Rockets

redpost Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yet more fiction from rockets: > > "buses and taxis are contributing far more." > > truth: > > https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233533/transp > ort-ghg-emissions-sources-united-kingdom-uk/ > > passenger cars are 55.4% of UK transport > emissions > > buses are 2.5% > > furthermore, these are aggregate figures. If we > were to base on per passenger km, there would be > further order of magnitude in difference Redpost - come on, you should know by now that I will have done my research! ;-) And you should know better than to throw UK data around when we are talking about London! Attached are some stats on breakdown of pollution and from the London Council's Demystifying Air Pollution report from 2018. Look at London's PM3 sources: 53% comes from road transport.... ..of which taxis are the biggest contributor - 26% Van and mini bus - 17% Diesel car and petrol car on 14% each TFL bus fleet - 13% etc etc.... So this is why it is important for the council to show what the sources of pollution are - it seems a disproportionate amount of energy is being employed by the council to deposition cars when they are part of the problem not the only problem.

Legal - I suspect they would counter that since the govt cuts they no longer have the resources to do this stuff internally! ;-) Your point is a very relevant one though - we all know getting consultants to do anything is actually a very expensive way of doing it. It reminds a lot of the time Lambeth spent money on putting billboard advertising up telling people that they didn't have enough money due to government cuts - but they could fund a billboard advertising campaign to tell people about how little money they had.... I do also think the focus on transport (and private cars in particular) is a diversion tactic to divert attention from areas like housing which are far greater contributors to emissions than private cars and that the private car is a convenient cause-celebre and easy target. It's clear even within the 15% of transportation's contribution to emission that the private car is a very small % of that and that buses and taxis are contributing far more.

redpost Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > exdulwicher - too true, usual libertarian drivel > from boris > > what is needed is road charging that's broadly > revenue neutral (ie. remove fuel duty and recover > revenue through road pricing), this government > doesn't have the balls though for such a > progressive move To be fair I am not sure any government would have the balls for such a move. But remember transport is only part of the problem - the much bigger (and tougher) nut to crack is buildings - that accounts for 79% of the emissions in Southwark - every factory, office and home needs addressing.

I had a quick skim through and it makes a lot of key points about the challenge we all face to reduce emissions - it also, I hasten to add, does the usual "we need more money from central govt to make this happen" narrative. But a couple of things jumped out. 79% of all emissions in the borough come from buildings 15% come from all transport - it would be interesting to see a breakdown within this as this includes buses and taxis and both of those are the most polluting form of transport on the road. The council calls out the need to reduce private car journeys, and whilst this is important, they really need to able to show how much buses and taxis are contributing to the problem and how quickly they can phase those out too. I wonder if this suggests we might be facing another 18 months of LTN hell.... Review the 11 existing LTNs over the next 18 months including impact on carbon emissions. Some other things jumped out. Encourage and collaborate with transport operators including Transport for London to improve frequency, capacity and access to public transport. Work with the Mayor of London to secure the national investment needed to decarbonise bus and rail network Explore the feasibility of emissions-based parking permits as part of review into permits on streets and estates

I had heard the event on Saturday was a protest against the closures - does anyone know?

Every time I see someone on an e-scooter I can't help but think that they are inherently unstable - the centre of gravity is all wrong due to the position of the feet and I think people get into trouble when they hit a pot hole etc because of it. Boris Bikes have always been a problem with people riding them who have no idea what they are doing and I can't help but think that with e-scooters it is going to be even worse.

