LTN Discussion

[Metallic]

It is still a very dodgy junction for emergency vehicles and cyclists to traverse.

[DulvilleRes]

'Let's be honest many of those most vocal on here in their unwavering support of the closures live on the closed roads and have benefitted the most.'

Where is the evidence for this assertion? How do you know where people live? The difficulty with blanket and slightly pointed statements like this is whatever the merits of any argument you are putting forward in this debate, it does throw a question over them. I would agree with Dogkennelhillbilly, there seems to be very little that the hardcore is prepared to countenance apart from just opening the roads again, with no realistic other plan I've seen to try and reduce traffic.

And now out of the ranks of the anti-LTN lobby materializes a Conservative candidate for the local elections, campaigning heavily on LTN issues. The question can be asked - who does it suit to keep the temperature of this local issue permanently cranked up?

[Rockets]

DulvilleRes - it doesn't take a genius to work out why some people take the stance they do on the LTNs. Maybe we should have a truth and reconciliation session where we all declare our hands.....let me go first...I used to live on a road that was experiencing the negative fallout from the LTNs and I was against them. I now live on a road that is experiencing the positive fallout from the LTNs and I am still against them.

Your turn?

In the meantime to fill the deafening silence that we hear all too often when the pro-lobby slinks back behind their planters hoping they don't have to answer a question here's the latest from One Dulwich.....;-)

Traffic orders made permanent

Southwark sent out an email on 11 February confirming that the experimental and temporary traffic orders we have all been objecting to for months (two-thirds of those who responded to the public consultation voted against them) were made permanent (with some minor changes) on 10 February 2022 and will come into effect on 17 February 2022. This isn?t surprising, but it?s nonetheless a sad day for local democracy. You can see the orders as published in the London Gazette.

More than ?6.6 million paid to Southwark in fines

An FOI to Southwark has revealed that 123,853 fines were issued in 2021 to vehicles going through the timed closures on Burbage Road, Turney Road, Dulwich Village and Townley Road, raising a total so far of ?6,623,517. Once all fines are paid (calculating 123,853 PCNs at the lower rate of ?65 each), the total will be more than ?8 million. With this kind of annual revenue, the financial benefits of continuing with the Dulwich Streetspace scheme must have been part of Southwark?s thinking.

Legal opinion

As you know, the Dulwich Alliance (One Dulwich is a member) has crowdfunded for legal advice. Now that the permanent orders have been published, work on a formal legal opinion has begun. There is only a six-week window (from 10 February 2022) in which a legal challenge can be mounted and, if there are grounds to proceed and the challenge goes ahead, significant funds would need to be raised extremely quickly. We will keep you closely in touch with what happens next.

Local elections May 2022

One Dulwich is an apolitical campaign. We will, however, pass on information about whether candidates standing for local election in May are for or against the Dulwich LTNs.

As far as we know, the Labour Party hasn?t selected any candidates yet. However, all our current councillors in Dulwich wards are Labour, and all have supported the LTNs so far. Cllr Leeming tweeted last month that he was delighted the Dulwich Streetspace scheme was going ahead and that it was ?the culmination of three years of hard work by @margynewens and I?.

In Dulwich Village ward the Liberal Democrat candidates are Raghav Parkash and Richard Wingfield, and the Conservative candidates are Tristan Honeyborne and Clive Rates. Both sets of candidates have indicated to us that they do not support the LTNs. We are asking them further, more detailed questions about their positions on the Dulwich LTNs based on their initial statements, and will publish all the information on our website shortly.

[heartblock]

I live on ED Grove in a flat

I have voted Green or Labour in every election

I walk and use PT for all short to medium journeys, and have used a car about 6 times in two years.

I am a member of Medact that is pushing for many green related health issues and a reduction in inequalities in health

So stop gaslighting us individuals as a 'hardcore' 'tantrum' 'them' 'lobby' with no interest in reducing car use and pollution. Why do I oppose these particular LTNs - because the evidence I have read does not prove to me that pollution and traffic has been reduced by LTNs and the evidence I see on my road also informs me that traffic and congestion is now worse on my road.

