Low traffic neighbourhoods

[GOODCAT]

Seen the news today with Rishi Sunak saying he is on the side of motorists with this. This is not the same thing but last year with a combination of cycle to work rapidly followed by having £2 bus fares and living somewhere where there is a bus route which goes to work, I now just use my car if I have heavy stuff to carry or want to go somewhere off a bus route that I can't cycle to.

It has changed my life for the better as I am getting out more and getting exercise. I agree with the idea of LTNs given that I don't like breathing in nasty air and prefer not having to dice with cars that can cause me injury or that are difficult to navigate round because of in street parking, but completely accept that there has been a huge financial cost to individuals where there has happened.

Is there a way that these can be acceptable to a wide range of people in neighbourhoods and if so brought in quickly?

@Happyfluffball . Of course there is social housing. Our LA has made them all into Housing Associations. Some of the poshest london Boroughs have the most social housing. I think Kensington and Chelsea has a lot of social housing for example.
I am still waiting for someone to reassure me that it is not decided by how leafy and posh the roads are with respect to turning them into quiet roads.
It so annoys me that LIB Dems pretend to have a social conscience and they blatantly do things to benefit their voter core.

@Wildlog The majority of traffic is forced onto A or B roads. It’s inevitable that this is where cheaper housing is. Privately rented a lot of it. We are in a Conservative council. The traffic is almost stationery in Chiswick snd Hammersmith quite often. Buses drop off customers who then take their life in their hands crossing the cycle lane! Cyclists going very fast quite often. Few elderly cycle so they are very inconvenienced.

The most expensive housing is never on main roads. The side roads are always more expensive and are protected. LTNs are never on main roads. Yes, social housing is on former bomb sites or slum clearance sites. We have a block opposite us. Everyone is equal though.

We lived in an area which implemented LTNs after lockdown. All that happened was that the wealthier, leafier streets were protected by the LTN and heavy traffic and HGVs were displaced onto unsuitable B roads and residential streets in the less wealthy side, which already suffered from worse pollution due to its proximity to a major road.

There was no actual overall reduction in car use as the general traffic was delivery vans and trade vans etc., and people hardly used their cars anyway.

It was one of the reasons we moved away! No surprises that the local councillors in favour of the LTNs lived in the leafy side...

The other issue has been an over reliance on what might happen as opposed to what actually happens with traffic. Deliveries are huge. Just look at Amazon. It’s not a diminishing number of deliveries. Look at food and grocery deliveries. Never mind all the other goods and services that move around. I cannot see any diminution in traffic right now. Even with ulez, there will be people paying the fees and in traffic jams. Once people are paying for a car, they went to use it.

We live on a residential road. There are parallel roads that have been made low traffic, one way, residents only parking. Our road by default has become the cut through, trades parking etc road. It is not an A road or a B road. It is a residential road and the only difference to low traffic roads is the fact that there is local authority social housing on our road.

@Wildlog That is often the case too. It’s who shouts loudest.

I live in an neighbourhood which has been very LTN-heavy since the early 1970s - they were some of the first LTNs in the country, in fact. My road isn't one of them as it's one of the two main roads, but nearly all the surrounding streets are.

If there was a proposal to remove the LTNs in this neighbourhood there would be absolute uproar. They're universally loved and they have been for decades now. The blocked streets and their inserted 'islands' with huge brick planters and trees are very widely used as communal gardens adopted by residents, play areas, multi-purpose community areas, etc etc. They get used regularly (especially in the summer months) for all sorts of gatherings and events.

These are streets of small (2-bed) to medium-sized (3-4 bed) terraced houses, not big detached houses, and the LTNs are one of the things that make this part of the city such a desirable place to live. They foster a sense of community and clearly decrease car use. Yes, it would be easier to jump in the car and drive to a big supermarket if you didn't have to go a bit round-the-houses to avoid the blocked roads. But easier still to just leave the car at home and walk/cycle to the smaller neighbourhood high street instead. Which is what most people do, and it's consequently thriving.

If it all sounds a bit smug it's because it is. But it shows how bold planning decisions can, once bedded-in, be enormously beneficial. I'm utterly convinced that there are very few neighbourhoods that wouldn't benefit from LTNs in the long term, although it can take time for them to change people's behaviour.

I'm not sure about this thread.
Seems fishy.

Just saying.

Interesting how all these families do a big shop on a bike or pay over the odds at a local shop. I have a Ginger Pig locally. I know how much these types of shops cost. I bet the poorer locals are still going to the supermarket! If you are part of the smug bubble, that’s great. However the traffic does go somewhere! It really does. Just not in your road. Personally I think LTNs should have no delivery vehicles! That might alter views. Electric cars only too.

