Yesterday a traffic jam and gridlock was caused by the Blackwall Tunnel into Kent & two lanes of the A13 into Essex being closed simultaneously.
Last night a friend and I had an enjoyable and pleasant evening out in east London watching the band Dreadzone. My friend had decided to drive and very surprisingly we found a parking space close to the Cargo Club in Rivington Street. Everything was going well until I offered to pay the parking meter.
Can you believe it was £4 per hour to park in a backstreet at 8.30pm? Furthermore, it didn’t take bank notes! We only had £8 of change which meant we had to miss the end of the gig to get back to the car in case some evil bastard had clamped it.
If that didn’t make me grumpy enough, as we started on our trip home to Kent, a journey that should only take approximately 30 minutes at that time of day, the Sat Nav told us to make a detour as the road ahead two miles was closed. A detour still brought us close to the Blackwell Tunnel which was closed. Great! We have to take the A13 into Essex and across the Dartford Bridge toll to get home.
That wouldn’t have been so bad, but we immediately joined the very end of a traffic jam that was gridlocked, caused by two of three lanes on the A13 being closed for no other reason than road traffic cones had been placed across the road. There was no sign of any road works or workers!
Traffic in and out of London is a nightmare during the day but is bearable during the night. But don’t you think it would have been wise and simple enough for someone to authorise postponing the road works on the A13 until the Blackwell Tunnel re-opened? Maybe the road workers would have been quite happy having another cup of tea or two or lazing around somewhere instead of getting on with their job.
Common sense should dictate and be used in times like these. Why are so many people in the public sector who are given responsibility and authority not able to do a reasonable job?
9 comments so far
1 john // Apr 29, 2010 at 11:11 am
perhaps if the management were competent enough to manage the job properly it would result in redundancies for the less competent work force.
Having been away from the UK for a few years, living in an EU country where parking fees are frowned upon, I am amazed at the cost of parking a car, not just in London but also in the suburbs. An absolutely disgusting tax on car owners!
2 Les // Apr 29, 2010 at 11:38 am
It’s typical of nationwide mismanagement…the things that shouldn’t be centralised (community management and services that are specific to the make up of each region) are…but then when it comes to roads which, let’s face it, don’t really have too many regional differences, the benefits of centralised, shared knowledge disappears, like public money in the cracks of the country’s crumbling infrastructure
3 james // Apr 29, 2010 at 11:38 am
Parking in London is so expensive, with the congestion charge, and meters that charge per 1/4 of an hour is it not a better idea to use public transport? Although I do sympathise for busiensses losing out to ‘out of town centres’ for example – Parking up in the west end used to be free, Westminster council’s idea to charge for parking in the borough has directly impacted on business in the area! I’ve given in and don’t ever drive anymore. P.S. The cargo club (Shoreditch) is usually a pretty good night out, you enjoy it (what you saw of it)?
4 Edward Mugits // Apr 29, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Disgusting as it may seem, it’s a far cry from what issues we have here in New York City and Phoenix . It’s not uncommon to have one detour lead to another detour and in Phoenix, that last detour may lead to a block party.
Paid parking, if you can even find it in the city is up to $50.00 a day, but, you get Sunday for free.
Mates, we have “Snow Birds” in Phoenix, every retired person from the Snow belt comes down to Phoenix, most of them in their late 70’s and these people cause more bottle necks and jams than any other thing the road maintenance crews do.
Snow Birds bring a lot of money down here, and there are toll charges all along the in-bound roads from the snow belt to the sun belt. In some impoverished towns the rates are seasonally adjusted, those out-bound tolls are doubled during November and December and the In-Bound is doubled in February through March.
Grumpy drivers in the U.S are usually armed and speak with sign language, that middle finger is well used here.
Jams and detours, Tolls and Parking Fees, Grumpy people need grumpy things to stay grumpy, come on over and grump out here.
5 Joy // Apr 29, 2010 at 8:33 pm
It is a fact that the UK does not breed quality Managers! Unfortunately, it is always down to communication break down between departments.
You would think with the endless meetings local authorities attended, they would invite each department in to ensure that these traffic issues did not arise! Dare I say, we need more women managers, because we have larger communication areas of the brain….and as you men often say, we don’t stop talking!! =)
6 Martyn Regan // Apr 30, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Its all done to mis-management, and we the voters are at fault, voting in people who in this day and age have not a shred of experience in the positions they are getting us to vote for them, lets make most of the positions applied for more like a proper job interview or at very least take on the professional services of a recruitment agency to vet the applicant to see if they are competent in the role instead of a good convincing waffler
7 Deanna Hatfield // May 4, 2010 at 9:26 pm
There is nothing worse driving in traffic! I don’t care if I live 30 miles from work, as long as I don’t have to drive in traffic I will drive it. I am typically a very calm easy going person, but traffic on the other hand get’s my feathers in a ruffle!
8 Lord Balham // May 10, 2010 at 5:48 pm
So, your trip into the metropolis didn’t turn out as planned then? More expensive to park in London than the usual 3 bales of hay you incur when leaving your horse and cart outside the local post office eh?
Such are daily travails of the 21st century city dweller. This is London not Balamory. Traffic jams are not the result of some public sector conspiracy – they are merely one symptom of the Malthusian dystopia whose beginning is only just making itself manifest. In 10 years time your flirtation with traffic cones on the A13 will be as nothing compared to the continual, relentless but glacial flow of automobiles around Britains arterial roads. Like the slowly ceasing flow of blood in the veins of our country.
Whilst I understand your reservations about having to venture into Essex on the way back to your hamlet, you’ve nothing to fear from the Dartford Bridge – there’s no troll waiting underneath it. On the other hand, I would advise that you keep your SatNav hidden whilst you’re at home – they’ll have you burnt as a witch if they catch you with one of those.
Might I suggest that the next time you consider leaving your bucolic idyll for a trip to a more urban locale, you reconsider and instead spend the evening trying to rake the moons reflection off a duckpond or read something by J.G. Ballard.
9 W Fisher // May 11, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Was the condescending tone of the previous correspondent a ploy to provoke a reaction?