Brixton Liveable Neighbourhood and LTN schemes - improvements for pedestrians and cyclists

[Jimbeau]

Today's Graun cites that Telegraph piece.

How a myth about London bike lanes and congestion took off

Analysis: delving into news stories linking congestion with cycle lanes shows how troubling myths can escape into the wild

www.theguardian.com

 

[editor]

Lambeth LTN update Lambeth Council to spend close to £1M to make Railton and Stockwell Low Traffic Neighbourhoods permanent by the end of the year

 

[sleaterkinney]

Lambeth LTN update Lambeth Council to spend close to £1M to make Railton and Stockwell Low Traffic Neighbourhoods permanent by the end of the year

We’ll make it up in fines.

 

[Cat Fan]

We’ll make it up in fines.

That's the secret of LTNs, self funding! Councils have about as much money to throw around as TFL right now, no?

 

[Not a Vet]

It will be interesting to see future consultation results as the antis are convinced that they lost many responses as they’d all answered the same way in the free text boxes. Now they are still instructing how to complete it (I don’t know why they don’t just let people put what they want) but with a cunning twist, inserting their own name. This should make it unique. TBH, I’m cool with that, it shouldn’t be a forgone conclusion. Whether it changes the end result (Southwark buried their bad news in the appendices) remains to be seen

 

[Cat Fan]

Appreciate there is a certain QAnon quality to OneLambeth etc - but here is the voice of a veteran Lambeth public transport campaigner.
You may have him to thank for the Clapham High Street overground station.

I think he has a really good point. It's the lack of equity that worries me the most about LTNs as well.

It clearly divides into haves and have nots, and people on Twitter aren't particularly nice about it either, saying people living on boundary roads are asking to be mired in pollution.

 

[Winot]

I think he has a really good point. It's the lack of equity that worries me the most about LTNs as well.

It clearly divides into haves and have nots, and people on Twitter aren't particularly nice about it either, saying people living on boundary roads are asking to be mired in pollution.

It doesn’t. They don’t.

 

[liquidindian]

saying people living on boundary roads are asking to be mired in pollution.

I suspect what they're actually saying is that main roads are where cars "should be" rather than taking the shortcuts their satnavs direct them down to save them a few seconds. It's easy to twist this into saying something else.

 

[edcraw]

What’s the answer to this except restricting minor roads to through traffic?

 

[Cat Fan]

What’s the answer to this except restricting minor roads to through traffic?

A number of alternative measures are suggested in the article and below the line. For example road pricing, better enforcement of speed limits, traffic calming measures or building more cycle lanes.

I'd personally like to see more radical measures like a ULEZ++ and perhaps restricting parking permits to no more than two per household.

The guy you are linking to has a point though? LTNs are like islands, they aren't joined up. Therefore they are pretty poor at encouraging active travel, vs. a segregated cycleway for example. We need to learn better lessons from what's done in countries like the Netherlands and Sweden.

 

[sleaterkinney]

LTNs were only ever part of the solution, not the solution itself.

 

[teuchter]

LTNs are like islands, they aren't joined up. Therefore they are pretty poor at encouraging active travel, vs. a segregated cycleway for example. We need to learn better lessons from what's done in countries like the Netherlands and Sweden.

For the past several years TfL policy has been pretty much what you describe - a mixture of measures including segregated cycleways, reduction in speed limits, traffic calming, redesign of junctions, expansion of ULEZ and so on. No-one in favour of LTNs thinks they are the solution to everything, nor do they need to learn lessons from other countries. These lessons have been learnt and well known for many years. What stops these things from happening is the resistance that is faced when an implementation of any of these things is attempted. Whether it's a segregated cycleway or speed limits or the ULEZ there will be people popping up to explain why some other thing should be done instead. And this is also why some of the new LTNs are "islands". It's not because those promoting them want that - they want it to be a policy applied to the whole of the city - but achieving that is very difficult in the face of all the resistance. It seems the best we can hope for at the moment are these small steps towards something a bit less bad than the status quo, and perhaps the bits in between the islands can gradually get filled in.

 

[liquidindian]

We need to learn better lessons from what's done in countries like the Netherlands

Okay we can call a modal filter a knip.