It is incredible. Amazing how they can be ruthlessly efficient in throwing in planters, getting cameras put in and then adding a right-turn phase light at the DV/EDG junction yet when it comes to the raw data to show whether their measures are working or not they cite "unwelcome hitches". Honestly, they must think people are stupid. It's really becoming a comedy of errors and so many people are losing their faith in this council to do anything properly. We also had a leaflet from Labour drop through our door from Margy and Richard telling us that they had to rush the implementations to get the govt money and that's why they could not consult and that they want people to respond to the review so they can "make changes" as they "know the measures aren't perfect". It's all so wonderfully open ended - please respond so we can make changes. They should be telling us what changes they are suggesting . Are they then going to suggest a review on the back of the review to review the changes that they claim we will be asking for in the review? I very much suspect they are sitting on raw data that validates what we have been saying: that the LTNs have been an unmitigated disaster and even their Bureau of Misinformation is struggling to cut the numbers to show any upside. They all know their political futures are hanging in the balance and are probably struggling how to spin their way out of this. Soon the internal finger-pointing will start and may have started already looking at Margy's tweet.

Over the weekend it seems the vandal who has been attacking anti-LTN signs has been on the rampage again. Good to see Clean Air Dulwich saying that this is not acceptable. Let's hope the person doing it gets the message as this is bordering on intimidation.

rahrahrah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Rockets Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > rahrahrah Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > first mate Wrote: > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > ----- > > > > I also do not agree with rah's take on what > > > Heartblock has said and > > > > doubt very many others will either. > > > > > > I simply corrected two demonstrably false > > > statements. Professor Aldred does have over > 25 > > > peer reviewed articles and she isn?t > ?employed > > by > > > or paid by people paying for her research?. > > > > > > I have absolutely no problem with challenging > > the > > > data, or the conclusions of a particular > piece > > of > > > research, but that is not what those > statement > > > do. > > > > > > What are the matters of fact you disagree > with > > > exactly? > > > > > > So Rahx3 - do you at least acknowledge that > > working for a cycle lobby group, and heading > their > > policy unit, whilst doing paid research (much > of > > which is funded by the organisation the lobby > > group is lobbying) that is designed to prove > the > > effectiveness of the measures said lobby group > is > > pushing is a conflict of interest? > > Honestly, I don?t think there?s much point in > having this conversation. I?ve corrected two > demonstrably false statements. It?s no good saying > someone hasn?t published something they have. It?s > no good saying someone is paid by an organisation > they are not. If we can?t even accept matters of > fact, then there is little point trying to have a > sensible conversation about more nuanced issues of > interpretation or judgment. So do you think there was any conflict of interest.....? BTW are you 100% sure she wasn't paid for her role at LCC - she was both a director and a trustee?

Otto2 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And, to add those who are discrediting Aldred's > professionalism -- this from Rockets: > > "I am glad we have finally established that Rachel > Alfred's research is neither impartial or unbiased > nor particularly scientific." > > It would be good to stop this sort of thing as > well as the Alice statement that I will not repeat > as it is false. But that's what I think and the more I look into it the more it validates my thoughts and nothing I am seeing from the counter argument is making me rethink my position. I refer you to my previous post above - there is a massive conflict of interest that can lead a lot of people to be able to question the output. Ok let's turn this on its head....convince me there is no conflict of interest. I am happy to hear what you have to say.

rahrahrah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > first mate Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I also do not agree with rah's take on what > Heartblock has said and > > doubt very many others will either. > > I simply corrected two demonstrably false > statements. Professor Aldred does have over 25 > peer reviewed articles and she isn?t ?employed by > or paid by people paying for her research?. > > I have absolutely no problem with challenging the > data, or the conclusions of a particular piece of > research, but that is not what those statement > do. > > What are the matters of fact you disagree with > exactly? So Rahx3 - do you at least acknowledge that working for a cycle lobby group, and heading their policy unit, whilst doing paid research (much of which is funded by the organisation the lobby group is lobbying) that is designed to prove the effectiveness of the measures said lobby group is pushing is a conflict of interest?

