Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

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FosseWay
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by FosseWay »

WHBM wrote: Fri Apr 15, 2022 11:26 Though a good number of these situations are not about keeping through traffic on main roads, but stopping people from getting from one end of their residential road to the other, and thence onwards, as described in the original post, thus causing them a considerable and timewasting diversion by main roads. It's especially a nuisance where, again as in the original post, traffic management measures have already previously taken place on the main road that the LTN advocates seem not to have noticed, in this case a ban on right turns onto the A205 South Circular.

We walk home from the station, about three-quarters mile. But if I'm at home and it's raining/they have heavy parcels/children have thrown up etc, I'll drive over to pick them up. It's a straightforward journey. Are we saying, in a well-developed wealthy country, I should not ?
Two things here, both prefaced by the obvious fact that no-one is saying you can't drive, but rather that you may have to go a slightly longer route if you choose to.

1. If you are driving any appreciable distance, the additional distance involved in going the "wrong" way (from a geographical perspective) along your road to begin with will be peanuts. It's basically meaningless, as the difference is lost within the random statistical noise of any urban/suburban journey (traffic light sequences, whether you're ahead of or behind the bus, what time of day it is, etc.). The same is true of people who have palpitations because for short portions of their journey they have to do 20 rather than 30 - in any meaningful sense, it makes no difference.

And if you are driving the kind of short distance that means that the additional driving amounts to a substantial percentage on top of the original route, then:

2. If you need exceptionally to use the car for a short journey you'd normally do on foot - if you've got something heavy to carry, you're picking up elderly relatives, the weather's horrible, whatever - then the additional time is in the grand scheme of things irrelevant. So what if it takes 10 minutes rather than 5 once in a blue moon, if all the rest of the time you and the others around you are contributing to making the area nicer to live in?
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Chris Bertram
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by Chris Bertram »

FosseWay wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 21:25
WHBM wrote: Fri Apr 15, 2022 11:26 Though a good number of these situations are not about keeping through traffic on main roads, but stopping people from getting from one end of their residential road to the other, and thence onwards, as described in the original post, thus causing them a considerable and timewasting diversion by main roads. It's especially a nuisance where, again as in the original post, traffic management measures have already previously taken place on the main road that the LTN advocates seem not to have noticed, in this case a ban on right turns onto the A205 South Circular.

We walk home from the station, about three-quarters mile. But if I'm at home and it's raining/they have heavy parcels/children have thrown up etc, I'll drive over to pick them up. It's a straightforward journey. Are we saying, in a well-developed wealthy country, I should not ?
Two things here, both prefaced by the obvious fact that no-one is saying you can't drive, but rather that you may have to go a slightly longer route if you choose to.

1. If you are driving any appreciable distance, the additional distance involved in going the "wrong" way (from a geographical perspective) along your road to begin with will be peanuts. It's basically meaningless, as the difference is lost within the random statistical noise of any urban/suburban journey (traffic light sequences, whether you're ahead of or behind the bus, what time of day it is, etc.). The same is true of people who have palpitations because for short portions of their journey they have to do 20 rather than 30 - in any meaningful sense, it makes no difference.

And if you are driving the kind of short distance that means that the additional driving amounts to a substantial percentage on top of the original route, then:

2. If you need exceptionally to use the car for a short journey you'd normally do on foot - if you've got something heavy to carry, you're picking up elderly relatives, the weather's horrible, whatever - then the additional time is in the grand scheme of things irrelevant. So what if it takes 10 minutes rather than 5 once in a blue moon, if all the rest of the time you and the others around you are contributing to making the area nicer to live in?
All of which sounds fine if it's just one individual affected occasionally. But it won't be, it'll be many people, repeatedly. Which is where the opposition comes from and why the promoters of LTNs have been taken aback by the strength of that opposition; the assumptions underlying the schemes as to how people would behave were all wrong, and now multiple chickens are coming home to roost.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by fras »

The question "who are these schemes serving" never seems to get asked. People actually living in these schemes have found they are just as inconvenienced by them as strangers.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

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Chris Bertram wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 22:34
FosseWay wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 21:25
WHBM wrote: Fri Apr 15, 2022 11:26 Though a good number of these situations are not about keeping through traffic on main roads, but stopping people from getting from one end of their residential road to the other, and thence onwards, as described in the original post, thus causing them a considerable and timewasting diversion by main roads. It's especially a nuisance where, again as in the original post, traffic management measures have already previously taken place on the main road that the LTN advocates seem not to have noticed, in this case a ban on right turns onto the A205 South Circular.

