NOT CONTENT with picking our pockets and lying to us about the amount, not content with making absurd promises that will never be kept, not content with putting at risk our priceless park, the people behind the London Olympics are also proposing to close down the rest of Greenwich as well.
Or at least, they’re taking the power to do so. They haven’t yet troubled to tell us how they’ll exercise it.
You may not have heard of the “Olympic Route Network.” I don’t blame you if you haven’t; it’s received mysteriously little press coverage. But you will. The ORN is the network of roads on which the Olympic Delivery Authority will be given the power to ban parking and stopping, restrict traffic, close lanes and indeed shut the roads down in their entirety.
Earlier this month, the Department for Transport launched a consultation document outlining which roads would be part of the ORN. In the borough of Greenwich alone, there are 44. They include:
- the Blackwall Tunnel.
- All approaches to the tunnel, including the entire A102 from the Greater London boundary to the tunnel and Blackwall Lane.
- the whole of Greenwich town centre.
- the entire length of Romney Road and Trafalgar Road.
- Creek Road.
- Deptford Church Street.
- Blackheath Road, Blackheath Hill, Shooters Hill Road (as far as the old Shooters Hill Police Station) and Charlton Way.
- Woolwich Road and Woolwich Church Street, between Blackwall Lane in Greenwich and Woolwich town centre.
- Most of Woolwich town centre.
- The A205 South Circular from Woolwich to the junction with Shooters Hill Road at the old police station.
As well as all the main roads, dozens of residential side streets in Greenwich will be part of the Olympic Route Network. They include:
- Crooms Hill.
- Stockwell Street.
- Park Vista.
- Nevada Street.
- Maze Hill.
- At GMV, West Parkside, John Harrison Way and Edmund Halley Way.
- Charlton Park Lane.
- All the Red Route side roads off the A102.
If you want to park a car, drive, cycle or travel on a bus on any of these streets come 2012, you might not be able to. (The bus routes involved, by the way, are the 47, 51, 53, 54, 89, 96, 99, 108, 129, 161, 177, 178, 180, 188, 199, 202, 244, 286, 291, 386, 422, 469, 472, 486, N1, N47 and N89.)
I say might, because exactly what the ODA will do with its draconian powers is still entirely unstated. Rather worrying, perhaps: if the planned restrictions are to be modest, short-term and benign, they’d surely be happy to tell us that.
If this year’s Games in Beijing are any guide, some roads will be closed entirely and others will have special Olympic vehicle-only lanes, the so-called “Zil lanes” in which only the “Olympic Family” can travel.
Most of Beijing’s main roads are multi-lane expressways – and of course half the traffic was banned every day – but even so, as I saw during the Games, the closure of just one lane caused enormous congestion for the unlucky drivers left with the rest of the road.
The only multi-lane roads in Greenwich’s Olympic Route Network are the Blackwall Tunnel itself, the A102 approach road, Woolwich Church Street, Deptford Church Street and a little bit of Shooters Hill Road. Even closing one lane of these would essentially double most drivers’ journey time, or worse.
And for Greenwich’s remaining single-lane roads, all are badly congested for much, if not most, of the working day. If the idea is to prevent the “Olympic family” from being caught in this congestion, there will be no option but to close these roads.
The final unknown about the Olympic Route Network is exactly how long it will last. Just for the duration of the Games? Oh no. The ODA is being given its powers by the middle of 2009, three years before the Olympics, for a reason – so that some restrictions can come in much earlier.
And even though most restrictions will only happen nearer to the Games, there will, the consultation document admits, be “some trials in summer 2011.” The Olympic period itself is surprisingly long; the document describes the Olympic Route Network as “primarily an operational measure for the 60 days of the Games.” Sixty days? But the Games themselves only last for 15 days.
My best guess is this. Outright road closures are likely to be for several hours at a time, perhaps more than once in the day, over a period of about two weeks. Lane closures, on the multi-lane roads, are likely to be full-time over the same period.
But some traffic management measures will start almost as soon as the ODA is granted the power to do them – around the middle of 2009. Greater parking and stopping restrictions will follow. Outright and draconian parking and stopping controls will be imposed for, at the very least, the entire 60-day period mentioned in the consultation document. And if you’re a shop dependent on passing trade – hard cheese.
The damage all this will do to the normal life of Greenwich, and the business of everyone not connected with the Olympics, is of course enormous. Another example of how the Games will do precisely the opposite of what the boosters claim.
