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Petition to request parliament review LTNs

Fuck, I've got no idea what thick cunt of a 4-letter-word everybody's on about...
 
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I don't disagree with anything you say on people with disabilities and people who are unfit and unhealthy being supported to cycle and being capable of cycling - I wasn't trying to generalise or exclude all people with these characteristics I was simply identifying that some people cannot walk or cycle for various reasons although many may be happy to do it as a leisure activity and some will be able to use it for their transport needs but not all.

If your disability precludes you from driving then family members may be the ones doing the driving or they may be using the services of other drivers such as bus transport for disabled people or taxis.

LTNs may work for some people but they don't work also for many people and there are lots of issues caused by them which are being ignored and hidden by the authorities imposing then which is why a review is needed. When residents report issues that they are experiencing due to LTNs and they are told by the council officers and councillors that they are listening and want to hear from residents but they then do absolutely nothing about the issues and often gaslight the residents by claiming that what they are experiencing is not actually happening by referring to monitoring data which seems designed to produce false claims as they do not monitor all of the obvious diversionary roads and those they do monitor are monitored in a very patchy way and they model pollution based on traffic counts which again are flawed as they do not capture congestion details nor slow moving vehicles.

Look at this list of issues reported by residents of Lambeth to the council during the trial period for the LTNs they installed during the pandemic and tell me as an NHS professional that you are not concerned about the numbers

View attachment 365359
Wasn't that list part of a standardized response prepared by OneLambeth that people could fill in and submit as part of the LTN engagement process? That was then subsequently found to contain multiple submissions from the same IP addresses? 🤔
Sort of like putting words into peoples mouths?
 
(I just read this post back and it sounds quite argumentative, so please don't take it personally! I'm arguing for something, not neccesarily against you!)

Absolutely true. Short distance trips in familiar areas can "LTN-hop" quite well.
But for ian's commuting example, the "bike lanes and back streets" version of the Streatham-City route looks like this, where

red: normal road with through traffic
purple : LTN or restricted access road
orange: intermittent or unsegregated "bike lane"
green: actually segregated bike lane

(images quoted for page length sanity)

Full of turns, junctions, varying surfaces and sharing space with road vehicles. Easy to get lost, and constantly varying levels of vigilance required.
I used the word "adventurous" deliberately, because this is an intimidating thing to do for the first time.
I know this route well, and used to ride it often. but it took me weeks to learn it properly. When to turn, where traffic is nasty etc.

A similar length route from Pendrecht to the centre of Rotterdam by contrast:

Consistent (in terms of design, priority, road surface, signage etc.) and 100% segregated as soon as you leave your neighbourhood.
You can set off on a journey like this, without even knowing the correct route, and be confident that you'll never get into trouble.

The London equivalent should (and could) be just as good.

I see more and more cyclists all the time, which is great, but we're still a tiny fraction of road traffic. There's a long way to go before the majority of the population cycles, and Dutch levels of infrastructure are required to get there.
Don't worry, I didn't take it personally.😉 Commuters are going to commute and infrastructure is going in to help them. Of course it could always be more.
But LTNs will enable part time/reluctant/scaredy cat cyclists to cycle. These are the low hanging fruit to target to reduce those short/less than 2km local journeys by swapping to bike (or a more pleasant walking environment)

I know this as I am not a cyclist but have just booked a cycle training session solely because I know I will be able to cycle in LTNs.

I also read online somewhere today that there are more cyclists than cars in central London now. What am amazing achievement 😍
 
No, the point is you do not need any level of health or fitness to cycle and can be old.

Now to be clear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying everyone can cycle. There are disabilities which preclude cycling for sure.

But you can be extremely unfit and unhealthy and in your 60s or 70s and be more than able to cycle 2km. We get people of that age, diabetic or pre diabetic, obese, high blood pressure, high cholesterol as they all come together and get them cycling, and they come for exercise but many go on to continue cycling for transport.

It's simply wrong to exclude people in a blanket way like that.

And on the same point there's plenty of disabilities that preclude driving but not walking or cycling. But you talk as if all disabled people need cars and don't benefit from walking and cycling being prioritised.

The question of whether LTNs are working or not is completely aside to that, what we really need is Dutch level of infrastructure on main roads, but LTNs do make it more pleasant to cycle or walk inside then and are a piece of the puzzle in my opinion. But I'd build the cycle lanes first.
A large part of why more people aren’t confident enough to cycle is the perception of the roads being dangerous. Which they are, but because of cars. Because whilst it’s #notallcardrivers ;) there’s enough that drive like entitled dickheads to cause concern.
 
I suggest
Yep in the City of London

so what lessons can we learn from this?
1) congestion charge works really well in discouraging driving. £15 for almost all vehicles, that is so much more effective than ULEZ which only hits a small minority
2) good public transport links work really well in discouraging driving (see bit later on in article where walking is "by far" main way people get around in the city)

Anyone up for extending congestion charge London-wide? The driving lobby would have a meltdown.
 
