exdulwicher

As of September 2021, when schools properly re-opened and a lot of restrictions were lifted further, traffic returned to more or less pre-pandemic levels with some regional variations. In fact this rise was seen from mid-2021 although with schools off over summer it was a relatively gradual rise initially. There's some easy-to-read info in various places: https://www.brake.org.uk/how-we-help/raising-awareness/our-current-projects/news-and-blogs/the-return-of-rush-hour-are-traffic-levels-at-pre-covid-levels-or-higher https://fleetworld.co.uk/uk-road-traffic-back-at-pre-covid-levels/ Bus, train and tube ridership continues to be below pre-pandemic levels (again with regional variations in bus and train), it's hovering at about 70%-ish. But to all intents and purposes, (for travel at least), Covid is over, people are going about their normal lives again. As traffic levels on roads rose, the active travel dropped off again - much of this is attributed to people simply being unwilling to cycle on roads dominated by car traffic which is why active travel interventions are necessary. You can't keep claiming that the drop in traffic is solely due to Covid. It was for a few months in 2020, yes. As restrictions eased, it rose again dramatically and is now more or less at 2019 levels, sometimes above it. That was part of the reason the LTNs were introduced - the Government, in between awarding themselves corrupt PPE contracts and partying, recognised that there would be a significant car-led recovery as people avoided crowded public transport hence providing funding for councils to install pop-up cycle lanes, LTNs, wider pavements and so on. Data from thousands of "LTNs" or similar schemes worldwide suggests you're wrong on that. In fact, this document: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213624X22000281 is a meta-analysis of 800 peer-reviewed studies from around the world which summarised the 12 most effective interventions for reducing traffic. As you've noted on here so many times, you're very keen on data so I'm sure you'll read it in full and digest it carefully but as a very brief summary, the top 2 most effective interventions are: charging and pricing (congestions charging, ULEZ, workplace charging levy) access limitations (filtered streets, school streets, LTNs) Repeating "LTNs don't work" doesn't make your belief any more true. It remains as wrong now as it was the first time you typed it.

Cos there was never, in all of history, ever a tailback in front of Hamlet before LTNs...? You only need one lane there. Traffic coming into DV from Turney can only go left or right and it has it's own phase, it's effectively a T junction for cars now. The advanced green phase for cyclists needs to be a bit longer to shift more riders before the traffic behind starts up and tries to turn left "across" the flow of riders who can go straight on and in fact it's not difficult to envisage a time where you'll need to give a full green phase to cyclists only at that junction. Same at Townley crossing over into Greendale.

Campaign for MORE interventions, not less. LTNs work best when combined - it's why standalone schemes (the old Loughborough Junction being a prime example) are rarely successful and are ripped out and used as a stick to say "we tried it and it didn't work". Used in combination with parking restrictions, segregated cycle infrastructure, 24/7 bus lanes, charging (ULEZ / congestion etc) and facilities such as secure cycle parking / storage, delivery hubs (to better manage online shopping / van journeys etc) they work very well to deliver sustainable decreases in traffic. It's not an instant fix but it works and is proven to reliably work. And unlike options such as trams, more buses, redesigning junctions etc, LTNs are very low-capital schemes, they require relatively minimal investment and can be put in (and changed, and taken out) at relatively short notice. It's been explained countless times on this thread and the previous one and there are countless studies on it but here's the basics (again...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand A simple search for the terms "induced demand" and "traffic evaporation" will give you years worth of reading material which all comes to the same conclusion.

A few pages ago, the local elections were being touted as a referendum on all things LTN. In fact the Conservative and Liberal Democrat campaigns played very heavily on the LTNs, promises to remove them and so on. Now that Labour have had a significant win, it's suddenly not about LTNs, it's a response to national politics? Can't have it both ways. Enfield and Ealing had the same - high profile anti-LTN campaigns from Con & Lib Dem, Labour got a significant win. Outside London, Oxford had a similar story, some high-profile anti-LTN campaigning going on from independents, not one of whom won a seat on Oxford City Council. Anti-LTN campaigning is generally a very poor mast to attach your flag to, the general rule of thumb (in spite of Twitter / One[borough] etc) is that it's about 6:1 in favour of traffic reductions schemes; that's an average national picture. It really is a "vocal minority" who want them scrapped.

Westerham is really nice, there are loads of walk options in the woods around there. Toys Hill and Ide Hill both close by, Limpsfield Chart and Chartwell itself. Nearest station is Oxted or Hurst Green a couple of miles west - can then walk over, drop down into Westerham where there are loads of pubs and cafes. Or it's about an hour's drive.