My local bike / LTN champ gets an ocado shop delivered....

I didn't vote for the thing and have no off-street parking so I will stick with my petrol car ta very much!

Interesting about the fact that LTNs have been around before. I used to be on a 70s estate and that was all cul de sacs for cars, but alleyways for pedestrians. Though lots of them got blocked up.

It was heavily a commuter place with no buses and very little work within walking distance and cycling was lethal, so the wider infrastructure is important.

Rishi will say whatever he thinks people want to hear.

Meanwhile, people die every day from illness directly attributable to air pollution and the world is burning but god forbid the authorities change anything to make some sort of effort to achieve the air quality standards and climate change targets that most people approve of.

I rarely drive anymore and use my bike for shopping. However, because I don't live in a posh road, the Lib Dem Council couldn't give a stuff about my air quality or the air quality for my grandchildren. If the LTRs were equitable and fairly distributed I would support them. They are not evenly distributed but allocated by wealth of road. They are ghettoising neighbourhoods and that is not right.

@abyssofwoah If you live where displaced traffic goes, you are more likely to get polluted air! So we will see what difference it makes! None I think. The people most affected already live on these roads.

LTNs decrease traffic volume - not immediately, but eventually. That's exactly what has happened here, and I'm talking as a person who lives on one of those main displacement roads within an LTN. It's really not bad at all. If you make a large neighbourhood much, much nicer and safer to walk and cycle around more people will do just that. It's disingenuous to suggest that people won't or can't do a big shop in their car if they live in an LTN - of course they do! People can use their cars whenever they want! But if the vast majority of people living in this LTN want a pint of milk, or to pop to the dentist, or go to a cafe, etc etc, they do it on foot or by cycle. That certainly hasn't been the norm in many other places I've lived around the country, but it is here.

LTNs aren't about stopping people using cars - they're about encouraging people to use other forms of transport for short journeys. The worst thing you could say about this LTN is that it's gentrified the neighbourhood. It's made these streets of small, tightly-packed terraced houses a very desirable place to live!

It depends on the area we live on a private estate which is by and large low traffic in its design. We pay a premium for this vs a house on a main road. Turning main roads into LTN only pushes the "problem" elsewhere as the majority of people can't of don't want to cycle use buses etc.

Really it shouldn't be a retrospective policy more something that is planned into new house building.

@GidgetGirl And your evidence for this is? Judging by jams elsewhere, how does displacing traffic reduce it? Just around you. We haven’t seen the future yet?

My evidence for this is all around me, as I live in an old LTN. And it's not the only one - there's lots of LTNs throughout the country that have been in place for decades. LTNs aren't some crazy new planning theory - they're tried and tested. If you want to see into the future, visit some of them!

@So you actually think traffic had reduced in decades? What planet are you on! It hasn’t reduced anywhere. As I said, just not near you! I have a flat on a road that is split in two by paving and bollards. It’s been like it for 20 years. However claiming there’s less traffic overall is just silly. It’s there, but on other peoples roads! And of course my tree lined street is more expensive than the Main Road properties! Inevitable as they have the pollution!

@GidgetGirl My reply was to you.,

Providing safe, attractive routes for walking and cycling to local shops and services means people use their cars less often for short journeys. It's been proven over and over again, throughout the country. There are a great many very successful LTNs in the UK, and I live in one of them. Mine isn't in this particular list, but here's a few more -

https://zagdaily.com/places/smashing-the-tyranny-of-the-status-quo-10-of-britains-historic-hidden-gem-ltns/

Yes. Better for the LTN dweller! Not everyone else. That’s why people die!!!

I know 2 of these, the traffic isn't displaced onto other roads, it just makes sure that residential streets aren't used as a cut-through, and that traffic going onto the main road goes via traffic light controlled access instead of there being a line of cars in front of houses pumping out fumes waiting for a gap in the main road traffic. Better for the residents, better for the motorist and better for fuel economy.

Hate to break it to you but in London every road is residential- they may only be flats to you on main roads, not Edwardian semi detached homes- but the traffic is being diverted to them.

Please don't be so patronising.

The traffic that should be on the main road stays on the main road. The more old LTNs that I know stop the side roads being used as rat runs. Children play out in these streets which are now cul-de-sacs, and they wouldn't if they hadn't been blocked off at one end. Are you saying that this is a bad thing?