heartblock

Good grief.. back to face-to-face teaching all day and I come back to this! Really.. Some old and disabled people protest for an hour on a closed junction..they might have brought along some bags. A cyclist might have had to slow down, or get off their bike. The old and disabled people were called idiots, which is unkind. If you have never walked down ED Grove during the school-run horror of jammed traffic and had to dodge adults and children cycling and scootering on the pavement, or cycled and nearly been hit by U-turning cars, then maybe a person in a wheelchair with their tote-bag by their side must feel like a MAJOR CATASTROPHE! Lordy! And...it is not a ******* square!

I believe it was organised by some 60+ year-old residents, who feel trapped and negatively affected by the road closures. I see that the reports are that the turnout is around 120 older Southwark residents (or 'idiots' according to at least one supporter of gated communities and polluted, traffic jammed roads).

I think the health centre is going back to direct control under Southwark...I'm staying hopeful...but let's see. I miss my swim, it's just too much bother. It was lovely when they had the swim-only membership years ago, not sure why they stopped, probably wanted to make more profit?

Well - when one allows degeneration as an excuse to demolish council estates, then splits up friends and families to enable a sell-off to a private property developer..who then makes millions while failing to deliver social housing at the same rental, in the number required (so a huge reduction) and then one is still a Councillor, while being given a very nice job - thank-you - with a property lobby company or one of the property developers...possibly one's mind is diverted from actually being able to count?

Southwark calculated incorrectly - who would have thought! So they have too many spaces as they over-estimated. They are not great at calculations, statistics and counting it seems.

This is the issue. Suspecting, imagining and even in my case -observing over 30 years is not valid, properly collected and analysed-independently data. Unfortunately Southwark Council seem to be a little troubled when it comes to the challenges of property deals (Land -lease and Heygate), consultation (LTNs and Peckham Green) and data/statistics - pollution monitors and active travel. The raw data already suffers from selection, omitted variable bias/cause-effect bias (pandemic/lockdown) and observer bias, but in any case needs to be blinded - for example not knowing which road or year is being analysed to prevent funding and cognitive bias. This is why nobody knows the real active travel and cycling numbers - all such a waste of money. just spend it on a local publicly funded local bus service and better cycle lanes/pavements and open the gated roads that do nothing for the majority of residents that fund this Council.

19:30 traffic flowing...so that is 60 minutes evening at least, but cannot report on traffic conditions earlier as not around.

Quaint? Quiet..I have had an end of week Negroni..

19:01 queuing idling traffic on ED Grove one way from LL to Village in one direction...again Melbounites...do walk from your lovely quaint road and view the chaos......

18:26 queuing traffic all the way down ED Grove both ways....and no I?m not posting photographic ?evidence? just look out your window or walk down from your Melbourne gated road!

Siduhe, yes it is bad and your/my observations backed up by Southwark?s own figures that show on one measure an increase in traffic if 25% and on another 36%. The jams are awful and change daily in terms of time of day and length of time. Of course living for 30 years on this road and observing change or your observation compared to your previous experience will be dismissed by the more observant and far better abled to assess traffic movements. Maybe living in an LTN improves cognitive function. No I will not be posting proof of my observations on this forum, I send the proof to my local councillor in hope that they actually do something as per the Councils recorded increases in traffic. Ok busy time at Uni from Monday... so goodbye forum for a bit...

But I suppose I live in hope that there is some honesty on this thread and someone just admits that although ED Grove, LL, Croxted were all busy roads, they are now much worse due to the LTNs. While their road is now gated, so quiet and with less traffic, with the consequence that their house price has increased and they of course they can still drive on boundary roads. So they have no issue with others having a worse experience and probable worse psychological and physical health outcomes due to increased stress and increased pollution both noise and particulates/NOx, because their life is now much nicer. I would respect this honesty far more than the trolling, sealioning and accusations of lying.

I think you are right on this one Alice.

No it's not consistent, some days are really horrific and some days it finishes earlier. Before the 5x LTNs there was flexibility in the system - a bit like collateral arteries in the heart, so if you have collaterals - if one get's blocked others take the flow and there isn't a major blockage and .....a heart attack is avoided. I suppose LTNs have removed the collaterals. The problem is this - as is Croxted- EDG is a residential road, a school road, a health centre road, a bus route - when it is jammed and not moving - pollution goes up, buses stop, cyclists are endangered by U-turning cars and school children walk down a polluted road - schools are on this polluted road. These boundary roads are not motorways, they may be designated as an A road, but they were lanes and groves..in 1886 when my flat was built - it was built on a residential road for railway and shop workers. And - 40 mins, an hour, 2 hours of idling traffic pollution while children walk down ED Grove 5 days a week each term, is enough to trigger an asthma attack, reduce lung capacity, increase an inflammatory response that leads to cardiovascular disease or cancer - read the paper on short term exposure leading to DVT and PEs - it is compelling.

