Centralised discussion space for TfL plans and cycling in London

The officers are also being put under pressure to deliver schemes quickly, at low capital cost. So I think we can afford a bit of generosity.

Sure, as I said, many aren't very experienced in such schemes. However, the principles I propose can be implemented very easily and cheaply.

But the Oval LTN exhibits some of the problems you highlight - filters in the middle of the triangle would have been better than ones along the A3, except that filtering along the A3 has improved safety on CS7 by eliminating traffic turning accross the cycle lane. If they want to keep the A3 exits open, and keep the CS7 safety benefit, they'll need to make the re-opened junctions traffic light controlled - and they don't have any money for that.

No, that wouldn't be necessary. Just move the filters back into the cell. You'd have a minimal amount of side street interaction, but nothing that's problematic for cycling. Filtering takes care of almost all turning crashes along main streets, even if people ride in the gutter, etc. In fact, you need less signal control with filtering if it's done right. As an example, the London Bus Priority Initiative of 2001 and following years hugely increased the number of traffic signals because they didn't filter anything and were worried about side-street motor traffic getting in the way of buses. They addressed the symptoms, not the causes. If it's only a bit of resident traffic and deliveries going in and out, there's basically no issue for heavy infrastructure (although, of course, there's an industry in whose interest it is to put lots of expensive stuff in).

You'd have a minimal amount of side street interaction

By which you mean craning your neck 180 degrees every few metres to make sure no one's about to kill you.

I know there are problems in a few places where all of the side streets have been closed creating a nice motorway effect. But keeping all side streets open in the desperate hope it might make motorists pay more attention is letting the drivers win at the expensive of massive amounts of pedestrians and cyclist comfort.

I don't think we know how well continuous pavements might work in this country - there's only a handful of them and on most we've managed to engineer some ambiguity back in.

By which you mean craning your neck 180 degrees every few metres to make sure no one's about to kill you.

I don't understand what you mean here.

I mean the experience of walking along a pavement (or sometimes cycling) on a main road and having to check for motor vehicles coming from behind you at every single crossing because current fashion dictates "no, no, it's better to leave all the side streets open. Closing them and removing all conflict is actually bad".

I mean, maybe you're arguing it's the least bad of the various alternatives, but it's certainly not good.

At the junction of Fentiman and Meadow roads they've given the smaller road priority, which works quite well.

Could do that at every junction along the A3 in inner London, if you could stand the endless whining about "traffic flow".

Local morons in Islington out protesting against the two LTNs along the canal. The local Gazette trying their hardest to make it look like more than a handful of meatheads.

I know there are problems in a few places where all of the side streets have been closed creating a nice motorway effect. But keeping all side streets open in the desperate hope it might make motorists pay more attention is letting the drivers win at the expensive of massive amounts of pedestrians and cyclist comfort.

Absolutely, just because the design is novel is no reason to discount it, narrowing entries is perhaps more important than a continuous footway but both together go a long way to improve safety of cyclists and pedestrians.

If it's only a bit of resident traffic and deliveries going in and out, there's basically no issue for heavy infrastructure (although, of course, there's an industry in whose interest it is to put lots of expensive stuff in).

@Oliver Schick You can't reduce motor dominance without building your roads differently, a laisez faire hope for the best conflicts with everything we know about how humans behave. You have to separate different modes where necessary due to speed or amount, anything else is just wishful thinking that's produced nothing of note for 30 years.

Cycled around St Peters LTN in Islington at 4pm today, very quiet and pleasant! Upper street was flowing normally as well, fairly quiet as well.

It is lovely when it's quiet but they need to get this trash off the roads. I think Sadiq Khan should go back to hibernation he is just a useless fool.

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That's City of London's own initiative, and nowt to do with Mr Khan.

Direct your ire at London's other Mayor.

Yea I am pretty sure every pile of plastic on my 60km loop is the resposibility of somebody else.

I don't understand what you're so angry about. The road is plenty wide enough for you on your bike, or a car, or a bus even. The footway, in parts, is also now wide enough to allow pedestrians to socially distance appropriately.

Yes, it's ugly, and not perfect, but what's the real problem you have with some barriers in the road?

I don't know, what is it supposed to be? Is the barrier there to keep pedestrians on the footpath?
Should they walk on the bike path through the gaps in the barriers? What are the cones doing?
Creating new space for pedestrians on the bike path? Why are they only in a few places? Why are they blocking part of it? Why is there a sign in the bike path up ahead blocking the new space?

It would all be fun if it was just some symbolic pop up thing placed there by volunteers but there are millions of pounds being wasted on this.
And an empty road obviously has space for all of the things you mentioned. It just falls apart when there is a row of cyclists being overtaken by an impatient bus driver who then squeezes them into the imaginary bike path because of another oncoming bus.
I am not all that angry, mostly disappointed.

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I don't know, what is it supposed to be?

There are maps online somewhere that give some clue, but the temporary stuff is very piecemeal. I imagine it is signed at the start but a uniform approach would go a long way to making it clearer.

I don't know, what is it supposed to be?

Annoyingly the best diagram I can find for Ludgate Hill just says "reallocate space for walking and cycling"

http://democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s133954/Appendix%204%20Phase%202%20proposals.pdf

I don't know if those barriers and cones are were they were originally put though. which is part of the problem.

