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

[edcraw]

It's by the same people who have done all the other studies - it's not that I dispute the results but it would be good to see some similar work done by completely different institutions. The antis of course say the group that produces these studies is biased.

This is true but obviously no one else is funding this research. It’s presumably because we don’t really need proof that these work as they obviously do. Fewer roads = less traffic.

 

[thebackrow]

This is true but obviously no one else is funding this research. It’s presumably because we don’t really need proof that these work as they obviously do. Fewer roads = less traffic.

On the attacks on Westminster university academics.

 

[teuchter]

This is true but obviously no one else is funding this research. It’s presumably because we don’t really need proof that these work as they obviously do. Fewer roads = less traffic.

It should be obvious from my many posts on this thread that I am happy there's enough evidence that these kinds of scheme basically work. But more evidence, especially more evidence on the relative efficacy of different variations of implementation, can only be a good thing. Because if we can see that there are certain things that can be done to make the schemes more attractive to potential objectors, without really compromising them, then that's very valuable knowledge that assists in getting them more widely implemented. Also, if we can understand better why localised increases of traffic occur in certain locations, then the easier it is to mitigate against them, again making schemes more saleable to sceptics, or providing stronger arguments in responding to objections.

I don't think it's true that the reason no-one else is funding it is because "we don't really need proof". It's because it's expensive and difficult to do it really well. Implementation is being left to individual local authorities with limited budgets; they will generally do the lowest level of monitoring they think they can get away with. Really what would be ideal would be a centrally funded scheme that picked a few schemes across the city or country and really monitored them properly. That would probably have to be a central government thing, and would have to be done by a govt with a genuine interest in pushing stuff forward.

Also: for any schemes being implemented from now onwards, they can (hopefully) be studied without the massively confounding effects of a global pandemic getting in the way.

 

[Hollis]

The other thing is that a lot of the monitoring that councils carry out is patchy and a bit shonky, leaving a lot of room for interpretation and claims that can't be proven or disproven. It seems to me that it would be really beneficial to have a few schemes that are really properly monitored - that is with loads of monitoring points, that record everything consistently, types of vehicle, speed of flow, and so on. And probably including some monitoring beyond the immediate boundary roads to understand what the displacement effects are, if any, in surrounding areas. Of course all this would be expensive to do, but with sufficient interest (ie. beyond the scope of an individual borough) in doing such a study maybe the funding could be found.

Yep- I've had a skim through today's study and release and it's the usual overclaiming by the policy makers and politicians. In particular the headline today is really disingenous when you look at what's happening beyond the headline average. Also in the study I'm not clear on what they're defining as 'boundary roads' and so it's unclear if they are looking at the wider traffic displacement that does happen.

A future study should also be looking at why traffic increases on some boundary roads and not others, and for the boundary roads where there is a decrease is there a real decrease or had the traffic been displaced elewhere in a revised taffic pattern.

 

[Hollis]

I particularly like this measured response to the article:

 

[teuchter]

The study itself actually talks about the need for better data and more study.

This leads us to our final point here. We encountered a range of data issues. Most problematically, some boroughs have failed to publish any monitoring and evaluation reports at all, or have produced reports where data is in formats that do not lend themselves to independent re-analysis (e.g. graphs rather than tabular format). In some cases tables were presented, but it was challenging to extract data from these images. This also represents an accessibility barrier for those using screen readers, for instance.

We need improved monitoring and evaluation, including the provision of more accessible, transparent, and standardised data. In the UK this is a potential role for organisations like Transport for London, Combined Authorities, the Department for Transport or Active Travel England, Transport Scotland, the Welsh Government, and the Department for Infrastructure. Nello-Deakin’s (2022) analysis of traffic reduction measures in Barcelona was facilitated by the municipal authority publishing in one place open access monthly average traffic count figures from locations across the city. The provision of this data across London and nationally could permit academics and others to much more easily explore the impacts of a range of interventions, and would allow the use of (for instance) more sophisticated normalisation approaches than we were able to use here.

 

[teuchter]

I particularly like this measured response to the article:

Worth reading the whole of that thread.

