| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Tfl proposals for Hogarth Roundabout | |
| Posted by: | Sam Hearn | |
| Date/Time: | 25/09/24 19:24:00 |
| Adrian - Thank you for your balanced summary of the Hogarth Roundabout section of last night's well attended Chiswick Area Forum. The Lead TfL representative started well basically saying "I come to bury Caesar not to praise him". Unfortunately he quickly reverting to arrogant apparatchik mode. He knows that he and his scheme are "fire-proof" and that he can safely ignore anything that local residents (with or without pitch forks) say. By attending the Area Forum he and his colleague can tick a box and say that they have fully consulted local residents blah blah blah. Cllr Todd read what the Hounslow Council Head of Traffic had said on the record about the scheme. It was pretty damning. But the TfL representative said that "we get this all the time from local council officers" and making in quite clear that as far as he was concerned it was water off a Duck's back. He refused to comment on TfL's public statement of apology for the duff traffic incident data that they had originally published in support of the scheme. He claimed that the incident data that he quoted in the meeting was accurate. But how do we know. There was no written report for us to peruse. He also refused to comment on the additional errors that were highlighted in an article in the Daily Telegraph. He smugly said that he made a point of never reading reports in the Daily Telegraph. Quite stunningly stupid - effectively saying I will not look at any evidence that might undermine my opinion/view. He did admit that the data they had used was a bit flaky (I forget the exact adjective) because the incident reports often failed to mention where on the roundabout a collision had occurred. This is surely at the heart of any decision on what needs modifying? However he said that many hours of traffic behaviour had been filmed and reviewed and that this supported their proposal to add an additional lane to the exit onto the A316. But we only have his verbal assurance on this. When confronted with the dangerous nature of the proposed 180 degree turn at the beginning of the A316 neither TfL representative had anything to say in its defence other than they are looking at it. To most people in the room it was clear that this new turning (and the shutting of of Church Street) would create additional serious traffic incidents/collisions. I am hopeful that TfL will produce a revised version of the scheme but know from past experience that any further public consultation will only be on those aspects that have been changed and not on the scheme as a whole. To me as a lay person any change to a roundabout layout can have implications for how all the other parts of the roundabout are used. The re-consultation on any revised scheme should logically look at the whole of the proposal. This is a costly scheme. The implementation will cause countless hours of traffic chaos and the scheme really deserves a far more rigorous approach to its design. We are being asked to buy a £5m pig-in-a-poke because a couple of guys from TfL say that it will make the traffic flow more smoothly. |