We walk home from the station, about three-quarters mile. But if I'm at home and it's raining/they have heavy parcels/children have thrown up etc, I'll drive over to pick them up. It's a straightforward journey. Are we saying, in a well-developed wealthy country, I should not ?
Two things here, both prefaced by the obvious fact that no-one is saying you can't drive, but rather that you may have to go a slightly longer route if you choose to.

1. If you are driving any appreciable distance, the additional distance involved in going the "wrong" way (from a geographical perspective) along your road to begin with will be peanuts. It's basically meaningless, as the difference is lost within the random statistical noise of any urban/suburban journey (traffic light sequences, whether you're ahead of or behind the bus, what time of day it is, etc.). The same is true of people who have palpitations because for short portions of their journey they have to do 20 rather than 30 - in any meaningful sense, it makes no difference.

And if you are driving the kind of short distance that means that the additional driving amounts to a substantial percentage on top of the original route, then:

2. If you need exceptionally to use the car for a short journey you'd normally do on foot - if you've got something heavy to carry, you're picking up elderly relatives, the weather's horrible, whatever - then the additional time is in the grand scheme of things irrelevant. So what if it takes 10 minutes rather than 5 once in a blue moon, if all the rest of the time you and the others around you are contributing to making the area nicer to live in?
All of which sounds fine if it's just one individual affected occasionally. But it won't be, it'll be many people, repeatedly. Which is where the opposition comes from and why the promoters of LTNs have been taken aback by the strength of that opposition; the assumptions underlying the schemes as to how people would behave were all wrong, and now multiple chickens are coming home to roost.
Logically it should affect everyone (with a car) occasionally. As I've said earlier in this thread, if public transport isn't good enough to take the burden of a significant proportion of the current car journeys, it needs to be improved. But that isn't an issue with the LTNs per se. I sometimes get the feeling that the loudest and most persistent voices in this are often in fact complaining that "I used to be able to drive here, but now I can't".

Where I live is basically a LTN, partly by design, partly by default. Many Swedish residential areas are laid out in the "veins of a leaf" approach, whereby as far as motor traffic is concerned, each vein is only attached to the central rib and the central rib only to the branch. The old link between my "leaf" and the next is blocked for motor traffic, but tbh going that way wouldn't be any quicker than going the way I do already if I want to get to the main highway. What would be quicker is if I could go up and over the hill behind my house to the road that starts at the top, but that is and always has been physically impossible. The point is that plenty of people live in places where a straight-ish line to where they often go is not possible due to terrain, a river or just a lack of roads and this is perfectly fine for all concerned. This is why I suspect that the problem here is the perceived withdrawal of something they used to have, rather than a fundamental problem (e.g. something that would have stopped them buying the house if it had been in place before they lived there).
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by jnty »

Public transport is a bit of a red herring with respect to LTNs. When you look at the area covered by, say, the King's Heath LTN, you would never really use a bus to get around an area of that size anyway, and certainly not a tram or train. For any journeys a bus would be suitable for, the fact you have to access the main route network by a different road is going to, realistically, have a very small effect on your overall journey time.

The primary cost will be to rat runners, who may incur a marginal time cost on their journey, while the primary benefit is to local residents who now find it easier to use the roads on foot, bike and wheel, including to access buses on main roads. If they own cars (about 60% of households in Birmingham) and live on rat runs they will also find that their wing mirrors incur less mysterious damage and parking and access is less fraught at peak times.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by Chris Bertram »

jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 10:25 Public transport is a bit of a red herring with respect to LTNs. When you look at the area covered by, say, the King's Heath LTN, you would never really use a bus to get around an area of that size anyway, and certainly not a tram or train. For any journeys a bus would be suitable for, the fact you have to access the main route network by a different road is going to, realistically, have a very small effect on your overall journey time.