And this one

 

[Hollis]

I'm afraid with Peter Walker I stuggle to get past that headline - when you have 53% of boundary roads showing an increase - you can't just say as your headline they don't 'seemingly increase' traffic on boundary roads..

What you can see is that LTNs have big impacts on boundary roads - in some cases increases and in others decreases - and you need to understand why that is.

 

[teuchter]

I'm afraid with Peter Walker I stuggle to get past that headline - when you have 53% of boundary roads showing an increase - you can't just say as your headline they don't 'seemingly increase' traffic on boundary roads..

What you can see is that LTNs have big impacts on boundary roads - in some cases increases and in others decreases - and you need to understand why that is.

He/the study argues that where there are big increases there is not evidence that they are caused by the LTNs.

Well, maybe you'd say that in that case what's the evidence that decreases within LTNs are caused by the LTNs, it might be some spurious external factor. But I think the argument is that there is a general picture of minor increases/decreases on boundary roads with a few much larger outliers, in which case it seems reasonable to suspect the outliers are caused by some other factor.

But I'm yet to read through this report properly.

 

[edcraw]

It should be obvious from my many posts on this thread that I am happy there's enough evidence that these kinds of scheme basically work. But more evidence, especially more evidence on the relative efficacy of different variations of implementation, can only be a good thing. Because if we can see that there are certain things that can be done to make the schemes more attractive to potential objectors, without really compromising them, then that's very valuable knowledge that assists in getting them more widely implemented. Also, if we can understand better why localised increases of traffic occur in certain locations, then the easier it is to mitigate against them, again making schemes more saleable to sceptics, or providing stronger arguments in responding to objections.

I don't think it's true that the reason no-one else is funding it is because "we don't really need proof". It's because it's expensive and difficult to do it really well. Implementation is being left to individual local authorities with limited budgets; they will generally do the lowest level of monitoring they think they can get away with. Really what would be ideal would be a centrally funded scheme that picked a few schemes across the city or country and really monitored them properly. That would probably have to be a central government thing, and would have to be done by a govt with a genuine interest in pushing stuff forward.

Also: for any schemes being implemented from now onwards, they can (hopefully) be studied without the massively confounding effects of a global pandemic getting in the way.

Yeah - that’s what I mean, it’s expensive so where’s the funding going to come from? Still not sure it is really needed though or useful as what is it going to tell us we don’t know already? If it showed LTNs were terrible somehow would we have to ban building new cul-de-sacs and open up existing ones?

Presumably the point of funding this research is to reassure politicians that LTNs don’t have the terrible consequences people love to claim. People are picking holes in it, and there will be some as with all studies, but what it show is there is. I evidence for these wild claims.

Nothing stopping OneLambeth or similar using the money that obv can raise (the £60k+ for the court case prob would have gone a long way) funding their own studies but they just wouldn’t show what they want to so that’s why no one’s doing it.

 

[edcraw]

I'm afraid with Peter Walker I stuggle to get past that headline - when you have 53% of boundary roads showing an increase - you can't just say as your headline they don't 'seemingly increase' traffic on boundary roads..

What you can see is that LTNs have big impacts on boundary roads - in some cases increases and in others decreases - and you need to understand why that is.

More studies of everything would be great but seems strange that we’re needing more for what are pretty minor road closures (why should all roads be open to through traffic?) than we’ve ever needed for decades & decades of road building and expansion!

 

[Cat Fan]

I'm afraid with Peter Walker I stuggle to get past that headline - when you have 53% of boundary roads showing an increase - you can't just say as your headline they don't 'seemingly increase' traffic on boundary roads..

What you can see is that LTNs have big impacts on boundary roads - in some cases increases and in others decreases - and you need to understand why that is.

Yes but 50% is what we would expect if the LTNs had had no impact on boundary roads whatsoever.

My main issue with the study is they're using existing council data, not collecting new data (I think?). So it's hard for them to discover anything truly new.

On reading the report I was surprised that the median count on boundary roads did actually increase vs expected. But not by a hugely significant amount.

But to be honest it would be surprising if traffic evaporation was happening this early into the schemes. The counts on boundary roads were generally over 10k so it's going to be hard to put a dent in that.

