X Crossing

[Dave Cross]

If all you had to go by was today's press coverage (which seems to be largely reprinted from the official press release) then you might well find it easy to believe that Oxford Circus was the first place in London to get a diagonal crossing. You might even be convinced by the line that this new crossing was inspired by a similar crossing in Tokyo.

Those of us who live in Balham, however, won't be so easily convinced. We've been using the diagonal crossing in the centre of Balham for several years and know that the Mayor would have saved a good deal of time and money if he had looked to South West London for inspiration rather than East Asia.

Wandsworth councillor, James Cousins has been doing some digging and has records showing that the Bahlam crossing has been around for at least four years. Adam Bienkov has also covered this.

Perhaps Boris has never been to Balham and genuinely doesn't know about our crossing. But you'd expect that one of his advisors could have told him about it. It would have been nice for Balham to have got a small amount of publicity out of today's media blitz.

[Matthew Gunning]

Perhaps most importantly some mention of the Balham crossing would have made it less embarassing for the mayor.
Since this Oxford Circus crossing is today being touted as the "Most Brilliant Best New Bestest Amazing Thing in London TM Patent Pending c. Boris" (complete with flag-waving Japanese cartoon characters) people could be forgiven for assuming that the Oxford Circus project team were unaware of the Balham one and didn't research it, which if it were/is true would be/is farcical.

Plus, I think there's a sequencing problem with the Balham one anyway. You can easily wait five minutes for the man to turn green (I am pressing the button first, obviously. Not just waiting for a man to turn green).

[Ian Freeman]

They have changed the sequencing. Previously there was a pedestrian period between the High Road traffic stopping and the Station Road traffic starting. Now it's only every *other* time.

[Darran]

i nearly got run over yesterday crossing when i "know" the lights should have turned green but the traffic went green instead of the man going green on the crossing

[Ian Freeman]

See my post above yours!