Heartblock - I do hope you will stay and not let those who seem to find it difficult to accept that people might have a different opinion to their own drive you out. You explained, very clearly, why you think her research is not as impartial as others would like to think.I agree with you and I am sure lots of others do too. Just because your view differs from others' doesn't mean it's wrong but we have seen time and time again throughout this process that many of those on the pro-LTN side of things find it difficult to accept any opinions other than those they hold themselves. They're also very partial to a bit of gaslighting - it forms a major part of their approach. Part of the reason we are in this mess is because of the inability of some to see things from the other side.

Rahx3 - I don't think Heartblock's questioning of Rachel Aldred's output is unjustified - there are many who are, quite rightly, questioning how balanced Rachel Aldred and her research team's reports and research are. I think that questioning is understandable as many (like the Guardian and everyone in the pro-LTN lobby) hold her reports as the gospel on the positive impact of LTNs and other active travel interventions. Yet when people, like us, scratch beneath the surface and discover that she was both a trustee and director of LCC (London's cycle lobby group) and headed their policy unit during her tenure between 2012-2018 and that both the LCC and TFL sponsor her to produce reports that they use to justify their interventions (that LCC lobby for) you can see why people might question how unbiased they are. I also think Heartblock did a great job posing some questions about Rachel Aldred's methodology and conclusions. It's not unreasonable to suggest there is a conflict of interest if you are working for/have worked for a group lobbying the very people who fund a lot of your research.

DuncanW Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What is wrong with aspiring to the same levels of > cycle-use as Amsterdam? > What are the big differences? I know we have some > hills, but bikes can go up hills. It's also > pancake flat between East Dulwich and central > London (if you go via Peckham) - The route of the > 37 bus from Nunhead to Clapham and beyond is also > flat. > Also - neither London or Amsterdam are megacities, > by the definition of 10M+ people. Amsterdam is > part of the Randstad conurbation which has a very > similar population size to London. > > This is not an argument in favour of the current > LTNs but why would we not aim high on encouraging > and facilitating active travel. > > > I share your view that walking is just as > important. The difference, in my view, is that > there are few, if any encumbrances on walking in > this area - not that I am aware of anyway. Compare > that to cycling and it's more obvious, to me > anyway, where you can spend money to effect > change. I aspired to be a professional sportsperson but unfortunately I wasn't good enough - sometimes aspirations don't match reality! ;-) Even if you compare metropolitan areas London (14.5m) dwarfs Amsterdam (2.5m) and they are markedly different in terms of topography and geography. I do always chuckle when I read about Amsterdam and The Netherlands when you realise they own more cars per capita than us in the UK!

Otto2 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Legal alien - no. She is stating there is no > national school travel data available. The article > itself is focused on the idea that streets ought > to be easily navigated by everyone in all modes > including walking and cycling. > > Rockets - > > I think the LTN's are a first measure. Segregated > cycle lanes need to be added to address parts of > the population that have previously not been > catered to - women and children and less confident > cyclists. With no thru traffic on many roads > bordering Ed Grove, the addition of segregated > cycle lanes is a real possibility and one that > would help groups that have not been catered to > with cycle infrastructure - mums and kids and > those needing to travel east west rather than into > the city centre. For walking, many of the LTN's > are a real plus to small people who need to cross > streets safely. > > Cars and vehicles will certainly be part of the > mix, but, it would be great if kids could walk and > cycle to school with confidence. And, as far as > pollution and climate change and population > growth, we need to stop using cars as much. > Eliminating just one trip a day does have an > impact. > > I think the focus is on both walking and cycling > from what I have read. > > I have to cut out here as I have a busy work day > to finish -- I can't dedicate the amount of time > to this as I would like. Otto2 - I agree completely. We do need more segregated cycle lanes but groups like LCC, who have the ear of the council and TFL, and seem to have the strongest voice and influence in this debate, don't agree that such things go far enough - they want to see the removal of motor vehicles from many roads (see below where they state - fully eliminate through motor traffic from the residential and other non-distributor roads). Lots of kids and people in Dulwich were walking to school and walking in Dulwich before the LTNs (68% to be precise) so what purpose did the LTNs actually serve? All they have done is made other streets in the area less attractive to walk and cycle along - and it was obvious from day 1 that that was going to be the only outcome from closing the LTN roads. LCC's response to the OHS Consultation the council invited them to respond to: There is a risk that this scheme does not, as currently designed, fully eliminate through motor traffic from the residential and other non-distributor roads in the area. Further consideration should be given to any remaining through routes, potentially including Dulwich Park in area B, as well as what happens outside operating hours on Townley Road. Areas A and C should as much as possible see strong reductions in through motor traffic throughout also. - The further proposed restrictions in this context are also supported ? particularly restricting private, through motor traffic on Dulwich Village itself.

