heartblock

'Centric is a neuroscience research lab creating strategies to improve public health. We work as a research & data driven lab to help organisations make effective decisions for supporting mental and physical health, specifically for communities that are the most susceptible to poor health outcomes' but more importantly...did you read it? I though this pertinent and might have helped Southwark plan appropriately 'Understanding the mobility issues of local residents helps identify the micro-solutions/mitigations needed to ensure that large infrastructure changes such as LTNs do not create any new inequities'

Lastly... One of the best reads on society, mobility, pollution and equality I have read. Grab a coffee and read all of it. An excellent piece of work. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57a5a729414fb58fa3e0e0a6/t/609173a702d0e054885d2ec0/1620145076839/Equitable+Urban+Mobility.pdf

Sorry...I know I?m probably overdoing it today... but an interesting article on bias in relation to encouraging cycling using LTNs etc and optimism bias, by a peer reviewed chief scientist. ?Optimism bias We need to be careful to avoid optimism bias when projecting the impact of measures to reduce transport carbon emissions. The models that are used for this purpose are complex and opaque, with many input assumptions and parameters to be specified. Optimism bias arises when modellers make choices, consciously or unconsciously, that tend towards achieving a strategic purpose. Yet optimism bias leads to outcomes that fall short of those that are forecast. It is now part of the culture of transport planning to foccus on the opportunities for promoting cycling. But caution is needed. When addressing the impact of changing mode share, attention should be paid to the modes from which the shift to cycling is expected. For instance, the well-established Propensity to Cycle Tool (www.pct.bike), which assesses the potential to increase the amount of cycling, assumes that commuters are equally likely to shift to cycling from any prior mode. However, the evidence from Copenhagen and elsewhere indicates that a shift to cycling from public transport is much more likely than from car use, which would substantially reduce the carbon reduction benefits assumed from boosting cycling. If optimism bias informs assumptions about mode shift from cars to bikes, or about the scope for car sharing, then disappointment is likely to ensue.? David Metz is an honorary professor at the Centre for Transport Studies UCL. He was formerly the DfT?s chief scientist.

In many ways...pedestrians (so I?ll qualify, those who main mode of travel is walking, which is pretty much me, even journeys into inner London tend to be more walk than PT, usually a max of 2 hours but have been known to walk back from Lambeth Palace as an example. A great walk, if you just point towards home you discover so much of historic London by winding through the streets) ....have been almost forgotten in Southwark?s LTN ?planning?, the pavements are atrocious, street cleaning awful, well on ED Grove at least, seems that every area an LTN has been put in has newer paving, freshly tarmaced roads, nice seating areas, new plants, new trees..I could go on. Lordship Lane is visited so often by locals and people visiting, but honestly...it does need some money spent on it, the temp barriers could be removed and the pavement extended? Street cleaned more often? And of course the funnelled traffic doesn?t help pedestrians or businesses.

As an observer, there is a lot of walking and cycling on ED Grove, obviously because of the schools, but also as a local route and now a health centre that has far more local services that the previous Dulwich Hospital. The only changes I have seen after the LTNs went in are; 1. Congestion that fills the road end-to-end during the school run/rush hour (this used to be a busy time, but not crawling and idling traffic) 2. Adult cyclists using the pavement or the opposing lane (there has been observed increase in cyclists over the last 10 years) 3. A huge increase of children on bikes and scooters - but on the pavement and travelling at an adults walking pace, have actually been hit on the back of my shins twice while walking to HH station. Again just observations and a bias against car pollution :)

Actually Rockets isn?t so far off the mark. There was a particular push by the LCC and walking as active travel is historically high in this area, probably due to parks and a lovely main road. Lordship Lane is a gem - it?s a shame that Southwark seem to be unable to lavish much love on it. It?s all about the ?square? after all....

In answer to Rockets, as Rachel says herself...."changes appear to spur increased local walking, despite largely being interpreted as cycling interventions (Aldred et al., 2019)" Although I disagree with the 'appear' part. So this 'perceived' increase in walking is added to cycling - then quoted as a change in 'active travel' and the used by LCC and others to say there is peer, reviewed proof that LTNs increase the amount of cycling. I'm an absolute advocate for cycling and walking, but and again - from Rachel.."Although the ?LTN area? sample size is small (most intervention areas weren?t LTNs) and uncertainty about effect sizes is large, we find consistent evidence about their direction. LTNs have reduced residents? car ownership and/or use, and the already demonstrated increase in active travel from mini-Holland schemes is higher in LTNs" Uncertainty - means the statistics were not significant, so I'm not sure how she comes to the 'demonstrated increase' conclusion. Yes I am used to randomised clinical trials that are very rigorous, but when research has words such as 'appear' and 'uncertainty' and 'direction' rather than actual statistically significant data, I cannot see how this can be used to validate the increases in congestion and traffic seen in Dulwich and East Dulwich, due to poorly planned LTNs.

