You are reading a single comment by @hoefla and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
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.
- 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.
Backstop
grams
@hoefla
@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.