Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => On The Road => Topic started by: hatler on 01 March, 2021, 05:52:28 pm
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Would any BMJ subscribers be willing to provide the gist of this article for us all - https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n443 ?
Many thanks if you can.
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Evidence from existing LTNs nationally and internationally are encouraging
People living in LTNs get more exercise
7% reduction in vehicle ownership in LTNs
Considerably higher than areas with non LTN based things like protected cycle tracks alone.
75% reduction in being injured in an accident with a motor vehicle
The vocal minority objecting to them need to be ignored until evidence is proven.
The need is urgent and a car based return to activity will be negligent
Study was Funded by DfT and TFL
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Many thanks !!
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So we can expect that in a government which listens to the scientific evidence, Rich Sunak's budget will abandon the 27 billion investment in roads for cars and trucks, and instead spend it on active travel schemes and health promotion.
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The Netherlands has an excellent trunk road network from what I can tell. They can be a good complement to LTNs.
That is if you manage it correctly and don't allow them to enable car-only suburban sprawl, as we will no doubt continue to do.
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So we can expect that in a government which listens to the scientific evidence, Rich Sunak's budget will abandon the 27 billion investment in roads for cars and trucks, and instead spend it on active travel schemes and health promotion.
Yeah, right.
The government will choose which experts it's tired of listening to.
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I love seeing so many new people on bicycles - the number dipped a bit in the cold time, but its ballooned again now the sun is out.
But for this to be a lasting change, I would be really interested in how the study separated the effects of lockdown/work from home/school closed from those of the LTN. Do they demonstrate that?
Anecdotally, a lot of the people I know who recently choose a bicycle was because, "I don't want to die of plague on the tube". Rather than the LTN stopped me driving 300 yards to go to the gym - which by the way, was a real local example: The irony was entirely wasted on that person.
EDIT: Forgot to say I live in an area with LTN's. Which as a cyclist, I love.
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But for this to be a lasting change, I would be really interested in how the study separated the effects of lockdown/work from home/school closed from those of the LTN.
Part of the thinking of LTNs and pop up cycle lanes is that the people who've suddenly taken it up for plague reasons need to find it pleasant or at least tolerable enough to continue.
Everyone is living in plague times but if you can find a measurable difference between LTN vs non-LTN areas then that's still good evidence for LTNs.
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I love seeing so many new people on bicycles - the number dipped a bit in the cold time, but its ballooned again now the sun is out.
But for this to be a lasting change, I would be really interested in how the study separated the effects of lockdown/work from home/school closed from those of the LTN. Do they demonstrate that?
Anecdotally, a lot of the people I know who recently choose a bicycle was because, "I don't want to die of plague on the tube". Rather than the LTN stopped me driving 300 yards to go to the gym - which by the way, was a real local example: The irony was entirely wasted on that person.
EDIT: Forgot to say I live in an area with LTN's. Which as a cyclist, I love.
LTNs are only a new concept in the UK.
The Dutch traffic design system of distributor roads with adjacent compulsory cycle / access roads and low speed limit residential roads is considered to be LTNs to give years worth of data.
Te car is de gast.
The Germans also have a similar concept
(https://c8.alamy.com/comp/EWFET3/play-street-sign-EWFET3.jpg)
And oh WAIT the UK has had a similar concept available for use for years...
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_E-Gmv1JFKtE/SLFle4Emc2I/AAAAAAAAA3A/R4djSsHHU9Y/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/DSCF1329.JPG)
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Edit to the above:
It's not the low speed residential road concept found in villages, it's the Woonerf concept found in larger towns and cities.
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Most places in the UK already have LTNs or LTN-ish interventions of one form or another. The novelty is formalising the concept and trying to roll it out more widely, rather than the reactive way its been done in the past.
Woonerfs and Car De Gast streets are slightly different things. Either they take an LTN to the next level or sometimes are attempted without properly blocking through traffic and are usually terrible.