That's wrong. TfL website: https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/lez-lez-services-37309 Extract from the page: The charges only need to be paid if you drive your vehicle within the zone. Parked vehicles are not subject to any charges. That's the whole issue behind reducing the hours that it is operational, that people will drive in at 6am, park up and then drive out again at 7pm. No charge payable. The info is on various London tourist websites as well eg https://www.toptiplondon.com/practical-tips/london-congestion-charge

If you drive in outside operational hours and your car is then parked for the duration, there is no charge. Same as the ULEZ - if you have a non-compliant car but it's parked on the street or in your driveway, no charge is payable. Charge only applies if the vehicle is moving within the hours of operation. Hope that helps.

It's a sparrowhawk. Peregrines have dark eyes, sparrowhawks have yellow eyes with a black pupil. Good pics though, great to see it so close up!

There was a page or so on this topic buried in amongst the 300 pages in the previous (now closed) LTN thread. Retailers want to offer the best customer service so will offer next or even same-day delivery. The quicker the delivery, the less efficient it usually is since there's less chance of a van being able to fill up and do multiple drops in an area. If you order something at 10am on same-day, the retailer simply won't have the volume of orders to fill a van so you end up with a van having a couple of items on it rushing from depot to door in the space of a 4-6hr window. Much less efficient than one that can load up fully and do 40 drops in the area. They often don't put the price on the delivery since that puts people off ordering. They'll either do it Amazon style where you pay a fixed fee per month for Prime which includes "free" next day delivery or simply hike the price of everything to cover it. Much like supermarkets run loss-leader items - artificially cheap bread, milk etc gets customers in the door and they'll invariably spend more once in there. "Free" delivery tempts the same sort of behaviour in certain retail areas; the customer buys a few extra items - they may as well because it's free delivery, they can try them on and then send them back (more van journeys!) for free if they don't like them. You also have situations where the customer is out and the parcel gets returned to depot for another delivery attempt the next day - another van journey. Retailers don't want to address it for fear of losing customers. After all if they don't offer free next day, someone else will. The Government doesn't want to address it because it's market forces. The consumer - well some people genuinely do care and avoid places like Amazon but there aren't enough people like that to offset the ones who do order that thing they *need* same day. And I get that that exists, there are times when it's justified like if your fridge/freezer breaks down and you get onto [retailer of choice] and have a new one brought in urgently before all your food goes to waste. But it's not like that explains all the vans charging around the place!

The schools have all this and they're legally obliged to come up with travel plans. There's a 2016 one here done to assess the coach service to the three Foundation Schools, it includes a map of the stops (page 5) from which you can get a good idea of the catchment area: https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/quietway-in-dulwich/supporting_documents/2016_Dulwich%20Coach%20Service%20Study_published.pdf

It's not TfL, it's DfT. Benchmarking is done every 10 years or so in order to account for cumulative errors that can occur as well as factors such as: new developments, changes in land use, changes to the road layout and so on. You can read about it here, I'm not going to re-type it all! https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/916034/2019-minor-road-benchmarking-frequency-asked-questions.pdf Wrong again. Vehicle miles travelled in Great Britain have had year-on-year growth in each year between 2010 and 2019. However, the sharp decrease in 2020 has resulted in traffic estimates that are lower than the 2010 levels. Therefore, to say traffic has fallen over the last decade would misconstrue, as the overall decrease is entirely due to the decline in traffic levels observed in the 2020 estimates. I've said before that Covid has messed up the modelling. You can see DfT's counts for Southwark here: https://roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk/local-authorities/103 There's also a data disclaimer on there: Traffic figures at the regional and national level are robust, and are reported as National Statistics. However, DfT?s traffic estimates for individual road links and small areas are less robust, as they are not always based on up-to-date counts made at these locations. Where other more up-to-date sources of traffic data are available (e.g. from local highways authorities), this may provide a more accurate estimate of traffic at these locations. Counts from DfT, TfL and Southwark themselves won't always align so it's important to check which ones are estimates, which are actual counts and the methodology behind them.

The specific wording used is "access to off-street parking" which just means "not on the public highway". So it includes driveways, lock-ups, resident car parks, underground parking garages - even things like supermarket car parks. Doesn't say you have to own them, just that you have access to them. So if you drive your EV to the supermarket and pop it on charge at one of points there, that is counted as having "access to off-street parking". It's a slightly disingenuous way of saying it although if you take all the above into account, the figure is roughly correct. It's useful in determining how many on-street chargers are needed albeit in fairly general trends.

