I think people park on the pavement because of the moron drivers that use Devonshire Road as a rat run. They have no care for the speed they drive or the cars they hit.
The extra space gained by parking a wheel on the kerb is merely a way of 'protecting' ones car from damage from reckless and idiotic drivers.
Also in my opinion there is ample space at the HOP end for cars to be parked partially on the kerb. This is in place (with marked bays) around the corner on Honor Oak Park all the way up the hill and the path is no wider here.
In regards to lacb's post about bringing people to the area....
The Honor Oak end is next to a nicely developing shopping parade despite the straitened circumstances. Please let's not turn away passing trade this way - this is not West Hampstead, people will not travel here regardless.
Lets not kid ourslelves that people are travelling by car to 'visit' the shopping parade at Honor Oak Park! People are just parking up here to use the train. (Spaces full by 8am and empty by 7pm!) Anyway the highstreet already has ample parking bays with restricted parking times so a CPZ would not affect this.
I can't see that the forthcoming Clapham Junction phase of the ELL will affect this unless it makes the already fantastic service even more attractive.
No one knows for sure however the east dulwich forum suggests a number of people from that neck of the woods park at hop to get ell.
Ell phase2 will mean some of these commuters could go to peckham rye or denmark hill instead to pick up ell rather than travel to hop.
Especially if you look at the traffic flow and the direction people travel from to park at hop. There is clear evidence of the direction come from due which no through roads are impacted and more importantly which ones arent.
Many different factors need to be explored before we draw conclusions
[quote]
Lets not kid ourslelves that people are travelling by car to 'visit' the shopping parade at Honor Oak Park! People are just parking up here to use the train. (Spaces full by 8am and empty by 7pm!) Anyway the highstreet already has ample parking bays with restricted parking times so a CPZ would not affect this.
[end quote]
This was exactly my point. People are using the road for Park and Ride purposes. Send them elsewhere and that somewhere else will get the passing trade.
My own feeling, and ths is only anecdotal, is that people from East Dulwich, Peckham and Catford, are doing this. But I think a survey is required to really get a handle on this.
Your point is interesting. It is OK to park illegally on the pavement as long as drivers drive too fasy and badly on the road.
Not sure I agree with this as the poor pedestrian , including blind and handicapped , have a difficult time.
Surely law states you are only allowed to park on the road if by doing so
you do not impede passing traffic. The main point of a road is for people and commerce to travel from A to B , not for a free car park.
Are you suggesting that everyone that doesn't have private parking should have to get rid of their car? I think London's economy would be destroyed overnight since that applies to most Londoners - at least in the Inner Boroughs.
Sorry - I missed some intervening posts. My comment was aimed at Sherwood who mentioned that there is a country (which one?) where you can't have a car if you don't have a parking space.
Not sure what the country is but probably Singapore or Hong Kong ( if it still qualifies as a country ).
Not sure about Sherwood but I am saying that parking in the road is OK as long as traafic can move freely in both directions. Parking on the pavement is not permitted.
Perhaps councils could gain extra funds by charging for road parking.If you think of cost of renting a garage in SE23 ( about eighty pound per month ) , free road parking is a big bonus.
Times have changed. In the 1920s and 30s there were very few cars. People walked and they pushed massive prams. Many roads were laid out very narrow with wide grass verges and adequate pavements. As cars increased people started parking on the grass verges which ended up being asphalted and added to the pavement. I see no reason why people shouldn't be authorised to park on those verges, in suitably marked boxes, so as to leave room for cars to park and pedestrians to push their buggies on the pavement. Like it or not, we now have far more cars and far fewer pedestrians - so long as there are pedestrian facilities, let's not unnecessarily obstruct cars. Certainly there are places where the pavement is not wide enough for parking - including parts of Devonshire Road and I would not advocate permitting their use. I'm actually very surprised that parking has been permitted on the pavement in parts of the hill in Honor Oak Park where the pedestrian width seems inadequate.
I know of no part of the pavement on Devonshire Road that is wider than the sections of Honor Oak Park where pavement parking is permitted. So why is it ok on Devonshire but not on HOP?
I'm not being anti-car here, I accept that residents need parking spaces. I just don't think that pavement space should be restricted to ease the passage of cars - this would seem to be running against the trend.
My own experiences of not being able to get a pushchair past parked cars on a DR pavement was with a pushchair. Not a Silver Cross pram, or somesuch, which one might envisage when you refer to "massive prams"
Like it or not, we now have far more cars and far fewer pedestrians - so long as there are pedestrian facilities, let's not unnecessarily obstruct cars.
This is not quite the case, is it? Surely every time a driver (or passenger) gets out of a car s/he becomes ... a pedestrian. Ultimately there must be more pedestrians than cars, no?
The point is, of course, striking the balance. In my view, the balance is out of kilter on Devonshire Road, where pedestrians are frequently obstructed and people with prams or mobility problems are significantly disadvantaged. There are too many cars being fitted into too small a space. Many suggestions have been made in these discussions. None comes without inconvenience to someone, but we might argue for a hierarchy of transport in order to weight the balance. Prams and people with mobility difficulties might be prioritised, and that becomes a starting point for the discussion. At the moment in DR they are not at all the priority.