The primary cost will be to rat runners, who may incur a marginal time cost on their journey, while the primary benefit is to local residents who now find it easier to use the roads on foot, bike and wheel, including to access buses on main roads. If they own cars (about 60% of households in Birmingham) and live on rat runs they will also find that their wing mirrors incur less mysterious damage and parking and access is less fraught at peak times.
And yet, and yet ... despite all you say, the response to the LTN *from the residents inside the zones* has been less than positive. I dunno, maybe they appreciate the utility of a road that you can get out of from either end. I know I do with the road I live on, a C-road, though some other residents seem not to be able to consider the world beyond the 100m either side of their front door.

The point about public transport is not the journey across the LTN. It's the journey a bus, or a train, makes beyond the LTN and which people could walk to from within the LTN (who on earth drives to catch the bus?). As I've mentioned before, anyone who finds the bus ok to make that journey is probably already doing that, but there is a core of people who won't take the bus, perhaps because it's too slow for them, or because it stinks of weed or whatever. These people are much more likely to switch to the train, and when we have our new station and rail service, then we will observe how many of them do that (they may not all switch on day 1, some may wait to see how others find it and need reassurance about speed and reliability). And there are some who will always drive to work, perhaps because they are carrying tools or other valuables, perhaps because they may need to be onwardly mobile beyond their office (this has applied to me at various times in the past), perhaps because the journey simply isn't adequately provided for by public transport. One size never fits all, but it's easy to get the impression that some blue-sky thinkers in this area lose sight of this.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by jnty »

Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:27 The point about public transport is not the journey across the LTN. It's the journey a bus, or a train, makes beyond the LTN and which people could walk to from within the LTN (who on earth drives to catch the bus?). As I've mentioned before, anyone who finds the bus ok to make that journey is probably already doing that, but there is a core of people who won't take the bus, perhaps because it's too slow for them, or because it stinks of weed or whatever. These people are much more likely to switch to the train, and when we have our new station and rail service, then we will observe how many of them do that (they may not all switch on day 1, some may wait to see how others find it and need reassurance about speed and reliability). And there are some who will always drive to work, perhaps because they are carrying tools or other valuables, perhaps because they may need to be onwardly mobile beyond their office (this has applied to me at various times in the past), perhaps because the journey simply isn't adequately provided for by public transport. One size never fits all, but it's easy to get the impression that some blue-sky thinkers in this area lose sight of this.
Can you name any LTN which prevents any of these things? Reading this post you'd think the thread title was "Anti Road Abolition campaign in SE London".
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

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jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:37
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:27 The point about public transport is not the journey across the LTN. It's the journey a bus, or a train, makes beyond the LTN and which people could walk to from within the LTN (who on earth drives to catch the bus?). As I've mentioned before, anyone who finds the bus ok to make that journey is probably already doing that, but there is a core of people who won't take the bus, perhaps because it's too slow for them, or because it stinks of weed or whatever. These people are much more likely to switch to the train, and when we have our new station and rail service, then we will observe how many of them do that (they may not all switch on day 1, some may wait to see how others find it and need reassurance about speed and reliability). And there are some who will always drive to work, perhaps because they are carrying tools or other valuables, perhaps because they may need to be onwardly mobile beyond their office (this has applied to me at various times in the past), perhaps because the journey simply isn't adequately provided for by public transport. One size never fits all, but it's easy to get the impression that some blue-sky thinkers in this area lose sight of this.
Can you name any LTN which prevents any of these things? Reading this post you'd think the thread title was "Anti Road Abolition campaign in SE London".
"Prevents"? Perhaps not. "Puts great big obstacles in the way of", is more like it. And if the supposed benefit of doing this is not perceived, then you're not selling the concept. You can cite statistics until the bovines arrive at their domicile, but if the public isn't buying, then you're failing.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by Bryn666 »

Yes, well that rather sums up the problem with populism doesn't it. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it wrong.

If we were to entrust the Great British Public with decision making, we'd have reinstated capital punishment long ago.

