A traffic light at the Putney Bridge junction has been bent flat across the bike path, folded almost double by whatever hit it. It now sits cordoned off with three traffic cones and a strip of hazard tape.
Nobody knows for certain what hit it. But look at the thing: bent in one clean direction, with the kind of force that only a car, van or lorry moving at speed could achieve. There’s no suggestion anyone was hurt, and we’re not aware of the collision being reported to police. The pole itself is the only witness so far.
It is also possibly the single most effective piece of infrastructure improvement this junction has seen all year. If the traffic light on the other side also fell over, it would give cars an extra 30 feet and two lanes rather than a vast cycling wait space that’s never used.
Meanwhile a few hundred metres up the road outside TK Maxx, a more official but much slower improvement is going on. Workers have finally started digging up the pavement at Bus Stop M, a year after the phone box that used to occupy the layby was carted away. TfL’s own live disruption listings confirm it: lane restrictions at the Putney High Street junction with Felsham Road, in place since Tuesday and running through to 11 September.
It’s the next stage of the bus stop inset works, and follows what looked like removal of two sets of streetlights to clear room for it – but while the lights are still there, large chunks of pavement no longer are. Passengers who’d normally hop on at Stop M will need to walk a few minutes up the road to the stops on Putney Bridge instea – past the broken traffic light.
It’s all part of the wider junction saga in which a stray vehicle on a single afternoon has done more to the signals than the council and TfL have managed in the course of a year. The two are still trying to agree on new light timings that would buy the junction a few more seconds of green per cycle. Let’s see if any lights are left to put new chips into by the time they agree.
The bus stop dig is real, hard-won progress. The traffic light is a reminder of how little else has moved. We will update if the light goes back up quickly, or if there’s any more drama at this end of the High Street before the works are done.
I have been cycling over Putney Bridge for decades and most definitely value the additional cycle space – and other improvements which have transformed the experience from terrifying to only mildly alarming as cyclist merge with the traffic surging from behind.
It is not the case to state the cycle lane is “never used”, as a pedestrian I have often seen the lane employed by both cyclists and mopeds.