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I've written about it before, but when we lived in West Ealing back in Tudor times (early 2000s), our street became a home zone, which was pretty much restricted through traffic, bollards and planters, and parking changes. It wasn't revolutionary but it felt like a step in the right direction in simply reprioritizing the street away from simply an avenue to channel traffic.
It's no surprise all the gripes from the vocal minority then are the same as today to the letter. They used to stick letters through the door at the dead-of-night warning that our neighbours weren't against it, why weren't we. Come on, we know who you are, you're the fat bloke across the street, it's not really intimidating. He'd hide when I went and shoved them back through the door. I think the main anti-campaign was just that bloke and a couple of hangers-on. I'm not sure what they got out it, it wasn't exactly radical change.
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I've understood the Dutch woonerf concept to be a development from new that is designed in a way to deprioritize cars and driving. So you can't park outside your house, all parking is relegated to a car-pen in one corner of the development, there's only one way in and out by car but several on foot or bike, lots of space for non-driving activities (grass, benches, gardens, basketball courts and whatever), and so on. Whereas the LTNs are retrofitting some of those concepts to an existing pattern of streets and houses.
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Speaking of a data-led approach...I very much enjoyed this letter from Will Norman (London Mayor's Walking & Cycling Commissioner) to Tony Devenish (Conservative London Assembly Member for Kensington & Chelsea)
https://twitter.com/willnorman/status/1366457770044764164
(Ok it's about cycle infrastructure rather than LTNs)
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Great letter. Devenish sounds like he should be in the ST thread.
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...how the study separated the effects of lockdown/work from home/school closed from those of the LTN. Do they demonstrate that?
I haven’t read this particular article, but there are plenty of other neighbourhoods that have not had through traffic excluded so it should be possible to identify control neighbourhoods that have otherwise generally similar characteristics for comparison, other studies have taken such an approach.
Most places in the UK already have LTNs or LTN-ish interventions of one form or another....
I suspect that the majority of these are cul-de-sacs and have an important difference compared to an LTN in that there is generally little or no use of modal filters so people wishing to make journeys on foot or by bike suffer exactly the same inconveniences as people driving their cars. LTNs actually make walking and cycling a bit more convenient than driving for short local journeys.
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Great letter. Devenish sounds like he should be in the ST thread.
As do the taxi drivers.
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I suspect that the majority of these are cul-de-sacs and have an important difference compared to an LTN in that there is generally little or no use of modal filters so people wishing to make journeys on foot or by bike suffer exactly the same inconveniences as people driving their cars.
Alleyways and snickets for pedestrianing are a surprisingly common part of suburban planning even will into the car era. Though many of them have cycling banned and anti-people-with-wheels barriers installed. It's only the last few decades we've been building cul-de-sacs that are inescapable by anything but car.
Likewise anti-rat-running barriers rarely block pedestrians, but often block cyclists for no good reason (https://goo.gl/maps/UNLx3c8uoKdK4K2m6).
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Most places in the UK already have LTNs or LTN-ish interventions of one form or another....
I suspect that the majority of these are cul-de-sacs and have an important difference compared to an LTN in that there is generally little or no use of modal filters so people wishing to make journeys on foot or by bike suffer exactly the same inconveniences as people driving their cars. LTNs actually make walking and cycling a bit more convenient than driving for short local journeys.
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Old barriers/concrete/bollards put in ages ago to stop rat running (but allow walking and cycling) on a particular street are pretty common and you never, ever hear of anyone campaigning to have them removed.
Apparently they often used to be put in in response to a child being killed by a rat-running driver (eg at least one in Tower Hamlets is due to this). We've even got them in some streets in Croydon and Sutton (though sometimes cars like to park against them in such a way that cycling through them is difficult).
Railways can create quite useful barriers too (I can cycle from Croydon to Beckenham on a relatively quiet route crossing underneath the railway three times on tunnels that are ped/cyclist only - though this is less good after dark if I'm alone, especially the long one that goes underneath several lines).
Great letter. Devenish sounds like he should be in the ST thread.
As do the taxi drivers.
