Major roadworks at the Bow Roundabout continue. They're now into their fourth month although it feels like forever, especially if you get stuck in queueing traffic.
Not much appears to have happened since the start of December, which is in part because no work was done over Christmas and New Year. In good news they took down the cones on Bow Road during that period, helping to prevent unnecessary delays, but in bad news they didn't do that on the other three approach roads and tailbacks remained.
The most obvious change is that workmen have finished filling in where the contraflow lane used to enter the roundabout and it's become pedestrian-accessible public realm. This benefits pretty much nobody. Further resurfacing has taken place under the flyover where the contraflow is to be redirected. A few new kerbs have been installed because a lot of the work is about shifting where the edge of the roadway is. New tactile paving has been installed where two sets of traffic lights haven't yet been installed. As the weeks go by plastic barriers occasionally shift, forcing pedestrians to walk a slightly different route to cross the road.
After months of liminal faffing under the Bow side of the flyover, the foot-deep trench gouged out to widen the carriageway has only just been filled in with tarmac. A fresh barrage of plastic barriers finally heralds works on the inside of the roundabout, a slight shaving of the kerb so that the western flank can be broadened from two to three lanes, resulting in rubbly chunks of 1960s concrete being wheeled away by the skipful.
It doesn't yet feel like we're approaching the end of the roadworks because not all of the realigned roadway is ready. The intended end date remains massively unclear.
• According to the yellow poster at Bus Stop M it's 15th January.
• According to the electronic sign on Stratford High Street it's 16th January.
• According to a works notice attached to the barriers it's 16th January.
• According to the yellow roadsign on the A12 sliproad it's 4th February.
• According to the updated one.network online map it's 3rd March.
• According to a freshly-installed works notice it's 9th March.
I fear the last two of those are the most accurate, which suggests this interminable fiddling still has two months to run.
