A wander to Watney Market

A wander to Watney Market Idea Store and round Wapping.

@Potof set off to get her haircut so we could be haircut buddies, as I had had my long curls shed for the summer, so left unattended, I slipped out the backdoor to go on an adventure and visit the new library at Watney Market. Of course this being Tower Hamlets, it's not actually a library but an 'Idea Store'. I'm not sure what the difference between a library and an Idea Store, other than having a stain proof rubberised floor, but I am a grumpy old fart.

Setting off I came alongside Shadwell Basin where a couple of dinghies were tacking, trying to catch the non-existent breeze, the stifling heat forcing the mallards to nap on the dockside.

Shadwell Basin

Walking into Wapping Woods, I was thinking about what a ridiculous name it is for an infilled dock with only a handful of semi-mature trees. However, what entered the Woods next made me wonder if perhaps it could get an upgrade to forest status. Sherwood Forest Status.

Wapping Woods

In strolled Friar Tuck, or at least the closest possible modern embodiment. However, I only had wide lenses with me, so no chance of a better shot. As I started to move closer, I hoped to catch the interaction of the friar with a group of builders, but unfortunately it was at this point a local resident decided to accuse me of taking photos of her children. Despite her children not being visible from the footpath I stood on, my presence with a camera was sufficient to accuse me of being some form of predatory paedophile.

In a surreal twist, when I explained that I was on a walk to take some photos, and particularly when I gave her Staffordshire Bull Terrier a stroke, her attitude changed, and told me she once watched a documentary on photography and went on her way.

One can understand why early pioneers of photography began to come up with various techniques of disguising the fact they were taking photos.

Friar Tuck

Shadwell DLR viaduct

Onion seller, Shadwell sur Seine

So, across The Highway I went, in search of knowledge, or at least knowledge of the Idea Store. Shadwell, or more specifically Watney Market, was busy as ever for a Saturday afternoon, with the market jam packed with ladies browsing the various wares on offer.

The view towards the City

I eventually made it to the Idea Store. The ground floor was very busy, or at least there were lots of people sat around waiting - there is a 'One Stop Shop' on the ground floor, but signs were up saying it was closed, so I'm not sure if its popularity is due entirely to the presence of seating.

Upstairs, on the second floor, where the adult books are located, there are two areas of comfy chairs at each of the corners overlooking Commercial Road, and a number of tables. Whilst these were all empty, a row of computers was fully occupied.

The view West

Idea Store study area, second floor

View East: Watnery Market

The range of books appeared to focus on having multiple titles by best-selling authors. There was a reasonable selection, but if one were to choose a book at random, it would likely be a James Patterson, Tom Clancy or Patricia Cornwall. Adult fiction was in at least two sections (in that the alphabetical order was discrete from the other section), but I couldn't work out why. I didn't see any shelves with labels on as to what was what. In the non-fiction this means that unless you have looked up a particular book in the catalogue, or know the numbering system by rote, finding books on a topic might be a bit of an arse. I didn't see if there was a list of the cataloguing codes. When I found what appeared to be the local/family history there appeared to be a dearth of books on the area, though there were a reasonable number on London generally.

The heavily browsed book section

The stairs of lime

My return through the market was even more traumatic, as I made the mistake of going in Iceland to see what flavours of icecream they sold, only to discover myself trapped between queues, which took some time to extricate myself from.

Watney Market

Every type of pest control can be purchased on the market

Shadwell Fire Station responds to a call out

Open your eyes, on the wall of the East London Line Cutting

By this point @potoft had finished the periodic interrogation that comes as an added bonus with any haircut, with the questioning playing out somewhat like Larry Olivier in Marathon Man, except rather than questions about diamonds it tends to be around alleged disloyalty as a customer or how @potoft has become a failure as a human being for not having fortnightly feathering. Customer service eh?

We pottered down to the docks for a coffee and a sandwich from our chums @whitemulberries before picking up a couple of whole lobsters from 'Little Whitstable' which I am trying to shop from in the hope they are able to maintain a presence in the docks.