Metallic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Have you seen the new leaflet from Dulwich > alliance? It is on their Facebook page and is > worth a look. Southwark not releasing any > information so at least there is some on there. > > Personally a bit fed up of not knowing anything > other than what we pick up from that sort of > Facebook post, or from twitter. Where are all the > councillors and why are they not telling us > everything rather than just selective bits and > pieces? Metallic, is this the one where they are saying they have recorded NO2 levels 3 times higher on roads like Lordship Lane and Croxted Road than on the roads within the LTNs like Calton and that the levels on Lordship Lane etc are now massively exceeding WHO guidelines since the LTNs went in? Have DA been monitoring the pollution levels in lieu of the council doing it?

Otto2 - it is an interesting article and, perhaps not surprisingly, it seems over-weighting towards cycling. I found this part very interesting: "Over the last 20 years cycle use in the UK has hovered at less than 2% of all trips. We must start building for pedestrian and cycle traffic and cutting motor traffic at a pace and scale not yet seen. In London cycling mode share was 1.2% in 2000 rising to 2.4% in 2019. If cycling levels continue to rise at that rate, it will take over 500 years to reach the levels of cycling now seen in cities such as Amsterdam (where cycling mode share is 36%)." Maybe the big issue here is that London isn't anything like Amsterdam and will never be anything like Amsterdam - so why are we so obsessed with trying to compare ourselves to them? We seem to spend a huge amount of money trying to cut and paste schemes that have worked in other countries and apply them here. What we actually need is a programme of measures that acknowledges the challenges of London as a mega-city and that start from a position that cars and vehicles will always need to be part of the mix, rather than trying to eliminate them. Walking is, by far, the most popular mode of active travel in London, and perhaps more importantly Dulwich, so why are the council over-indexing so much on cycling? Are we just trying to rob Peter to pay Paul? I wish I saw as much gusto and enthusiasm for measures to encourage walking from the council as I see for cycling. Could it be, perhaps, that the cycle lobby groups have hijacked the agenda to try and make this all about cycling so they can secure more of the cash (that is, after all, part of LCC's mission statement)? And I know some will say but LCC is a charity - indeed it is but it is primarily a lobby group, and a very powerful one with that, to further the interests of cycling and cycling only. There is a lot of money at stake - the govt has promised ?2bn of funding for active travel and it looks like the cycle lobby are trying to seize the initiative to get the biggest slice. Given the amount of money already invested in cycling infrastructure in London if in 19 years it has only grown from 1.2% to 2.4% as the article Otto2 shared you have to start asking the question whether that has been money well spent and whether you will ever get it above, say, 5%. Maybe it's time to acknowledge that cycling is never going to be the dominant form of active travel in London (due to the size and geography of the city) and to focus attention on other modes like walking.

