exdulwicher

Exactly - you've answered your own point! THEY ARE DRIVEN. They are driven because the roads are too busy and dangerous to allow them free rein to walk and cycle - at least that is the major perception. And that adds to the congestion and then everyone looks at the traffic and goes "oh, it's far too dangerous to walk, we'll drive..." Vast amounts of time and effort are tied up in "the school run" -it's been commented on these pages endlessly because it is well known that the sheer number of schools in the area is a major factor in the traffic. You can reduce that substantially if you have cycle lanes, LTNs, school streets etc providing a safe alternative to the car. It's not ableist at all, it's the exact opposite - it's enabling people who cannot drive to travel independently, saving parents money and time on "doing the school run". Same applies to all non-drivers. My grandfather was cycling to and from the shops, church, Dr's etc long after he'd given up driving as his eyesight was too poor to drive. What allowed him to do that was a reasonable quality shared path from his house into the village where he lived (this was outside London). Without that provision, he'd have been utterly reliant on a neighbour driving him. With that provision, he remained independent right til the end. Now I know that not everyone is in that position but you at least provide the option for those that can. It's the exact opposite of "ableist" and frankly that's just a lazy and dismissive insult.

There's also a large swathe of people that can't drive. Anyone under the age of 17 for starters. Some elderly and disabled as well - "the disabled" covers a huge range of society and people so trying to use "what about the disabled?!" as some sort of catch-all justification for an anti-LTN stance is ridiculous. Either way, everyone benefits from reductions in private vehicle usage.

It's both. It's a stick to discourage car use but at the same time it is a carrot to enable and encourage active travel and P/T use. 1) no-one is being TOLD to give up anything. Streets remain accessible by car. 2) people are being supplied with alternatives - it's now easier and more pleasant to walk and cycle and the buses and trains that were there before still exist now.

No, you want to tie everyone and everything up in hyper micro scrutiny of active travel schemes and argue interminably about individual sensors and 15-min traffic counts. It doesn't work like that - it's at the macro level that you see the effects most clearly and all the evidence at a macro level for every city that's implemented these sort of measures is that they work. Problems arise when you don't go far enough - the more exemptions and caveats that you put in, the less well the system works. Paris for example has achieved a 40% reduction in traffic and a 45% decrease in air pollution in less than 10 years thanks entirely to it's active travel policies.

Other way around. Reduce the cars first - you HAVE to do it that way around because if you have unrestricted car use, very few people are going to cycle because it's unpleasant and dangerous. Same with walking; it's unpleasant, dangerous and inconvenient to be walking along side heavy traffic, waiting for ages to cross at traffic lights etc. If you try and add more buses into the existing network, you end up with more congestion because the buses are trying to compete for road space with the existing vehicle traffic. You have to reduce traffic first and you start by doing it on the residential streets because that's the easiest option. Reduce that and you end up with fewer vehicles coming out of side roads (therefore less congestion at junctions) and once you've done that you can start on more interventions along main roads. There it usually has to be reallocation of road space towards bus lanes and cycle lanes rather than actual modal filters (although bus gates work well). Remove (or at least significantly reduce) vehicles and cycling, walking, scooting, mobility scooting etc becomes easier, more pleasant and more convenient so more people do it. Reduce car usage on main roads and it becomes a lot easier to re-purpose parking spaces for bus lanes or to fit more buses in anyway and they can travel more quickly which makes bus travel more of an option. But none of that works if you haven't first removed/reduced private car use.

The roadworks permit was granted by Lambeth (as it's in their borough), the applicant was TfL. The basic permit says "highways repair and maintenance" scheduled to last until 6th July.

Excellent, we've almost got a full house of anti-cyclist bingo! Rather predictably, that's exactly where this thread has ended up... Do we move onto tH3y DoNt PaY R0ad TaX!!! next? https://twitter.com/AdamBronkhorst/status/1585987868593307648?t=BzXBgLeIaG0dH8xBGbjUMA&s=19 There's about a million uninsured vehicles on the road and a quick look round the area will show you plenty of parked vehicles on pavements which means they had to be driven on pavements to get there... It's not a "cyclist only" issue by any means - we could add the vast amounts of general pavement clutter like bins, signage, poor paving surfaces etc into the mix as well. Although on the plus side at least they're not moving!

