General Discussion
Why the highways company don't put traffic lights at each end of Dawlish and set them on red
beats me.Just to really get up the bloody nose of drivers.Whilst in rant mode, has anyone seen a
lesser spotted cyclist on the new cycle path? Rant two, see scaffolding up so more lights even better
the ---- who thought this up has decided the work will last 6 months over the busiest time of
the year. Thank you and start taking the blockers.
Sorry if i have doubled up on this subject
@b.o.liking. haven't seen anyone on the cycle path yet although it does stop at lanherne but did chuckle when i saw a couple of cyclists on the opposite side of the road.
The latest stretch of the shared cyclepath hasn't been completed yet. As for the temporary traffic lights, they're just a temporary inconvenience - you should try driving in and around Exeter to discover the real traffic light capital. Still, there's nothing quite as British as a good old fashioned moan, so good on you! What's the weather like today?
Have a good day!
Exeter has nothing on central london. Just driving down Marleybone road you can count more traffic lights than Exeter most probably has in its entirety!
Dawlish Museum has posted pics on the work started round Lanherne at -
https://www.facebook.com/365561793551129/photos/pcb.995229493917686/995229413917694/?type=3&theater
Under the Roads and Street Works Act 1991. If the contractor fails to carry out the work in a timely manner. Then a section 66 notice can be issued. Six months to reduce the height of the wall and install new curbing is a ridiculas amount of time for such a job.
Why is the scafolding being built on the road side when there is nothing obstructing the work being carried out from the old allotments side.
Hi Lynne i suppose the saying because it's there, or how can I pi-- off b.o.liking as much as possible.
I suspect the fallen wall next to the Teignmouth Inn was a practice run. Having crossed Shaldon bridge
many times have yet to see the mass exodus the widened pavement was made for.
Who is the jobsworth that thinks these projects up?
PS thank you Morty.
The work on the fallen wall by the Teignmouth Innwas ordered to be put on hold till after the summerseason by wait for it DCC
Still not seen a cyclist on the much needed cycle path, but did see one riding beside it on the road.
Stuck in queue yesterday for 10mins and I was gobsmacked saw 2 on the path and 2 overtook me on the road
@Bollocking.
For the nth time, that stretch of the shared used path hasn't yet been completed, as you well know.
Do you have a webcam pointing at it 24/7? If so, I'd love to see a stream of it so that I can spend all day looking out for cyclists...
As the topic seems to be going off towards cycles I might as well add while walking along the sea wall towards coryton cove yesterday pushing my wife in her wheelchair we had 3 cyclists riding forcing us to stop so not as to be hit by any of them. When telling them that they are not meant to be riding we got 2 fingers and a sortment of language I'd rather my 7yr old granddaughter didn't need to hear, so much for the barriers and signs !
It seems to me that nobody wants to own up to anything when they are clearly in the wrong. Last week there was a family sitting on the lawn with their dog running free and chasing geese. I asked them to restrain their dog and they appeared to be enjoying seeing their dog chasing the geese and laughing their heads off. Then only yesterday my wife was walking along the Strand and once again their Staffie dog was loose and walking down the the pavement, my wife asked them to put the dog on a lead and they gave her some verbal abuse and told her to mind her own business. Then bike riders riding up the one way street and as the last poster stated they ride along the sea wall. Is there no enforcement in this town?
Is this the English culture never to own up to their actions. Today no dogs are allowed on Dawlish beach and Coryton Cove and I would bet you if you were there with your dog there would be some official there in a flash.
@Brooklyn Bridge (01 may 2016 11:02) plenty of signs and byelaws for what todo and not do in dawlish, but the ignorant people the signs have been put up for do not take any notice, suprise!
Those that cycle along footpaths and sea walls or let their dogs run amuck or leave rubbish strewn all over the Lawn are ignorant to start with. I have found to my own cost how aggresive and abusive these type of dimwits can be when challenged. No diffrenece to those who drive badly on the roads of teignbridge either.
When I was a kid, and dinosaurs's walked the earth, you had village bobbies (who knew their turf, knew the idiots and WALKED,CYCLED their patch). You had Parish wardens who enforced the byelaws..littering, etc. Now we have bobbies who you rarely see shoot passed in their cars with the windows up, Parish wardens speed passed in therir new white vans.
It seems those that disrespect our town and do as they wish are bullet proof. It's about time those paid to look after such matters pulled their collective fingers out of their rear's and did something positive about the situation, not just put up new signs.
