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People, innit.

How can people get that upset about something so beneficial is beyond me.

There are many reasons.

Some people actually disagree that it's beneficial or only beneficial.

Many people depend on using cars or vans for their jobs and not everyone can contemplate a switch to e-cargo-bikes.

The dominant culture, never mind the middle-class advocates of filtering who don't depend on cars for their jobs (although they'll mostly have cars), is still based on the nonsense that 20th century science fiction writers concocted about transport--that in the future, people will depend on machines for transportation far more, that using machines is better than not using them, that using artificially-powered machines is better than using human-powered ones, and so forth.

Very many people feel that cars are very beneficial. They make travel comfortable, enjoyable, and easy, so why restrict their use? Again, this comes from the dominant culture. So many of humanity's oldest dreams realised in one universal tool. *swoons*

There's been quite a lot of talk about privileged areas vs. underprivileged areas. One thing that filtering does is increase house prices, and people worry about being priced out of their area if it turns into a much nicer, quieter area where wealthier people than them will want to buy houses. Yes, really.

Another main reason for opposition is obviously the lack of consultation. Many people feel powerless even in issues that affect them locally, and it's completely understandable that it can arouse strong feelings. They want to be able to have a voice or a vote--not realising that consultation isn't actually a voting process, no matter how many times it is portrayed in this way by politicians/the side that 'won'--it's an information-gathering exercise that tries to find any legal impediments or other sensible issues (local knowledge), a bit like the vicar asking whether anyone knows of any reason why the happy couple shouldn't wed. Nonetheless, 'consultation' has become this incendiary issue, because people pin hopes on it that they might be able to influence something that way.

Also, interestingly, many people don't actually think so much about themselves in opposing these, but worry about how it'll affect others. I've had hundreds of conversations about filtering, and one form of worry that comes up a lot is: 'But what will people do?' Not: 'What will I do?'

Finally, the ever-present issue of freedom. Most people, or perhaps all, worry about freedoms being taken away. And yes, sure, instead of taking away the freedom to drive along this or that street, ideally we'd get everyone to behave (drive better, drive less) so that traffic wouldn't be a problem, i.e. they could exercise their own freedom to give themselves those kinds of limitations, without someone else taking their freedom away. But would that ever happen?

I wrote this some time ago:

I support filtering, but that's no reason to dismiss arguments--even if they're put across in bad faith, they need addressing--and some of them are sound, although often don't present difficulties that can't be overcome. One reason why these debates can become so polarised is because people supporting filtering often don't engage in proper discussion, either!

In principle, the idea of blocking roads and streets off to through traffic (even if just some kinds of through traffic) is absurd. Roads and streets have the very clear and express purpose of facilitating movement, not of obstructing it. It's a similar problem to that with vertical deflection, i.e. humps and cushions. However, roads and streets also have another purpose, namely that of staying and dwelling, e.g. in neighbourly conversation, and in practice, with the advent of motor traffic all streets came to be skewed too much towards the first purpose. A workable compromise is to designate suitable cell boundary streets for through motor traffic while denying this purpose to the network inside cells.

This works on the proviso that it's done in conjunction with the people who live there and who by extension use the local streets the most (i..e, you have to hire people who can facilitate such a process), that it's done right (on which more later), and that it's done everywhere--bearing in mind that people living on cell boundary streets will still have to put up with through motor traffic, although there would be less of it throughout the system.

Filtering requires area-wide thinking, that is, looking at an image of the street pattern and working out where the best filtering locations would be, using local knowledge (e.g. 'this is a school and the school bus can't turn in a dead end, so something needs to be done about that' or 'the best possible location for a filter is also where someone with mobility difficulties needs to park their car', etc.). This is best achieved by working with local people, a process officers hate and which they usually shun, while still feeding in expertise on how best to filter and bearing in mind that the Waste Service still need to empty the bins.