To think that the current traffic restrictions are fucking ridiculous

[Gobelinoisawitchescat]

I live in SE London - and since these sodding barriers have gone up all over the place the roads are just completely blocked with traffic.

While I know someone is going to come on talking about climate change etc - am not sure how directing all the traffic to one location makes a damn bit of difference - the cars are still on the roads, they’re just concentrated in certain ones.

Am I missing something?

Exactly the same in another part of SE London here OP.

All rushed through during Covid and it's gridlocked (even more than usual).

My three DC all walk to school independently but they're breathing the air with idling traffic 😷.

Also,some local councillors living in and around the closed roads 🤔🤔

@ChardonnaysPetDragon well sorry hit have you considered putting saddles on them and riding them? No? Obviously you hate nature

We’re in South East London and it’s great, more people should cycle. I’d drop 2 kids at school on my bike and then 10 miles into work pre-COVID - there more we can do to make cycling safe and normalise it in cities the better. The harder it is to get places in cars the more people will find alternative routes.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

I’d love someone to show me how I can cycle with my dogs perched in the basket when they need the vet. They are big hairy beasts.

Get a babboe, I borrowed my neighbours to see what it was like, he gets three dogs in his, it also has clips for harnesses to attach. There is a standard version or an e version.

well I am a big fan of the road changes, and we are one example of them succeeding in getting some people out of their cars and onto bikes for some journeys.

it has long been established that increasing road capacity does not resolve traffic congestion issues because if you increase capacity which (if traffic volume were constant) would allow congestion to reduce and speed up the flow, all that actually happens is that traffic volume increases as more people decide to drive on that new section of road, and within a short time you have exactly the same amount of congestion as you did before the roads were widened.

These barriers are making the change in the opposite direction, reducing road capacity and making driving a less attractive option for those who have a choice. obviously there are some journeys for which there's no alternative to going by car and no way to choose a life structure that makes the journey itself avoidable and those journeys form the minimum achievable traffic level on a route. however much of the traffic on the road is from vehicles that are making journeys that could have been avoided. gradually people who can do so will restructure their schedules to avoid making avoidable car journeys and congestion will rebalance at a more acceptable level for those whose journeys are unavoidable.

a lot of people will say their journeys are unavoidable because they live in place X, have kids at schools in places A and B, and work in place G while their partner works in place H. This lifestyle setup is a choice they made though. it may take a few years for the effect of the reduction in congestion capacity to trickle through to making fewer people make such choices and instead choose work school and home location combinations that are compatible with a lower car usage lifestyle.

meanwhile the additional road space for bike lanes is making it feel a lot safer teaching my DS the road skills he needs for cycling to and from school. it is going to be a while before he can do it solo so we aren't doing it every day but the barriers and traffic restrictions are making the cycling route safer, and making the car alternative take about the same time due to the diversions from the most direct route, so is being a really helpful motivator.

I also live in SE London and the LTN near me are great. It's much safer outside all my DC's schools (primary and secondary), the school street outside the primary school has been in place for 4 years now and parents love it. It's not always popular immediately, but after the schemes bed in almost no-one wants to go back to how it was before.

There's been schemes in place in North London for years, especially in Waltham Forest. There was an article in the Telegraph at the weekend reporting on the research on the effects on business, residents and pollution. All positive.

The TfL survey on the current schemes also shows a 74% approval of the permeable filters.

rachelaldred.org/research/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-evidence/

twitter.com/BBCTomEdwards/status/1306643636583624705?s=19

You can all give the council your thoughts here. Apparently it is a 6 month trial. Let's see!

https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/200266/roadworksanddtraffic/2075/westgreenwichhtraffic_reduction

Also, for anyone wondering about air quality monitoring before and after, yes that's happening. King's College London, Queen Mary University and also you can get quite a lot of data here:

londonair.org.uk/LondonAir/Default.aspx

There's also traffic monitoring, not least from apps like Google maps and Waze which have real-time public traffic data available. It's interesting that since Wandsworth took out their LTNs it's been the consistently most congested part of South London.

But my council brought these in under Covid rules to make it safer to walk. Presuming in planning meetings they thought thousands of people would want to get OFF the bus train and tube and walk. When most people can’t walk they have no option but drive.

I’ve no objection to nudging those who live and work in tiny distances to walk, great good for them. But why are we only asking those who live near now packed busy roads to make any changes? If you live outside a zone your life can carry on as normal. How is that fair? I should “benefit” from our LDN but not being able to cross high road due to constant cars and blocking curbs and crossings not going hep me one bit. My asthma isn’t amazing so where I do have to go to the road to shop the air quality is going to be much worse. Not going to help me at all.

When I have hospital transport this is going to add hours to already long journeys that take 5x longer than going in your own car.