I wish the some of the taxi drivers weren't so bloody awful on twitter and the like. We don't have a car and therefore we're also customers (eg when I broke my arm and needed to load the bike into the back on the way back from A&E, and when the dog needed the vet a black cab was more likely to take her than a minicab for various reasons). Seeing the bile some of them spout makes me think twice about being a customer.
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As a once-upon-a-time regular user of black cabs (expenses, ah), they really don't do great PR for themselves, do they? I've mostly stopped doing Twitter since it's debate by pantomine, but I can't imagine they've got any better. I'd be happy to see them lose their entitlements and privileges and be treated like any other taxi service. Whoo, you know where the streets are in London. Super! So does Google. Ultimately, it's the last gasps of a dying industry.
I'm now trying to think of three railway underpasses between Croydon and Beckenham (I used to live between the two, by the train line from Crystal Palace to Beckenham Junction). Bromley Council junked many of the ideas about making those streets limited permeability (the school there has a historical problem with terrible parking) because it might increase driving times for residents, adding on average 30 entire seconds to their journeys. In the end, they put in a 20-zone which I presume is still there.
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As a once-upon-a-time regular user of black cabs (expenses, ah), they really don't do great PR for themselves, do they? I've mostly stopped doing Twitter since it's debate by pantomine, but I can't imagine they've got any better. I'd be happy to see them lose their entitlements and privileges and be treated like any other taxi service. Whoo, you know where the streets are in London. Super! So does Google. Ultimately, it's the last gasps of a dying industry.
I'm now trying to think of three railway underpasses between Croydon and Beckenham (I used to live between the two, by the train line from Crystal Palace to Beckenham Junction). Bromley Council junked many of the ideas about making those streets limited permeability (the school there has a historical problem with terrible parking) because it might increase driving times for residents, adding on average 30 entire seconds to their journeys. In the end, they put in a 20-zone which I presume is still there.
They're on my route to Beckenham Place Park which now has a very splendid lake for swimming - first is the little one on Holmesdale Road, then nip through Kent House station (admittedly that one is not a tunnel but it is a useful link albeit you're supposed to dismount if you're being O:-)) and then there's a subway by New Beckenham station which I tend to avoid at night (not because anything's ever happened, I just try to avoid long underpasses after dark as a rule).
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Ah, you're missing the little tunnel between Hambrook Road/Love Lane and Cambridge Road. That's very dark and possesses a strange attraction for supermarket trolleys. I used to live around the corner in one of those secret gated developments where they hold your soul hostage. That part of Bromley always struck me as ripe for small measures that would make cycling a lot nicer, though the council were mostly recalcitrant. Once over the border in Croydon, all bets were off. That's the borough of Mad Max.
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Ah, you're missing the little tunnel between Hambrook Road/Love Lane and Cambridge Road. That's very dark and possesses a strange attraction for supermarket trolleys. I used to live around the corner in one of those secret gated developments where they hold your soul hostage. That part of Bromley always struck me as ripe for small measures that would make cycling a lot nicer, though the council were mostly recalcitrant. Once over the border in Croydon, all bets were off. That's the borough of Mad Max.
I'd considered that especially as a way to avoid Penge Road which is never pleasant especially going slowly uphill, but as you say it's very dark, which is offputting, and more often than not would involve squeezing past some form of flytipping (it was mattresses last time I went past). I also don't like the way you can't see round the corner (you can see straight through all the others so I know who's lurking about).
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Indeed, I wouldn't recommend it, it's like a literal black hole between Croydon and Bromley. Our garden was next to the train embankment, probably 100 metres or so from there, I could have dug my own tunnel underneath. Admittedly into someone's garden. Not that when I lived there I needed the tunnel, but sometimes my extravagant route-finding from office to The Place Far South of Croydon that I now live takes me through the area. I mostly cycle through the cemetery (which opens at the bottom through Harrington Road tram stop). It avoids the horrors of Penge Road and though theoretically it closes in the evening, the gates always seemed to be open. No undead activity to report. It also avoids the herds of sex pests that graze in South Norwood Country Park.
