Modal filtering

Sorry, I managed to miss this. I've had a quick look at this. Obviously, as usual I support the general intention behind it, but there are a few problems.

https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/sw6-traffic-reduction-scheme

First, you need to define cells properly. This may not seem important, but it is. The graphic suggests that this is one cell, but Townmead Road is actually a boundary street. As it's the only connection to Chelsea Harbour that crosses under the railway line all the way up to the King's Road, it won't get filtered. The small cell south and east of Townmead Road next to the river is also unfiltered and may not get filtered. It probably attracts a small amount of rat-running if Townmead Road is stuffed up, but probably not enough to warrant filtering.

So, you have a cell bounded by the A217 Wandsworth Bridge Road, Townmead Road, Harbour Avenue, Chelsea Harbour Drive, Lots Road, and the A308 King's Road/New King's Road. This is, in effect, an expansion of a smaller, pre-existing cell in the centre with the boundaries of Broughton Road, Townmead Road, Imperial Road, Harwood Terrace, Bagley's Lane, and Pearscroft Road--effectively a cell within a cell, as it left streets parallel to main streets as boundary streets and therefore through routes for motor traffic--plus the existing filter in Michael Road. This doesn't make much sense; I mean, it may have done at the time, but it was only a matter of time before it had to be reconsidered. The new filtering is now an attempt to complete this work while leaving the pre-existing filters in place by filtering some streets (Imperial Road, etc.) that were previously boundary streets.

The main problem with this methodology is that it leaves the cell unbalanced. You can see how large the green area is compared to the others. This is caused mainly by where the existing filter is in Bagley's Lane and where the new filters are in Broughton Road. The ones in Elswick Street and Stephendale Road are also in the wrong place, although obviously the attractive Stephendale Road streetscene scheme won't be removed (or would cost a lot to change in a sensible way). With this sort of imbalance, you have a lot more motor traffic coming into the green area from Wandsworth Bridge Road than into the two other colour codes. It also omits to mention that motor traffic will come into the green area from the Chelsea Harbour direction via Townmead Road.

In short, the position of the existing filters causes some of the new filters to be in the wrong places--the old ones were either at the centre of, or too close to the edge of the old cell. All existing filter locations should therefore have been reviewed and similar filters doing similar jobs moved closer to the centre of the new cell where possible. This means fewer detours for residents when driving out of the cell, so less local anger, and potentially fewer loops, and there are a lot of loops left in there (these can be a problem close to main streets, as lost drivers often use loops through side streets to turn around, etc.).

Now, obviously, I've seen local anger before. I don't generally agree with it, but if you listen carefully through the noise, people often do have valid points (alongside not-so-good points), and they'll be related in a concrete way to what I say above in a rather abstract way. Well-conceived filtering schemes still have their opponents, but they'll be much easier to use for answering concerns.

And again, I've always said these schemes need to come up from the streets. The 'old' filtering schemes generally did. The problem with them was usually as above, that they were partial and had some logical mistakes in them, such as filtering at the edges. Often, they were watered down in poor compromises and then persisted for decades. When the campaigners of the time retired, there was often a long lag before anyone took up the cudgels again. The same things will happen to the current batch of schemes. Some will be watered down and some will be removed altogether, while some will be changed for the better--it'll all depend on the quality and understanding of local campaigners.