Walking our Lobsters home down Wapping High Street, we discovered an impromptu Caribbean party in the infilled lock in between the two northern rows of houses at Pier Head. I couldn't be bothered walking round to ask what was going on, so it will forever remain a mystery.

West Indies Day, Pier Head

A little further on, walking behind our local chat show host, it was clear today was party day, both in houses and in gardens and parks, with curious tree hangings in the Rose Gardens, a branch of Hogwarts on Scandrett Street and the fete at St Peters School.

Hogwarts party

Having dropped the lobsters at home I then headed out again to have a look at the planning consultation event at 'London Docks'.

St George in the East and poppies

Pennington Street

I had an interesting chat with a couple of members of St George plc's staff. My overriding concern from having actually sat down and read a chunk of the 249 planning documents was about the height of the tower and how it affects the skyline.

From the developers perspective they see it as being a landmark for 'London Docks' to pull people to the site. I can appreciate their desire for this, but in practice will anyone associate the tower with 'London Docks'; is there going to be anything that anyone would be tempted to walk towards when they see Sauron's tower in the distance. If it's to aid navigation for people coming to the site, why not just get Apple and Bing maps to update their content, as almost everyone can navigate by smartphone.

The view East from St Kat Docks

The view from the South

The view from London Bridge(ish)

The view from the South East(ish)

On my way home, I passed through the Woods once more, and I was reminded how fortunate we are to have a few patches of wilderness to appreciate.

Wapping Woods Wild Flowers

Cootling in attempted flight

The ongoing conundrum of Whitechapel Station Ticket Office Closure

In my previous post I had concluded that I was unable to make my mind up about the relative merits of increasing physical accessibility against the potential loss of usability for some passengers. The whole thing is bugging me, as I like to have a bit of certainty. So I decided to think around the problem. I had concluded that there wasn't any public announcement about the loss of the ticket hall.

I confess however, I was wrong; I admit my faults.

I like to promote the view I am generally right about something; that is until I decide I am right that I am wrong. I also like a good Sherlock Holmes reference. So, think of my first post as being an erroneous conclusion by Dr Watson and this to be (I hope) the masterly analysis of Holmes. The situation can be summarised neatly with a quote from 'A Scandal in Bohemia'. 'Watson' writes:

“When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning, I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”

“Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”

“Frequently.”

“How often?”

“Well, some hundreds of times.”

“Then how many are there?”

“How many? I don't know.”

“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”

June 2010 CAD rendering

In my original post I saw a familiar blue band above a glass window by the ticket barrier and assumed it to be a ticket office. However, if you look more closely however, you can see that the window is actually the wrong side of the ticket barrier, suggesting it isn't a ticket office. What is particularly confusing is the strip of glass coming from the left most barrier - it's not clear why it's there, but is suggestive of accessing the window. What's interesting though is that this graphic was on the internet since at least 2010, as you can see from a June 2010 post on London Reconnections.

In my last post I said there wasn't any public information on the station redesign. Now, I haven't been able to find any official announcements, but I have been thinking laterally about this, and instead headed to Tower Hamlets' planning application database, where I could examine what was officially submitted to see if I could compare and contrast.

May 2011 Rendering

In a planning application (PA/11/01215) submitted on May 16 2011 and approved 12 October 2011, there is a document called 'Environmental Statement - Non technical summary. In that document is the second picture on the page. You'll note the design is different note the style of the roof- not surprising, given a year had passed and this new picture was within the planning application. What is perhaps more surprising is the window with the blue above it...can I spy some words - yes, 'tickets and assistance'. Now the ticket window is clearly accessible from people before accessing the ticket barrier. So, if TfL has removed the ticket office, it is only after re-introducing it.

Paragraph 5.8 delegated report

The delegated report by the planning officer certainly thinks that there would be a ticket office. It states that the 'internal layout of the ticket halll will provide ...the necessary ticket office and other back office facilities. A single gate line of 10 gates...has been allowed for'. So it was sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion in the description of the station.