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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by jnty »

Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:04
jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:37
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:27 The point about public transport is not the journey across the LTN. It's the journey a bus, or a train, makes beyond the LTN and which people could walk to from within the LTN (who on earth drives to catch the bus?). As I've mentioned before, anyone who finds the bus ok to make that journey is probably already doing that, but there is a core of people who won't take the bus, perhaps because it's too slow for them, or because it stinks of weed or whatever. These people are much more likely to switch to the train, and when we have our new station and rail service, then we will observe how many of them do that (they may not all switch on day 1, some may wait to see how others find it and need reassurance about speed and reliability). And there are some who will always drive to work, perhaps because they are carrying tools or other valuables, perhaps because they may need to be onwardly mobile beyond their office (this has applied to me at various times in the past), perhaps because the journey simply isn't adequately provided for by public transport. One size never fits all, but it's easy to get the impression that some blue-sky thinkers in this area lose sight of this.
Can you name any LTN which prevents any of these things? Reading this post you'd think the thread title was "Anti Road Abolition campaign in SE London".
"Prevents"? Perhaps not. "Puts great big obstacles in the way of", is more like it. And if the supposed benefit of doing this is not perceived, then you're not selling the concept. You can cite statistics until the bovines arrive at their domicile, but if the public isn't buying, then you're failing.
The consultation report for King's Heath (which I was surprised to find this as I am repeatedly told that LTNs are never consulted upon) shows that over 1000 people living in the scheme area support the proposals, and that people are more likely to support the scheme if they live in the area. More local responses were negative than positive, but roughly as many people opposed it as didn't. Consultations are not referendums - so the key takeaway is that it is not true to say that there is 'overwhelming' local support - there is local support, local opposition (and a much bigger chunk of local indifference!)

I think, as I've said before, the key test will be the upcoming local elections. If there really is all-pervasive local opposition, beyond that which materialised in the consultation, then the key advocates are toast. The fact that the councillors are still pressing ahead with the scheme on the eve of an election suggests that they're either reasonably sure they'll be alright or very naive. Not long until we find out!

EDIT: interestingly, I just spotted this survey. I've not read the methodology in too much depth but I suspect the responses are a bit more representative of the actual population than consultations, which tend to be dominated by how much response individual special interest groups can muster. They seem to indicate broad popular support for LTNs and traffic reduction in the areas affected in Birmingham, consistent with similar polling in other cities. I wonder if the councillors are looking at this to determine broader public feeling, and therefore what is likely to happen at local elections, rather than specific consultation results.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

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Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:27
jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 10:25 Public transport is a bit of a red herring with respect to LTNs. When you look at the area covered by, say, the King's Heath LTN, you would never really use a bus to get around an area of that size anyway, and certainly not a tram or train. For any journeys a bus would be suitable for, the fact you have to access the main route network by a different road is going to, realistically, have a very small effect on your overall journey time.

The primary cost will be to rat runners, who may incur a marginal time cost on their journey, while the primary benefit is to local residents who now find it easier to use the roads on foot, bike and wheel, including to access buses on main roads. If they own cars (about 60% of households in Birmingham) and live on rat runs they will also find that their wing mirrors incur less mysterious damage and parking and access is less fraught at peak times.
And yet, and yet ... despite all you say, the response to the LTN *from the residents inside the zones* has been less than positive. I dunno, maybe they appreciate the utility of a road that you can get out of from either end. I know I do with the road I live on, a C-road, though some other residents seem not to be able to consider the world beyond the 100m either side of their front door.

The point about public transport is not the journey across the LTN. It's the journey a bus, or a train, makes beyond the LTN and which people could walk to from within the LTN (who on earth drives to catch the bus?).
I think driving to catch a bus is very rare (outside of Park & Ride schemes obviously). However, being driven to catch a bus is not that uncommon. I have often seen parents drop their kids off at a bus station from where they will presumably get a bus to their school. A few years ago, I was flying on holiday from Stansted and I got a bus there from a stop about a mile from home. My Dad drove me to the stop to save me having to wheel my suitcase that far.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by Chris Bertram »

jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:23
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:04
jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:37
Can you name any LTN which prevents any of these things? Reading this post you'd think the thread title was "Anti Road Abolition campaign in SE London".
"Prevents"? Perhaps not. "Puts great big obstacles in the way of", is more like it. And if the supposed benefit of doing this is not perceived, then you're not selling the concept. You can cite statistics until the bovines arrive at their domicile, but if the public isn't buying, then you're failing.
The consultation report for King's Heath (which I was surprised to find this as I am repeatedly told that LTNs are never consulted upon) shows that over 1000 people living in the scheme area support the proposals, and that people are more likely to support the scheme if they live in the area. More local responses were negative than positive, but roughly as many people opposed it as didn't. Consultations are not referendums - so the key takeaway is that it is not true to say that there is 'overwhelming' local support - there is local support, local opposition (and a much bigger chunk of local indifference!)

I think, as I've said before, the key test will be the upcoming local elections. If there really is all-pervasive local opposition, beyond that which materialised in the consultation, then the key advocates are toast. The fact that the councillors are still pressing ahead with the scheme on the eve of an election suggests that they're either reasonably sure they'll be alright or very naive. Not long until we find out!

EDIT: interestingly, I just spotted this survey. I've not read the methodology in too much depth but I suspect the responses are a bit more representative of the actual population than consultations, which tend to be dominated by how much response individual special interest groups can muster. They seem to indicate broad popular support for LTNs and traffic reduction in the areas affected in Birmingham, consistent with similar polling in other cities. I wonder if the councillors are looking at this to determine broader public feeling, and therefore what is likely to happen at local elections, rather than specific consultation results.
Support for a concept is a different thing from support for the actual thing that is installed. If you ask questions about whether you're in favour of motherhood and apple pie, you'll get support for them. But when the recipe for the apple pie contains some ingredients that spoil the flavour, people will change their mind. Pictures of lengthy queues on boundary roads - the HTNs that inevitably come with LTNs but are not mentioned alongside them - and videos of ambulances performing 3-point turns when they arrive at a road block will tend to suggest that the scheme has not been thought through properly (I'm being kind with my words here). And residents who find themselves disadvantaged will, naturally enough, kick off about it. If it was assumed that everyone would react to the road blockages by taking to bikes, or walking everywhere instead, then that was, to quote Sir Humphrey, a very "brave" assumption. It simply hasn't happened to any significant extent.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by jnty »

trickstat wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:32
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:27
jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 10:25 Public transport is a bit of a red herring with respect to LTNs. When you look at the area covered by, say, the King's Heath LTN, you would never really use a bus to get around an area of that size anyway, and certainly not a tram or train. For any journeys a bus would be suitable for, the fact you have to access the main route network by a different road is going to, realistically, have a very small effect on your overall journey time.

The primary cost will be to rat runners, who may incur a marginal time cost on their journey, while the primary benefit is to local residents who now find it easier to use the roads on foot, bike and wheel, including to access buses on main roads. If they own cars (about 60% of households in Birmingham) and live on rat runs they will also find that their wing mirrors incur less mysterious damage and parking and access is less fraught at peak times.
And yet, and yet ... despite all you say, the response to the LTN *from the residents inside the zones* has been less than positive. I dunno, maybe they appreciate the utility of a road that you can get out of from either end. I know I do with the road I live on, a C-road, though some other residents seem not to be able to consider the world beyond the 100m either side of their front door.

The point about public transport is not the journey across the LTN. It's the journey a bus, or a train, makes beyond the LTN and which people could walk to from within the LTN (who on earth drives to catch the bus?).
I think driving to catch a bus is very rare (outside of Park & Ride schemes obviously). However, being driven to catch a bus is not that uncommon. I have often seen parents drop their kids off at a bus station from where they will presumably get a bus to their school. A few years ago, I was flying on holiday from Stansted and I got a bus there from a stop about a mile from home. My Dad drove me to the stop to save me having to wheel my suitcase that far.
One of the arguments for expansion of parking controls in Edinburgh is "park and ride" commuting parking on residential streets just outside the existing controlled parking zone. Residents also report this issue in West Edinburgh near airport bus routes, but obviously for longer periods while people are away. So it does happen, but often in more subtle ways than just plonking your car next to the nearest bus stop.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by Chris Bertram »

trickstat wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:32
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 11:27
jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 10:25 Public transport is a bit of a red herring with respect to LTNs. When you look at the area covered by, say, the King's Heath LTN, you would never really use a bus to get around an area of that size anyway, and certainly not a tram or train. For any journeys a bus would be suitable for, the fact you have to access the main route network by a different road is going to, realistically, have a very small effect on your overall journey time.

