x: LTNs or road pricing?
me: We need both.
x But isn’t road pricing fairer?
me: Quite the opposite. Road pricing is effective but not really progressive. If you have money you continue to drive.
x: How are LTNs different?
THREAD 1/9
me: An LTN works as a time-tax on 🚘 trips. It specifically impacts short 🚘 journeys making them proportionally longer.
x: So if you are doing a long trip, the time added is negligible but if you are doing a short trip, it’s more significant
Me: Bingo
X: Is that fairer? 2/9
Me: Generally. For a start - you can’t buy your way out of it by spending money
X: Okay. If ‘Time is money’ could you argue it’s progressive?
Me: That’s a stretch. It’s progressive because the wealthy own more cars & drive more AND because they can’t simply buy an exemption. 3/9
x: Are LTNs fairer than the ULEZ charge?
Me: Possibly but the ULEZ is highly effective and it’s expansion is needed. It is a problem that you can buy a new Diesel Range Rover and ‘Carry on regardless’.
x Fair enough, but what about people who have no other option?
4/9
Me: Well over a few months, traffic settles, the outcome is simply a few extra minutes on short journeys.
X: Is that fair to those who have no other options?
Me: A few minutes delay on a 🚗 journey is not a great hardship, it’s inconvenient but generally no more. 5/9
Me: There are dozens of places in our cities where pedestrian are caused to wait & detour, e.g. every traffic🚦crossing.
Let’s be clear EVERYONE benefits from LTNs and our most vulnerable, the elderly & children benefit the most from LTNs.
X: How? 6/9
me: LTNs are spectacularly effective in creating space for🚶🏾🛴👩🏼🦽 & 🚲, the very short journeys the Dept of Transport ignores.
x: And main roads?
Me: Once traffic has settled, the reduction in short 🚗 journeys by local residents more than off-sets any longer routes created. 7/9
X So resident exceptions in LTNS are a bad idea?
Me: A genuinely dreadful idea. Relatively low volumes of traffic deter people from🚶🏾🛴🚲. Additionally without modal shift (i.e. 🚗 -> 🚶🏾) by local residents, traffic on main roads will rise. 8/9
X: Are LTNs enough?
Me: No. We also need parking controls, subsidised public transport, bike lanes on main roads AND road pricing. But without LTNs as a start, we won’t make progress. 9/9
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The scale of changes in travel when lockdown eases will be much greater than anyone is discussing.
The modelled drop in public transport usage is enoumous. Secondary-school pupils going to school will likely overwhelm any space on socially-distanced buses. THREAD 1/
Some councils are starting to put emergency plans together. However pavement widening in a few locations will not be enough. Emergency bike lanes around hospitals is better than nothing, but again is not enough to match the scale of challenge. 2/
We are going to have to ask everyone to walk, cycle, scoot & roll short journeys where possible. More than encouragement, this needs enabling. It means creating emergency Healthy Travel Zones (Low traffic neighbourhoods) across the UK. We have three weeks to get started 3/
1/ Barnstorming speech by Clyde Loakes @Labourstone at #HealthyStreets2018 - ‘I have been a councillor for a long time, since I was 27…I’ve spent more time dabbling in bins than anyone should and I have the scars from looking into car parking schemes.’
2/ ‘I spent years talking about encouraging a shift to bikes and walking without actually doing the things that make a difference. If I am honest - I was tinkering with parking schemes and pandering to car owners. I was not delivering for our community.’
3/ ‘Then I got a chance to do something extraordinary. We won our Better Waltham Forest mini-Holland bid with low traffic neighbourhoods and protected bike lanes . We had signed up to deliver a huge public health implementation at pace.’
1/ Adding cycling to walking QUADRUPLES the number of people who can get to their local shops and community resources in less than 20 minutes. And critically 15 - 20 minutes is about how far most people will actively travel without getting in a car / bus.
2/ When councils don’t enable getting to the local high street by bike they are excluding large groups of people from their daily dose of excercise - particularly the elderly.
3/ When a council puts a bike track through an unlit park or canal route, they are excluding many women, the elderly and many young men who feel vulnerable in our cities.