It's interesting to read some of the commentary in the London Cycling Campaign's consultation response to Southwark's Phase 3 request - timing is very interesting as it was submitted 4 days after the first big lockdown of 2020 started. https://s3.amazonaws.com/lcc_production_bucket/files/13605/original.pdf?1585322217 Firstly that they didn't think Southwark were going far enough: There is a risk that this scheme does not, as currently designed, fully eliminate through motor traffic from the residential and other non-distributor roads in the area. Further consideration should be given to any remaining through routes, potentially including Dulwich Park in area B, as well as what happens outside operating hours on Townley Road. Areas A and C should as much as possible see strong reductions in through motor traffic throughout also. - The further proposed restrictions in this context are also supported ? particularly restricting private, through motor traffic on Dulwich Village itself. And secondly, that they seemed to want to treat Dulwich as some sort of experiment - an LTN petri-dish almost so that future implementations could mitigate any adverse impacts of the schemes.... For this reason, monitoring, both before and after implementation, of air quality, motor traffic volumes and speeds, cycling and walking volumes and potentially even footfall and retail vacancy rates of nearby shops on nearby main roads and residential streets this scheme could impact, would be desirable, up to several years after the introduction of the scheme, sporadically. This would enable the borough and other London, and UK, transport bodies, councillors and officers etc. to build up a valuable evidence base on the results of introducing LTNs, and enable the borough to build schemes to mitigate any adverse impacts as well as reassure residents and shopkeepers of the benefits medium and long-term.

Legal agree - the councils fail to plan between themselves at the councillor level or at the council-to-council level so there's no strategic thinking holding all of this together. Look at Dulwich, it was clear each councillor jumped on the LTN bandwagon to try and force closures in under covid and gave zero consideration to the impact further down the road (in fact Cllr McAsh used the mooted DV closure as a way to lobby residents to get Melbourne Grove closed instead of challenging the DV councillors about the impact on the Goose Green residents). Abe is right - a journey to the M4 is now a good 15 minutes longer (25% increase) than it used to be because along every route councils have dropped local LTNs that are displacing traffic onto the only routes around London. As much as the focus has been on local implementations it is clear no-one has been giving any thought to the impact on London's ability to keep functioning or whether the collective mass of these interventions is actually making the very problem (pollution) they are trying to solve a lot worse. And given councils are refusing to monitor pollution I think we can probably understand why now.

Legal - I am presuming the council will have some of that data as now the monitoring strips have gone in (I believe) they can tell how fast the traffic is moving on any road and whether it is free-flowing or crawling along. It will be very interesting to see what data they present during the review but my concern is that they are going to be very binary on this: i.e. "we reduced traffic within the LTN areas therefore this has been a success" rather than "whilst traffic reduced in areas within the LTN the impact on boundary roads and other roads outside the LTN was negative". I also fear they have begun preparing to try to sell the middle ground narrative of "we reduced traffic within the LTN areas and traffic shifted to boundary roads....which are designed for more traffic".

It does seem that the council became laser focussed on bike travel and looking at those PCT numbers we had both the highest levels of cycle commuters and school cycle travel in London back in 2011 so it begs the question again - why the need for such drastic intervention? I do wonder whether all the council is achieving is turning more of the 68% of active travel in Dulwich from walking to cycling - they have certainly been over-indexing on it. I very much suspect a lot of the 65% of walking active travel in 2018 was to and from Lordship Lane yet the council's focus was on placating the cycle lobby and closing off Dulwich Village. They could, and should, have been doing much more to focus on Lordship Lane and making it more attractive to people to walk to and from but by pandering to those calling for DV to be closed they have made Lordship Lane a more polluted and less attractive place to visit. It's clear the council have let the cycle lobby dictate the strategy and implementation - think back to all the OHS meetings (that have since come to light as people have dug into the minutes of the meetings) where only the cycle lobby, and those with links to the cycle lobby, were invited to present or the Peckham Rye LTN proposal where they ignored the input of the emergency services yet bowed to the input of Southwark Cyclists. If this all backfires on the council, and they have to remove the closures/make changes, I do hope there is some sort of enquiry into how we got here, who was responsible for the decisions made and councillors take responsibility for the mess they created and the money and time that was wasted.