It is Summer season now and the last thing our town needs is drunks, vandals, car thiefs, shop lifters, druggies and general louts destroying the good reputation our town has enjoyed in the past.
The more bad press a town gets the more it encourages bad people to come to it.
Many years back we had to pass the cycle proficiency test before being allowed to cycle to school, cyclist today need to be educated more before riding on our ever increasing busy roads. Maybe cyclist should be fined for not using the cycle paths and where they shouldn't be riding. If they have no ID on them as to avoid paying then have the bikes confiscated so forcing them to pay on collecting them back, much like in certain motorist cases, the offical could take a face picture so leaving no doubt as to the guilty offender again like they do when issuing a parking fine. The money through these fines would help to pay for all these miles of unused cycle paths and maybe start to educate certain members of the cycling community. The draw back of this I guess is there are no longer walking police officers and very few enforcement officers due to cut backs oh well c'est la vie
This just in from a Devon County Council highways officer in response to concerns raised by Dawlish Town Councillors last week:
...the signs on the carriageway state six months of roadworks, where as the reality is that the disruption to the public is significantly less as the majority of the works relate to works Lanherne. I will discuss this with the Contractor and either remove the reference to the time period, or replace with the period of time that the works will directly affect the highway.
The temporary lights adjacent to Lanherne will be in place until the end of this month. After this time the works will mostly focus in the Lanherne development, so should be out of the way and sight of the public. The lights will only have to return here for works to tie the new footpath into the Busstop adjacent to Lanherne. We will make sure when the lights return they are not at peak periods. The current lights however operate 24/7 due to the scaffolding in place adjacent to the wall. We have spoken with the Contractor carrying out these works, and agreed with him that during peak times, they will operate the lights using manual control to keep the traffic flowing.
The works at Warren Road were South West Water emergency works due to a burst water main, separate from any of the DCC works. It was unfortunate that the DCC works were are at the stage that they were, as DCC had to pull off the Exeter Road works and scale down for a week, meaning a delay to our finish date causing an over lap with the works at Lanherne. DCC carried out some evening works with manual controlled stop-go boards and manual controlled traffic lights to aim to reduce the disruption as much as possible.
Unfortunately due to the time constraints with the funding, we are unable to delay the works [to the cycle path]
Hope this helps.
Ironically, the traffic lights at Lanherne and associated road narrowiing mean there is currently no safe cycle route between the town centre and Exeter Rd.
Thanks for the update Gary but, as of today, the tail back through Dawlish due to the lights is horrendous. Travelling in from Teignmouth at about 5pm tonight the queue started just past John Nash Drive and it took at least 20 minutes to get to the centre of Dawlish. This will just get worse as the holiday season kicks in. And, have the residents of Lanherne been consulted on these changes? I ask because the last administration had the grand idea of having the land at Lanherne as a coach park but no one had actually consulted with the tennents and asked their views, I do hope that is not the case this time round.
It has been suggested to me that we could have had a really really radical solution to the cycling path/hair pin bend issue which could have been.......
To close down Lanhearne and then use the whole site (including where the allotments used to be) to really widen the road and at the same time put in a cycle path.
Yes, Margaret, the tail backs were very bad yesterday. I heard a lot of sirens - perhaps there was an accident or other emergency which contributed to that?
I will try and find out if Lanherne residents were consulted about the works. In any case residents should be consulted about how they feel the cycle path will affect them and what in their view should be done to help avoid any conflict with cyclists in the future.
Regarding coach parking, as far as I am aware there are no longer any plans to use Lanherne, with bays set now aside in the rather underutlised Barton Hill TDC car park. This should help avoid unnecessary pollution on Iddesleigh Terrace and help spread the coach tourist trade more widely throughout the town centre.
@Gary Taylor - i can confirm the residents were informed of the works, particularly as there is going to be night working.
Theres no work going on in the day either, drove past at 15:42 and all equipment closed up and nobody on site no wonder its going to take 6 months. Dont tell me they have to travel back to the depot to clock off, I have seen that excuse so many times before. I wonder what time they start?
@Lynne that's not radical, it's stupid in my opinion. as i've said before it would make much better sense to have the cycle track go through lanherne, following the path through it, then slope the current steps into beach street. this would completely miss all the awful road and sloping the steps would help wheelchair bound residents in lanherne to access town more safely rather than dice with death across exeter road.
It would be considerably cheaper too, but hey, that's just too easy.
Thanks for the info, Flo - and the input.
