All Activity

I've banned myself posting, well offered to the Forum and one person agreed that I should not post on this thread. So will not comment on the general repetitive Rockets view that LTNs are dreadful, Southwark are corrupt/incompetent, and it is all down to some mythical cyclist lobby, However when I saw subsequent discussion on this post it got me going. Fortunately I had a look at this post and I'd totally misinterpreted it. Or some of the subsequent comments. Thanks for what you posted and I am very much on your side. It would be good to hear more about how you have have clocked that there are more collisions and road rage. There is no excuse for driving like this, certainly not "oh we only drive like this due to the LTN". Cheers and good luck.

Its hideous! Sorry but..the price is a joke and theres no redeeming feature in this house..Well I'd like a pool but thats all.

You are very welcome

Again, did you experience an increase of traffic on Underhill Road after the Dulwich LTNs went in? Remember the council's limited monitoring showed traffic had increased by 6% on Underhill after the LTNs went in. Ryedale is a route vehicles take to and from Underhill. If what you claim is correct about Waze and traffic lights or if St Dunstan's becomes even more impassable at the junction with Forest Hill road vehicles will likely continue along Underhill to find another, quicker, route. The flaw in your argument is that this is reducing traffic using one road only. All this does is displace traffic to another neighborouring road. Ah, about those peer-reviewed results....;-). Don't get us started...just do a search for Anna Goodman LTN poster! 😉 Errr....how exactly? You're using "evidence" from distinct ring-fenced LTN areas rather than an LTN consisting of one isolated street. The council has also admitted, in the documentation that you have claimed to have read, that traffic will likely be displaced to St Dunstans. If I lived on Underhill I would not be backing this programme at all as it will not reduce traffic on Underhill at all, it may actually increase it. It's a bit like Turkeys voting for Christmas! Righty ho....so.......you dont know the LTN acronym, but you have seen them mentioned in the news but stayed out of the debate because it can feel quite hostile. Did you happen across all the Rachel Aldred/Anna Goodman research by a quick Internet search....;-)

I use the P13 regularly and I know how frustrating it can be. The biggest issue I consistently experience is buses getting stuck when cars are turning out of Ryedale. That is almost always where delays occur. I struggle to understand how removing one feeder road into Underhill would increase traffic on Underhill itself. The broader point still stands: reducing the ability to cut through residential streets will push drivers back onto larger roads. Navigation apps like Google Maps have completely changed how people drive. Cut-through routes used to rely on local knowledge, but now they are available to everyone. That behaviour needs to be discouraged, and traffic should be directed back onto main roads where it belongs. I agree that the lack of improvements to public transport is frustrating, but that should not stop us from making progress where we can. I’ve just read more about LTNs, and you’re right, I’ve seen them mentioned in the news. So far, I’ve stayed out of the debate because it can feel quite hostile. I tend to presume councils have their residents’ best interests at heart, because they have no reason not to. Councils aren’t private companies; they exist to represent and look after the community. However, it seems like they haven't been very open or communivative about this. Which is bad. My faith in humanity aside, the more I read about LTNs, the more I find it hard to see any real downsides, especially when looking at provable, peer-reviewed results rather than local hearsay. There is actual academic research on whether LTNs in London reduce pollution or just make it worse, and the evidence shows clearly that they do reduce pollution overall, not just push it to other streets. The numbers don't lie. One study by Imperial College London looked at three LTNs in Islington and found that polution levels dropped by about 5.7% inside the LTNs and by nearly 9% on the boundary streets compared with control sites. Traffic also fell by more than half inside the LTNs and by 13% at the boundaries. This shows the schemes lowered pollution without displacing it to neighbouring roads. So Dunstans would actually see a reduction in both pollution and traffic, not an increase. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/241731/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-reduce-pollution-surrounding-streets/ There is also research on driving behaviour in Lambeth that shows residents in four new LTNs introduced in 2020 cut their driving by about 6% overall, which is roughly 1.3 km less per day per vehicle than people in nearby areas without LTNs. So people would be less tempted to drive locally if they don't need to, leaving the roads clearer for people that may have mobility issues or need to drive. https://www.westminster.ac.uk/news/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-in-london-borough-cut-daily-driving-among-residents-by-13km-research-finds (University of Westminster) The evidence does not support the idea that traffic will be displaced onto Dunstans. On the contrary, it confirms the intention of the scheme: to encourage drivers using Google Maps to stick to main roads, discourage unnecessary driving, and do so without penalising people who genuinely need to drive. Either way, I fear they may have cancelled the plan, because I haven't seen any work happening. Which is a shame, because instead of a potentially imperfect plan being trialed, nothing will be done, and the whole area will continue to be a noisy, polluted rat run. Which benefits no one. So again, if you’ve opposed this plan, I’d genuinely ask you to reconsider and possibly send positive messages/posts. Let’s prioritise the people that live here over convenience for non-residential traffic.

If you aree bothered by this , scoop up some to spead on your lawn or flower beds. Natuarl fertiliser and FREE

You absolute legend! Thank you!

Which acronyms do you not understand - not sure how anyone living in Dulwich does not know what an LTN is. Can I ask you then, did the traffic on your road increase over the last 5 years? The LTNs (low traffic neighbourhood - which is what the council are putting in on Ryedale) were put in after Covid. I am afraid that is not how this works in reality. The major road roads are now badly congested due to the Dulwich LTNs and are the slowest routes of the 3 or so options to get to the A205 Eastbound from Dulwich. So unless the new congestion caused by the Ryedale closure on roads like St Dunstans is so bad that it means that route is now, no longer, the fastest route. That is very, very unlikely to be the case. What is far more likely to happen is that new side road routes become the quickest route. LTNs pay Paul by robbing Peter. So any support for the Ryedale LTN does not fix a problem it merely moves the problem from one street to another. And actually, as a resident of Underhill, there is an very high percentage chance your road will become even busier when these measures go in - be careful what you wish for!

I'd be content if the council had introduced a scheme that was fair and treated everyone sensibly. However, this intervention is clearly aimed solely at displacing as much traffic as possible from Ryedale onto the parallel section of Dunstans Road at the expense of Dunstans residents. The council's own correspondence makes this very clear. Any solution should have holistically covered St Aidens, Dunstans and Ryedale as well as Balchier and Cornflower. So I don't see any need to moderate my views on the matter!

Pardon my incredulity but how could one live in central London and not have once heard of the acronym for low traffic neighbourhood? As widely used by the government, media, and the council themselves?

I'm afraid I don't know these acronyms. My hope is that for many drivers, and especially for navigation apps, the additional distance to St Aidan’s, combined with the delays caused by the four-way traffic lights on Dunstans, will naturally divert traffic back onto major roads. If you live on Dunstans, I completely understand the concern that traffic may increase, and realistically it probably will for a short period. That concern is valid. However, the presence of traffic lights also introduces an important layer of control, helping to regulate flow and reduce the kinds of speeding, aggressive driving, and unpredictability we currently see on smaller residential streets.