Edit: read the report and corrected my ignorance

 

[Hollis]

Yes but 50% is what we would expect if the LTNs had had no impact on boundary roads whatsoever.

You are quite right... but if you also thought that LTNs had an impact on boundary roads then you'd probably be looking at doing more testing and analysis of the data to see if there were other effects hidden within the overall result.

I can see for example scenarios where LTNs might reduce traffic on boundary roads, increase traffic, or reduce traffic because the cars have decided to re-route eleswhere. All of this might be lost in an aggregate analysis.

 

[Cat Fan]

Yes, that's basically the limitation of doing a large meta analysis. The spread of results was quite wide, so both increases and decreases were possible.

 

[thebackrow]

More studies of everything would be great but seems strange that we’re needing more for what are pretty minor road closures (why should all roads be open to through traffic?) than we’ve ever needed for decades & decades of road building and expansion!

My main issue with the study is they're using existing council data, not collecting new data (I think?). So it's hard for them to discover anything truly new.

It seems to me that it would be really beneficial to have a few schemes that are really properly monitored - that is with loads of monitoring points, that record everything consistently, types of vehicle, speed of flow, and so on. And probably including some monitoring beyond the immediate boundary roads to understand what the displacement effects are, if any, in surrounding areas. Of course all this would be expensive to do,

All the monitoring has a cost, as do ever more comprehensive consultations, that are an overhead/admin - ie NOT actually delivering anything and making every project more expensive. The same people calling for monitoring of every road, forever are the ones complaining about council inefficiency and the amounts paid to external consultants. Who do they think is going to do all this extra work they want done?

Counts need to be taken before/after at comparable times (school holidays/season?). Doing new/additional counts would massively add to the cost of the research (and the time taken to deliver it)

Teuchter - the Lambeth LTN monitoring takes a selection of roads within the LTN (it's only really worth counting on the roads that were rat runs or that might conceivably get a problematic increase as a result of changes) and all of the boundary roads (relying on TfL numbers in some cases - possibly because they dont have rights to measure there or to minimise costs because there is already a measure?). Main roads further away will still have TfL/DfT measurement going on anyway I guess. Some of the Waltham Forest schemes have been in place for some years now - there is a lot of monitoring data. (main roads will get measured again, roads within an LTN aren't going to change much if you're not allowing through traffic).

And there will ALWAYS things to criticise about traffic monitoring because you can only measure at a point - I remember complaining years ago about speeding on a road I lived on and being told there wasn't an issue, but they'd put the counter immediately before a speed hump so it measured drivers after they had braked and before the sped up again. Counters are either too close to a junction (so they're less accurate) or too far away (and they're not measuring all the traffic going through a junction).

 

[alex_]

All the monitoring has a cost, as do ever more comprehensive consultations, that are an overhead/admin - ie NOT actually delivering anything and making every project more expensive. The same people calling for monitoring of every road, forever are the ones complaining about council inefficiency and the amounts paid to external consultants. Who do they think is going to do all this extra work they want done?

Counts need to be taken before/after at comparable times (school holidays/season?). Doing new/additional counts would massively add to the cost of the research (and the time taken to deliver it)

Guarantee they complain about traffic as well.

 

[teuchter]

I wouldn't want to set up onerous requirements for every LA to do expensive detailed monitoring that would eat into the budget for actually implementing the schemes.

What I think would be useful is a small number of case studies, with the monitoring funded externally. They would provide solid data that could be used to justify future schemes by proving basic principles, and maybe even lessen the requirements for monitoring those future schemes.

If the ambition is to roll out these kinds of policies nationwide, which is what I'd like to see happen, then the cost of a few thorough studies would be pretty small once divided by a large number of implementations that they could help facilitate.

Also, the schemes implemented so far are mostly in the places where they are most easy to justify - places with low car ownership, good public transport and high density. If I were in a local authority in a small or medium town in the UK, even if I was completely happy that LTNs had been done with net benefit in places in London, I would probably be a bit nervous about what would happen in my area. I'd have thought solid evidence from schemes outside of inner london would be very valuable.

