On Sun, 06 Nov 2005 14:37:31 +0000, asdf wrote:

On Sun, 06 Nov 2005 11:43:22 +0000, David Bradley
wrote:

Building of architectural interest are eligible for listing by English
Heritage. Are any of the buildings you claim will be demolished so listed?
If not will you be making a listing application?

The text on the page mentions that none of these buildings are 'listed',
although it is felt that there is merit in retaining some of these heritage
buildings. Lots of other people may also believe this to be the case, so why
does it have to be me to make a listed application?

If you care so passionately about these interesting and important
examples of our architectural heritage that you think the transport
needs of everyone living in the entire Uxbridge Road corridor are
secondary to the preservation of these buildings, surely making an
application to have them listed would be a small sacrifice?

On the contrary it's you who thinks the transport AND OTHER needs of everyone
else living in, working in, visiting or having to pass through West London are
secondary to the desires of the minority who need to travel only along
Uxbridge Road (and who continue to be duped into believing that this street
tramway will improve their travel). ASs mentioned in an earlier posting,
making an application to have buildings listed in this locality is bound to
fail.

It is not proven to me that the same benefits that a tramway provides can not
be equally, and less destructively, be provided by a trolleybus scheme.

Why would the level of destruction differ between a tramway and a
trolleybus scheme?

Because the tramway scheme evidently requires this destruction to make it
work, otherwise TfL wouldn't be proposing it. The Lido junction widening is
'necessary' only to make room for a pair of reserved tramtracks and associated
segregation islands. This junction scheme will disadvantage nearly all other
road users, including: the remaining bus services which will have the existing
bus lanes on Uxbridge Road removed, and will have no right turn priority
(except for the E8 in the Ealing direction, but for which the benefit thereof
is likely to be outweighed by even shorter green signal time than now on the
Northfield Avenue approach to the junction. Pedestrians who will have fewer
and less direct crossing facilities than now; many travellers on the trams who
will have fewer stops than the current 207/427 buses the trams will replace,
and will therefore have to walk further to access the service.

The trams will in any case derive little if any benefit from the priority at
the junction itself since they will be stuck in the consequently lengthened
queues of othe traffic, including buses, on the shared running sections away
from the junction.

A trolleybus system does NOT need this destructive and largely self-defeating
road widening, and would integrate much better with the remaining bus services
(many if not all of which could justify conversion to trolley routes in any
case, with some of the vast amount of money saved by dropping the tram scheme)
and other traffic. Trolleybuses will be silent, vibration-free and
pollution-free while stationary in the traffic queues which are inevitable at
this location as elsewhere on Uxbridge Road and the rest of West London's road
network, and therefore a considerable improvement in journey quality over
diesel buses, and unlike trams will be able to steer round parked vehicles and
other obstructions, or go off-route under battery power in the event of more
serious disruption on the route.

David Bradley