier, where a young girl of about seven, missed as she put her crisp packet in a bin at the Angel, because the wind blew it out of her hand. She then ran back, retrieved the errant packet and binned it successfully.
Liverpool Tries Scrapping Bus Lanes
It is being reported on both BBC Breakfast and their web site, that Liverpool is scrapping bus lanes in a nine month experiment to see if it reduces congestion.
What Liverpool really needs is better information on how to use the buses and walk around the city, as I said here in this post. I didn’t get a reply. Unlike from Birmingham after this post.
Closer to home, I’m being seriously inconvenienced by road works in a bus lane, which has resulted in the closest stop to my house being closed. This means that when I return from the Angel with my shopping, I have to walk several hundred metres further. In a couple of cases, I’ve taken taxis home, to avoid the walk.
Hopefully, in a few days, we’ll be back to normal!
The Anonymous Widower 