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I visited the LTNs in Cambridge as part of a club visit to the Dutch roundabout. It was great standing in the middle of the road with bikes and not looking out for a moton every few seconds. Open to pedestrians , cyclists, and buses. They were through routes for these modes of transport.
They have also done the modal thing where the journey by car will be 2.5 miles but 400 metres if walking or cycling etc. Plus parking at park and ride is free keeping cars mostly out of the centre.
Plus where a cycle track meets a road, the cycle track has priority. Plus traffic lights that recognise bikes and turn to green as you roll up. Non of this pedestrians crap of pressing the crossing button and then standing there a good few minutes as they prioritise motorised traffic.
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The problem is that none of the opposition to these schemes is logic-based so there is no amount of evidence, data, and rational discourse that will sway their opinion. That's a mistake a lot of campaigners seem to make (and not just this, pick your flavour of irrationality, and note they tend to cluster in one of those perfect circle venn diagrams). Honestly, sometimes you have to make it clear that it's a small minority with loud voices and make the case for a wider benefit, of which there usually is.
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They have also done the modal thing where the journey by car will be 2.5 miles but 400 metres if walking or cycling etc.
A sort of inverted SUSTRANS route?
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They have also done the modal thing where the journey by car will be 2.5 miles but 400 metres if walking or cycling etc.
A sort of inverted SUSTRANS route?
Nah, that would also require drivers to lift their cars over gates with impossibly narrow openings or fold them in two to get through a 180-degree turn in half their own length.
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It's only the last few decades we've been building cul-de-sacs that are inescapable by anything but car.
I believe the reasoning behind this is that permeability aids criminals. By forcing everyone in and out by a single car-infested route you ...fight crime?
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One of the papers I've seen recently linked in an LTN related article did indeed show that crime was reduced in LTNs.
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It's only the last few decades we've been building cul-de-sacs that are inescapable by anything but car.
I believe the reasoning behind this is that permeability aids criminals. By forcing everyone in and out by a single car-infested route you ...fight crime?
I have had this discussion with the police before, as a planning officer pushing for increased permeability in a new development. Criminal yoof escaping on BMXs etc. I suggested if the police were also on bikes (which tbf in London they sometimes are) it would be ok.
Safety has also been whined about re the LTN closest to me. They say it means you're more likely to be mugged or raped. As my posts upthread show, this is something I think about when planning routes especially at night, but I'm less concerned by residential streets overlooked by lots of windows. I mean I'll still walk with keys between my fingers at night but I do that regardless of whether it's an LTN. I don't think a ratrunning driver is going to be particularly useful in stopping something happening to me and if I'm on my bike then they're probably the problem. If your street is without much traffic noise (as mine is because it's a dead end) then you can hear everything going on outside and if there is any kind of commotion (as there sometimes is, it is the bad end of Croydon after all*) then it doesn't take long for curtains to twitch and heads to pop out.
*Last summer a woman responded to getting a parking ticket by screaming abuse at the parking warden then going to her boot, getting a metal baseball bat and attacking his car as he'd ran to hide in it. Sadly for her there were plain clothes police in the park nearby and they ran over and one rugby tackled her and got the baseball bat off her while she continued to scream. Don't judge me for curtain twitching, it was much more interesting than the online seminar I was supposed to be watching at the time.
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I think statistically you'd have to live in a particularly bad neighbourhood (and I don't even think Croydon is that bad, your still more likely to be run over in Wild West Croydon, but that's mostly down to the utterly atrocious driving rather than any urge amongst the locals to be law-abiding) to be at more risk of violent crime than being hit by a car and I'm not really clear on the logic of an LTN being more dangerous for violent and other crime. Like it to not, LTNs tend to more residential and middle-class areas by definition, poorer people are the ones that end up living by busy roads.
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There've been a few people moaning on Next Door that they feel less safe walking at night with the constant rumble of through traffic suddenly gone.
