THREAD (1/10) The Telegraph report that London Ambulance staff logged 159 occasions in 8 months where LTNs delayed them. This isn’t ideal but let’s put it in the context of other 999 delays.
Widely normalised traffic congestion held up London Fire Brigade *8,841* times in 2017.
It was lower in 2020 because of the pandemic but still 5,542 instances because of traffic or roadworks. Plus, over 2,000 each year because they had the wrong address.
When was the last time you saw a headline on “Increased Car Usage and Associated Congestion Cause 999 Delays”?
It really comes down to boiling frog syndrome. We’ve accepted without realising that in the last 10 years the number of miles driven on London’s roads each year increased by a 3.9 billion. But when it comes to fast and bold action to tackle this - it shocks and worries us.
You can see the status quo, which we accept without question, here. LTN delays fall under traffic calming and that would be a tiny fraction within the general category of “traffic calming”.
Where’s the outrage on these other delays? Where are the campaigns?
Another issue that gets little media coverage is the fact that London Ambulance Service navigation systems are typically updated only on an annual basis when taken in for servicing. Rectifying this could have a transformative effect on efficiency as a lot of crews are not local.
Back to the article, it claims LTNs now have their own risk register which sounds frightening.
But, like with many of these pieces, the LAS confirm it’s in hand and they are being consulted. The quotes are always hidden towards the end - after the paywall in this case.
A lot of the media coverage comes down to individual dislike by media of the changes or the perceived “war on cars”. The community element of our residential roads make the conflict “exciting” to press. And articles like this result in easy viral shares for Mayoral candidates.
People’s concerns are natural and should be engaged with - as is happening with LAS and LFB and councils. But the disproportionate coverage given to these issues is most likely to come down to salience, as @peterwalker99 explains here. theguardian.com/environment/bi…
Also: The London Ambulance Service gets around 6,000 calls per day. Across 8 months that’s approximately 1,440,000 calls. 159 occasions represents 0.01% of calls. Here’s a handy chart for that.
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This Platinum Jubilee weekend, 1000s of residential roads will be closed. Kids will play out safely. People will get to know their neighbours.
Then come Monday, those streets will revert to carrying overspill traffic from the main road network. But what if we changed that? 1/n
It’s very usual for people living in quiet Dutch streets, filtered from motor traffic, to set up a table outside the front and have dinner with neighbours.
In the space once taken up by cars, they’ll now find playgrounds and public squares.
While having a bouncy castle in the middle of the street is probably best to be a temporary measure, it’s quite common for residential streets in the Netherlands to have playgrounds and community gardens.
Here’s US Postmen, British suffragette Lady Florence Norman and a US couple using foldable Autopeds in the 1910s.
They were very popular for a while until street speeds became too hostile for their use, and motor cars took over.
Some things never change, huh? There was outrage in newspapers. “Solo devil wagon taken up in a serious way might add new terrors to city life,” read one subheading.
The vehicles also became a symbol of women’s empowerment.
“There was kind of a sweet period there, a little over 100 years ago, when it looked like streets could be for everybody, but the people who wanted them to be for cars got the speed limits increased to the point where if you weren’t in a car, it was a scary place to be.”
THREAD: Ealing council has released the results of its consultation, a sort of hyper-local referendum, on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Whether you support them or not, I think we can all agree this process is the blueprint for how NOT to make decisions on transport policy.
Firstly, here are the results. 22,000 people responded out of a population of 340,000 Borough population - this self-selecting sample is just 6.47% and is the most vocal and engaged.
The climate emergency, road danger, long-term air pollution, of course, affect everybody.
From the results, the Council took the resident's opinion as the basis of whether LTNs should be implemented, or - after a short period of deferral (more on that later) - removed.
This is a very small number of people who live in the direct vicinity. Sometimes just a few dozen.
THREAD: Today, between 1200-2500 people marched against #LTNs in Ealing. In doing so, they inadvertently demonstrated why they are essential.
In London, 36% of car journeys could be walked in under 25 mins. Human-powered transport is very space-efficient.
If the same amount of people had used cars at the London average occupancy rate (1.3), it would have looked something like this (pics represent approx. 923 or 1,923 cars). With 1m in between each car, this number would stretch nearly 7km or 14km of road - some traffic jam!
Of course, none of this will change if these vehicles become electric. They will still take up the same amount of space. In fact, the trend for vehicles is that they are becoming bigger. We cannot be fatalistic and assume anything to stop car usage will cause congestion.
This is the BBC's Environment Correspondent describing a video, widely shared by troll accounts, of a man shouting and swearing near families in a residential street as "brilliant".
This led to a one-sided piece on LTNs which was devoid of any fact-checking.
THREAD (1/18) 👇
I won't share the BBC video. I don't want to give it any more oxygen and reward the clickbait nature. If you really want to see it, you'll find it.
If you must watch the shouting man video, to see why this is inappropriate to be describing as "brilliant", it's here.
(2/18)
The report didn't mention the widely available data of LTNs, instead focusing on anecdotes and uncorroborated video clips - including one which seemed to use the Sarah Everard case to inflame the LTN debate; when in fact, the evidence shows crime reduction in LTNs.
I am an optimist. I have to be. And I so desperately want to be wrong but it is very clear to me that tomorrow’s @RBKC meeting tomorrow to decide on reinstating the Ken High St cycle lane is just public theatre on an already decided outcome. Short THREAD 👇
Like @betterstreetskc eloquently state, the report prepared for Councillors is riddled with errors, has important omissions and is framed through a lens of “man in the street” punditry, not hard available data, expert assessment or good policy.
The options provided to Cllrs to pursue are narrow and pointed towards Option 3 (which I believe they will take) to “develop plans to commission research” on future cycle schemes. This is a two-pronged and drawn out process of kicking any hope of safe cycling into the long grass.