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I'm in the middle of a massively unpopular LTN at the moment, rushed in and generating massive amounts in fines using ANPR I would think. It has been nice and quiet on our road but nearby roads have been murder.
Nextdoor has been overwhelmed with complaints!
Airhead-
Has camera enforcement already started? In most places, they plonked the filters in and put up camera enforcement signs but didn't have actual cameras yet or didn't enforce yet.
It'll be interesting to see what it does politically. In boroughs with one-party dominance, there probably won't be such massive changes, but in more delicately balanced ones there may well be a change of control (if the Experimental Orders are confirmed and not taken back).
I've started a modal filtering thread:
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/353238/
I've been meaning to write more there, maybe over the week-end.
Oliver Schick
I support filtering, and while I imagine some (not at all all) will be using this sort of argument disingenuously, there is certainly a case to be made for impact assessments for disabled people, especially people with mobility difficulties. The test under the Equality Act (and before under the Disability Discrimination Acts) is whether a measure causes additional and unreasonable hardship for disabled people (I'm undoubtedly not quoting the correct legal terminology, but that's the gist of it), as changes like this can be disproportionately tough for them.
Say you're a wheelchair user and you can't use local shops because they tend to be too small, and you don't have a helper to do your shopping for you; in that case, you may well rely on driving to a larger supermarket with wide aisles and better access. If (which after a settling-in period I don't believe will persist) filtering means that you have to spend much longer driving to places, that can seriously affect your independence, and there may be a disproportionate impact.
Now, as above, arguments like this are sometimes used disingenuously, but often sincerely, too, and one must always keep in mind that many people see driving as something very positive and/or necessary, and many people, often those of whom you might not expect it, will also immediately, and quite genuinely, think of the impact on others, not on themselves. Quite apart from people fuming with rage, there are often very reasonable points made by people.
I think these issues can and should be addressed, but there is often justified case for complaint, because many, quite possibly most, filtering schemes are ill-conceived, largely because officers doing them have never thought about filtering before, and in the present cases because it's all a bit rushed and without any input from local knowledge. Local people usually know important things that officers can't come up with by means of a desktop study.
tl;dr I hope filtering succeeds, but there's more thinking to do, and some of the schemes I've seen really are very bad, sadly (including the one in my own area).