Road pricing - yes, but remember this favours the wealthy, more local green public transport and in my book - close all private schools so all school journeys are short because all children go to their excellent state run school....see not very Tory at all!

[legalalien]

Heartblock - I think there are plenty of things we disagree on politically and probably some other things we do agree on but -Why do I oppose these particular LTNs - because the evidence I have read does not prove to me that pollution and traffic has been reduced by LTNs and the evidence I see on your road also informs me that traffic and congestion is now worse on your road.

Can someone who knows tell me if I am hardcore or not and if so whether there are some other thoughts I am or should be thinking?

[goldilocks]

What 'evidence' do you see on East Dulwich Grove @legalalien. The last evidence showed that traffic had fallen substantially outside Heartblock's home, but they don't believe the evidence. Do you also not believe the council's data?

[legalalien]

I trust the evidence of my own eyes as I walk down EDG a lot. The council?s data has yet to find a real way of comparing like with like, given all the various factors that affect traffic, in my view, and given all the issues there have been with data manipulation / delays / misleading summaries and comms they?ve produced, unfortunately I?m now at the point that I don?t trust a thing they produce. I suspect many others feel the same. It?s a situation which I recognise is incredibly unhelpful, but one I think the council has created. I?m tired of having to dig through council data to try and find out what and how they?ve decided to measure things. LTN fatigue.

[heartblock]

How do you know traffic has fallen outside my home..as I have said on countless times ED Grove Central is a point measurement - with one and only one count in 2021 as the counter was not placed before Autumn 2021.

It is not a stretch of road, it is one counter located at Melbourne Grove Junction/Health Centre. So please stop reporting a false narrative about my location and the so called ED Grove 'section' of road.

If LTNs are justified on these types of false and erroneous narratives, one can understand the high number of residents that replied to the consultation wanting LTNs removed. I think the main feeling in many ways is the distrust that has evolved due to at the best poor data and at the worse manipulated data to prove a policy has worked, when it is so obvious to anyone living on a so called boundary road, that it really has not.

[goldilocks]

Ok - so @legalalien thinks that their eyes at random points are obviously more reliable than counters because they don't trust the council.

@Heartblock doesnt' believe the council data and goes further and tries to accuse those who look at the data points provided and don't think its a conspiracy of 'gasslighting'.

Anyone else?

[Nigello]

In DV today, again, around usual peak hours (7.45--8.45 or thereabouts) it was like a Sunday in the 1970s. THe amount of traffic that is generated by people going to and from schools has to be massive. (I understand that some of the lack of traffic is also down to people who are on holiday and don't ferry kids to and from the many schools, state and indy, we have around here, but the schools really do have an obligation to do so much more to encourage/bribe/?? their pupils' parents to not using vehicles to get their offspring to school and back.)

[heartblock]

Oh Goldilocks - it is all there in the latest newsletter from Southwark Council - it actually says it is a 'new' count and from the point where I said it is, you can go look at it on ED Grove.

As I tell my students - look at the raw data, and all confounding data, especially when a drug company, researcher, organisation is desperately trying to prove something they believe in is right and analyse it yourself.

You know the true scientific method is always the best - why do we choose the null hypothesis?, because the purpose is to prove whether or not the test/treatment/intervention is supported, which is separated from the investigator's own values and decisions.

It states the exact opposite of what an investigator or an experimenter predicts or expects - so they should have started with 'LTNs do not reduce traffic and pollution or increase active travel' then proved this wrong.

[heartblock]

You are correct Nigello, as ED Grove is a school road - the private schools generate a lot of the traffic. The state school kids seem to take PT, I suspect as they travel from a catchment area, but as Alleyns and JAGs take pupils from further away and possibly parents have paid help, there is a lot more transportation of children by car...and we are talking big SUVs.

If I walk towards DH station I pass all the Charter School kids from the station and the bus stop, if I walk towards HH station - it is car and coach mayhem...

