exdulwicher

Simple - the top figure (92% of pre-Covid) is DfT/TfL from the Strategic Road Network whereas the Southwark figures (reduction of 21,000 vehicles) are from local road monitoring. I did write a longer reply explaining it far better but whatever restrictions are on this forum to prevent "non East Dulwich" matters from being discussed seems to prevent me posting it.

That's actually quite funny ^^. But if poor Rockets wants an answer on his/her oft-repeated question, whatever restriction is on to determine whether it's sufficiently "East Dulwich" enough needs removing... ;-)

Maybe I've been part-banned as well...! Maybe there's a little AI bot reading my contributions and going "nah, that's just traffic, not East Dulwich".

I typed out a response to the question posed by Rockets and got a message saying that posts here have to be relevant to East Dulwich... ???

We're back at the same point which has been argued to death on here and the previous thread. What would you do to achieve this that is a) cheap (cos TfL and councils have no money) b) quick and easy to implement and change c) aims to reduce car journeys and boost active travel journeys ?? We've had suggestions of opening up all roads to "spread the pollution around" which, in the dog turd analogy of a few pages ago is the equivalent to finding dog poo on your doorstep and then deciding to smear bits of it over all your neighbours doorsteps as well because "fairness". We've had suggestions of trams and tube line extensions, which cost billions, take decades to come to fruition and cause lots of disruption (although yes, I agree that public transport must always be improved). There's been some slightly more reasonable suggestions of better coach management for the schools although the council has very little control over any of that since the schools are private and the coaches are run by an arm's length foundation, not by public sector. Better bus service - again, not bad but there are limited streets you can run buses down and adding buses to congested roads doesn't work since they just get stuck in traffic; you need to reduce traffic, add in better bus lanes and so on before you can add more buses to the mix. And I referenced this a page or so ago: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213624X22000281 which concluded that the two most effective measures to reduce traffic are charging systems (so congestion charging, workplace parking charges, ULEZ) access restrictions (school streets, LTNs) But go ahead - if you have any genuine suggestions that meet all those factors above, go for it. I don't think Waseley meant it the way you took it - you seem to have taken it as an "I'm alright Jack, sod the rest of you" whereas I think it's meant more as an acknowledgment that people get used to change quite slowly so some of the restrictions take a while to influence behaviour change and modal shift. There are actually mathematical models about the number of people it takes to influence change - some relating to traffic, some in various social situations such as a person collapsing in the street - you get people passing by, not wanting to be involved, thinking that someone else will sort it, before eventually someone will stop to help and, emboldened by that, others stop. There are interesting social experiments that have been done on that but it can relate to traffic too. However it has to be forced - people have to see that walking or scooting for 5 mins to school is better than sitting in a car for 10 mins and it takes time for that to penetrate. This is often the problem with active travel interventions. Things get worse before they get better. If you build a new road, things get better before gradually regressing to at least where they were before, if not worse. There are countless models describing that.

Picking up on DKHB's point above as well... No - the majority of people responding to the consultation raised objections. That's absolutely not the same as saying the majority of people in Dulwich want it removed. And Southwark didn't ignore it, they published a response document: https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s103597/Report%20Determination%20of%20Objections%20Dulwich%20Streetspace%20Review.pdf which detailed why some of the objections were total rubbish, why the data didn't back up some of them and addressed some others (access to emergency vehicles for example). The consultation is PART of the process, not the deciding factor. And its purpose is not to ask "should we do X?" but rather to say "we are doing X, how best can it be done / improved?" I know it suits the narrative to loudly proclaim that Southwark didn't listen to "the majority" and they're some sort of Communist Dictatorship imposing their authoritarian jackboot over the proles but that doesn't actually match Reality.

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.