LTN Discussion

[Rockets]

Heartblock - yes today is a stark reminder how we all need to do what we can to address the issues. I was reading Ex-Dulwicher's input and the notion that we need more interventions but I suggest we might need to start looking at different interventions as it is clear that the current approach is not having the desired effect and I am not sure throwing in more of the same will do anything other than make the problems even worse.

The numbers from TFLs own report are damning - that two years of intervention has done nothing to change the outlook - they got seduced by the idea that modal shift was happening in 2020 when, in fact, that was a positive, but very short-term, outcome of the pandemic that has completely evaporated when life began to return to normal.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

heartblock Wrote:

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> Today London is on a high pollution alert - what

> does this mean?

Maybe it means on high pollution days in a climate emergency private car movements should be prohibited for most people. We should be maintaining the basic minimum quality for breathable air for our kids and triageing road space allocation for those who really, really need it.

Retention or removal of one LTN won't solve London's air quality but heartblock is right to point to the micro problem on EDG (which existed before LTNs). There is one microsolution that would have a big impact on this road: stop the parents of the private schools located on it from driving their kids to and from the campus.

[heartblock]

Affordable, regular and clean local public transport that isn't stuck in idling traffic and affordable London wide public transport.

Private Schools in Dulwich to face up to the real problem of non-local car traffic on the school run, contributing to local residents ill-health - maybe free access to sports facilities and swimming pool to ALL ED Grove residents might make up for the dent in our children's health caused by them making a nice profit?

An honest account from Southwark about utilising LCC just because a prominent member lives in the area and using this niche, mainly white, middle-class and male organisation, as the primary consultive body - rather than talking and listening to the residents of LL, Croxted, ED Grove, Grove Vale and the Dulwich portion of South Circ - many of whom depend on public transport and live in smaller properties with no garden with extended families and a lower car usage and ownership.

I laughed the other day when an LCC member complained about how far he had to drive his very large people carrier out of London in order to cycle on nice rural roads in the countryside.

It seems that many of the wealthy want the privilege of living in a City - Waitrose delivery, Gails, nice restaurants, Amazon, bread, milk, wine, flower delivery, parking for 3 cars - but don't want to see or acknowledge the pollution, poverty and crime that does unfortunately come with this 'deal', so by closing a road, they can at least ruralise their bit of London.

Maybe thinking about all residents of this city and pushing for policy that reduces pollution, crime, poverty for everyone is something better to aim for.

[Rockets]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

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> heartblock Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Today London is on a high pollution alert -

> what

> > does this mean?

>

> Maybe it means on high pollution days in a climate

> emergency private car movements should be

> prohibited for most people. We should be

> maintaining the basic minimum quality for

> breathable air for our kids and triageing road

> space allocation for those who really, really need

> it.

>

> Retention or removal of one LTN won't solve

> London's air quality but heartblock is right to

> point to the micro problem on EDG (which existed

> before LTNs). There is one microsolution that

> would have a big impact on this road: stop the

> parents of the private schools located on it from

> driving their kids to and from the campus.

DKHB - the repeated mistake many on the pro-LTN side make is to focus, almost exclusively, on the problem being the private car - it's not, it's much bigger than that.

Would you suggest on days like this to prohibit the use of delivery vehicles, HGVs or PHV as well? Private car ownership and use has been declining (slowly) over the years in London and the increase in traffic is in deliveries and PHVs. As Heartblock rightly points out many people who champion LTNs are often the ones creating demand for delivery services etc that negates any positive impact of the LTNs.

[exdulwicher]

Can we agree the scheme is poorly designed, even though we teach that conclusion for different reasons, perhaps?

@legalalien: not as such, no.

And actually this picks up on @Rockets point a couple of posts above as well.

I mean, if you're one of the people crying out for "equitable solutions" and saying that nothing should be done until there have been consultations and 100% buy in then yes, anything that falls short of this utopian ideal is going to be described as "poorly planned".

However that is a well-known distraction technique, it's called "policy perfectionism".

Push for "perfect" solutions that are equitable to all, cause inconvenience to no-one, removes 50%+ of cars from the roads, drops pollution by 50%+ etc etc. Basically stuff that does not exist and and never could.

It's being pushed (probably deliberately) as a binary option.

Rip everything out immediately because what has been put in is not "perfect"

vs

well OK, we've made a start, it's not perfect (and no traffic scheme will ever be perfect and I don't think anyone has ever claimed that LTNs are perfect) but let it bed in, then see how we can build upon the benefits and mitigate the disbenefits.

Maybe thinking about all residents of this city and pushing for policy that reduces pollution, crime, poverty for everyone is something better to aim for.