Section of architectural plans 2011

This interpretation isn't just based on a pretty drawing - the ticket office and even the ticket barriers are actually included on the architectural plans.

Similarly, the cross section of the station shows the  ticket office and barriers.

Cross section 2011 showing ticket office

So, if the ticket office has been sacrificed for a lift, where does the lift go from and to? What I find slightly odd is that the ticket office in the new station is/was proposed to be immediately above the westbound District/Hammersmith and City Line tracks, so the lift can't be where the ticket office is, which suggests there may need to be a significant reworking of the station.

If the lift was installed closer to the station entrance, that would require a long deep lift shaft, with a very long tunnel, just for wheelchair users, which might not be the most cost effective approach. I've illustrated this on the cross sectional diagram in red.

Necessary lift shaft configurations
based on ticket office location

Additionally, the closer to the entrance the lift is, the closer to the entrance the ticket barriers need to be, as otherwise you could just pop in the lift and avoid paying. So either the lift won't be where the ticket office is, but is displacing something else into its place or, there is something very odd going on.

One final note on this whole conundrum is that on the Crossrail site is that the page showing station designs dating from January 2013...shows the original 2010 design! I will see if TfL comes back on my queries and see if the riddle of Whitechapel Station can be solved.

UPDATE: TfL confirm the lift will connect to the district line platform, so will not be where the ticket office was proposed to be. There is still no news on providing revised plans to the public.

Screen grab of link to page with station designs

Screen grab of the link to the
Whitechapel Station designs

Close-up of proposed buildings 2011

2011 plan showing tunnels and shafts

Axiomatic drawing of tunnels and lines

Whitechapel Ticket Office Closure

A bit of digging into the closure of Whitechapel ticket office

Ticket gates at Whitechapel - ticket office to left

A week or so ago, I happened to see a reference to the closure of the ticket office at Whitechapel. Interested I tried to find some information. I couldn't find anything on TfL's website, Crossrail's website had the same artist/architect designs as on the District Line platform at Whitechapel, which clearly show a ticket office, which you can see in the picture on this page.

Then I wondered if this was going to be like Wapping, where there is a physical ticket office, but just isn't open. I then found a petition, which didn't really say much more. What it did tell me is that economy of speech may make for a stronger point in expressing a view. The petition is organised by the RMT union.

Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary is quoted as saying:

"RMT is in no doubt that if the Whitechapel ticket office is axed it will open the floodgates to a surge of closures in the drive to de-staffing which will turn the Undergound into a criminals paradise and leave passengers who need support and advice stranded."

Whilst Bob Crow's emulation of Coolio's theme to Dangerous Minds has me a little worried, such a public display of mixed metaphors has me in cold sweats. To make things worse the press release goes on to use the phrase 'en masse' (which I have been known to employ) published sans 'e' (see what I did there) that makes me feel that the proletariat is getting all nouveau riche (and again) on me.

Having regained my composure from reading pretentious press releases, I was keen to find out where TfL have 'announced' this closure. I contacted the author of the petition on twitter and I was told that the 'plans do not show a ticket office'. I asked twice for a link or source, but to no avail. I again tried searching TfLs website, I searched Crossrail's website, I used google on both sites to filter any reference to Whitechapel in the last six months, all to no joy.

So I thought I'd contact the Crossrail press team (and as a backup plan submitted an FOI request), not expecting to get a reply. However, a day or so later, I got a reply from TfL: Crossrail had passed it on as it was a question on operations, and the station will be operated by TfL.

Thus came the reply:

"As you know, works at the station have already begun, and the current ticket office will be demolished in July next year. At that point we’ll open a temporary ticket hall while works are going on, and that will not have a ticket office. Last year we shared with trade union representatives our plans for the ticket hall which allow us to put another lift into the ticket hall area by not replacing the current ticket hall."

(I assume the last word should read 'office' and not 'hall'.)

TfL also likes a sound bite and for the sake of balance:

Gareth Powell, Director of Strategy and Service Development for London Underground, said:

“London Underground continues to carry more passengers, more reliably and safely than ever before. As we have always made clear, we remain committed to staffing all stations across the Tube network, with visible assistance for customers where they need it most.