I have given my very left wing solution..but apart from that I'm not sure how you stop the ferrying of kids to JAGs and Alleyns.

They used to travel through some of the closed roads, but now of course the one parent, one child traffic now is funnelled onto ED Grove causing bus delays, idling traffic and pollution all along the road - except of course just outside TJ Health Centre where it all disappears in ED Grove's own Bermuda Triangle before emerging once more onto the road :)

[goldilocks]

It says that the council put in a new count and that they hadn't monitored at the earlier points of this process. It doesn't however say that their comparator was modelled - instead this is a previous council count from general monitoring (pre OHS) that took place at the sanme point.

Its not that you disagree with the analysis - its that you don't believe the starting point!

heartblock Wrote:

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

> Oh Goldilocks - it is all there in the latest

> newsletter from Southwark Council - it actually

> says it is a 'new' count and from the point where

> I said it is, you can go look at it on ED Grove.

>

> As I tell my students - look at the raw data, and

> all confounding data, especially when a drug

> company, researcher, organisation is desperately

> trying to prove something they believe in is right

> and analyse it yourself.

>

> You know the true scientific method is always the

> best - why do we choose the null hypothesis?,

> because the purpose is to prove whether or not the

> test/treatment/intervention is supported, which is

> separated from the investigator's own values and

> decisions.

>

> It states the exact opposite of what an

> investigator or an experimenter predicts or

> expects - so they should have started with 'LTNs

> do not reduce traffic and pollution or increase

> active travel' then proved this wrong.

[Rockets]

Goldilocks - the Sep 19 figures was modelled.

You've really got to stop pointing to the numbers and spend more time looking at where those numbers came from - do your own analysis and see if you can explain why the council took the Jan 19 figures (12.408 total vehicles) and used that to model the Sep 19 figures (15,315 total vehicles). They then compared the Sep 19 figures to the Sep 21 figures which were back down (12,675 total vehicles) - this is where the "reduction" on EDC comes from - without the "modelled" figures there is no reduction.

Also, the council's starting point is very misleading as it doesn't take into account the 7.1% overall reduction in traffic across Dulwich since the pandemic so the "reduction" is out by at least 7.1%. Do you have any thoughts on that (I know you don't because you keep avoiding the question! ;-))

[legalalien]

I think the private schools could help by becoming less academically selective. They?re massively oversubscribed so there?s really no need for them to be quite so selective, at least as regards fee paying students. We currently have a situation with quite a number of local pupils being ferried to Sydenham girls, Streatham and Clapham, Croydon schools, Eltham who weren?t offered places at the more local schools. And other children coming in the other direction.

It would be quite interesting to see a map of the schools? catchment areas, I wonder if it?s something Safe Routes to School have had access to or looked at. I imagine primary school aged children coming from Wandsworth make up a fair chunk of the school traffic.

[exdulwicher]

It would be quite interesting to see a map of the schools? catchment areas, I wonder if it?s something Safe Routes to School have had access to or looked at. I imagine primary school aged children coming from Wandsworth make up a fair chunk of the school traffic.

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

[DulvilleRes]

'DulvilleRes - it doesn't take a genius to work out why some people take the stance they do on the LTNs. Maybe we should have a truth and reconciliation session where we all declare our hands.....let me go first...I used to live on a road that was experiencing the negative fallout from the LTNs and I was against them. I now live on a road that is experiencing the positive fallout from the LTNs and I am still against them.

Your turn?'

You don't have the evidence to back up your claim 'Let's be honest many of those most vocal on here in their unwavering support of the closures live on the closed roads and have benefitted the most'. Your view is just supposition. My experience is the truth of support or otherwise of the traffic reduction measures is much more complex - for instance, I've spoken to a young family on East Dulwich Grove boundary road who are genuinely concerned that the LTN's might be scrapped, and to people within the LTN's that don't support them.

Why I think it is important is so much of this debate has been needlessly heated and divisive in tone, and to counter that, i think it is important to deal in facts. Again the question can be asked - does it suit some agendas that the issues seem to be permanently cranked up?