Firstly, it's no more or less prevalent than the countless instances of lawbreaking by drivers (motorists?) which includes driving and parking on the pavement as well as speeding, mobile phone use etc but it's telling that you've only chosen to focus on e-bikes specifically. Some of it is so harmless that it's not even worth mentioning - I picked up a Lime bike from it's (actually very well parked) pavement location a few days ago, got on it and rode 10m across the pavement to the road. No pedestrians were "nearly killed", no old grannies sent diving for cover. No car drivers were forced to swerve violently to avoid CERTAIN DEATH as I joined the road. Most of the illegal e-bikes around the place are the ones being ridden by UberEats / Deliveroo. Basically MTBs with motors and batteries strapped to them, you can buy the kits online. The bikes are already illegal for use so the distinction between pavement and road seems even more arbitrary but society seems to want fast food delivered in 20 mins from moment of order... The gig-economy workers delivering that food are not going to be waiting at red lights - they'll be up and down pavements, they'll ride right to your door - because they know if it's not there in time, they won't get paid. I'm not really justifying their actions but you're not going to stop it with "enforcement", you need to change the whole structure of gig economy and ultra-fast food deliveries. Also it's generally in their interests not to hit anyone or anything cos the food will get spoiled and/or the delivery will be late and they won't get paid. There are also so many of them that enforcement in terms of stopping and fining would be like swatting ants. You need to go after the companies that offer this service and society needs to understand that if it wants a Big Mac in 15 mins, there's going to be some 'creative' cycling to get it to you. If you want strictly law-abiding riding then the delivery window needs to go out to 1hr. As I said further up, pavement cycling is more or less decriminalised - the reasons are: - police resources - yes you could do a blitz but then the police get told off (usually by the very people complaining about pavement cycling) that they're not out catching "real criminals". - confusion over where it is and isn't allowed; there are so may bits of "shared use" footpath / cyclepath, so many instances where drivers are allowed to cross the pavement (driveways) and so many "uncertain" areas that it gets messy quickly with what is and isn't allowed. See [url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/02/pedestrian-jailed-manslaughter-cyclist-fall-car-huntingdon]the recent case of manslaughter where a pedestrian caused a cyclist to fall into the path of traffic[/url] - not even the council were able to categorically say that the area was a shared use path although in the end it was decided that it was. - kids (accompanied or not) are "allowed" to ride on pavements, again there are certain caveats but that (more or less) gives parents a green light to ride (considerately) with them. It's not an unfortunate one off, but critically it's usually no more than a mild irritant. The hospitals are not full of dying pedestrians, their only epitaph a Deliveroo motif on their forehead. The pavements are not overrun with some sort of Charge of the E-bike Brigade. 🤷 I saw an SUV driver get bored of waiting at the Townley Road lights the other day and he drove up onto the pavement to undercut the traffic and turn left into Calton Avenue. Have others suffered this abusive use of 4x4s or is this (I sincerely hope) a one-off of thoughtlessness, or indeed even recklessness?

It's gone up everywhere. But by less inside the LTNs than outside. I never said it wasn't. That's the control group, you can pretty much assume (with various caveats) that with no interventions, that's what would happen "globally" (ie across the whole area of study) without an intervention. So your "do nothing" scenario is that driving would increase by 0.6km / day average and car ownership would increase by 10% over that time period. Your "intervention" scenario (is introducing an LTN) is that the pattern, instead of following the control group trend, has shown a decrease in average daily km and a smaller increase in car ownership. Outcome (again with caveats) - if you'd have done nothing across the whole area, driving and car ownership everywhere would have increased by the same metric. Also overall vehicle mileage is down, ie overall fewer km being driven.

Other way around. It's not an increase outside LTNs, it's a decrease inside. This applies across all sorts of studies - you have one control group where you have no interventions and one test group where you put in place an intervention. Could be an LTN, it could equally well be something like having 2 groups of mice and you give one group a growth hormone. After a while you look at your intervention; the control group is broadly "this is what would have happened to everyone without the intervention", the test group is " here is what happened with an intervention". Outside LTNs, with no restriction on driving, people continue to drive. Inside LTNs, where driving is restricted in some way and alternatives like walking and cycling made easier, more convenient, people gradually shift behaviour. None of this is rocket science. Unlike your version (let's call it Rockets science...) which is wrong.