“Where we are redeveloping a station we seek to make the best possible use of space, and in some cases this could mean redeveloping a station with increased ticketing technology rather than a replacement ticket office. Our plans for Whitechapel, which will increase station capacity with the arrival of Crossrail and enable us to improve accessibility by providing another lift in the ticket hall area, were shared with trade unions last year. We will continue to discuss changes to ticketing technology on the railway and the huge modernisation of the Tube with our staff."

I've asked if it's possible to get any extracts of the revised station plans to see how it'll look. I've got copies of the originals, so would be interesting to see how the changes affect matters.

As a follow-up question I asked:

Given that there will be 3 lines (2x sub surface, overground and crossrail) - is TfL able at this stage to provide assurance that there will be staff to assist with ticketing?

And pretty quick I got a reply.

"In terms of the assurance that staff will be on hand to assist with ticketing: yes, 100 per cent. Our whole position is based on the fact that customers have voted with their feet over the last six or seven years and now increasingly choose to buy their tickets online or from machines as the most convenient and quickest option, and the aim is to improve that process. To do that we need to make buying tickets simpler for people who want or need to buy travel or resolve issues at stations, and we have to equip our staff better to deal with problems. Underpinning that for us are two core propositions - that we’ll always have staff at stations across the network, and that we’ll use the staff we have in the way that makes them the most use to the most amount of people. That means they should be out and about in the ticket hall and platform areas where they can help people, not stuck behind a window."

Now the question is - is having the staff in an office better than having them assisting at ticket machines? I've asked about the functionality of the ticket machines for things like purchasing national rail tickets and I'm awaiting a reply. I can't help but worry that staff will get dragged away from the ticket machines to just man the barrier, but at the same time, if the station will be more accessible, that must be a better thing, but how do you weight the relative benefits?

I haven't decided what my opinion is yet, and I've got some queries outstanding, but at least TfL are open about it all.

Things you can learn from Freedom of Information

 Reading the Tower Hamlets FOI database one suddenly realises the massive range of issues that concern people. Having a look through the requests, I discovered the following random facts:

• There are 19, increasing to 21 lollipop people (officially known as crossing patrol staff). (request is here)
• The highest claim for housing benefit is £709 a week for an individual with three dependents (request is here)
• In 2011/12 10,784 households owed £2.8m in Council Tax to LBTH (request is here)
• Allowances paid to LBTH Councillors were £512k, with another £312k of special responsibility allowances including the Mayor's salary (request is here)
• LBTH does not own any property in Colchester (request is here)
• In 2011-12 the council prosecuted Council Tax and Housing Benefit fraudsters for the value of £617k (request is here)
• The number of prosecutions by Tower Hamlets trading standards has fallen by 90 per cent from 186 to 19 from 2008 to 2012 (request is here)
• Lutfur Rahman made no expense claims between 2010 and 2012 (request is here)
• The average weekly rent for a 2 bed council property is £100 (request is here)
• The Council made appointments to deal with 4,501  pest infestations (request is here)
• 3,000 families were expected to be affected by the 'bedroom tax' (request is here)

Time for an infographic me thinks!

UPDATED with photo: Comment on planning application for King Henry's Wharf, Phoenix Wharf and 'Landside'

The following is my response to the planning application for the proposed new block of flats and conversion of two warehouses on Wapping High Street. You can view the application here. There are a few typos, as I rushed to send a response off as I thought I had missed the deadline.
UPDATE: LoveWapping has kindly given me a photo of pedestrians trying to use the southern footpath.

Broadly, I support the development, but I have significant outstanding concerns.

My views on the design of the building are included in the community consultation responses. My response is page 22 of 25 of part 2, submitted as an email on 10 April. My concerns about the landside development windows remain, particularly the windows on the eastern side/south eastern corner, which are not in keeping with the other buildings in the area. I wish that submission to be considered in conjunction with my review below of the additional documents included with the application.
If I need to resubmit these views formally, please let me know.