 

[thebackrow]

better enforcement of speed limits, traffic calming measures

On the first - how? fixed cameras don't work - go look at the one on Acre Lane and see nearly every driver brake hard then accelerate when past it.
Traffic calming seems to have comprehensively failed - I'm pretty sure every street in the Ferndale and Railton areas is already lined with speedhumps and Railton Road had 'chicanes'. Where do you think traffic calming is missing and what sort would you install?

I'd personally like to see more radical measures like a ULEZ++ and perhaps restricting parking permits to no more than two per household.

A bigger ULEZ or tighter regulations?

Last Census showed
130k households in Lambeth


"no more than two permits per household" really isn't going to have a noticeable impact - and still doesn't stop anyone with off street parking having on street as well.

We need to learn better lessons from what's done in countries like the Netherlands and Sweden.

by creating LTNs? Making a 1960s street grid fit for the 21st century

 

[CH1]

Here is the voice of a veteran Lambeth public transport campaigner.
You may have him to thank for the Clapham High Street overground station.

Literally here is the voice - John Stewart discusses his LTN article with BikeBiz journalist Carlton Reid.

Why is anti-roads campaigner John Stewart against LTNs? – Hosted by David Bernstein & Carlton Reid since 2006

www.the-spokesmen.com

I found this quite interesting - a reasoned discussioin. In this 53 minute podcast done after his Telegraph article and subsequent Twitter storm, John Stewart recounts his long background in public transport campaigning, anti road campaigning and airport issues.

He is adamant that the LTN problem is one of fairness - and he says he also favours road use charging as a long term solution to traffic issues.

 

[BigTom]

Is there any wide scale road charging scheme in operation?
I only know of singapore and that's a tiny city really.
All the other "road pricing" things I know of are stuff like toll roads or the congestion charge - things that are applied to a very small area, and in a blanket way. Not something that is charged on all roads at variable rates.
Does the tech really exist yet?

 

[thebackrow]

He is adamant that the LTN problem is one of fairness - and he says he also favours road use charging as a long term solution to traffic issues.

I'm still having trouble reconciling his Telegraph article with this paper, which he wrote a year ago - he seems to have changed his position quite significantly whilst more evidence has been published of the effectiveness of LTNs And who lives on main roads won’t have altered.

http://www.ukna.org.uk/uploads/4/1/4/5/41458009/the_great_traffic_disruptor_final.pdf

Most significantly on his arguments about fairness this statement seems at odds with this page of his earlier paper which says main road populations are pretty much like the general population in terms of ethnicity and wealth.

road charging is surely inevitable (not least since electric cars will remove tax income from fuel) but while it’s surely technically possible, nowhere has yet implemented it, it’s many years away and, (based on previous discussions on here) some see it as having fairness issues of its own. And by itself it doesn’t make walking and cycling better.

 

[teuchter]

The main problem with his article is that it's based on a false premise that the traffic is inevitably displaced. The numbers from the recently implemented LTNs don't support this. It's true that there are some boundary roads that have seen increases but there are lots of others that have seen decreases.

Firstly, we might see further reductions another 6 or 12 months from here. Secondly, why not focus on finding solutions for the specific roads where there appears to be a problem. The fact that some boundary roads see decreases, suggests that in principle there is scope within the network for some redistribution with the intention of balancing things out such that no boundary roads see a substantial increase on what was there before.

 

[teuchter]

Is there any wide scale road charging scheme in operation?
I only know of singapore and that's a tiny city really.
All the other "road pricing" things I know of are stuff like toll roads or the congestion charge - things that are applied to a very small area, and in a blanket way. Not something that is charged on all roads at variable rates.
Does the tech really exist yet?

Not just the tech issue but you then have to deal with the issues of disporoportionate impact on the least wealthy. Road pricing lets the more wealthy pay their way out of restrictions - unlike measures that reduce capacity.

 

[thebackrow]

Having now scanned the transcript of the interview I'm still not a lot clearer on his 'fairness' position.

None of the LTNs have made a road that was previously really quiet into a busy road - at worst they've made an already busy road a bit busier (though as Leigham Court Road data a bit upthread, quite possibly only as busy as it was a decade or so ago before satnavs were being widely used). Whereas the satnav impact on minor road in many cases has made roads that were quiet much busier.
Main road housing isn't disproportionally social housing (based on the income distribution data above) so the vast majority of main road residents have chosen to live there - trading off a larger home, or a home in a more "expensive" area against a smaller home or one in a less expensive area on something other than a main road.

