Cross about the Crossing

My battles against bureaucracy in St Margarets are not limited to Tesco, although you could be forgiven for thinking so.

My latest fight is again Transport for London (TfL) . There is a pedestrian crossing just near our house, just north of the A316. In theory, my son is of the age that he can walk to school by himself, which is not much use as he has a younger sister at the same school who needs an adult. But it would be useful for coming home after late school activities

To do this, he has to cross a footbridge, and this one pedestrian crossing.

In theory, you press the button, the traffic light turns red, the green man goes green, and then you cross, saf in the knowledge that the cars have stopped. That has been my experience of pedestrian crossings up until I met this one.

It is in a funny location, just north of a major arterial road, but on a sharp corner. And you often can't see people waiting to use the crossing.

But even that in itself is not the biggest problem.

The way the lights are phased, the pedestrian crossing turns red, as the lights on the A316 go green. So lots of impatient motorists, pull away on the green light, and only by the time it is too late to they realise that they are now on a red going north.

I have seen a large number of vehicles go through, some never realising, some screeching to a halt half way across the crossing. Exactly 10 feet too late to save the life of whoever they have just run over.

Some time ago, I took the matter up with TfL. The first analysis of the situation showed that the crossing was not active for long enough in any event. It is supposed to be red for 13 seconds (the things you find out), and it was only red for 10. So they changed it, somehow missing my point that they needed to re-phase the lights to ensure there was no traffic passing through, not just extend the time they left pedestrians waiting to get knocked over.

So I tried again.

This time they sent a man out for an hour in a bright yellow jacket to see if anyone jumped the lights. Well, hardly surprising no-one did as he looked for all the world like a traffic policemen, and was probably visible from space!

I popped out there for 10 minutes today until I saw someone jump the lights, and then retired, smug. (Yes you white van LC52 NVG)

It's not just me, as a number of other local people have seen the same thing. I am just trying to rally the troops to get something done.

The answer? Another Jiglu space! Yes http://crossing.jiglu.com will be the focus of the latest campaign. I am turning into Victor Meldrew, so help me God. It's when I fight the council to take the apostrophe out of the road sign round the corner (Not St Margaret's, chaps) that you will really have to take pity on my wife...