1/ The Daily Mail's latest LTN attack piece - complete with token Northerner sporting flat cap and whippet 😂 - is a hoot.
Since it features LTNs I delivered - the Mail clearly doesn't know London Fields is in Hackney - let's look at some of its claims. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
2/ Because all the evidence shows LTNs...
* Improving air quality without displacement.
* Halving road injuries,
* Eliminating rat-running.
* Reducing street crime.
....authors @markdavidduell and @eirianJprosser have to rely on unsubstantiated anecdotes.
"We found...injuries inside LTNs halved relative to the rest of London...indicat[ing] substantial reductions in pedestrian injury risk. We found no evidence of changes...on LTN boundary roads."
1/ Let me take you on a little journey about why this thread is nonsense. Albeit the kind of nonsense that Twitter thrives on, hence its 5000+ 'likes'.
But, more than that, let me tell you all about the awesome power of urban trees...
2/ The first giveaway that, despite their immense confidence, the Tweeter doesn't really know what they're talking about, is the claim that these algae units are to "be used in places where trees can't survive" is the healthy, mature street trees in both shots.
3/ Now, algae-based carbon sequestration does have potential at scale, but this gimmick box -with its high revenue and capital costs for cleansing etc and purchase - isn't it.
Besides, nature has already provided cheaper, far more effective alternative for constrained spaces.
1/ Recently, I wrote about the harassment campaign conducted against me by anti-LTN Horrendous Hackney Road Closures.
These are the same people who undertook a failed judicial review against the LTNs I delivered and, by all accounts, still owe the taxpayers of Hackney £10,000.
2/ Yes, the same anti-LTN group who mocked me up as a slave master and encouraged their gormless acolytes to lodge complaints about my support for LTNs appear to have turned out to be the bunch of dishonest, malignant grifters I warned you about.
3/ But who are Horrendous Hackney Road Closures and, crucially, where has all the money they raised gone?
I understand that failed Judicial Reviews don't come cheap, but by my reckoning they raised (and are continuing to raise) around £24,000 from over 1000 donations.
1/ Yesterday, we were treated to another statistics masterclass from anti-Low Traffic Neighbourhood journalist Andrew Ellson, of @thetimes.
Since I'm mentioned in the piece - a weird fixation - which cherry-picks DfT data to falsely imply LTNs increase mileage, this is my reply.
2/ Firstly, let's deal with Andrew's statement that I delivered the U.K's largest number of LTNs "on the basis that sat-nav apps were increasing the traffic on local roads."
This claim is false, as my introduction to Hackney Emergency Transport Plan (2020) shows:
3/ That is not to say I don't believe sat-nav-assisted displacement of motor vehicles from an overloaded main road network isn't a major issue for our cities. Because it is, as the following paper demonstrates: researchgate.net/publication/32…
1/ You may have seen @Telegraph's & @TimHarford's coverage of recent DfT changes to road traffic stats, showing that 20.3bn miles were driven in London in 2019, not 22.6bn.
Low Traffic Neighbourhood enemies claim this means we don't need LTNs.
They're wrong. And I'll prove it.
2/ Not rubbishing @transportgovuk's data, but 1993 👉2019 miles driven on the U.K's roads annually increased by 100 billion. 70% came from cars/taxis, yet the DfT have not explained why their new estimates show just a 200 million mile increase in London in the decade to 2019.
3/ The 'smoking gun' for increasingly desperate Low Traffic Neighbourhood opponents, who've lost the argument, lost in court, and lost at the ballot box is that LTNs that based on the DfT's original data should be scrapped.
There are a couple of massive problems with this idea.