 

[liquidindian]

Does the tech really exist yet?

750 cameras for the new ULEZ, and that's just at the borders for entering and leaving.

Road pricing lets the more wealthy pay their way out of restrictions

I think there are potential unintended consequences too. We want more people to walk and cycle short distances where possible but here you have a small charge that may have the opposite effect. Like the school that introduced fines for picking up kids, where the fines quickly became a price for being late, not a fine.

A daycare in Israel had a similar problem: parents were arriving late to collect their children. In response, the daycare fined those who didn't pick their tots up on time. Except this did not result in increased punctuality; quite the opposite. Parents were more likely to be late after the fines were introduced. They simply paid the fee and thought no more about it. The intrinsic motivation – to conform to the social norm of being on time – was crowded out by the extrinsic motivation of cash fines.

Look at how some people are outraged by the idea they must share space with others who have not paid "road tax". Road pricing may make that worse without providing a compelling disincentive to ditch short car journeys.

 

[CH1]

Having now scanned the transcript of the interview I'm still not a lot clearer on his 'fairness' position.

None of the LTNs have made a road that was previously really quiet into a busy road - at worst they've made an already busy road a bit busier (though as Leigham Court Road data a bit upthread, quite possibly only as busy as it was a decade or so ago before satnavs were being widely used). Whereas the satnav impact on minor road in many cases has made roads that were quiet much busier.
Main road housing isn't disproportionally social housing (based on the income distribution data above) so the vast majority of main road residents have chosen to live there - trading off a larger home, or a home in a more "expensive" area against a smaller home or one in a less expensive area on something other than a main road.

I think he is precisely arguing against your view. which seems succinctly stated to be "You chose not to be in an LTN - now sufffer"

 

[liquidindian]

"You chose not to be in an LTN - now sufffer"

There's a name for creating a grotesque parody of a point of view and then arguing against that.

 

[teuchter]

"You chose not to be in an LTN - now sufffer"

Of course, this must also be the view of anyone who drives along a main road, for any reason. I guess if they are driving someone to hospital to save their life, then maybe they could live with themselves.

 

[CH1]

There's a name for creating a grotesque parody of a point of view and then arguing against that.

Not really s/he gave reasons.
Living in social housing, or chosing to buy a cheaper property for two.
So from what I see they are fine with high value residents getting the benefit of LTNs and low value residents the disadvantages.

John Stewart did not name the case, but his point seemed absolutely flood-lit by this Air pollution: Coroner calls for law change after Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah's death

 

[CH1]

Of course, this must also be the view of anyone who drives along a main road, for any reason. I guess if they are driving someone to hospital to save their life, then maybe they could live with themselves.

No-one has mentioned electric vehicles. Maybe up thread.
Presumably 100% electric obviates the need for LTNs - or will it then be something else?
I would certainly settle for 100^ electric skip lorries. Is that on the cards?

 

[teuchter]

No-one has mentioned electric vehicles. Maybe up thread.
Presumably 100% electric obviates the need for LTNs - or will it then be something else?
I would certainly settle for 100^ electric skip lorries. Is that on the cards?

Electric vehicles are mentioned repeatedly. And repeatedly it's pointed out that they only improve the air pollution problem partially, and they do absolutely nothing to solve congestion, parking or road safety issues.

 

[CH1]

Electric vehicles are mentioned repeatedly. And repeatedly it's pointed out that they only improve the air pollution problem partially, and they do absolutely nothing to solve congestion, parking or road safety issues.

I think you should look at congestion round the Rayne Institute.
There's now so many ambulances parked up the buses have trouble passing.
Until recently you never saw ambulances parked on Coldharbour Lane.
Is this to do with King's digging up their car park - thus having to allow car parking outside the hospital - and moving ambulances to Coldharbour Lane?
Have Coldharbour Lane residents been consulted?

 

[teuchter]

I think you should look at congestion round the Rayne Institute.
There's now so many ambulances parked up the buses have trouble passing.
Until recently you never saw ambulances parked on Coldharbour Lane.
Is this to do with King's digging up their car park - thus having to allow car parking outside the hospital - and moving ambulances to Coldharbour Lane?
Have Coldharbour Lane residents been consulted?

Are we doing a non-sequitur contest?

 

[CH1]

Are we doing a non-sequitur contest?

Inevitable - you say pollution is a minor part of it.