Given the ugliness last summer of people getting personally targeted in the streets, and even in one instance I know of the actual home they live in by a person or persons from the anti LTN lobby, I'm in no hurry to discuss with you where I live, and I've seen that view expressed elsewhere in this thread.

[legalalien]

Thanks ex-D. The missing info from that will (I suspect- haven?t read it yet!) be about younger children (who can?t get the coach) and DPL as only a very small proportion of their pupils get the foundation school coaches - they used to have their own minibuses but not sure if they still do? I suspect parents driving younger children and to DPL are a fair proportion of school traffic. As long as parents have one ?younger? child at a Dulwich school, they tend to do the school run for all children. And then it?s the case that any children with extracurricular activities in the Dulwich area end up being driven as the coach times don?t work. So smaller catchments are a better option than more coaches, I suspect.

I?ll have a read when I get a chance.

In terms of their legal obligations to have their travel plans, do you know where do those stem from? Would be interested to see what the targets are and how compliance is measured.

[Rockets]

DulvilleRes - as I said before it doesn't take a genius to work out the areas people are located and for many us, yourself included, who have been frequenting the forum for a long time (and not just on this thread) you get a good handle on where people might be situated. I am not going to start suggesting where person X or person Y might be located - that's for everyone else to work out, if they are so inclined.

But it is clear there are people who come on here to laud the benefits of the LTNs who live on the roads benefitting most from the closures. And that's before we even address the long-banned souls like LTNBooHoo and Manatee who came on here to troll anyone with a view that opposed theirs - and many suspected such posters were existing members setting up new accounts.

No-one is suggesting people share home addresses but maybe, as I did, people might want to indicate whether they live on a road that is benefitting positively or negatively from the closures - but I suspect that will all be a bit one-sided with those living with the negative impact far more willing to share that than those with the positive impact.

You talk of a heated and divisive tone yet refer to people as "hardcore"....;-)

We are dealing with facts but every time we challenge some of the facts lauded by the pro-LTN lobby none of the pro-LTN lobby seems too interested in responding to them!

I am not sure what you mean by permanently cranked-up - I get the impression that the local reaction to the council and councillors has been cranked up over the last two years by a council that has repeatedly and steadfastly ignored many, if not most, of the local constituents. I will remind you of the hundreds of local people who gathered in the square to protest the closures in the autumn.

I would say, in retort, that maybe there are those who are concerned that with local elections fast approaching that, despite their very best efforts, this issue has not gone away and equally there are those who are very pleased that the issue hasn't gone away as there is a local election approaching.

[Waseley]

I struggle with those opposing LTNs is that I have yet to see them any viable alternatives for getting people out of cars. You can appear dismissive of public transport and show a lot of antipathy towards e scooters and cyclists. Interestingly now two relevant threads have been lounged you no longer post on these two subjects

There is a wider conversation on why it is so difficult to get people out of their cars. At what stage does the disruption lead to behaviour change. A no brainer for those who rightly or wrongly driveve their kids to school is to lift share. Sent from upstairs on a 185. Oh dear it has just stopped at Denmark Hill to even out the service. Engine running. Two separate threads there.

[legalalien]

There is a wider conversation, but this is a discussion about a specific LTN, and if this LTN doesn?t work to get people out of cars (or it works to reduce the number of trips but increases overall mileage) then it doesn?t make sense, regardless of whether alternatives are or are not available.

If it does work, then the conversation is about whether the negative impact is worth it. You can?t just look at one policy aim in isolation. (Just like there was a trade off between health benefits of lockdown vs economic impact and negative health and educational effect of lockdown). Reduction in cars is not the be all and end all, there are other considerations (amenity of affected residents, air pollution - up or down, redistributed? Economic effect on local businesses, including those using cars and other vehicles for work, other effects, which include impact on those with disabilities and inconvenience to people). Is reducing car numbers the biggest priority? I throw that out there without expressing a view, but just to say that a wider conversation needs to go beyond the question of ?how else to get people out of cars?.