Thanks Andrew for bringing this to the notice of local residents. People like yourself and NOGOE members have been accused of scare-mongering, yet objecters have actually shown a great deal of foresight compared with the tunnel vision of the Olympics supporters. Road closures won’t be the biggest problem – wait till the stadium builders and horse boxes move in, and with them the traffic jams, noise, smell and pollution!
They selected Greenwich Park without a cost-benefit analysis, and merely for a compact Games. What the organisers didn’t do was to assess the Park in its context: in the middle of a congested, world-famous tourist centre – where any closures will bring the daily lives of people to a grinding halt.
We’re not just talking of road closures. It has been confirmed that the whole Park will be closed for 6 – 7 weeks, depriving children of the playground and cricketers of their pitch; and also excluding daily walkers and joggers; and where will dog walkers go? The lower end of the Park will be closed for 7 months from March to October – so no football for the students and school trips during the week; no weekend sun bathers in this part of the Park that is near public transport and amenities; no green space for people from Deptford and Isle of Dogs who can walk to this part of the Park. Totally out of proportion for 6 days of Olympics with questionable benefits.
Then there are the security aspects: high fencing above the Jacobean walls – with cameras, dogs and floodlighting; the closure of narrow, residential streets that border 3 sides of the Park; the terrorist threat to thousands of residents in a World Heritage Site; the mayhem as 23000+ people spectators walk to the Park through the town centre, obstructing even emergency vehicles from getting through . This information has been confirmed by LOCOG in recent consultations and amounts to disruption on a massive scale. It is unprecedented for a public space to be closed for such a length of time. It is unprecedented for road closures to disrupt daily life on such a scale.
And has anyone quantified the loss to the local economy from all this disruption? The local traders have been hoodwinked into thinking that any loss in visitor numbers will be compensated by extra trade after the Olympics. The Olympics need Greenwich more than Greenwich needs the Olympics.
So, while Greenwich Council supports this event for the sake of local pride, a few contracts and temporary jobs, and free riding lessons for the disadvantaged, we, the residents of Greenwich and users of Greenwich Park, are expected to sit back and watch this nightmare turn into a reality. Or we can object to this undemocratic decision and press for a more suitable venue for the equestrian events.
This problem is not just about Greanwich but also Hackney, Newham and the whole of London.
I have been traveling between Newham and Hackney for the last 30 years and have had to endure increasing road closures and road width restictions over those years.If one got out a map and put in all the road closures that do not allow local traffic to pass through in ALL the boroughs of London.But specificly in these three boroughs.Then it will be seen that that there is now no ‘give’ or flexability in the system at all.This primarily was due to when the roads were taken out of the hands of the policeforce whos primary principle of traffic management was traffic FLOW and put into the hands of poloticians whos agenda whas traffic management.Thus by the use of so called traffic calming measures bus lanes,cycle lanes and side road entrance widths restricted all produced a progresive strangulation on the road system.For each ‘hinderence’ slows the traffic incrementaly to the extent that even with ‘normal traffic ‘ ther e is huge cingestion which needs only one incident to caus havoc two traffic jams and three gridlock.A few years ago ther ewas an accident on the M11,406 and the A12 all i the east of London one afternoon .It took some one I know personaly 8 hours to get from Clapton Pond in Hackney to the other side of Ilford 8 hours to get home.We now have real problems in all the routes in and through and passing what is now the Olympic site durign the rush hour. It is now proposed that lanes are closed to only Olympic traffic .Adding to the mayhem.
When Trafalgar square was being restructured again at the behest of Ken Livingstone.I came across a complete circle of buses around the square.Who did nto move at all for 15 minutes and were nto going to move.All roads leading of fthe square were gridlocked.In 15 to 20 mins I did not see one policeofficer,traffic warden or bus inspector doing any thing about it.I took it upon my self to get bus drivers cooperation to moev where they could move to allow other traffic to move.After an hour ONE bus inspector arrived and after we talked he began to work at the opposing corner doign the same thing and stpping further buses to enter.It took two hours to get the traffic moving freely again.All due to the goodwill and cooperation of nearly all the drivers.Surfice to say there is always some neither of good will or of a cooperative nature.Woe betide the olympics and the rest of London if we get more than one or two and a few acidents.
or it is nto only going to effect Greanwich ,hackney and Newham it will effect and cause mayhem to the whole of London.
The focus has been on the toing and froing to of Olympics,Ther ehas been a woefull lack of deep thought and sober reflection on ALL other traffic that has nothign to do with it,Butr needs to go by ,pass through and around not only the olympic site but also London.
It is not too late to sort it out.
Sincerely,
G Blezard mr