It’s going make it harder to get a taxi anywhere because it’s inside the zone so you can drive one way in but then be stuck because you can’t go 30 metres down the street you just travelled down.

I don’t understand how moving flowing occasional traffic a few streets away so it sits stationary on already busy roads. Makes the air quality better?? It’s the same number of cars in an area and surely making their journeys longer means air quality can’t improve? I mean I’f that’s the case why don’t we triple the length of traffic lights cycle so we an all sit and London’s air will be amazing.

@JaggySplinter it’s also interesting to see that the area I’m talking about is quite blatantly the worst

How long has the LTN been in place? Behaviour change takes a while to happen, but all the evidence shows that it does within about 6 months. It hasn't taken that long in the area where I live or in other areas with slightly older modal filters and permeable closures. Lambeth has a number of LTNs that have been in for a few months now and the initial teething problems are being worked out.

As PP said, you can give feedback to your council on what works, what doesn't, and what traffic reduction measures you'd like to see instead.

It takes time to encourage behavioural change. Bottom line is many of those car journeys aren't the only way to make the journey but until the car journey is made more inconvenient than then no one is going to change.

You might not decide to send your child to a primary school 40 mins walk away if you had to walk for example. You might pop to the shops for milk on your bike if the road were less full of cars etc etc.

The transition period is painful but long term it is better for our health and that of the world.

twitter.com/Labourstone/status/1307730480779988995?s=19

Here's the article I was thinking of... in the Times, not telegraph like o said before. Sorry.

Behaviour changes work when there are options.
Problem in the area we are discussing is that public transport is affected.
Buses stuck in traffic (and some of them are designated for school children, meaning there are fewer busses at peak times) for hours?
People will obviously drive.
Also it is rather disingenuous to compare Zone 3 public transport to Zone 1.
It's not like we have tube stops every 5 mns walk.

Re reducing traffic- East West transit routes in SE London are a nightmare- it's not just lazy Chelsea tractor drivers, it's key workers, tradesmen, delivery people, lorries etc

Surely the point is that if 40% of unnecessary car journeys disappeared then the buses and other essential traffic would be fine.

You might not decide to send your child to a primary school 40 mins walk away if you had to walk for example.

Have you seen catchment areas? You might not have a choice, unless you have the money to pay to go private.
In which case you probably live in the streets that have benefitted from those measures.

In London there are always community schools less than a 40 min walk away. Just people decide to go to a 'better' school further away.

Oh Lord, the shortcuts have all been closed off round Dulwich too, it's an absolute nightmare now schools are back.

I agree. It is a nightmare in Dulwich. But maybe next time people will walk or bike the short journey

SN schools have a catchment criteria of one hour's drive.

So those are essential journeys. Those are among the car drivers who should benefit when non essential decide that driving is not the easiest option.

'community' schools within a 40 minute walk away..... hahahaha hahaha hahaha.
Have you met the admissions system for schools in South East London? Especially for secondary.

Yes! My oldest has significant SN so goes to a secondary where we are out of the general admission area because it's a SN specialist school. He can walk there in 30 minutes. In fact, he can only safely walk there alone (or without supervision) because of the new LTN in the area around his school. It's given him independence he wouldn't otherwise have.

None of his friends from his very large primary have a longer journey to their new Local Authority secondary schools. Some travel further for private or grammar schools.

Most schools have admission areas that are quite small and walkable/cycling distance. I've noticed a huge increase in children cycling to school this term while taking my other DC to their schools.

You might not decide to send your child to a primary school 40 mins walk away if you had to walk for example

In which areas do parents have that level of choice? Who has a life where nothing changes? If you rent you can't guarantee at all you will be able to stay in the house you were in when you made a school application. What if your job changes? Blithe dismissals of people making longer journeys to school without considering the many reasons why they may have to is unhelpful.

I am a non driver who uses buses or my feet to get everywhere and I can't support these schemes as things stand. They don't reduce traffic, they move it. They greatly inconvenience many people and reasonable alternatives are not provided. Public transport gets so much worse. They seem often to be focussed on making nice areas nicer and fucking over less salubrious areas again. Concerns are not addressed, they are shouted down with aggression and accusations of not caring about traffic problems and the environment. Easy for someone living inside one of the calmed areas with no need to commute to school or work to like praise them, harder for people who have to deal with all the negatives that come with them. If you want people on side these schemes need to work for the many rather than a privileged few and people need to have genuinely decent, workable alternatives rather than being told to just change their behaviour.

@bookmum08

'community' schools within a 40 minute walk away..... hahahaha hahaha hahaha. Have you met the admissions system for schools in South East London? Especially for secondary.

Yes. I have secondary DC. There is a difference between the nearest available school and the nearest one you want your child to go to. Encouraging children to attend local schools may well help improve those schools. That discussion is for another thread.