He's doing more political stuff at the moment, I think he was over in Washington on the recent Sunak / Biden meeting which (I'm just guessing here) is probably of more interest to more people than a couple of LTNs in Dulwich... This is fascinating on a number of levels. Firstly it's the one Aldred / Westminster study you haven't immediately panned as being biased, flawed, manipulated, paid for by Big Cycling... and I suspect that's because you think it's negative towards LTNs. Interesting how any study that's positive about them immediately gets slated but anything negative is held up as the epitome of perfect research... More fascinating though is how you have completely misinterpreted it. It doesn't need "spinning in support of LTNs", it's already supportive! I'm honestly not sure here if you're deliberately trolling, trying to throw out a hook (I was in two minds as to whether or not to even bother replying...) or actually completely misreading, misinterpreting and misrepresenting everything about the study. Read it in detail: https://findingspress.org/article/75470-the-impact-of-2020-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-on-levels-of-car-van-driving-among-residents-findings-from-lambeth-london-uk Have a look at the methodology and what it's actually looking at, why they selected those 4 LTNs (hint - you need CPZ data from the control zones) and understand what a "control" actually is in scientific terms. The graphs within it show that, pre-LTN, the control zones and what would later become LTNs were the same in terms of km driven. Then the LTNs were implemented in June - September 2020 and stayed there. After that, there has been a gradual divergence in driving, with those INSIDE the LTN driving less and those OUTSIDE the LTN mostly continuing to drive the same or slightly more than before. This isn't to do with circuitous routes around them, it's residential data. Where you make it safer, more convenient etc to walk / cycle, people do that more. Where no such interventions are introduced, people stick with their cars. As an aside, that's all the more reason your constant "Dulwich has poor PTAL" (with the unwritten implication that therefore everyone relies on cars and we shouldn't do anything to discourage that) is so wrong - such a car-dominated place is the absolute perfect area to begin with introducing measures to reduce car-dependency! The study finishes by saying this: (my bold) In summary, our findings suggest that residents in Lambeth started driving less once their area became an LTN. Notably, our outcome measure captures total past-year driving, including trips that the Lambeth LTNs are less likely to impact (e.g., inter-city trips, or travel outside London). It is plausible that for shorter and more local trips the relative decrease in LTN residents’ driving would be greater than the estimated 6% decrease in total past-year driving. This suggests that, in Lambeth and other similar inner-city areas, widespread roll-out of LTNs could make an important contribution towards reducing how much residents drive, and towards reducing local volumes of motor traffic. It's not a huge wide-ranging study, it's slightly limited in where you can do it because you need CPZ data from pre- and post-Covid alongside the LTN data and it needs clearing up to remove (eg) someone who bought a brand new car in 2020 which is not subject to MOT for 3 years as well as people who have moved into or out of the area and so on but there's still a substantial set of data to give a statistically meaningful result. Once there's an LTN, people drive less because it's easier and more pleasant to walk, cycle, scoot etc. All the stuff about people within LTNs driving much further to get from one side to the other is not true; overall they are driving less, the vehicle mileage data shows that. From the paper: This suggests that the decrease in driving observed inside the LTNs was not simply due to ‘residential self-selection’, whereby households that drove a lot had left the LTNs and/or households that drove less had moved in. Instead, it indicates that existing residents were changing their behaviour and starting to drive less. This tallies with numerous other studies worldwide on similar such interventions. What the paper is saying is: LTNs work to reduce driving overall, we need more of them. From here I guess we have several options. You can admit you've misread / misunderstood that paper. You can double down on your own interpretation of it. Or you can go back to the standard rhetoric that as Rachel Aldred is one of the authors it must be biased, flawed, manipulated, a pack of lies, too small a study to mean anything, it might have worked in Lambeth but it doesn't work in Southwark...

The store layout there is terrible, it's almost an open invite for shoplifting with the tills as far from the door as that. That's another crime that's regarded as "petty" - police won't take an interest in it unless it's really high value or incredibly persistent and in many cases store staff are told not to even bother challenging it due to the risk of violence against them. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/06/im-burnt-out-from-dealing-with-shoplifters-in-our-london-store

Depends on the bike. Normal pedal-assist e-bikes (which includes Lime etc) are treated in law as a bicycle so they can go everywhere a bike can. "Other" electric bikes which include the majority of those contraptions being ridden by UberEat/Deliveroo etc are already either illegal anyway or they require tax and registration in which case they're treated as electric mopeds and they can't use cycle lanes. And pavement riding is more or less decriminalised for various reasons.

There are plenty of videos of ambulances stuck in solid queues of traffic... You do know that the emergency services are statutory consultees on road closures, yes? That's for all events - the Coronation & Jubilee street parties, Brockwell/Peckham/Dulwich Parks events, bigger things like London Marathon & RideLondon, smaller things like the market on North Cross Road and even more ad-hoc things like demos which may not necessarily be known about but which have fall back options in place. It's all in there along with response plans, evacuation, safety and emergency protocols for the event itself, access routes... Normally you find that response times are quicker during such events. It's a lot easier for a crowd of people to move to the side than it is for a bunch of cars.

We get to move the whole conversation onto Dulwich Park next week cos it's that Pub in the Park thing at the weekend. https://www.pubintheparkuk.com/dulwich Those ticket prices... 😳

Because the council manage issues like public safety, licensing, road closures, noise control, liaison with partners/sponsors/emergency services. The land is owned and managed by the council and "community" is part of the council's remit. I'm (marginally) less bothered by the rubbish issue (bear with me!) because after an event the park usually gets blitzed completely so *everything* gets tidied up. It's the low level "background" littering which happens constantly that gets ignored because it's "only" a couple of crisps packets or a drinks can... There was a festival on at Brockwell Park as well on Sunday although I only saw some of the aftermath of people leaving the area. Lot of police and stewards around, it all seemed relatively in control. Didn't see what the park looked like though.