@heartblock - I agree. However it needs recognition that the current, very car-biased, transport system is in itself inequitable. Plenty of people cannot afford to run a car, have nowhere to park it or at the absolute worst, you end up with what is known as transport poverty where a person is forced to own a car to get to/from work because there are no convenient / reliable / safe / affordable other options and the cost of owning and running a car (especially if it isn't compliant with the new ULEZ or you have to drive into town during congestion charge hours) takes up a significant chunk of your wages. In essence, you're working to afford the car that you need to use for work which you need to do to pay for the car etc etc.

The problem is that we're back at square one. Rockets and legalalien earlier saying we need different interventions, heartblock - I think you're saying more or less the same?

Which brings us back to - what interventions? What perfect policy?

Put a load of free buses onto the roads which then add to the traffic and get stuck in the existing traffic?

Wait 10 years for everyone to be driving EV? Solves pollution at roadside but not the congestion or parking or road safety. Also not very equitable.

Wait x years for an equitable road-pricing solution? Government aren't working on anything at the moment...

Wait x years until we can whistle up a self-driving car to our door and no-one needs to own their own car?

Wait for eternity until the Tube / trams / flying taxis come to Dulwich?

Final note on this comment:

Affordable, regular and clean local public transport that isn't stuck in idling traffic and affordable London wide public transport.

Compared to literally anywhere else in the UK, London public transport (even Dulwich public transport) is AMAZING.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

heartblock Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> It seems that many of the wealthy want the

> privilege of...parking for 3 cars

Striking that no-one wants pollution or congestion but no-one wants resident parking zones that limit car ownership and short trips. People spend thousands a year on cars, fuel, insurance and maintenance, but lose their minds about ?80-150 to pay for a year's parking on the public property outside their house.

Someone (maybe even you) mentioned how much better transport was in northern Southwark. A big part of that is that residents are poorer and parking is strictly limited. In the leafier South the residents are richer, own more cars, and mostly enjoy free unlimited parking at taxpayer expense.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

exdulwicher Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> that is a well-known distraction

> technique, it's called "policy perfectionism".

> Push for "perfect" solutions that are equitable to

> all, cause inconvenience to no-one, removes 50%+

> of cars from the roads, drops pollution by 50%+

> etc etc. Basically stuff that does not exist and

> and never could.

Similarly the people (not heartblock, to be fair) saying "oh, I'd LOVE to take the bus, but TfL just needs to make it better and more convenient for me". That ignores buses can't improve much while private cars are clogging up roads, and at some point these people are gonna have to get their arse along to the bus stop. There is no solution that does not involve a little effort.

It's also allied to "concern trolling" - dressing up your real motivations in the guise of caring for others. For example - the residents of multiple car owning mansions on Dulwich Village suddenly being struck by a deep commitment to racial justice, as articulated by Tristan and Clive.

[kissthisguy]

There will be pain in every solution. What's important is the pain is not put on the shoulders of those least able to bear it. That, surely, is a principle we can all agree on.

As others have pointed out, you can't hope to disincentivise car use without improving alternatives. So public transport has to be front and centre. Not just improving provision and frequency but prioritising it. So clearway bus priority, for example.* Parking needs to be grappled with. It's nuts that a cycle hangar space costs more than an electric car that sits on the road, for example (?80 vs ?35!). We need better alternative hire. The Santander map shows a big hole in our bit of south London. Car clubs need more space etc etc. There isn't a single silver bullet but all of the above in combination would be more effective and equitable than LTNs, which increase journey miles and emissions (so bad for climate change), do little to bring down car ownership and use (in fact LTNs make car ownership more attractive) and in Dulwich have given the richest an enhanced environment while degrading the environment for those that are worse off. And schoolchildren.

*Provocative idea: if we *really* wanted to tackle this issue we would have made main roads bus and cycle only. Public transport would thrive, be the most efficient way of travel, and cycling would feel much safer on the most direct routes...

[Rockets]

DKHB - surely the concern trolling can also be applied to those from parts of the pro-LTN cycle lobby who are using this as part of their on-going war on cars who try to suggest that electric vehicles should not be considered as a potential solution to the pollution problem? I think back to the lobbying efforts of Southwark council done by the LCC and supporters around OHS where they made it very clear that electric should not be considered part of the solution.

[legalalien]

Ex-D, Personally I'm in favour of road user pricing, and a requirement for online businesses to make a minimum per delivery charge (that might help nudge people to rationalise the number of deliveries they have and stop the business of ordering multiple sizes of things and sending back the ones that don't fit, for example). I take the point that successive governments have been unwilling to bite the bullet on user pricing. I could live with a series of smaller LTN areas that enabled gradual change - I think what has been done here in Dulwich is too ambitious and is trying to be all things to all people, and in the particular circumstances, the 24/7 closure of DV is at the heart of the problem.