Critical analysis of Rachel?s latest. 1. Only Oyster card and cyclists polled 2. Unrepresentative of the local population in terms of age, gender and ethnicity (actually in the published limitations of the study) 3. Outcomes used ?walking? to prove that more people were cycling 4. Used people?s perceptions of traffic use, car ownership and more active travel rather than actual data 5. Concluded that if residents within LTNs ?reported? that they had less car ownership as a result of an LTN, that traffic was ?evaporating? across the area. 6. Changes in pollution, actual traffic flow and decreases/increases in traffic not measured on non-LTN roads or LTNs roads. So I think the study is flawed myself, other reviewers may think differently. Also most of the publications are open access and not in peer reviewed journals, and are published as ?findings? rather than research.

Well, close inspection of data, is not 'rubbishing' research, it is part of the important scientific inspection and critical analysis that I teach. Students are taught to critically review published research -Was the data collection valid? Was the methodology appropriate? Does the conclusion reflect the statistical data? I only wish that the safety research conducted by the German company Chemie Gr?nenthal for their sleeping pill- that it marketed around the world as safe for everyone, including expectant mothers, had been critically reviewed.

So..let?s all think about ways to reduce pollution, encourage cycling and walking and enjoy the footy ⚽️

I would say that everything she publishes is not the pinnacle of unbiased research and is quite often small studies or modelling (based on data collected or modelled by others). So it is not the standard for let?s say... vaccine efficacy. I do not dismiss it, but one has to be careful about offering it up as proof of traffic congestion or pollution reduction, or as many advocates put forward a modal shift towards an increase in uptake of active travel. For me, that is besides the point, when actual data about pollution levels has not been measured accurately in a timely or scientific method. In the small pockets it has, it appears that the most polluted residential roads are not in LTNs and have been discounted as roads that can be sacrificed in terms of traffic volume for roads with a lower density of residents and a lower level of pollution historically.

And yes 😆🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Happy to..she doesn?t have 25 peer reviewed papers on the subject of LTNs, in the same way I may have a paper about subject A or subject B or C. Therefore if I wanted to talk about A, I would only mention A. Also if I was paid by a pharmaceutical company to prove that a drug worked, my research would be compromised. Rachel is not neutral and aspects of her research are based on modelling rather than actual data, it does need to be reviewed with that in mind. I?m not dismissing the research, but as a reviewer I would critically review it on that basis.

Might..enjoying 2:0 at present :)

No .... she does not have 25 ?peer reviewed? papers. Yes I am going but cannot deal with inaccurate scientific academic reporting. There are articles and there are peer reviewed articles, I speak as a scientist with many international peer reviewed papers. Also I have never been paid or employed by the organisation paying for the research, unlike Rachel.

The worse thing is...I have lived here for 30 years and loved the area, the people and the cohesive attitude of we are all in this together. With LTNs it is now .. neighbours spying on neighbours, taking photos, being unpleasant on Twitter and polluted noisy streets versus quiet streets ... haves and have-nots. At a time when we should all come together in shared empathy for those that have lost loved ones, lost jobs, businesses and for all my NHS colleagues who have had the worst year and with many cases of PTSD ..this has ruined the area for me, as soon as I can I'm moving out..Dulwich is now a horrible place to live. I'm leaving this forum, I'm so fed up with people living in LTNs with their holier than thou attitudes, while driving their diesel cars around....

The photographing of people?s homes calling neighbours hypocrites and worse by CAD followers was highly unpleasant by the way. I see a CAD follower then went around Dulwich Village photographing private family houses and posting it on Twitter with equally unpleasant text. Please stop!

There are several local campaigns, most are people who have organised on one road and are asking for the Council to re-think LTNs in light of the increase in traffic, traffic flow and congestion they now suffer. If you walk down East Dulwich Grove, you will note that Open road and clean air for ED Grove signs are in flats, terraces, semi-detached and detached houses as the road passes through high density flats with no gardens, shared gardens, terraces all in Goose Green Ward, with very little car ownership to the last few houses that are larger and constitute the village end. 5 LTNs funnel traffic onto this road and have made life very unpleasant for those that live here.

It is rather insulting to the Melbourne Grove businesses. Free parking spaces for customers and regular street cleaning would be a much better 'thank you'.