The primary cost will be to rat runners, who may incur a marginal time cost on their journey, while the primary benefit is to local residents who now find it easier to use the roads on foot, bike and wheel, including to access buses on main roads. If they own cars (about 60% of households in Birmingham) and live on rat runs they will also find that their wing mirrors incur less mysterious damage and parking and access is less fraught at peak times.
And yet, and yet ... despite all you say, the response to the LTN *from the residents inside the zones* has been less than positive. I dunno, maybe they appreciate the utility of a road that you can get out of from either end. I know I do with the road I live on, a C-road, though some other residents seem not to be able to consider the world beyond the 100m either side of their front door.

The point about public transport is not the journey across the LTN. It's the journey a bus, or a train, makes beyond the LTN and which people could walk to from within the LTN (who on earth drives to catch the bus?).
I think driving to catch a bus is very rare (outside of Park & Ride schemes obviously). However, being driven to catch a bus is not that uncommon. I have often seen parents drop their kids off at a bus station from where they will presumably get a bus to their school. A few years ago, I was flying on holiday from Stansted and I got a bus there from a stop about a mile from home. My Dad drove me to the stop to save me having to wheel my suitcase that far.
OK, I get that, I was thinking of an urban area where the bus stop should be fairly close to most people's houses.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by jnty »

Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:44
jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:23
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 12:04 "Prevents"? Perhaps not. "Puts great big obstacles in the way of", is more like it. And if the supposed benefit of doing this is not perceived, then you're not selling the concept. You can cite statistics until the bovines arrive at their domicile, but if the public isn't buying, then you're failing.
The consultation report for King's Heath (which I was surprised to find this as I am repeatedly told that LTNs are never consulted upon) shows that over 1000 people living in the scheme area support the proposals, and that people are more likely to support the scheme if they live in the area. More local responses were negative than positive, but roughly as many people opposed it as didn't. Consultations are not referendums - so the key takeaway is that it is not true to say that there is 'overwhelming' local support - there is local support, local opposition (and a much bigger chunk of local indifference!)

I think, as I've said before, the key test will be the upcoming local elections. If there really is all-pervasive local opposition, beyond that which materialised in the consultation, then the key advocates are toast. The fact that the councillors are still pressing ahead with the scheme on the eve of an election suggests that they're either reasonably sure they'll be alright or very naive. Not long until we find out!

EDIT: interestingly, I just spotted this survey. I've not read the methodology in too much depth but I suspect the responses are a bit more representative of the actual population than consultations, which tend to be dominated by how much response individual special interest groups can muster. They seem to indicate broad popular support for LTNs and traffic reduction in the areas affected in Birmingham, consistent with similar polling in other cities. I wonder if the councillors are looking at this to determine broader public feeling, and therefore what is likely to happen at local elections, rather than specific consultation results.
Support for a concept is a different thing from support for the actual thing that is installed. If you ask questions about whether you're in favour of motherhood and apple pie, you'll get support for them. But when the recipe for the apple pie contains some ingredients that spoil the flavour, people will change their mind. Pictures of lengthy queues on boundary roads - the HTNs that inevitably come with LTNs but are not mentioned alongside them - and videos of ambulances performing 3-point turns when they arrive at a road block will tend to suggest that the scheme has not been thought through properly (I'm being kind with my words here). And residents who find themselves disadvantaged will, naturally enough, kick off about it. If it was assumed that everyone would react to the road blockages by taking to bikes, or walking everywhere instead, then that was, to quote Sir Humphrey, a very "brave" assumption. It simply hasn't happened to any significant extent.
The survey was conducted after the LTNs were installed in the sample areas and specifically asked residents about them, with majority support in all surveyed areas.