Because they'd have been applying a Southwark-wide figure traffic figure from TfL monitoring to a single LTN scheme. Firstly, cam I assume that by "their monitoring report", you do actually mean the Main Report from the Streetspace page? https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/improving-our-streets/live-projects/dulwich-review?chapter=4 If you're going to quote excerpts, it's useful to post the link. Page 19 and again on page 28 of that report give a % figure for SOUTHWARK. That's data from TfL so it's main-road monitoring covering everything from the northern reaches of Crystal Palace right up through DV, ED, Peckham all the way up to Walworth, E&C, Rotherhithe etc at the northern end of Southwark. It's an area wide map that, without breaking down anything about vehicle type / roads used / actual numbers / times of day etc has simply looked at combined traffic counts and said "In Sept 2019, there were X vehicles in total, in Sept 2021 there were Y vehicles in total; Y is 7% lower than X. It assigns the bulk of that to Covid which is logical and fair enough although there could be other underlying factors too since there's been a significant shift in working and travel patterns. You're then trying to look at the more detailed % figures given for the Dulwich scheme itself and seem to be arguing that - what - the scheme is a failure because traffic was already lower? Southwark data doesn't apply to Dulwich? Dulwich data doesn't apply to Southwark? The council are wrong with their figures? The "7% lower" figure is given as a helpful background note to put figures into context, not as something to apply direct to an individual LTN / Streetspace scheme. I genuinely don't know what point you're making other than you seem desperate to find something, anything to discredit the data while at the same time calling for more and more data. "we want data" [data is produced] "no, not that data, it doesn't match our opinion"

I've got an egg here Rockets, can you tell me how to cook it please... ;-)

Fully automated cars have been "10-15 years away" for about 35 years now. They're still "10-15 years away". Yes, you've got cars that have a high degree of automation built in and test cars have done full laps of race circuits but there's currently nothing close to full automation in an urban environment for consumer use. It's another way of kicking the can down the road, the idea that we don't need to do anything now because in x years time everything will be perfect, solved for us by the power of technology. Which I said back on Page 7...

There is currently a Traffic Regulation Order on it specifically preventing it. You can't just go "oh that doesn't apply for a few days", there is a legally binding process to go through.

No, I didn't say that at all. But doing it for a couple of days is a non-starter - especially when combined with all the other stuff you'd have to do and then un-do.

From a boring and practical point of view if I may... The council would have to rescind the Experimental Traffic Regulation Order that currently covers the LTNs and the soon to be Permanent Traffic Regulation Orders that will cover them and are currently in the statutory notification stage. Remove all the planters. Cover all the signs and cameras, including the signs painted on the roads. Cope with the fact that some satnavs will update fairly quickly, others may still fail to recognise the re-opened roads. Cope with a lot of lost / confused motorists - they'll be the ones who normally drive right on by along the S. Circ without ever coming through Dulwich and therefore have no real idea of where they're going. Potentially re-phase some of the traffic lights. Inform everyone of the changes. And then re-do all of that afterwards. To be honest, this would be an issue whether the water main repairs were in Lewisham, Dulwich, Clapham Common or Wandsworth. It would jam up the whole S. Circ. regardless. There is no "extra capacity" or resilience anywhere in the network and that applies on roads, rail and air. One incident - burst water main, fallen tree, RTA, fire in a building on the roadside, roadworks - will jam stuff up all around no matter how many roads there are. They'll just all get jammed.

Every single time you use a mobile phone, a satnav, a bank card, a supermarket loyalty card, an Oyster card etc "the system" knows where you are and quite often where you've come from, where you're going to and how you're getting there. Have a look at your location history on Google Maps sometime. Supermarkets and online retailers know what you like to buy and when. The Government know where you live, what you do and how much you earn. You're on CCTV (including private CCTV / doorbell cameras / dashcams etc) dozens of times a day whether you know it or not. Anytime you use an online streaming service, it build a picture of what you watch / listen to. Every time you use a car, your journey can be plotted by ANPR hits. The existing ULEZ and Congestion Charge works off exactly the same principle, the only thing it doesn't do is charge by distance / time of day / type of road, it just bills you a lump sum. Part of living in a large society is that we have to pay taxes - this is just a more efficient way of paying a tax. I mean, we could go back to mediaeval times and pop a toll booth at every gate to the city if you'd prefer? You mean we shouldn't protect democratically elected leaders from lunatics? I mean, I'm not a fan of Boris Johnson but he (quite rightly) gets a security detail that ultimately we, the taxpayer, foot the bill for. I assume you don't object to the vast security operation surrounding members of the Royal Family? If you got half the death threats and despicable racist abuse that SK gets, you'd want an armoured car too. And if you want to see what lunatics do, look at Sir David Amess MP and Jo Cox MP.