I think the last point is quite unfair to local residents who have expressed concern about the consequences. Plenty of people know people who live on the affected boundary roads, and can see the unfairness both in particular circumstances and generally, without a sudden "deep commitment to racial justice", as you put it.

Do you really think Southwark are going to properly monitor and tweak their plans - particularly after they will (undoubtedly) have started an expensive build out at the junction? I don't have any confidence that will be the case.

(I'm also still not confident that the "benefits" being trumpeted by Southwark are real, given the way they've been choosing to present the data and the unusual background circumstances during the pandemic. Let's see.)

[kissthisguy]

The thing about accusations about concern trolling is that it's impossible to prove. What I'd like to see (and I think is more materially relevant) is declarations of vehicle ownership (number of vehicles, size, type) by those campaigning for LTNs. There should be declarations from policymakers too.

[heartblock]

I'm not a group of people, so I am not saying the same. I would be more than happy to ban all private cars from London tomorrow - that isn't going to happen and I think you would find many residents on boundary roads would not have such an issue with that 'policy' as they do not possess car storage - but do take a walk down Calton Ave and Gilkes Crescent - car storage private roads for the ultra-wealthy and I think you might see who would object.

My view is different from Rockets and Metallic and Legal - I am sure we all differ slightly, but I fundamentally agree with them that LTNs do nothing to tackle climate change, pollution or vehicle miles driven in Dulwich and East Dulwich and cause a new (well for nearly the last two years) elevated congestion and pollution problem on some high density residential roads

On high pollution days - I think all private car use should be banned for the day.

[kissthisguy]

.

[heartblock]

Dulwich PT is not AMAZING - it is a very low PTAL score and trust me - sitting on a 37 bus that goes through many 'boundary' roads is not a joke in rush hour - much, much longer journey and much more traffic congestion on that route since LTNs.

It used to be about 25 minutes to Clapham, now about 45-50 minutes. I usually walk 2 hours a day and get trains, but having twisted an ankle I have gone back to my old journey - it is noticeably worse.

[Rockets]

kissthisguy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The thing about accusations about concern trolling

> is that it's impossible to prove. What I'd like to

> see (and I think is more materially relevant) is

> declarations of vehicle ownership (number of

> vehicles, size, type) by those campaigning for

> LTNs. There should be declarations from

> policymakers too.

Waltham Forest's LTN led to a significant increase in car ownership within it's boundaries.....

[march46]

There is plenty of car storage on East Dulwich Grove, unless you ignore the mansions with huge driveways and multiple cars. This constant ?them? v ?us? narrative is unhelpful @heartblock

heartblock Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I think you would find many

> residents on boundary roads would not have such an

> issue with that 'policy' as they do not possess

> car storage - but do take a walk down Calton Ave

> and Gilkes Crescent - car storage private roads

> for the ultra-wealthy and I think you might see

> who would object.

[exdulwicher]

Dulwich PT is not AMAZING - it is a very low PTAL score

PTAL is a London system, it's not used elsewhere (or at least, not in anything like that form). In London, it's used mainly as an aid to planning developments. Areas with low PTAL are required to have more parking - it sort of accepts that as P/T isn't as good therefore more people will use private cars which is a bit of a catch-22 in itself since it entrenches car use.

However the "not as good" is in comparison to high PTAL areas. You're comparing "leafy Dulwich" with central London! Of course in central London you're no more than a few minutes from a Tube or bus, you've got large terminus stations... In Dulwich, there are far fewer roads and a lot of green space - playing fields, the park etc where if you're in the middle of that, of course there's zero density of P/T!

Whilst PTAL is a simple calculation (easily performed by a spreadsheet) that offers an obvious indication of the density of public transport provision in an area, it suffers three key problems:

It does not take into account where services actually go to ? for example, a bus that runs every ten minutes to the bottom of the road is considered better than a bus that runs every twelve minutes to the city centre.

The use of arbitrary cut-offs to exclude more distant service access points underestimates the ability to access locations just outside those cut-off distances. For example, a point 960m from King's Cross could have a PTAL of 6, whilst a point 961m from the same station could have a PTAL of 1 or 2.

It does not take into account how crowded the services are. If you stand outside Victoria Station on a weekday rush hour (ignoring Covid for the moment), you're in a PTAL 6 zone. Try getting down onto the Circle or District Line platforms though!