Hopefully that's a short term thing and the traffic will be replaced by people out and about.
(or they're just talking shite)
Like it to not, LTNs tend to more residential and middle-class areas by definition, poorer people are the ones that end up living by busy roads.
All of the estates round here are LTNs as built (no through traffic). Plus a lot of the houses on leafy-looking streets are council-owned or divided into shonky bedsits and flatshares.
I'm in no way convinced that the flats on main roads are populated by a preponderance of poor people. Maybe the very rich *don't*, maybe there's a difference in average income, but that's not the same thing.
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It's a generalization, of course, a lot of those houses were initially on streets that probably didn't have high levels of traffic, and people will put up with a lot if it puts in the catchment area of a good school. Certainly, when we look to buy a house, a non-busy street is a high consideration and we're definitively middle class.
Surrey decided to switch off the streetlights after midnight a year or two back. Lots of uproar, of course. I'm not aware that the promised crime wave ever happened.
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I won't make you read it as it's nothing that you won't have read before since I think they're written by an algorithm, but Mary Wakefield (wife of Dominic Cummings, also of no discernable talent or skill other than coming from a rich family and hanging around with other people of no discernable talent or skill other than coming from a rich family) has the usual dire piece in The Spectator that ticks every box. I will give them some credit, they've taken the cocaine-dealing youth on electric scooters trope using LTNs to turn your terribly middle-class neighbourhood into South Central and run – or rather drive, I suppose – with it.
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Hmmm. Not sure why I bothered. Usual drivel. I'd like to live in a world where people like that are utterly irrelevant.
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There've been a few people moaning on Next Door that they feel less safe walking at night with the constant rumble of through traffic suddenly gone.
Hopefully that's a short term thing and the traffic will be replaced by people out and about.
(or they're just talking shite)
It’s funny how blind (or perhaps that should be accepting of) so many people are to the very real threat of mortal peril that motorised traffic brings, and how quick they are to over exaggerate the comparatively small risk of being deliberately attacked on the streets.
I suspect that your alternative explanation is closest to the truth.
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Like it to not, LTNs tend to more residential and middle-class areas by definition
https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/q87fu/
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There've been a few people moaning on Next Door that they feel less safe walking at night with the constant rumble of through traffic suddenly gone.
Hopefully that's a short term thing and the traffic will be replaced by people out and about.
(or they're just talking shite)
It’s funny how blind (or perhaps that should be accepting of) so many people are to the very real threat of mortal peril that motorised traffic brings, and how quick they are to over exaggerate the comparatively small risk of being deliberately attacked on the streets.
I suspect that your alternative explanation is closest to the truth.
I (as a >180cm white male)'ve learned that my risk perception wrt poorly lit streets/fear of attack is different to a lot of people.
As a frequent rider I've also learned that my perception of cycling is different to those who do not cycle "because it is too dangerous"
They are both problems that should be addressed, and the solution is NOT telling people that they are doing maths the wrong way.
Hopefully that's a short term thing and the traffic will be replaced by people out and about.people having less to be fearful about
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Previously these people found some reassurance that there were cars going up and down the streets they were walking on. Without the cars it's too quiet. I can accept that, however irrational it might be. I'm weird enough to have deliberately moved from a very quiet flat to a very noisy one because I couldn't stand it.
My hope is that there'll be a lot more people out and about as time goes on. That's clearly evident on some streets already.
But, as I say, the LTN threads on nextdoor are so full of disingenuous loudmouths throwing literally any argument at the wall to see what sticks that it's hard to know if any of it is real.
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It's the same series of argument thrown at any of these changes (we had the same word-for-word when we had a home zone in Ealing in the early 2000s to the implementation of a 20 mph zone in Croydon in the later 2010s). They don't care about any of it. It's the old joke, how do you get a driver to care about pollution? Tell him he's going to have slow down.