Logistics

Footways

I understand and accept the need to close footways during the erection of scaffolding. However I have concerns on a temporary but unspecified impact on pedestrians.

Drawings 12/0911/SK02 and 12/0911/SK03 in Appendix B of the Construction logistics plan show the logical fact that if one pavement is closed for the erection of scaffolding, the other must be used.

However, there is a fundamental issue with the proposal and that is that footpaths at this point on Wapping High Street, by Phoenix Wharf are much narrower than elsewhere. The southern footway is not an adequate pavement. I have not had opportunity to measure it with a tape measure, but it is narrow. Outside of Phoenix Wharf the pavement is barely broad enough for a single pedestrian to walk along this is evident from photos in the Conservation plan document and also Google Streetview, where a pedestrian can be seen walking by Phoenix Wharf. The diagram indicates a width of around 60cm but is narrower in places, is not continuous, nor does it have any dropped kerbs. What this means in practice is that a) the disabled or those with buggies and b) pedestrians walking in opposite directions will be forced into the carriage way. However, the carriageway is laid with setts and may not be suitable for wheelchairs and buggies to travel over.

In approving the application, the Council should consider whether there are appropriate safeguards for pedestrians and request information on how long scaffolding will take to erect.

Impact on road users

In the Transport plan, it is stated that the 100 bus travels down Wapping High Street every 10 minutes, in fact the frequency of the bus is every 6-8 minutes during the week, 7am-7pm (source: TfL website). The Logistics Plan states that for two years there will be between 3 and 16 lorry movements daily. Using the schedule, I calculate this to be, on average, approximately 9.5 per day (including the Christmas period). The described activities are:

• Delivery & subsequent removal of scaffolding, plant and equipment to site;
• Muck-away (tipper) vehicles for the removal of excavated / demolished materials;
• Ready-mix concrete deliveries for new-build construction;
• Deliveries of formwork, reinforced steel, timber, brickwork, decking, roofing and fitting / fixtures;
• Delivery and subsequent removal of gantry crane, chutes and hoists.

If one were to assume each loading/unloading takes twenty minutes, this is over three hours of closure of Wapping High Street, per day for two years.

There would therefore for each of these lorry movement be 2 or 3 buses prevented from travelling down Wapping High Street in each direction, or 4-6 in total. Across the course of a day, this would be 40-60 buses affected. Even if my assumption of 20 minutes is overly pessimistic, a ten minute delivery/pickup would still potentially affect 20-30 buses per day.

Whilst local traffic might be usefully diverted down Green Bank, I would be interested if TfL have a view on whether Green Bank is suited to buses travelling down it, and whether two buses could pass each other on the road and whether the buses could successfully make the two turns from Green Bank to Scandrett Street to Wapping High Street and vice versa. Furthermore for the duration of any delivery, individuals at waiting at affected bus stops would not necessarily be aware of the additional delay. It appears to me logical that to allow these bus movements, parking restrictions would need to be enforced and residents provided with additional parking facilities.

The Council should consider if this disruption is proportionate.

Summary

I welcome the application and the proposals, but have some concerns about the landside building's windows. However, at present there is insufficient information and consideration in the planning application on logistical grounds to justify allowing it, particularly given the impact on the disabled, those with young children, the elderly and those dependent on bus services.

I do not believe Councillors should permit the application without visiting the site and receiving example fixtures, fittings and finishes such as window frames and balcony metalwork. These should not be left for subsequent approval of a condition of approving the application. Under no circumstances should the application be approved without the developer addressing concerns about logistics.

Crime on public transport in London

Another day, another dataset.

Today's data is crime rates on the TfL transport network.

The data whilst published as one dataset is derived from two different sources -British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police. The Met are responsible for bus related crime and BTP for rail (heavy and light, over and underground). The Met doesn't have  a category for bus crime, rather it runs various searches on crime reports for certain words, namely bus and bus stop, so may under or overstate 'bus' crime.

