It's exactly a year since the major roadworks at the Bow roundabout were completed. It took five months to remodel the interchange ready for the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel and I wrote 20 blogposts detailing the machinations as the project progressed. So it's incredible to report that THE PROJECT STILL ISN'T FINISHED and ONE KEY PART HAS YET TO OPEN TO TRAFFIC. A heck of a lot of the effort expended has thus far been ENTIRELY WASTED, also a heck of a lot of money, with no sign of completion any time soon.
» They reshaped the roundabout and added a third lane on the Bow side. That part works fine.
» The widened the approach from Stratford High Street by increasing it from two lanes to three. That part works fine too.
» But they also altered the contraflow lane by diverting it under the flyover, and THAT HAS NEVER RE-OPENED.
Ever since the Bow Flyover was built a contraflow lane has existed along the edge of the flyover. This allowed traffic from Marshgate Lane, Cooks Road and the Abba Arena to reach the roundabout direct. It'd be a long detour up the dual carriageway without it, indeed is a long detour because it's been closed for the last eighteen months. But it made the roundabout more complicated than it needed to be and its existence was also counter-intuitive for pedestrians crossing the road, thus potentially dangerous.
To simplify the roundabout they decided to reroute the contraflow underneath the flyover to join with the main body of traffic approaching from Stratford, a cunning tweak which required introducing an extra set of traffic lights. But the contraflow lane has never reopened, the additional traffic lights are entirely superfluous and as things stand at least two months of roadworks need never have happened.
Here's the as-yet unused contraflow wiggle.
It starts at a Road Closed sign, watched over by a piddly CCTV camera on a stalk.
It bears off underneath the flyover towards the extra set of lights.
But it doesn't enter the main body of traffic because it's permanently barriered off, indeed it's barriered off at both ends.
An additional pedestrian crossing was added under the flyover so that people could cross the contraflow lane safely. But pushing the button has no effect because the green man is permanently lit because the traffic light is always red because there's no danger from passing vehicles because there have never been any. I keep thinking one day they'll remove the barriers and allow traffic through the contraflow section but they never have, not since all the workmen packed their vans and drove back to the depot 52 weeks ago. What the heck is going on?
Someone has tried to find out what's going on by submitting an FoI request, but unfortunately it got rebuffed. They asked.
It's the slip road from Marshgate Lane, you muppet, not Marshgate Lane itself. Construction of the slip road was very much a TfL project, thus somebody at TfL knows why it's never opened, but they never got the chance to explain because a minion quashed the FoI. It's either local ignorance or a predisposed attitude not to tell the public things if a get-out clause can be contrived.
The underlying issue is actually the height of the flyover and the risk of tall vehicles damaging it. The centre of the flyover is perfectly high enough for the roundabout to have functioned safely for almost 60 years. But the contraflow ducks underneath further along where there's less headroom, thus one rogue lorry could cause considerable damage.
As part of the roadworks last year three warning signs were added, each indicating a height limit of 3.9m/12'9". Two appear at the roadside and another is stuck to the underside of the flyover. But a truck driver could easily fail to spot the first two until it was too late, having nowhere else to go, and the really high sign is of no practical use because it's perpendicular to a driver's line of sight as they approach. These signs clearly aren't a foolproof deterrent.
As for when this might be fixed, TfL have already missed their own deadline. Scroll to the very bottom of their Silvertown Tunnel webpage and they've written this...
It seems TfL aren't willing to risk any damage to crucial concrete infrastructure so are keeping the contraflow closed until they come up with a more robust solution than three piddly signs. But there's no indication of what that solution might be, if indeed they know themselves, hence we're now three months beyond the date they said all this would be fixed.
The FoI request also queried why "the lanes exiting towards Stratford suddenly converge into one lane from the roundabout". Indeed they do and this wasn't supposed to be the case. By detaching the contraflow from the roundabout TfL's intention was to provide two exit lanes onto Stratford High Street instead of one. Traffic would still have to merge into one lane shortly afterwards, just beyond the pedestrian crossing, but since last year a string of cones has blocked off the second lane 50m early. This forces vehicles to merge prematurely, and if the pedestrian crossing's in use a queue can quickly build back onto the roundabout with disruptive consequences.
Ridiculously there are still roadworks signs on the roundabout, this despite there being zero roadworks, simply to alert drivers to the cones. But it's hard to see why those cones need to be in place, specifically why it's been deemed necessary to keep Stratford-bound drivers away from the entrance to the contraflow, given the road markings painted last year indicate that vehicles were intended to merge here instead. All I can imagine is that the paltry tarmac triangle alongside the merging point has been deemed insufficient to deter traffic from entering the contraflow lane which could cause a nasty head-on crash, so cones have been deployed to force an earlier merge.
Whatever the reason one thing's clear - insufficient planning was done before the Bow Roundabout roadworks were undertaken. Road markings were painted for a lane merge nobody's now willing to condone. And more importantly a contraflow lane was diverted beneath the flyover without thinking through all the potential 'low bridge' consequences, and thus has never opened.
So here we are A YEAR AFTER THE PROJECT WAS COMPLETED and a substantial part of the modification HAS NEVER BEEN USED. For this they buggered up traffic at the Bow Roundabout for five months, and as things stand a lot of that trouble was unnecessary and a wodge of investment has been wasted. Are they still working on making good or have they simply forgotten and moved on? Twelve months on I think we should be told.
