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Very well put. I'm living in one of the newer types of ANPR zones in London (H&F). There will likely be a huge expansion to this zone in the near future and local opposition has been vociferous.

Yes, you can see that from all sorts of sources. I think when there is vocal opposition you should always listen because, as Oliver said, local knowledge is valuable. On the other hand I think it's always worth asking a question to help put these objections in context; the question is "Ok, so what is your plan?" Transforming our roads to enable and encourage walking and cycling (and discouraging car use) provides a partial solution to a whole heap of problems including: local air and noise pollution, road danger, isolation and loneliness, obesity, disconnected communities, climate change, lack of independence for children, mental health, and just the general horribleness of places designed around cars. If not LTNs and other related measures, what's the plan? The answers you get are various (and since this is mostly based on twitter responses it's difficult to know how seriously people will cleave to them in real life), but they're all misleading, dismissive, uninformed or just flat wrong (which is why I still support these measures), although they may come from a place of genuine disquiet. Broadly they fall into:

• Silence: just ignore the question and keep complaining

• Deny that the problem exists or suggest that it can just be avoided: climate change denialism; suggest that people have chosen to live with these problems as demonstrated by their travel choices (which ignores the effect of policy and the classic tragedy of the commons). Alternatively, "Why don't you go and live in the Netherlands then?" (obviously no, I want to make my city better); "If you want to live somewhere quiet then go and live in the countryside?" (what a miserable lack of ambition for the world we pass to our children)

• Don't explicitly deny the problem but suggest that the cure is worse: claim that the proposed solution will tank the economy, ruin local businesses, destroy the character of your charming Victorian high street/dual carriageway, simply move traffic to other roads increasing congestion and pollution, further disadvantage already marginalised groups (the elderly, people with disabilities), create road danger (somehow), delay emergency services, enable street crime etc. All of these are wrong for various reasons, which are laid out fairly clearly if you can actually be bothered to look.

• Suggest solutions that are proven not to work: electric cars (only deal with noise and air pollution and literally nothing else); "encouraging cycling"/"parallel routes"(we tried those, didn't work nearly enough); or just put the solution "over there" (which obviously just gets the same response from the NIMBYs who live "over there")

• Complain about the process: lack of consultation, no consideration of marginalised groups, disapproval of the emergency services, "rushed through", "poorly thought out", "imposed", something-something-"middle-class"; quibble with official stats; suggest that it's just a cash cow via fines (again, all of these are just untrue or fail to recognise that this is a long process, but that taking some action and monitoring it closely to see what works is key)

Once you realise that all the objections you hear fall somewhere around these points and that no alternative solution is being proposed, the whole landscape of these changes looks very different. This isn't to say that people don't have genuine concerns or that change will be comfortable for everyone, but until someone comes up with a better solution this seems like the best option and it provably works in other places with no compelling reason offered as to why it wouldn't work here.