I suggest

so what lessons can we learn from this?
1) congestion charge works really well in discouraging driving. £15 for almost all vehicles, that is so much more effective than ULEZ which only hits a small minority
2) good public transport links work really well in discouraging driving (see bit later on in article where walking is "by far" main way people get around in the city)

Anyone up for extending congestion charge London-wide? The driving lobby would have a meltdown.
I think the fact that parking spaces are like hens teeth in central London and if you did chance on one, it costs an arm and a leg are also huge factors in discouraging driving. I guess this is why Lambeth are rolling out borough wide CPZs to complement other traffic reducing measures
 
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Anyone up for extending congestion charge London-wide? The driving lobby would have a meltdown.
That would be counter-productive. Car owners living in the zone (=the whole of London) could then drive into the City for the discounted rate (10%).
 
I suggest

so what lessons can we learn from this?
1) congestion charge works really well in discouraging driving. £15 for almost all vehicles, that is so much more effective than ULEZ which only hits a small minority
2) good public transport links work really well in discouraging driving (see bit later on in article where walking is "by far" main way people get around in the city)

Anyone up for extending congestion charge London-wide? The driving lobby would have a meltdown.
Road pricing for EVs seems kind of inevitable which can achieve variable congestion charging everywhere, and hopefully will.
 
I suggest

so what lessons can we learn from this?
1) congestion charge works really well in discouraging driving. £15 for almost all vehicles, that is so much more effective than ULEZ which only hits a small minority
2) good public transport links work really well in discouraging driving (see bit later on in article where walking is "by far" main way people get around in the city)

Anyone up for extending congestion charge London-wide? The driving lobby would have a meltdown.
The but I don't like about the congestion charge is that it means it's basically fine for the rich to drive where they want. Far better just to ban cars for anyone who can't prove a need. Obviously aside increased public transport etc.
 
That would be counter-productive. Car owners living in the zone (=the whole of London) could then drive into the City for the discounted rate (10%).
Come on now, obviously it could be done alongside increasing the charge in the centre.
 
The but I don't like about the congestion charge is that it means it's basically fine for the rich to drive where they want. Far better just to ban cars for anyone who can't prove a need. Obviously aside increased public transport etc.
The rich will always be able to get around one way or another. It's about discouraging all but essential car journeys and making public transport the obvious number 1 choice.
 
Road pricing for EVs seems kind of inevitable which can achieve variable congestion charging everywhere, and hopefully will.
Road pricing already exists in the form of fuel duty as the more miles you drive the more fuel you buy and the more fuel duty you pay so that just needs extending to EV charge points to ensure that all fuel for motor vehicles has a fuel duty charge applied - there is no need to add more ANPR cameras on all roads and the infrastructure to administer yet another tax
 
Road pricing already exists in the form of fuel duty as the more miles you drive the more fuel you buy and the more fuel duty you pay so that just needs extending to EV charge points to ensure that all fuel for motor vehicles has a fuel duty charge applied - there is no need to add more ANPR cameras on all roads and the infrastructure to administer yet another tax
And no tax for anyone who charges at home?
 
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Road pricing already exists in the form of fuel duty as the more miles you drive the more fuel you buy and the more fuel duty you pay
Fuel duty is far too low and the government keeps freezing it/cutting it to keep the car lobby happy.

50p per litre so that is about 5p for every kilometer traveled for average car if my sources are accurate.

Or in other words you need to buy 260km worth of fuel before you have paid the equivalent of 1 day of ULEZ charge in taxes

Anyone charging an electric car at home is still paying VAT at 20% on the electricity so it's not like they're not paying any tax
 
Show them then.

Because it's impossible afaik.

You can charge an EV off a standard 13amp plug. How will they know if you are boiling a kettle or charging your EV?
Some people might try and avoid being charged but it will be a minority I would suspect
 
Fuel duty is far too low and the government keeps freezing it/cutting it to keep the car lobby happy.

50p per litre so that is about 5p for every kilometer traveled for average car if my sources are accurate.

Or in other words you need to buy 260km worth of fuel before you have paid the equivalent of 1 day of ULEZ charge in taxes

Anyone charging an electric car at home is still paying VAT at 20% on the electricity so it's not like they're not paying any tax
Fuel duty has to be a better way to do this as the other option requires ANPR cameras to be installed everywhere across the country and an infrastructure to implement the charging scheme - why waste all that resource when there is an existing system that essentially does the same thing already. VAT on your home electric is essentially fulfilling that requirement too it would seem as the more electric you use to charge your vehicle the more VAT you will pay. The government just need to figure out how to impose a pay per mile charge rate via VED or VAT or some other tax at the point where you buy the fuel for your vehicle
 
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