It's clearly bad if emergency services drivers haven't been briefed about changes to the road network but all the videos you describe are essentially anecdotes and aren't particularly helpful on their own in forming a balanced view of the scheme. Surely it's better to have known network changes that emergency services can navigate around, using main roads that are often permeable by emergency services even when congested, than to allow narrow residential streets to become unpredictably clogged up with unpassable rat running traffic? In fact, the report says "feedback from these services is that they prefer to navigate around the closures, with the quieter streets making it easier to do this than when lots of drivers were cutting through the side streets" - so they would seem to agree.

As far as I understand it, the emergency services are aware and able to lodge formal objections to these schemes and haven't done so. I've seen emergency services get stuck in all sorts of situations - a classic one in Edinburgh is where (usually legal) car parking means that a congested street becomes completely impassable. Yet somehow I only ever hear about it in the news when there's a cycle lane nearby...

Of course if the number of traffic accidents drops in an area then fewer ambulances are required in the first place! How many videos of near-misses by cars in residential areas do you need to see before they outweigh the videos you've already seen?

With respect to traffic queues, these occur on main roads all over the country where there isn't an LTN for miles - what does that prove? It's not helpful to have discussions around traffic changes that ignore statistics as of course you're going to perceive "worse traffic" if you're looking for it, in the same way the lights always seem to turn red on you if you're in a hurry. The general pattern from LTNs seems to be that traffic gets slightly heavier on main roads, much lighter on filtered roads, and tends to drop overall. Given that the main roads are (or at least should be) designed to take that traffic, and the positive amenity and safety benefits of quieter residential streets, I think that's perfectly reasonable.
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Chris Bertram
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

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So basically you're saying "the concept is right - the people are wrong". That's not going to convince anyone, I'm afraid.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by jnty »

Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 13:21 So basically you're saying "the concept is right - the people are wrong". That's not going to convince anyone, I'm afraid.
No, I agree with 60% of local residents that the concept is right.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

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I suspect that many LTNs include a number of different measures over and above the basic minimum, which is a physical barrier preventing through traffic. These may include humps, chicanes and other traffic calming, and parking restrictions. I wonder how much opposition *from residents* to these schemes stems from these extended issues, especially where they are applied to an existing network. Bottlenecks may occur around artificially narrowed sections of road, for example, if they're not fully thought through so that there is actually somewhere for traffic that needs to wait without obstructing the oncoming vehicles they're waiting for. Sometimes I wonder if features are plonked in without really considering the wider usability of the area. Parking too - if you remove a load of parking (perhaps to install traffic calming) you may well annoy people who aren't bothered about the LTN in itself. Conversely, if you can't get through any more, you'll have to turn round, and this will disproportionately apply to larger vehicles making deliveries. If there are parked cars everywhere, turning may be an issue.

As to driving to get the bus - why on earth wouldn't you consider this? It seems basic common sense to me to drive for the portion of a journey where there is no PT and little congestion, and use PT for the portion where there is plenty of PT and lots of congestion (and probably congestion charges, expensive parking etc. as well). Clearly the PT and the parking at the switchover location has to exist, but I got the impression from comments above that even if it were facilitated, people still wouldn't consider changing to the bus at a suitable point. This is just weird as far as I'm concerned.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by Chris Bertram »

jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 13:37
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 13:21 So basically you're saying "the concept is right - the people are wrong". That's not going to convince anyone, I'm afraid.
No, I agree with 60% of local residents that the concept is right.
Once again, easy to be seduced by the concept and subsequently horrified by the execution.
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Re: Anti Local Traffic Neighbourhood campaign in SE London

Post by jnty »

Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 15:26
jnty wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 13:37
Chris Bertram wrote: Wed Apr 20, 2022 13:21 So basically you're saying "the concept is right - the people are wrong". That's not going to convince anyone, I'm afraid.
No, I agree with 60% of local residents that the concept is right.
Once again, easy to be seduced by the concept and subsequently horrified by the execution.
Once again: the survey was conducted after execution - 91% of those surveyed were aware of the scheme, and 63% explicitly supported it.

The survey spoke to a representative sample of people but there are always error bars to these things. However, the unavoidable fact is that the unanimous local opposition you imply the existence of simply doesn't exist - most people seem to think it is, at worst, fine.
Last edited by jnty on Wed Apr 20, 2022 15:41, edited 2 times in total.
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