Conversely, there was an unmarked white van and two guys unloading 4 or 5 bikes outside Sainsbury's at The Plough earlier directly into the marked parking bay. Maybe it depends on the guys driving..? Also, if you're a Lime user, the system gives you credits and discounts if you move badly parked bikes. I found it entirely by accident when I picked up a bike and, on finishing my ride, popped it into a parking bay and my app pinged up to say "thanks for moving a badly parked bike, we've given you a free ride!" I'm not yet quite at the stage where I'll go hunting badly parked bikes to get discounts but it's worth knowing!

They've moved loads of them up to central London for the RideLondon Freecycle event today. https://www.ridelondon.co.uk/our-rides/ridelondon-freecycle

As a regular user of Lime bikes, I think that they, and the scooters, are brilliant but I'll respectfully disagree on your point. Pavement clutter in general is a total pain for many reasons - this isn't just bikes/scooters but fibre cabinets, advertising boards, electric car charging points and cables all taking ever more space away and making it very difficult for wheelchair users, people with prams/buggies, partially sighted people etc. It's definitely not just bikes - in fact I think that as bikes are relatively new on the scene and quite distinctive, it's easier to have a go at them than any of the more established issues and poor vehicle parking is definitely more of a problem but pavement clutter is, quite rightly, a massive issue for many people.

To be fair, the first 40 pages of this thread contain numerous references to how the May '22 council elections would be a referendum on all things LTN, the undemocratic socialist dictators in Tooley Street would be sent running for the hills, the silent majority would rise up and give them what-for, it would decide once and for all the fate of LTNs... Oh. Err... Guys? They've been voted back in...with an increased majority... How do we spin this?! Quick, tell them it's an anti-Tory vote, everyone is is fed up of the Partygate lies, but they still hate LTNs... Whether it's an anti-Tory vote or a pro-LTN vote (or a combination) will probably never be answered but it's not unreasonable for an elected councillor to say that the policies promoted by them are ratified by the election results. Happens in every council and Government!

They'll be in touch with Lime, yes.

The e-bikes aren't on a trial scheme, it's the e-scooter rental scheme that is being trialled.

They're all inter-related. You can't "just" look at CO2 or NOx or particulates on their own. Transport is the UK's largest emitter of CO2 and, contrary to this: it is a very serious problem. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere now is up at 420ppm and that rise has happened in the last 100 years - for the previous 500,000 years it's been around 280ppm. Also in that time we've managed to remove about 50% of the planet's foliage and the temperature rise has now impacted on the ocean's ability to absorb CO2. You're right that CO2 isn't the most potent GHG on it's own but it's the longest lasting. Methane is worse but it degrades much more quickly. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/ No it doesn't: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/speed-emissions-and-health.pdf There are numerous other studies about the decreased pollution of lower speed limits. And as before, we're not just talking about CO2 - increased braking and acceleration cycles result in considerably more particulate pollution. I'm not sure anyone said they did but that's not the point. They still impede traffic, there's still a huge amount of energy and resources tied up within them. Its like saying the woodburning stoves don't cause any pollution when they're not being used so we can all have one cos they're fine when not lit...

Process of validation, time, resources, the fact that most people don't understand data anyway and it needs to be worked up into a presentable format showing clear information about pollution/traffic trends... Quarterly updates are about as precise as you need to be and to factor in seasonal variations, school holiday periods etc but annual works just as well for that. Air pollution in particular is not easy to monitor or model because it's so weather dependent (although as a general rule the fewer emissions going into the air from whatever source - transport, heating etc, the better...) That's been tried - every day people can see how congested the roads are and every day, they choose to contribute to it. Every school has notices outside saying "do not idle your engine" and "do not drop your kids here" and every day there are 4x4s all over the pavements, double yellow lines, blind corners etc dropping the kids off. And everyone thinks it's OK for THEM - their child is carrying a cello/tuba/harp, their child can't walk far, their child is running late. THEY are only dropping the kids off like this cos it's on the way to work, it's all these OTHER parents who should be ashamed of themselves. THEIR car is electric, it's fine to drive cos it doesn't pollute... THEIR journey is essential, everyone else should/could walk/cycle. The problem is EVERYONE thinks like that.

Is it just me or are there more goldfinches around than usual? There's always a few but there seem to be more/bigger flocks of them this year. They seem to move quite rapidly through an area, demolish a bird feeder between them then disappear off again.