Please don't shoot the messenger but I have been advised by TDC and DCC that the path from Lanherne to Beach Street will still feature steps and that a 'gulley' will be provided for bicycles. This would seem to preclude an easier descent/ascent for 'toddler trailers', tricycles and, sadly, wheelchairs. I would therefore be interested to know how many residents there are who are either wheelchair bound or who use mobility scooters - and if it is considered by residents that an improved crossing of the Exeter Road would be of benefit?
It is not yet known what plans there may be for the continuation of the cycle route into and through the town, however if there is the will and a way of providing a safer crossing point at Lanherne, now would seem a good time to move things along.
@Gary yes a safer crossing, for pedestrians and mobility users, can be made at Lanherne by installing a pelican crossing, and I thought that was part of the "plan". But that is a stupid option as it simply adds to the congestion and polution around Idsleigh Terrace, the best option is to install a slope thro Lanherne down to Beach Street. Do the people who make these decisions actually ever visit the area or are their bums permanently stuck on a chair. It is not impossible to put a safe slope into Lanherne by using a multiple slope and crossing steps. This would keep the slope steady and give steps for the more able walkers.
Doesn't moving the coach park to Barton simply move the pollution to Brunswick, a better idea would be make the crazy golf area into parking bays for coaches, move the crazy golf onto the lawn. By the bowling green. There's room by the crazy golf for 4 coaches at least in the centre of the town, near to loos for the drivers that aren't going to be closed any time now. In addition the drivers have a coffee stop close at hand and maybe the shop keepers can offer bribes to stay like free meals / coffees etc like they do in Newton Abbot. Each stall holder in the market pays 50p per coach to keep them in the town and away from Trago. And we get a nice new crazy golf and play area on the lawn for the kids, keep the kids in the town and the parents stay (and spend). Is it so difficult.
I have to say that you're proposing a ridiculous idea Kenneth. I bet you wouldn't want a coach park in your back yard would you? No to houses but yes to coaches! As if.
Ken,
This from DCC in response to my enquiry (in blue) on 25th April:
I note from DCC's letter that these works will 'take existing cyclists off Exeter Road'. Can we please be advised of how the cycle path will be accessed from the A379 (heading north) and where the 'Destination Dawlish' route is intended to be terminated? The current CCF funding will enable the route to be completed as far as Tucks plot, via the steps at Lanherne, which will be altered to a slacker gradient and have a wheelie ramp installed for cyclists. The works at Tucks plot and Lanherne steps are currently under design. We will share these with [Councillors] in the CCF meetings for discussion and input from DTC.
And this from TDC:
No direct offroad routes with suitable gradient are available for this section within realistic budgets. The consultation will raise alternative onroad options for more confident cyclists.
So no mention of a pelican crossing - however before such an idea is dismissed, should we not listen to those residents who will be most directly affected by the new cycle path?
@Gary Taylor yes by all means listen to the residents and from what flo is saying they would prefer the lanherne route rather than a crossing of the exeter road. once across the road they still have no easy route to town and lights at this point will result in traffic backing up around idesleigh. the words from tdc about "alternative onroad options" frighten me, does this mean a cycle lane around idesleigh already a problem with buses and large lorries passing.
Ken
I think you are missing the point. The route from Lanherne to Beach Street will be stepped and therefore not suitable for wheelchairs, mobility scooters - or for that matter bike riding.
The vertical drop from the start of the slope at Lanherne down to Beach Street is in the order of 5 metres and contains 20 steps. There is far too little room (or public money) to create an acceptable (say) 1 in 10 slope, without either significant excavation or detriment to the trees and sylvan character of the lower garden area.
The DCC/TDC plans for modified steps with a 'wheelie ramp' (gulley) are a compromise. While it will be disappointing not to have a more practical solution for those using or wishing to benefit from changes to this multi-user path, it is to be hoped that via the forthcoming consultation some of the shortcomings that would remain can, to a degree, be mitigated.
Sat in line at the traffic lights by the wall being demolished and although not an expert, can
understand after watching why it will take six months.
Part of the work on road side of wall will end on 27 May and the traffic lights go, the 27th is now on the signs.
Sorry if I appear stupid, but can somebody explain exactly why the wall is being reduced in height?
Thank you.
Was going to go to Sainsbury's this afternoon, but when I got to the intersection of the Co op in Dawlish the traffic to get there was backed up well beyond the bridge over the brook. I went to morrisons instead.
Why the ~@~@ this work could not have been scheduled for this winter rather than during the torist season.
Well it was nice to see that the temporary lights by the wall at Lanherne have now been taken away. And a few days earlier than their previous estimate.