Have just had a notification that our road is to become part of the Hackney Downs LTN. Work starts Monday. Cutting Evering road in the middle is going to stop a huge amount of traffic that’s often at totally inappropriate speeds

@Backstop - are you in Lewisham or did I misremember that?
There seems to be huge local backlash against the new "low traffic neighbourhood" in Hither Green and imminent changes around the high street / Rushey Green. Despite the overall low car-ownership in the borough, this seems to have been a major setback in public support of any changes to reduce car use - the local air-pollution and safer streets campaign groups have joined 'populist' anti car-use restriction lobby in voicing opposition to the current schemes. There's a widespread opinion that the HG scheme is there to benefit the 'posh' neighbourhood while poorer residents (who are unlikely to own cars) living on the main roads suffer significantly worse vehicular traffic and air quality, buses are getting caught up and unusable etc.
Would be interested to know your thoughts.

No, I'm watching the Islington efforts, the council here have gone for some low hanging fruit and the protests are not very notable.

The anti complaints seem cliche, there's a link to a faq I'll look up later.

A few responses:

• The intention and real documented experience of LTNs is that in the medium term (1-2 years) traffic on surrounding roads goes down, because of traffic evaporation and reduction in car use.
  
• The "poorer residents on main roads / rich residents in leafy side streets" doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. A lot of "nice" streets are full of flat shares, social housing, etc; A lot of council estates are de facto LTNs; a lot of posh flats have been built next to main roads.
  
• The idea of "widespread opinion" is often illusory or astroturfed, even if you get the impression otherwise from Twitter comments / newspaper vox pops.
  
• What's the alternative? LTNs have been shown to have a genuine effect of reducing traffic and improving air quality, and are quick and easy to set up. Nothing else has.
  
  

To get past this you really need to understand which part the clean air campaigners have misunderstood and carry out a suitable charm offensive to persuade them otherwise. And preferably get those people on board before you start implementing LTNs.

I get the general idea about LTNs, however I'm relaying the perceived response to a specific scheme and this

preferably get those people on board before you start implementing LTNs

very much appears not to have happened.

Of course not all local people are on facebook groups or twitter or write to their councillors/MPs, but there is a surge of dissatisfaction and what I notice is that it's a range of people - not just those who complain about no longer being able to drive to Lewisham town centre in 5 minutes, but also those who say they no longer feel safe to walk or cycle on their own road with their children, and those who say air pollution has made living on their road miserable, and that at least my perception prior to this was that as an area it was fairly pro-walking and cycling, pro local amenities etc and whether it's the actual scheme which is a problem or whether it's terrible PR/communication, it seems to have backfired.

I don't think the clean air campaigners misunderstand the intention, they are responding to short-term increases in slow-moving vehicular traffic on residential main roads. Perhaps there is no less painful alternative, but those that live on the affected roads reporting worsening asthma etc have not been persuaded that this will, in the long term, get better.

@amey is doing a valiant job of being a vocal supporter. An adjacent neighbourhood to the first cell is trying to implement their own LTN as quickly as possible in response to increased vehicular traffic routing around the first - which is at least leading to discussion. Let's hope some of that traffic evaporation happens soon.

There is some concern about what happens if/when the school run starts again - this would be a great target for some good PR.

The trouble with a lot of these things, and I'm seeing it in my area too, is that they are piecemeal schemes with a lot of sorting out the traffic in one area but without huge consideration re: where it's going and how it impacts the other areas nearby.

Without a joined up approach you have little cells trying to get the best for their area and the problem just being shunted off elsewhere. You will get some traffic disappearing but probably not all of the extra traffic.

There's the extra issue that a lot of these schemes are pushed by active resident's associations, etc and these are often in wealthier areas with a higher number of homeowners.

There's something akin to that going on near me at the moment with plans in Crouch End to minimise traffic that will likely push traffic further east to the less wealthy areas in the borough.

Without proper, large scale, joined up plans covering whole boroughs it's likely that this will continue to be an issue. However, those plans are likely to take a long, long time to happen (particularly in boroughs like Haringey where there is minimal political will to do anything) whereas small scale plans can sometimes be pushed through fairly quickly. It's a dilemma.

Without proper, large scale, joined up plans covering whole boroughs it's likely that this will continue to be an issue. However, those plans are likely to take a long, long time to happen (particularly in boroughs like Haringey where there is minimal political will to do anything) whereas small scale plans can sometimes be pushed through fairly quickly. It's a dilemma.

You've got to start somewhere ... The alternative is doing nothing. If we want things to improve then things will have to get worse in the short term. An initial piecemeal arrangement will eventually be a broad implementation.

Between Hackney and Islington an area from Hackney fields to Angel, and hopefully Cally Rd soon enough will be covered

I grew up in Crouch End and my parents still live there so I have some interest in the scheme but haven't been following if very closely. And yes, my parents are active in their resident's association and live in a posh bit although when they moved in 50 years ago it was described as 'Highgate Borders' by estate agents.

I'm not sure the proposed changes will push things east a lot as the railway line has a big impact. Apparently 90-something percent of traffic is through traffic so the impact of closing residential streets isn't going to make a huge difference to that.

My parents are against the scheme. They mostly walk to the shops but use their car for things like visits to their GP more than a mile away which will involve a very round about route for them if one of the proposed road closures goes in.

I'd rather some kind of road pricing scheme where all motor vehicles are GPS tracked. Rat run through residential streets costs you 10x more than going down the main road. No peanlty for going down those streets if you park up for 3 hours. Seems unlikely to be politically acceptable anytime soon though.

visits to their GP more than a mile away which will involve a very round about route for them

Can this make sense? Too far to walk but too near that a diversion significantly increases journey time...

Do your parents think it will improve the neighbourhood, ignoring their own longer journey? Or can they not view it through that lens?

Can this make sense? Too far to walk but too near that a diversion significantly increases journey time...

An illogically long journey in a car might still only take a few minutes.