Here's photo (night time, mobile phone, bad picture) of a car today parked right on a corner, across the dropped kerb for pedestrians.
I think that pedestrians, and residents, are currently the ones being obstructed.
I agree. I am sure the law says you cannot park near a corner. The example you show is quite usual and a disgrace.
They seem completely ignorant of the problems of blind people and others with mobility problems.
About time that parking places were marked and wardens booked the rest.
I think parking on pavement is a bad idea for Devonshire Rd, I live slap bang in the middle and don't think it is the same width all along the road - and there certainly isn't room for both modes of transport (feet and cars)
On Wednesday (refuse collection) the pavement is like an assault course - sometimes it actually makes me laugh with the contortions that are required to get past. I wouldn't be laughing with a mobility or sight issue or pram. You also have to duck under overhanging bushes, step over 'freeycycling' of various household items, wonder why that bush/tree was full of dolls heads and toys ....
I do wonder how the refuse collectors actually get the bins from the pavement to the lorry sometimes.
I've often thought the Forest Hill end should be one way, it is such a crowded bottle neck - but this would inconvenience residents and send the problem along someone elses street
Sorry to confuse this discussion with a few facts, but here goes!
The pavements in Devonshire Road are generally 2.3m wide. I haven't done a detailed survey but that is the width outside nos 46 and 59 at the Forest Hill end, and 312 and 255 at the HOP end. I also checked it in one place in the middle where it was also 2.3m.
By comparison, outside 121 Honor Oak Park, where pavement parking is permitted within the marked box, the pavement is 2.1m wide. Taking the box into account, 1.2m is left of the pavement. This may not quite be the narrowest bit of pavement, but it is certainly narrower than the vast majority of Devonshire Road.
lacb's reference to the TfL paper is interesting. Although this shows that there has been a marked increase in the proportion of journeys by public transport, the reference shows that the number of journeys using a car for part of the journey is virtually the same in 2007 as it was in 1993 (10.3m / day vs 10.6m - table 2.3). Although car journeys peaked at 11.1m in 1999, they were virtually constant from 2003-2007. The frightening thing is that the total number of journey stages has increased from 22.9 to 27.8 in the same period with most of the increase being taken up by public transport, not walking or cycling which remain very much minority modes of transport.
I'm not saying that marking the pavement will solve all the problems in Devonshire Road, but I think it would help if strictly enforced. It would stop stupid parking on corners and parking too far onto the pavements so as to obstruct pedestrians. It would also help on bin days when residents could put their bins on the edge of the pavement between the boxes leaving the inner part of the pavement clear for pedestrians.
I lived in DR from 85 to 08 and I believe that less than half of adults had a car.
Bearing in mind many of the buildings have multiple occupancy there is room for max 1.5 cars outside each house.
The pavement is not wide. Surely pedestrians are more important to the local economy than drivers. I never used my car for journeys within SE23 and assume most DR residents do the same.
Surely we have to price a lot of these vehicles of the road. I know it might sound brutal but maybe you should only own a car if you have a dedicated parking space. It will have to happen sooner or later , why not sooner.
London has chronic travel problems which, in my opinion, will only get worse as London's population continues to increase. We need to do whatever we can to make travel as easy as possible for everyone - and that includes pedestrians and car users. Stopping cars parking on the pavements will make Devonshire Road impassable by cars (as my Westwood Park anecdote demonstrates) - controlling parking on the pavement can help both pedestrians and car users. I have some sympathy with limiting car ownership in London but I think that is happening anyway with CPZs, limited parking in new developments and the congestion zone. But I don't think that just because you live in a multi-occupancy dwelling with no off road parking you should be automatically prevented from having a car. It might be absolutely essential to your livelihood.
Didn't really expect exact width as being relevant here but have just checked a couple of andrewr's measurements and am getting values that are up to 10cm different either way. So, without wanting to get into who has the better tape measuring skills, and one can't ignore bias in this, can we agree that the pavements are the same width +/- 20cm? :-)
On that basis, I still don't see why it would be appropriate to allow parking on the pavement of Devonshire Road whereas it isn't on Honor Oak Park.
On the rat run issue, I don't think there is a solution that will please everyone. I am wondering about the merits of just blocking the Forest Hill end. The evening rush seems to create the biggest nuisance that end and it is a dangerous junction anyway.
Hi lacb. Sorry but I can't let your comment go unchallenged! I'm an engineer by training and like to think that I made my measurements without bias! For the record, I did round to the nearest 10cm but found my measurements of the pavement in Devonshire Road to be no less than 227 cm wide whereas the one measurement I made in Honor Oak Park was bang on 210 cm.
I don't follow your comment about allowing parking on the pavement in DR but not in HOP. The whole point is that parking IS allowed on the pavement in HOP (on the left side going up the hill) even though, in at least some places, the pavement is narrower than that in DR. In practice pavement IS allowed on the pavement in DR even though it is not technically legal because people are not booked for it. My point is that it would be better if a proper survey was taken to determine where it should and should not be allowed and to mark the maximum distance cars should be allowed onto the pavement. Anyone flouting the markings should then be booked.
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