I can't do Nextdoor, I glanced a while ago, and indeed, full of people griping about getting an FNP for driving down a street in Croydon. Now I don't even drive in Croydon and even I'm aware you can't drive down that street anymore, plus when I clicked a link to a photo of a nutcase standing up with a protest sign at the end of them street, behind him, on poles two huge 'road closed to traffic'-style signs clearly indicating that, no, driving any further will incur financial penalty. Ironically, the protest sign was illegible.
As with all change, if those same people didn't whine, it wouldn't be change.
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There've been a few people moaning on Next Door
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they're just talking shite
It's NextDoor.
I can't do Nextdoor,
I signed up as an experiment, but lasted about an hour before I asked them to delete my account - you can't do it yourself - which took about 10 days. None of the digests I received in the interim came close to making me change my mind.
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LTN's have hit Oxford and people are NOT happy.
My mate who lives in one, is particularly unhappy. He was explaining to me how awful it was now, because he couldn't drive directly to his 'fav' supermarket anymore, 0.6miles away. The awful diversion makes the journey a whopping 1.2 miles! That only leaves him with the choice of 2x other giant supermarkets 0.7 and 1.1 miles away. I was thinking of starting a JustGiving for him, to help with the loss.
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As if sitting on your arse and pushing a couple of pedals in your cocooned metal cage required any effort.
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If plans proceed our house will be inside a proposed LTN which would be excellent. We live near one of the most polluted streets in Scotland so anything is worth a try (Id anticipate short term increase to traffic on St Johns Rd which would soon tail off) and closing local rat runs would make walking locally significantly more pleasant.
https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/corstorphine-connections/supporting_documents/CorstorphineLTN%20consultation.pdf
Been speaking with the neighbours about it and some of the views I've heard expressed just beggar belief (but then Iv heard exactly the same arguments made by people who think they have a right to drive to work and have a parking space approximately the length of themselves away).
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LTN's have hit Oxford and people are NOT happy.
My mate who lives in one, is particularly unhappy. He was explaining to me how awful it was now, because he couldn't drive directly to his 'fav' supermarket anymore, 0.6miles away. The awful diversion makes the journey a whopping 1.2 miles! That only leaves him with the choice of 2x other giant supermarkets 0.7 and 1.1 miles away. I was thinking of starting a JustGiving for him, to help with the loss.
They all look fairly sensible and cover a lot of the rat runs in those areas. That's good, because the rat runs are in residential streets. It's maybe a bit awkward for drivers, because the rat runs exist for a reason - East Oxford is kinda higgldy pigldy and while getting from the centre outwards (and vice versa) is easy, going perpendicular to that is restricted to only a few roads (now, the only way to get between Iffley and Cowley roads will be the ring road, Church Cowley Road (also residential, busy), and Magdalen road (also residential, brutal speed bumps), if you don't get into the mess of tiny residential roads near the plain). This plan will cause significant congestion on those roads (and all hell will break loose if there is an obstruction on the ring road).
You can see the areas easiest here:
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19087719.cowley-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-mapped/
There's also this:
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19179124.oxford-roads-close-part-school-streets-pilot-scheme/
Windmill is a large school, with a tiny middle class catchment - walking to school isn't going to be an imposition for most. It will be interesting to see how it affects EOPS - the catchment is much bigger and a lot of parents collected their kids by car (my daughter went there - if I collected her then I went by car on my way home from work).
Oxford City is clearly pushing for change (see also the zero emissions zone in the centre), and hopefully it will have a significant impact. As someone who lives outside the ring road, there need to be proper alternatives put in place that allow people to travel about the city (and not just in/out of the centre) - the cancellation of the PickMeUp bus is a big step backwards on that front.
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LTN?
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If plans proceed our house will be inside a proposed LTN which would be excellent. We live near one of the most polluted streets in Scotland so anything is worth a try (Id anticipate short term increase to traffic on St Johns Rd which would soon tail off) and closing local rat runs would make walking locally significantly more pleasant.
https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/corstorphine-connections/supporting_documents/CorstorphineLTN%20consultation.pdf
Been speaking with the neighbours about it and some of the views I've heard expressed just beggar belief (but then Iv heard exactly the same arguments made by people who think they have a right to drive to work and have a parking space approximately the length of themselves away).