As with most crime data, we have the absolute number of crimes reported and the crime rate. The crime rate is expressed as number of crimes per million passenger journeys, so is not comparable to standard crime rates of 'crimes per thousand residents' which I refer to elsewhere.

I should also caveat that these figures are for ALL crimes, so in comparing the crime rate, we might find equal levels of crime on the bus and tube, but if all of the bus crime is theft whilst all tube crime is murder - I know I'd rather be on the bus, but from this data I wouldn't be able to make that call.

So, where to begin? I will be answering the following questions:

• Has the overall level of crime changed across the network?
• Has the crime rate changed across the network?
• Which mode of transport is the safest?
• Is my journey getting safer, more dangerous or the same?
• Does the number of crimes increase with the number of journeys made?

Q: Has the level of crime changed across the network? A: Yes, the number of reported crimes has dropped.

There was 11.6 per cent reduction in reported crimes on all forms of transport in March 2013 compared to April 2009 with the number of crimes reported in those months falling from 3,341 to 2,953. Annually (financial year) the number of crimes reported has fallen from  40,570 to 34,510, or a 15 per cent reduction.

Q: Has the crime rate changed? A: Yes, the number of reported crimes compared to the number of journeys has dropped.

Because there were changes to the integration of the Overground and measurement of journeys, the number of journeys for the Overground isn't available pre 2011 and a crime rate can't be calculated. In looking at the overall rate I have excluded overground crime pre April 2011, but included it for periods we do have.

Looking at the change in rate from April 2009 to March 2013, the rate fell from 12.1 crimes per million journeys to 9.1 per million journeys, a fall in the rate of nearly a quarter (24.5 per cent). If we exclude the overground completely, the reduction is slightly smaller 23.4 per cent.

Q: Which mode of transport is the safest?  A: Overground

Comparing crime rates at three points we can see that the Overground looks to be safest with a substantially lower crime rate.

However, these are for invidual months. Looking at all of 2012/13 the rates are:

You can see the danger of using point measures of crime, as as we will see there is significant fluctuation in crimes, particularly on the Tramlink. However, because of the fewer journeys on both Overground and Tramlink, any fluctuation in the number of crimes affects the crime rate more.

Is my journey getting safer, more dangerous or the same? A: Most likely safer but depends

Looking at the number of reported crimes, there is a reasonably steady reduction in the number of crimes reported relative to the number of journeys. However, Tramlink is very erratic, but demonstrates an overall downward trend. The Overground experienced one large spike, but otherwise shows little evidence of a trend.

Calculating the crime rate over a rolling, three month period, suggests a marginal downward trend, but not conclusively. However, the Overground was the mode of transport with the lowest crime rate and as noted above, as significantly fewe people make journeys on it more susceptible to spikes.

Q: Does the number of crimes increase with the number of journeys made? A: Sort of yes. Sort of no. But probably yes

If one plots the number of crimes (y axis) against the number of journeys (x axis) for each of the four modes of transport, you basically get a cluster of points which shows relatively little evidence of correlation, with the exception of the Overground, where there is a decent relationship, driven in part by the relatively sharp rise in the number of journeys.

In part we have a problem that we know that the rate of crime is decreasing, even though the number of journeys are increasing, which is a result of both a) more journeys and b) less crime. Surely then, crime decreases with increased journeys? Well no. If you plot the data points for all four modes as a single series, what you get is an R square value of 0.96 - showing an incredibly strong link between the two.

In the chart below, you can see this relationship. In part, this apparant contradiction is because there is a certain degree of steadiness - neither crime nor journeys are that variable over a relatively short period.






So I bunged the numbers into a regression. Each month was coded 1-48 (April 2009 was 1, March 2013 48), so that I could control for changes due to reduction in crime as a factor of time.

The results of the regression are striking- R square of 0.99 and all of the p-values are very very low, suggesting the probability of a relationship being random for all variables unlikely. So, we know that crime is definitely going down with time (negative coefficient), but also increases with the number of journeys (positive coefficient) , and the resultant crime rates are affected by both factors.