I do wish the same old "PTAL scores are really low" argument would die. It's low compared to high density P/T in central London. You will literally never replicate that in Dulwich, not without tens of billions of ?? investment in trams, a Tube line or two and some bus-only routes (the latter of which means closing some roads to cars and/or removing parking).

There are more detailed models available - accessibility modelling gives you colour-coded maps of travel time door-to-door. You may have seen similar on (eg) Santander Cycles docking stations where it gives you a radius of where you can reach in 5 mins walking / 5 mins cycling etc. It's a more detailed version of that and also factors in Active Travel. PTAL only really half-acknowledges that in terms of assumed walking time to a Service Access Point (ie a bus stop / train station etc).

[heartblock]

The Village end in Village Ward is wealthy...come down my end and view all our lovely garden-less flats, come talk to the family next door with two bedrooms and 4 kids - It's not unhelpful and it isn't them and us - it is the truth that so called boundary roads have lower income families, lower car ownership and a higher BAME percentage of residents.

You may find this an unhelpful truth - so be it.

2.5 million house on Gilkes with storage for 3 cars (an LTN supporter) versus a 2 bed rental no car storage and dependent on PT (a family that is in despair about the LTN causing congestion).

[heartblock]

But anyway - I suppose if one believes that congestion on my road where I live (ED Grove central) has reduced due to LTNs, as the latest 'data' and published output from Southwark 'indicates' then one might also believe we all are car driving maniacs, living in mansions with gas-guzzling super-cars and we have all lost the use of our legs because we drive everywhere and all the time.

We also have terrible memories, dreadful vision, poor hearing and put dubious signs on our windows. We also hate all cyclists, are climate deniers and all vote UKIP or Tory.

We probably murder kittens at the weekend for laughs.

[Raeburn]

Rockets Wrote:

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> Waltham Forest's LTN led to a significant increase

> in car ownership within it's boundaries.....

Curious, where are you reading this? And what is a significant increase?

I'm using google, but can't find anything that remotely supports this, but points to the opposite.

[heartblock]

I thought it was Lambeth where car ownership in the borough was 64,617 in 2019. The LIP target to reduce car ownership by 2021 is 64,200 but unfortunately it has increased? Behind a paywall, so cannot access.

[heartblock]

Another reason that people with money who want to make more money love their closed roads.

Estate agent - "Fox Lane is a sought-after road currently falling within the ltn (Low Traffic Neighbourhood Scheme)."

Ka-ching! There is nothing as good as making another half a million on your 2.5million house, I do wonder about the local LP - I'm not sure I would class it as pro-left wing, it seem's very right-wing and nothing to do with lions rising for the many....

[goldilocks]

In the central section of EDG there is the dutch estate that has more parking spaces than flats and is free for residents. There is then the row of converted shops by the charter school the majority of which have off road parking for at least 2 cars. Then there is the row of houses opposite the charter school some of which are flats with parking right outside that is mainly full.

Where is this low car ownership section you speak of Heartblock?

heartblock Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The Village end in Village Ward is wealthy...come

> down my end and view all our lovely garden-less

> flats, come talk to the family next door with two

> bedrooms and 4 kids - It's not unhelpful and it

> isn't them and us - it is the truth that so called

> boundary roads have lower income families, lower

> car ownership and a higher BAME percentage of

> residents.

> You may find this an unhelpful truth - so be it.

>

> 2.5 million house on Gilkes with storage for 3

> cars (an LTN supporter) versus a 2 bed rental no

> car storage and dependent on PT (a family that is

> in despair about the LTN causing congestion).

[heartblock]

Southwark Council do not consider the Dutch Estate as Central going by their data.

I do not live on the Dutch Estate - only people who live on this former Council estate can park and if you venture to the back of this estate you will see very few cars parked - probably less than 50% - indicating that car ownership is not that high.

The row of converted shops are one house the rest are flats - some with three flats per building at least six of which are rentals - six parking spaces for 17 residential units - slightly different from the 3 parking spaces plus street parking for a typical 2.5 million house on Gilkes.

Central ED Grove all the way down to LL where the school and health centre is has limited road parking on one side of the road, many, many flats and very few private parking spaces.

You can quibble as much as you like - it is quite obvious walking down Calton/Gilkes past the BMWs, Range Rovers cars parked on drives and garages on 4-6 bedroom houses with gardens 3 x the size of my flat where the true narrative lies.

But you know...however you read it is fine - still doesn't solve the terrible congestion on ED Grove belching out fumes as children walk to school in the morning does it?

[heartblock]

The section I live in - flats no private parking, not many gardens - Ed Grove East

Southwark data shows an increase in traffic by 2867 cars/HGV a day.

Well done Southwark!