Not surprising - Edinburgh, with a fantastic bus service, managed to vote against Congestion Charge, and splash £1bn on a Tram.
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LTN?
Low Traffic Neighbourhood. You create one by taking all the rat runs and bunging a giant planter in the middle of the road so cars can't get past (but bikes and pedestrians can).
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There've been a few people moaning on Next Door that they feel less safe walking at night with the constant rumble of through traffic suddenly gone.
Hopefully that's a short term thing and the traffic will be replaced by people out and about.
(or they're just talking shite)
Like it to not, LTNs tend to more residential and middle-class areas by definition, poorer people are the ones that end up living by busy roads.
All of the estates round here are LTNs as built (no through traffic). Plus a lot of the houses on leafy-looking streets are council-owned or divided into shonky bedsits and flatshares.
I'm in no way convinced that the flats on main roads are populated by a preponderance of poor people. Maybe the very rich *don't*, maybe there's a difference in average income, but that's not the same thing.
I’ve known people who got scared when they moved to the country, as it was too quiet. I think they justify their feelings when change occurs rather than the lack of traffic being the cause.
As to Next Door. I tried it and got rid. If nothing else it was eye opening to learn how vituperative, vindictive and just generally unpleasant some of our bearish neighbours are.
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It's maybe a bit awkward for drivers, because the rat runs exist for a reason - East Oxford is kinda higgldy pigldy and while getting from the centre outwards (and vice versa) is easy, going perpendicular to that is restricted to only a few roads (now, the only way to get between Iffley and Cowley roads will be the ring road, Church Cowley Road (also residential, busy), and Magdalen road (also residential, brutal speed bumps), if you don't get into the mess of tiny residential roads near the plain).
Ideally you want the non-filtered roads to be chokka most of the day already, because your goal isn't to rearrange traffic, it's to reduce it.
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Agreed short local trips by car should be harder than by foot, bike or bus.
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LTN?
Low Traffic Neighbourhood. You create one by taking all the rat runs and bunging a giant planter in the middle of the road so cars can't get past (but bikes and pedestrians can).
Good idea. Could do with one on my road, as traffic is using it as a short cut to get to parts of
Gloucester and the M5.
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LTN?
Low Traffic Neighbourhood. You create one by taking all the rat runs and bunging a giant planter in the middle of the road so cars can't get past (but bikes and pedestrians can).
Good idea. Could do with one on my road, as traffic is using it as a short cut to get to parts of
Gloucester and the M5.
I’m not sure about the legality of a non-consulted DIY LTN, or even a street level consulted DIY LTN, but it’s certainly very tempting.
Has anyone else had these thoughts?
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As anyone who's organized a street closure for a party can tell you, you need all kinds of permissions to close a street for just a day. Unless you do with bad parking, in which case no one gives much of a shit.
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If plans proceed our house will be inside a proposed LTN which would be excellent. We live near one of the most polluted streets in Scotland so anything is worth a try (Id anticipate short term increase to traffic on St Johns Rd which would soon tail off) and closing local rat runs would make walking locally significantly more pleasant.
https://consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/sfc/corstorphine-connections/supporting_documents/CorstorphineLTN%20consultation.pdf
Been speaking with the neighbours about it and some of the views I've heard expressed just beggar belief (but then Iv heard exactly the same arguments made by people who think they have a right to drive to work and have a parking space approximately the length of themselves away).
Not surprising - Edinburgh, with a fantastic bus service, managed to vote against Congestion Charge, and splash £1bn on a Tram.
Id forgotten about the congestion charge vote which also featured similarly dispiriting conversations (and more recently discussions about the workplace parking levy though these have gone on the back burner these last 12 months for obvious reasons).
Im a tram fan so would say that it was a decent enough idea very badly implemented (the route and stops were flawed even before costs and timescales ran out of control) I watch on with interest to see how the extension to Granton comes along. Progress so far appears less problematic.