How is this for a baseline from the Taskforce for Lung Health Southwark - 12.69μg/m3 background PM2.5, worse road is 15.12μg/m3 In 2018 an estimated 6.74% of deaths were attributable to PM2.5 air pollution which was equivalent to 91 deaths, with each 5μg/m3 increase in concentrations of PM2.5 there is a 7% increase in mortality. Southwark has a population of 314,232 meaning 67,403 children and 246,829 adults are being exposed to toxic air. I imagine on our roads with traffic funnelled from the 5 LTNs, the exposure will increase. Exposure to PM2.5 can cause illnesses like asthma, COPD, coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. There is also evidence that links PM2.5 to low birth weight, diabetes and diseases such as Alzheimer?s and Parkinson?s. Do we have figures for NO2...no because Southwark has not monitored pollution, which is appalling considering that people living, working or going to school in these local areas are likely to be exposed to dangerous levels of NO2, across the year. Research from 2017 showed that over 2,000 nurseries, schools, further education centres and after school clubs in England and Wales were within 150 metres of a road with levels of nitrogen dioxide that broke the law. East Dulwich Grove has schools, nurseries and a health centre and yet Southwark has chosen it to be a high traffic neighbourhood.

1. The Department for Transport?s (DfT) carried out a minor road traffic benchmarking exercise, where how they estimate traffic on side roads was changed. In their own words they do not know how this effected the data set that has been used to justify LTNs on the basis of an increase in traffic on side roads. In fact the major increase has been on so called 'main roads' rather then 'side roads'. Presently - TFL "are currently working through how the DfT have made this assessment, and also what this could mean for London data sets". It also notes that the TFL traffic data in the report will be unchanged "pending further investigation of this revision with the DfT". In plainer language - the data is flawed, they admit it is, but they are not unpublishing it. For clarity - Previously, the data suggested a decrease in vehicle kms between 2009 and 2018 of 2%, whereas the revisions now suggest an 18% increase after the flawed benchmarking. 2. The population has also increased in this time period..does that mean we should shove poorer people into dangerous and not fit for purpose homes. 3. LTNs kettle traffic onto other roads, there is absolutely no data or evidence they reduce pollution LTNs just tinker around at the edges, cause more pollution on already polluted roads and really don't change anything for residents except for those living in LTNs, many of whom have large houses, big gardens and more than one vehicle per household - with a high percentage of SUV ownership. Solutions 1. Only electric vehicles in London 2. One vechicle per household 3. School buses 4. Close private schools, so all education is local 5. Ban BBQ, fires and log burning stoves 6. All commercial vehicles to be electric 7. Open canals as commercial transport routes 8. Clean trams and more local public transport

Personally I would say if you are going to read anything this weekend, stick to some scientific facts and a fascinating article by Dr Abigail Whitehouse, Centre for Genomics and Child Health, Queen Mary University of London, UK, for clean air day. https://www.physoc.org/magazine-articles/air-pollution-and-me/

They do have data...data that there are illegal levels of pollution on roads that are not in LTNs and their own research from 2018, where they concluded that an LTN at Calton/ Court would cause congestion on these roads. I agree that Southwark?s monitoring is at the best incompetent and at the worse purposely missing because they do not want to know the real data as it will not favour the mess they have made of very poorly planned and badly implemented LTNs. If you look at the history of the lobby and the published document from Southwark in 2018 about closing roads at the request of residents in Melbourne, Court and Calton, it was all about making quiet neighbourhoods for these roads and nothing about pollution reduction. In fact the conclusion was that these road closures would cause so much congestion on LL and East Dulwich Grove, specifically, the rd closures were abandoned. Along comes a Tory minister, offers Southwark cash and the vanity project rolls into place...

Living here for 30 years I have noticed all changes and as someone who professionly is very aware of the inflammatory response to pollution in terms of cardiovascular and respiratory health I don't confuse changes in traffic on my road. When the junction at Townley and ED Grove was changed it caused more congestion on ED Grove, when Southwark planned a pedestrian crossing on ED Grove in the wrong place and then left a useless speed hump that caused more pollution I noticed, when the hospital was knocked down and lorries with dusty particulates drove down the Grove..I noticed. So as someone who teaches at a clinical level about the dangers of pollution on health..please do not 'explain' to me about my perception.

Without a doubt people living on EDGrove, LL, Grove Vale and Croxted are suffering more and longer periods of idling traffic since the 5 LTNs went in. The constant denial of our lived experience is tedious and for vulnerable people dangerous. I know that Rosamund Kissi Debra is constantly trolled .... even attempts at no platforming her due to her lived experience of LTNs causing even more pollution and traffic on the roads that contributed to her loss. Please stop telling us we are either lying, have some sort of perception issue or that we are so dim we can?t recognise an increase in idling traffic. Even the council in its traffic report pre-Covid stated that traffic WOULD increase and congestion WOULD increase on our roads as a result of other rd closures. I would have some passing respect for people if they were honest and just admitted that they know that there is an increase in congestion, but they think the benefits for the LTN residents is worth our sacrifice.