DulwichCentral Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > @rockets > My goodness what an excellent conspiracy theory! > Another one to add to your list ;) It is a good one isn't it - I may have excelled myself with this one ;-) - probably completely wrong but there has to be some reason why Southwark chose Dulwich for these measures when we were top of the leader board for active travel in the borough - we were doing brilliantly without the need for further intervention - there could easily have been effort put into increasing the walking share - the irony that we had to wait months to get social distancing measures for pedestrians put in on Lordship Lane (remember how long it took the council to expand the pavements outside Moxons etc when Lambeth had done it months before) is not lost on me. Legal - I think you might be right. The cycle lobby saw Dulwich as fertile ground to build out their network. I would love to know at what point Southwark first had contact with the LCC and Southwark Cyclists and who initiated contact.

Here is a view I have been considering for some time and things like the "appear to spur increased local walking" seem to validate my suspicions. In Dulwich we already had a huge amount of active travel (more than any other part of the borough). The 2018 Dulwich Traffic report said that 68% of local journeys were either walking or cycling but only 3% of it was cycling - we are clearly very good at walking places around here. Could it be that the cycle lobby groups were concerned that only a small fraction of active travel journeys were on bikes and, given that they rely so much on government funding, that they had to find a way to try and increase that share else risk having their funding cut at source? I am sure the govt gives TFL targets to reach if they get funding and that will likely translate into % share of travel. Given the flatlining of cycling in central London over the last couple of years I wonder if they had to turn their attention to areas further out of London and so focussed on the OHS process. I have been wondering for a while whether the cycle lobby groups hijacked the process to try and force cycling onto the agenda and that their agenda is not so much active travel but active travel by bike. Given the seriously low % of active travel journeys by bike in an area with high active travel it is quite phenomenal how much time, effort and money Southwark is putting into trying to up the cycling share. Also remember that the cycle lobby groups were the first port of call for the council when they sought input on their Phase 1,2,3 and 4 plans (many of which got thrown out due to their ludicrousness) and seemed to have more influence over the plans than the emergency services (remember the bus gate on Peckham Rye idea). Many people have been asking why Dulwich, why this area when active travel was already very much established and why did the council go against their own recommendations about where to put LTNs? Could it be external influence, were the council in control of the process or were others?

heartblock Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Critical analysis of Rachel?s latest. > 1. Only Oyster card and cyclists polled > 2. Unrepresentative of the local population in > terms of age, gender and ethnicity (actually in > the published limitations of the study) > 3. Outcomes used ?walking? to prove that more > people were cycling > 4. Used people?s perceptions of traffic use, car > ownership and more active travel rather than > actual data > 5. Concluded that if residents within LTNs > ?reported? that they had less car ownership as a > result of an LTN, that traffic was ?evaporating? > across the area. > 6. Changes in pollution, actual traffic flow and > decreases/increases in traffic not measured on > non-LTN roads or LTNs roads. > > So I think the study is flawed myself, other > reviewers may think differently. > > Also most of the publications are open access and > not in peer reviewed journals, and are published > as ?findings? rather than research. Heartblock - what does it mean where you say "Outcomes used walking to prove that more people were cycling"?

Northern - I agree, where someone's great aunt lives has no impact on what they are doing - the fact that this was declared as a conflict of interest is a good thing as it shows that the people doing this research are aware that they have to declare such things. I do think, however, that there are many parts of this that are like the murky world of government lobbying - it's all very incestuous, inter-connected and ultimately self-serving. You hold a director position heading policy at a cycle lobby group that receives funding from DfT/TFL and a large number of the paid research projects you/your research group do are funded/commissioned by DfT/TFL so they can mould their transport policy. You then publish research that gets reported (exclusively) by the Guardian's cycling/environmental correspondents (and self-proclaimed cycling lobbyists) as proof that said cycle and roads policy is working. It's all a bit cyclical. Now it could be, of course, that all of these people are the only ones capable of doing such research and that their motives are good but you have to agree that the optics are not great.