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IIRC the Edinburgh plan wasn't really a congestion charge, simply a charge for crossing a cordon (the ring road?). It might have reduced traffic entering the city from outside, but it didn't offer a mechanism to deter road usage entirely within the boundary.
The tram might have cost a bit less if they'd settled for COTS vehicles too, rather than insisting that Edinburgh deserved tramcars custom built to be bigger and heavier than anywhere else on the planet, which had the secondary effect of ensuring there was no resale market for the trams made surplus by the restricted build. Piss poor contract and project management didn't help much either.
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I’m not sure about the legality of a non-consulted DIY LTN, or even a street level consulted DIY LTN, but it’s certainly very tempting.
Has anyone else had these thoughts?
Our street had an LTN for most of the summer after we moved in: Some utility company digging a hole and not being very quick about filling it in. This seems to be the way to go...
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It's maybe a bit awkward for drivers, because the rat runs exist for a reason - East Oxford is kinda higgldy pigldy and while getting from the centre outwards (and vice versa) is easy, going perpendicular to that is restricted to only a few roads (now, the only way to get between Iffley and Cowley roads will be the ring road, Church Cowley Road (also residential, busy), and Magdalen road (also residential, brutal speed bumps), if you don't get into the mess of tiny residential roads near the plain).
Ideally you want the non-filtered roads to be chokka most of the day already, because your goal isn't to rearrange traffic, it's to reduce it.
I understand the theory. It does have an impact on the people who live on the roads you have intentionally just gridlocked.
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IIRC the Edinburgh plan wasn't really a congestion charge, simply a charge for crossing a cordon (the ring road?). It might have reduced traffic entering the city from outside, but it didn't offer a mechanism to deter road usage entirely within the boundary.
The tram might have cost a bit less if they'd settled for COTS vehicles too, rather than insisting that Edinburgh deserved tramcars custom built to be bigger and heavier than anywhere else on the planet, which had the secondary effect of ensuring there was no resale market for the trams made surplus by the restricted build. Piss poor contract and project management didn't help much either.
IIRC the Edinburgh congestion charge proposal had two tiers - one for going into the area broadly bound by the city bypass and another higher charge for the city centre. But I take your point, somebody could flit about between the 'burbs to their hearts content free of charge as long as they stayed out the centre.
Id not appreciated that a non standard build was also a feature of the Edinburgh Trams Fiasco TM - but it does explain why the trams feel quite different from the ones I used to use on my daily commute from Merton Park to East Croydon 2003 - 2005.
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I understand the theory. It does have an impact on the people who live on the roads you have intentionally just gridlocked.
Dude, my front door is on the A1. Diverting more traffic my way can only serve to put people off driving, and gives me nice quiet back streets to cycle and walk the dog. Bring it on.
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I understand the theory. It does have an impact on the people who live on the roads you have intentionally just gridlocked.
Dude, my front door is on the A1. Diverting more traffic my way can only serve to put people off driving, and gives me nice quiet back streets to cycle and walk the dog. Bring it on.
I feel exactly the same about where I live (the A8 St Johns Rd EH12).
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I understand the theory. It does have an impact on the people who live on the roads you have intentionally just gridlocked.
Dude, my front door is on the A1. Diverting more traffic my way can only serve to put people off driving, and gives me nice quiet back streets to cycle and walk the dog. Bring it on.
I have no dog in this fight - I live far enough out of the city that this is not going to affect me at all. A few years ago I lived on one of the roads that has now become a crucial joining road and was regularly woken up by cars clattering the speed bump outside our flat.
NB - I'm not saying this is a bad idea. It's an experiment that will be reviewed in 6 months, and hopefully it will result in reduced traffic everywhere and nicer places inside the LTNs, and everyone will be happy for it to continue. I fear it will annoy enough people that it's taken away again in 6 months, and either way it will result in the main roads remaining unpleasant to cycle on.
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You can't really reduce traffic (which benefits us all) without inconveniencing someone.