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Loughborough Junction public space improvements - consultation begins

bimble said:
Just quoting you as a way of emphasising like. Because you mention blunt instruments, and I think this one is not just blunt but possibly so blunt as to be useless really.
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Yes but we have to choose from the instruments available to us. As soon as a meaningful enough road pricing scheme seemed like a realistic option (and I mean in terms of public acceptance, rather than technically) I'd take it in favour of closure schemes and you'd see me enthusiastically supporting any such proposals. But I don't think that option is there at the moment.
 
teuchter said:
Basically you want to increase the overall capacity of the road system by making additional streets into part of a main thoroughfare network. So we can pour even more vehicles into the area to fill up that capacity and end up with everyone going at much the same speed afterwards.
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What you mean like we've got now? That's all this closure has done. Loughborough Road from Fiveways to CHL is a nice wide road, a thoroughfare one might say, yet we've closed that and poured even more vehicles on to roads that aren't designed for them!
 
teuchter said:
If I want to provoke people I say that we should substantially reduce the amount by which we subsidise car owners
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Exactly how much do you think car owners are subsidised? The UK is already one of the most expensive places to own and run a car.
 
LadyV said:
What you mean like we've got now? That's all this closure has done. Loughborough Road from Fiveways to CHL is a nice wide road, a thoroughfare one might say, yet we've closed that and poured even more vehicles on to roads that aren't designed for them!
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No, we've reduced the overall capacity in the system (slightly), not added any vehicles to it. And the evidence shows that the result of doing this, given time, is usually that the number of vehicle journeys drops proportionately.
 
LadyV said:
Exactly how much do you think car owners are subsidised? The UK is already one of the most expensive places to own and run a car.
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He already posted that up before. Something like 80% of the total costs attributed to motoring were imputed costs for "externalities", which I'm sure you could get virtually any figure you like for by choosing your methodology to get the figure you want.
 
LadyV said:
What do you class as a good proportion?
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I'd take this as a starting point to judging that -

screen-shot-2015-11-03-at-12-45-53-jpg.79052
 
Well personally I wouldn't drive a 1 mile journey unless I had heavy/bulky stuff to carry or I had to take someone with me who couldn't walk that far. Do these figures account for journeys like that?
 
LadyV said:
Exactly how much do you think car owners are subsidised? The UK is already one of the most expensive places to own and run a car.
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The problem is we can argue endlessly about this because it's so hard to put a number on social and environmental costs, amongst many others. Which is why I said, it's something I say to provoke the argument.

When looking at transport issues, the aims that I want to pursue are
a) try and give people as equal access as possible to mobility, regardless of their financial or medical or social situation
b) provide that transport in as efficient a way as possible, to minimise the harmful effects of the necessary infrastructure.

I think it's more useful to take that as a starting point, than to start by trying to quantify costs of our existing, inequal, inefficient, harmful system.

In my opinion, achieving either of those aims means that we have to become massively less dependent on the private motor car. And we are in a place (big city like London) and at a time (given the technology now available to us) where it's completely feasible to do that, and to do it pretty painlessly too. In other parts of the country it's much more of a challenge, but on this thread we're talking about London.
 
LadyV said:
The north end of LR, Fiveways and onwards is a nightmare for drivers and cyclists alike but with some CPZs and more restrictive parking and maybe even making some more roads one way, I think you could make it better for everyone.

I think this is kind of another reason that closing Loughborough Road at Wyck Gardens wasn't that well thought out as people are still parked all the way down LR and when you get to Fiveways etc, there's still a good amount of traffic, yet we're encouraging more cyclists to go down there.

Further examples of bad implementation really
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And they redid (i.e. widened) the pavements to create the funnel in the first place!
 
LadyV said:
The type of changes I would suggest would be parking restrictions on LR and through Fiveways, that would stop the tourists coming in and parking so they can catch the train. Make it so that there is only parking on one side of LR, which would open space to build in the proper cycle paths. No parking or double yellows on the narrow part of LR towards Brixton Road. More zebra crossings. Enforce the 20 mph speed limit, with cameras if need be. More speed bumps. Raised areas with the cobbley bits that are horrid to drive over near school and shops. Consider making some roads one way, that would probably need some though on which roads and which direction. Think beyond the north of CHL zone they've concentrated on at the moment, extend some of these ideas to CHL, Herne Hill Road and Hinton Road. The fact that it has been so concentrated on the north of CHL has had a lot to do with the animosity that is felt.
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I'd certainly agree that all of this would be better than nothing, by the way. If this closure scheme collapses I do hope people will give support for the implementation of all of these things its place. Because it's easy to propose lesser alternatives as being good enough, as a means of dismissing a more ambitious scheme, and then fail to actually make sure those alternatives don't get dismissed on a similar basis, until we're back to minor tweaking like painting unsatisfactory cycle lanes on the road and pretending there's been some kind of meaningful change.
 
Ok, this will enrage the more militant of the cyclists who are all in favour the road closure (especially those not from around these parts).
Lambeth Cyclists and the London Cycling Campaign - at a meeting on 21 October 2015 attended by someone from Lambeth Council minuted: "Not all trials have been a success, though. The Loughborough Junction trial has arguably not made it more attractive to cycle on the route".
Rather different from what Clare Neely is saying in public, including on the BBC clip which showed a cyclist nearly being taken out by a u-turning taxi. Not safe now and certainly wouldn't be attractive. When someone ends up under the wheels as a result of all this Lambeth will be held to account.
 
AlexH said:
Ok, this will enrage the more militant of the cyclists who are all in favour the road closure (especially those not from around these parts).
Lambeth Cyclists and the London Cycling Campaign - at a meeting on 21 October 2015 attended by someone from Lambeth Council minuted: "Not all trials have been a success, though. The Loughborough Junction trial has arguably not made it more attractive to cycle on the route".
Rather different from what Clare Neely is saying in public, including on the BBC clip which showed a cyclist nearly being taken out by a u-turning taxi. Not safe now and certainly wouldn't be attractive. When someone ends up under the wheels as a result of all this Lambeth will be held to account.
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You never answered my question about why you think it's now less safe to cycle on LR.
 
AlexH said:
Ok, this will enrage the more militant of the cyclists who are all in favour the road closure (especially those not from around these parts).
Lambeth Cyclists and the London Cycling Campaign - at a meeting on 21 October 2015 attended by someone from Lambeth Council minuted: "Not all trials have been a success, though. The Loughborough Junction trial has arguably not made it more attractive to cycle on the route".
Rather different from what Clare Neely is saying in public, including on the BBC clip which showed a cyclist nearly being taken out by a u-turning taxi. Not safe now and certainly wouldn't be attractive. When someone ends up under the wheels as a result of all this Lambeth will be held to account.
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So, basically because car drivers are driving badly this is now the fault of the council?
 
The link teuchter posted above has some really interesting stuff in it. (Please don't shout at me , I'm not a driver)
Screen Shot 2015-11-06 at 18.18.28.png
 
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