I love Kartuli, so different and big flavours. Cheesy boat bread mmhhhhhhh.

For some reason much longer now, this morning started to dissipate around 9:00am thankfully, but yes much longer and far more static than before. The evenings are a newer phenomen - seems to be later than the afternoon school run - which was bad before the summer break, but just started as schools went back, can only imagine that kids are back to school, so parents are back to the office. I fully welcome any policy that reduces car use and reduces pollution - I have not seen any data that supports LTNs actually achieve this and my own experience is that they just push the problem onto another road and other people's lungs. I've know what cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease looks like and seen enough people die from preventable disease. I'm not sure why anyone would support a policy that put's neighbours at an increased risk of ill health.

Oh and I don?t usually reply, but trust me - my walk from my flat to the station down ED Grove and the video I took was not an experience of free-flowing traffic at 8:45. The jam starts at 7:15 and lasts until 9:00 to 9:15 sometimes later since schools started this week. If anything much worse and much longer than the school run before Summer and now an evening of horror to add on ED Grove, I suppose more people going back to the office adding to the pain. No need to lie about my road, my life or my experience... just a resident worried about my health as an asthmatic and sad for my neighbours with children who I have been friends with since they were children themselves and the lovely couple who moved into a flat over summer and who are very unhappy and dismayed to see this traffic that was not there when they viewed during school holidays.

Slati- the drilled down data is always interesting. I imagine as Southwark has not published the data on pollution levels yet - they are still paying a private company to use statistical and filtering methodology to interpret the raw data in such a way to obscure the awful, dangerous and unhealthy rise in pollutants on ED Grove, Croxted, Grove Vale and LL. I also imagine the numbers of residents that want LTNs removed as they cause chaos on their roads are being massaged into fanciful ranges to help the message that LTNs are GOOD and residents who are under a pollution siege and are complaining are a very small MINORITY and therefore should be ignored. It?s the same story for Peckham Green Park, currently being built on. Residents - ?it?s a park, why were we not consulted? Southwark - ?its the Flax-yard, not a park and you were all consulted 10 years ago, so no need to consult again? I?m embarrassed to be a Labour Party member ☹️

2+ hours of idling pollution traffic in the morning and 2+ hours every evening on ED Grove and Croxted, it is terrible since Monday. Just published - 16-year large cohort study reveals SHORT TERM NO2, PM10 & PM2.5 exposure is associated with increased hospital urgent admissions for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism - associated with a high risk of morbidity and mortality. SHORT TERM EXPOSURE - Thanks Southwark Council!

I would love to be supportive of any new nursery, but with the risk of ED Grove becoming even more of a nightmare on top of the horrendous idling standstill traffic today, I will object. If the LTNs all go, I will support.

Children don't drive cars, so I'm not sure it counts as a modal shift and most of the children I bump into are cycling on the pavement - inside and outside of LTNs, but especially so on ED Grove - quite often with a parent on the pavement too. My friend who used to cycle from New Cross to Chelsea, now does not cycle as her route is too dangerous since the LTNs - idling traffic, cars doing U turns and the fumes are terrible, she says that flowing traffic is safe, but this standstill traffic is dangerous - I have never cycled as a commute, so don't know the ins and out of it.

Actually as the traffic is at a standstill during the school run down ED Grove ...many parents let their kids get out in the middle of the road, sometimes in front of bikes...I think that is why many cyclists use the pavement as children jumping out of cars and cars trying to do U-turns is very dangerous.

Only seen after a full moon and the call of the magic vixen....

Active travel (cycling and walking) increased in all London boroughs and car use decreased in all London Boroughs during lockdown and the mid point of the pandemic - it was not dependent on LTNs. The increase in cycling when separated from walking was relatively small. The small increases in cycling are now having a downward trend. Car use has now increased, nearly back to pre-pandemic levels. As someone who travels by PT and walking as my main modes of transport and as someone who teaches cardiorespiratory health, I would love not just my road, but all roads to have far less car pollution and preferably none. The best way to achieve this is decent, cheap, reliable and end-to-end public transport. Dulwich has one of the worst PTAL ratings in London. LTNs are a waste of time and money, there is absolutely no data that proves that closing roads reduces pollution and shifts people to cycling in any significant number to make a dent in pollution levels. Meanwhile residential roads such as Croxted and ED Grove suffer.

There is often two sparrow hawks circling high above the Rye....I imagine a nice fat pigeon is just the thing for tea. If you can?t see the hawks you can hear them calling.