And I think the fact that many of these early schemes were done during covid does make it difficult to present solid data.

I've looked at all the Lambeth reports. They are sort of ok. But you can see they've been done by consultants with only so many hours in their budget. They are patchy, and data is often presented inconsistently, and without proper explanation. They will have been commissioned (I'd guess) by people within Lambeth who don't have the detailed expertise that someone whose full time job and career was in transport planning would have. And the consultants who have produced them won't necessarily be at the top of their game, because they'll have been selected to fit a limited budget.

It seems that the authors of that Westminster report broadly agree with me - they too would like to have better data to work with.

 

[Hollis]

Guarantee they complain about traffic as well.

I'm sure the good folk living inside LTNs never went down this route either...

 

[teuchter]

To be clear - I don't think loads of further study is necessary to justify continued roll-out in Lambeth. I think the argument is won in Lambeth: the sky has not fallen in and the monitoring is enough to confirm that there are no problems significant enough to consider a change of course. In my opinion at least.

It's more about wider roll-out. Especially outside of London (and slightly transport-anomalous places like Oxford and Cambridge).

 

[thebackrow]

then the cost of a few thorough studies would be pretty small once divided by a large number of implementations that they could help facilitate.

but Waltham Forest isn't the Netherlands and Lambeth's not like Waltham Forest and Dulwich isn't like Brixton and Streatham Wells has a 40m difference between it's highest and lowest point and....

Any idea that more research will lessen opposition seems pretty fanciful.

You could always have more data but fundamentally LTNs are based on ideas that are not new, that have been shown to work in multiple places, that are achieving their objectives (in terms of quieter neighbourhoods and increases in walking and cycling). None of those opposed have any (viable, evidence based, proven to work) alternatives to actually reduce motor traffic (they're always in favour of stuff the carrot stuff - better cheaper public transport, quiet routes for walking and cycling (somehow magically delivered without restricting traffic on the quiet roads), school streets (that manage to magically close roads at peak times without the displacement they say road closures for LTNs cause), lower speed limits (when London is almost entirely 20mph already) and never any of the 'sticks' to actually make driving more difficult that a wealth of research says is more effective than the carrots. Maybe 'road pricing' but with caveats and ignoring that even with road pricing you'd still need to do LTNs to stop the rat runs.

 

[Hollis]

More studies of everything would be great but seems strange that we’re needing more for what are pretty minor road closures (why should all roads be open to through traffic?) than we’ve ever needed for decades & decades of road building and expansion!

The fact that there were not studies for road expansion, and the subsequent impact - surely strengthens the case for studying the impact of what you're doing.

If you're going to continue to implement LTNs then surely you want to improve your understanding of the impacts positive and negative, short and long term and the messaging around them.

One thing I have found as, if not more annoying, than the increased rat-running down my road, is the endless messaging that 'there are no problems' or the assertion you get that anyone with any criticism or negative experience of LTNs must have a screw loose.

 

[thebackrow]

the assertion you get that anyone with any criticism or negative experience of LTNs must have a screw loose.

It's like the old Brexit adage. It's not that everyone who voted for Brexit was a racist, but all the racists voted for Brexit.

Not everyone opposed to LTNs is an extremist weirdo, but all the extremist weirdos from both sides of the political spectrum (and particularly that bit round the back of the sheds where the extreme right and extreme left get Jiggy with it). The supposedly non-weird parts of the anti campaigns might not exactly welcome them, but they do nothing to discourage or disown them, or to call out their abuse and lies - in fact the opposite - they seem happy to converse with them an amplify their social media (and more and more of them seeming to start spouting the same conspiracies)

The Telegraph, Nick Ferrari, Lambeths tories, David Kurten, the very odd mayoral candidates piss-drinking Brian and Farah "London", the anti LTN 'alliance' on Twitter being run by Galloways crowd from Birmingham. Howard Cox the 'fair fuel' guy who runs the @britishtruckers twitter account which keeps saying he should get a knighthood... GBNews presenters, the climate change deniers, 'Great reset'/'globalist' conspiracy theorists, Piers Corbyn (these posters seem connected to him),



Whoever this bunch is:

 

[Hollis]

It's like the old Brexit adage. It's not that everyone who voted for Brexit was a racist, but all the racists voted for Brexit.