At the moment, it's little more than a "get the ball rolling" conversation. Road pricing / pay-per-drive is gong to have to come in at some point because as the shift to walking / cycling / public transport continues, combined with the rise in EV / hybrid vehicles, the existing Vehicle Excise Duty and Fuel Duty receipts will decrease markedly so the Government has to fill that hole somehow. TfL is in a bit of a tricky situation - the Conservative Government are trying their best to defund it in order to discredit the Labour Mayor and when they do chuck it another lump sum, they wrap it in caveats. The increased rate of Congestion Charge was a Tory caveat to a previous round of funding (even though they happily sat back and let Khan take the complaints about it). So if Khan can get this through before the end of his second term it could be a winner for continuing to reduce pollution, driving modal shift, bolstering TfL's finances and a bit of a one over on the Government for failing to start their own road pricing conversation. It could also be a lot fairer than a lump-sum ULEZ fee of ?12.50 which applies if you drive any non-compliant vehicle in the zone whether it's a 15-min drive to the supermarket or a 6hr trip of multiple deliveries. Have to see how it ties in with proposed tolls on (eg) Blackwall / Silvertown Tunnels as well.

Usually counting people getting on / off at the stops. Sometimes they employ people to sit on buses and do counts as well. Bus journey times are easy to get off GPS but ridership can be more tricky. You can analyse Oyster / contactless data to see how many actual individuals got onto the bus over the course of its full journey but as you don't tap out on buses, it's less easy to tell if someone got on and rode 1 mile or 5 miles. So occasionally they'll use manual counts to build an idea of how busy stops are and when.

Sorry Rockets but if you're going to go off into some sort of conspiracy theory rabbit hole there's nothing that anyone can say that will change your mind. Clearly, the fact that there are no cyclists visible on these cycle lanes is some sort of magic combination of them all wearing black and no lights while also being holed up in some kind of underground bunker in Tooley Street fabricating video evidence and holding councillors hostage. 🙄 Otherwise, if you're gong to make accusations of bias and fiddling figures etc, produce the evidence and take it to the council. Shouldn't be difficult; we've all read the comments on here about how woefully incompetent the council are so finding their wrongdoing should be straightforward, right? Or are they actually some kind of closet geniuses running an industrial-scale cover up operation just for laughs? Schrodinger's Council - simultaneously engaged in a massive data manipulation scheme *and* being too incompetent to run a bath.

It's all in the Streetspace reports. Overall review page: https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/improving-our-streets/live-projects/dulwich-review Section on monitoring:https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/improving-our-streets/live-projects/dulwich-review?chapter=4 There's a LOT in there - methodology, basic explanations of timings and data, locations of counters and so on but it's worth sitting down when you've got some free time to read it carefully and in context.

Because the whole South Circular is managed by TfL, it's a Red Route. They're highly monitored but there's little point in half a dozen separate boroughs looking after a few miles within their area. It was "bad" even in the 70's and there have been loads of plans and ideas over the years to do all sorts from demolish a load of housing and widen the road to building new flyovers or tunnels but as soon as ideas like that get put forward, there's an immediate petition against it and the cost would be astronomical anyway, no Government could afford that these days. It's not a "planned" road like the North Circular, it's something that's ended up with vastly more traffic than it was ever intended to manage and virtually no way of doing anything about it.

Slightly pedantically, modelling doesn't prove things work. Modelling produces a forecast of how the transport system is likely to operate in a new situation, a source of insight to help understand / prepare for the new situation.* However, once the "new situation" is in place, you then need data to prove the outcomes. The modelling is usually pretty accurate and it helps a lot that LTNs are nothing new, they've been done for decades so the outcomes and the inputs required are all pretty well understood. *"new situation" includes: opening / modifying / closing a road or roads changing parking provisions opening / modifying / closing a public transport service opening / modifying / closing a site (like closing down an old school or opening a new shopping centre) and so on