Another interesting thing to consider is whether, given the high proportion of through traffic in the area, any reductions in traffic can be said to be down to this specific LTN configuration or could rather be down to road interventions elsewhere - and I don?t think there?s an easy way to untangle that information. If there is a traffic reduction, won?t that be down to a combination of loads of LTNs across different boroughs, but with each borough claiming that its own individual scheme is responsible. Is anyone counting the traffic crossing into Southwark from neighbouring boroughs I wonder?

I don?t go into the Lounge as I fear there might be trolls in there? plus it would probably be addictive - same reason I don?t have a Twitter account or other social media. Would rather have those discussions IRL over a pint.

[Rockets]

Waseley - I personally think the only way to get people out of cars is to instigate means-tested road pricing and pro-actively tackle the issue of massive increases in home deliveries. Despite what many on the pro-LTN side say, there have been many on here who have posted very reasonable suggestions about how you tackle climate-change, pollution and traffic congestion in a way that is fair and equitable to all and doesn't just move the problem from one street to another - which has been the only outcome of LTNs.

I am not dismissive of public transport (I use it all the time) I just don't think it is sufficiently mature in an area like Dulwich to be able to support the modal change the council desires. Remember, the council has previously said that they should only be deploying LTNs in areas with high PTAL scores as it provides a public transport alternative. And, as we know, Dulwich has low PTAL scores.

The lack of good public transport is actually why I started cycling to work because getting from East Dulwich to Hammersmith was a pain on public transport involving a 20 minute walk to the station, a train and then two tubes.

[johnhinton]

I live on an LTN-affected road, with off-street parking and relatively easy access to buses and trains. In some ways LTNs should work to my advantage, except that I would have to ignore the very real harms to others who live on the main through roads, including people who don't live in this leafy oasis but have to travel through it to get to work. Harms to the people I rely on to undertake jobs I cannot do (who cannot park and risk paying towards ?6 million in fines), and harms to my disabled daughter who needs to be ferried around and forced to sit in the traffic jams caused by the LTNs.

I cannot point to any real advantage from these LTNs: there are quiet periods on the road outside (so speeding is still an issue), but also horrendously busy periods and unbearably long forced detours onto already crowded, roads. There is no route flexibility when roads are temporarily closed, just more delay and pollution. And the built environment has become fantastically ugly: I used to live (happily) in Peckham, but it was not always pretty. The Turney, Calton, DV junction is such an eyesore, with bollards, planting crates, a dozen signs, and temporary barriers (like those around a crime scene). Why did Southwark want to change Dulwich into an urban wasteland?

Despite being a Labour Party member for 30 years, Southwark Labour will not get my vote in May. Nor will the Tories, obviously, whatever they might promise. Will the LibDems listen or collaborate, will the Greens engage? The stated aims of the LTNs are fine, of course: reduced pollution, lower traffic flows, safer travel, even a pleasant streetscape/environment. However, I vehemently disagree with the implementation of these measures that do not fulfil those stated aims, relying instead on misinformation (to put it politely), obfuscation, gaslighting, abuse (one DV councillor in particular) and the kind of underhanded, sneaky behaviour I've alway associated with the Bojo party.

[heartblock]

johnhinton...we are gaslighted and demonised for our experience.. Labour Southwark and posters on this forum taking our experience and our lives and twisting it. Indeed behaviour I would lay at the feet of those with privileged lives who want to 'other'.

[Waseley]

I asked for alternative solutions Rockets. Means tested road pricing won't work. Unless you get facial recognition on ANPR cameras you won't be able to differentiate between a wealthy driver and a poorer driver. The charge is on the vehicle and therefore very open to abuse. And now the genie is out of the bottle how on earth do you curtail home deliveries? There is an argument that for household essentials are more efficiently distributed through home deliveries. I'd happily to tell the masses to curtail consumption, but few politicians will be prepared to do this and Caroline Lucas can't achieve this on her own.