Yeah - of course you want to focus on those people..(I've seen some of them).. because that'll be easier than dealing with the real problems that emerge from LTNs, and the often non-vocal people who have to deal with them.

 

[teuchter]

but Waltham Forest isn't the Netherlands and Lambeth's not like Waltham Forest and Dulwich isn't like Brixton and Streatham Wells has a 40m difference between it's highest and lowest point and....

Any idea that more research will lessen opposition seems pretty fanciful.

Evidence from places like Netherlands helped support waltham forest (there's a reason they called them mini Hollands). Evidence from Waltham forest helped support Lambeth. Evidence from the first, inner parts of lambeth helps support schemes in the outer parts of lambeth. Evidence from those places can help support outer london. Evidence from suburban outer london can support other suburban cities in the UK and so on.

I don't think it's the people who will oppose regardless who really matter. It's people who make policy at a local level who will be responsive to evidence from places that aren't at too great a remove from theirs. And maybe people like me who will potentially argue in support.

 

[Crispy]

Speaking of NL, I just got back from Amsterdam and Rotterdam and it's so painful to return to London and imagine how it could be :-/

 

[edcraw]

The fact that there were not studies for road expansion, and the subsequent impact - surely strengthens the case for studying the impact of what you're doing.

If you're going to continue to implement LTNs then surely you want to improve your understanding of the impacts positive and negative, short and long term and the messaging around them.

One thing I have found as, if not more annoying, than the increased rat-running down my road, is the endless messaging that 'there are no problems' or the assertion you get that anyone with any criticism or negative experience of LTNs must have a screw loose.

No - the fact road expansion hasn’t been properly studied doesn’t mean restrictions on vehicles should be even more studied but do let me know why you think so.

All LTNs are monitored to see if they are meeting their objectives & that’s more than enough. Plenty have challenged the legality and failed so time to move on.

The fact is cars are bad for cities and all planning needs to come from that point of view.

 

[Hollis]

No - the fact road expansion hasn’t been properly studied doesn’t mean restrictions on vehicles should be even more studied but do let me know why you think so.

All LTNs are monitored to see if they are meeting their objectives & that’s more than enough. Plenty have challenged the legality and failed so time to move on.

The fact is cars are bad for cities and all planning needs to come from that point of view.

I think the point is that it's better to undestand what you're doing and the full impacts. Though I appreciate you think the studies to date are fine.

In fact, whole studies can carry through the same limitations through their design, what they do ask, and what they decide not to ask.

Some more in depth case studies, such as teuchter is suggesting, would do much to improve the understanding beyond the 'useful' abstraction of boundary roads - and also presumably could improve the design, sequencing of implementation of LTNs, and messaging around them.

For example, surely if you're interested in reducing overall car use - you would want to understand circumstances in which displacement happens and what happens in surrounding residential streets.

The study yesterday shows increases on 53% of boundary roads and wide variation both positive and negative - that's worth understanding.

 

[Cat Fan]

It's clear to me that like any meaningful intervention it's going to make things worse for some roads. "Clean air for Croxted too" for example or "Clean air for all Dulwich", it's not a fringe political group, it's almost everyone on the affected roads, and they are generally people who are pro environmental action.

LTNs are not the best stick because they only cause at worst mild inconvenience for drivers. ULEZ is far more effective I think.

 

[colacubes]

It's clear to me that like any meaningful intervention it's going to make things worse for some roads. "Clean air for Croxted too" for example or "Clean air for all Dulwich", it's not a fringe political group, it's almost everyone on the affected roads, and they are generally people who are pro environmental action.

LTNs are not the best stick because they only cause at worst mild inconvenience for drivers. ULEZ is far more effective I think.

Bullshit. They’re total nimbys.

 

[Cat Fan]

Bullshit. They’re total nimbys.

Everyone is a nimby when something bad happens to them. That's the point. When it's a larger group not just a couple of fringe individuals.