Rockets

@Earl Aelfheah feel free to start a new thread and I will happily take the discussion up with you there and to catalyse you to do it - I repeat - you are wrong with your assertions - very, very wrong but we have seen this time and time again, an inability for anyone on the pro-active travel side of the argument to be even be slightly pragmatic. You suggest I am suffering from cognitive dissonance which is surprising because I thought admin had banned people from making such accusations. @march46 usually has a hotline to council documents so maybe they can help, it is odd they have disappeared as some of the othe pages are still up: is this where they posted the results or was it somewhere else: https://engage.southwark.gov.uk/en-GB/projects/melbourne-grove-south-parking-survey Is this a council oversight or do they not want people to see the results of the survey?

Oh dear, wishful thinking on your part......the trial LTN in Streatham Wells was removed (or suspended as your comrades in Lambeth spun it! ;-))

Someone must have a copy saved somewhere. Strange that things are so hard to find on Southwark's website - I thought documents like that should be easy to find. I thought you wanted to find it again....;-)

The West Dulwich LTN is no more. It's gone, joining the Streatham Wells LTN on Lambeth LTN naughty step.

I did not see that report but a lot of Southwark reports are either being removed or are being moved - it's making things very difficult to find things unless you happen to have saved copies. There are a lot of 404 messages where there used to be reports. @malumbu please start a new thread. This tactic is starting to wear a little thin now....even though I do tend to bite on the bait....Melbourne Grove (not Road...ahem) CPZ or bust please....

Yes @first mate lets get this back on track. @Earl Aelfheah you're misguided on this I am afraid and completely wrong and I do wonder whether you just take these positions to be argumentative and distract from the thread in question but do start a new thread if you want to continue the debate...but bottom line is Lime bikes are not the active travel panacea you project they are and there is growing evidence that their use is not helping the very thing they were sold to us on because the usage is mainly switching existing journeys from walking and public transport. Here's my prediction on the Melbourne Grove - it goes to consultation and the majority respond no but a few will say yes (probably close friends of the council and the active travel lobby groups) and the council will decide to roll it out on one road which then creates a knock-on effect on other roads and they then go knocking on their doors talking about parking pressure.

Why is it a win if they arent using a bus or tube. The environmental impact of their journey on a bus or tube is very likely to be less that that on a Lime bike...or is it that you think as long a a bike instead of a vehicle is being used then it is a "win"? No I am not. What I am trying to point out to you is that for every person who jumps on Lime bike instead of walking or getting public transport that is an environmental negative. New journeys, what these people were house bound before seeing a Lime bike? No its not it's pragmatic commonsense that a lot of people agree with. "By any mode" isn't just cars...it's all journeys.......

@Earl Aelfheah I am not sure why you are struggling to understand this. If people are using Lime bikes for short distances instead of driving or being driven then that is a win for the environment. If people are using Lime bikes for short distances instead of walking or taking the bus then that is a loss for the environment - just because you are on two-wheels on a Lime bike doesn't mean you are immune to having an environmental footprint - have you seen the thousands of Lime bikes in and outside the warehouse near South Bermondsey station (have a look the next time you are on the train to London Bridge) or the fleets of "juicers bombing around London replacing the rechargeable batteries? Lime stated in 2023 that their research suggested that 8% of Lime bike users said they would have used a private vehicle, taxi, private hire, or car clubs if Lime e-bikes were not available. Lime also said that this would likely increase if further expansion to the outer boroughs was allowed as car use is higher in those areas - which very much suggests this is at saturation point without that expansion - to be fair the document that you shared was a Lime lobbying for more from TFL/Mayor's office research piece. If that 8% figure is accurate then Lime are taking journeys from walking and public transport. P.S. Did you know that your 35% stat of car journeys in London under 2km is selectively plucked from a 2011/12 TFL report comparing car usages across ALL London boroughs (the report stated that Bexley had the highest car use and Islington the least). More up to date data from TFL (2023) said that 35% of all trips in London are now under 1km (by any mode) and that was the highest % group so you might want to look for a more accurate and up-to-date stat because I am not sure how many of those journeys are now by car but I suspect it is nowhere near the 35% under 2km you claim.

It is common sense. If Lime can only claim 8% of their journeys are replacing car journeys then the remainder are replacing other forms of journeys - most likely walking (especially given the higher density of Lime bike journeys being done closer to the city centre where car journeys are naturally much lower anyway). I really think Lime bikes are having a negative environmental and social impact on cities as they are replacing walking (which is by far the best form of active travel) and encouraging a large number of users to be lazy. Nothing you seem to be suggesting convinces me otherwise. In Central London, and even as far out as Dulwich, walking has always been the preferred mode of travel for short journeys (what was the figure for Dulwich in the 2018 Transport Report - something around 65% - Southwark has removed the report). If Lime were replacing a higher percentage of car journeys then the outlook would be much better. This is always the risk of such schemes, that the way people use them actually contributes to the very problem it is trying to help. Very few people in London were using first and last mile journeys in a car (even the Melbourne Grove closure lobbyists tried to convince us the problem was people driving in from Kent! ;-))

@Earl Aelfheah by Lime's own admission only 8% which is probably more than offset if the other 92% are replacing walking or public transport. This is just common-sense. Lime bikes are not environmentally friendly if they are not replacing more damaging journeys and their usage patterns suggest they are, in a large part, replacing walking.

That Lime bikes are increasingly replacing walking - and that is not a good thing as walking is by far the most environmentally friendly and least damaging of all modes of travel. This narrative that Lime bikes are somehow a great environmentally friendly form of travel is only true if they are replacing a more damaging form of travel (cars) - so every Lime bike that replaces walking is actually bad for the environment and there's probably a case to say that a Lime bike in lieu of public transport is also more harmful.

If even Lime are claiming only 8% of their journeys are replacing cars then the problem is probably worse than it appears. So, by that measure, do we presume that around 92% of their journeys are replacing walking and public transport? Given most suggest Lime is being used for first and last mile journeys to and from public transport and less than a mile then it suggests a lot are replacing walking. I cannot find any data from Lime on average journey length and that suggests to me that a large proportion may be very walkable. If Lime journeys are replacing more environmentally friendly ways of travelling then they are contributing to the problem not solving it.

But do you think the majority of these journeys are replacing car journeys - seems to me that most/a large majority are replacing walking, which, if so, is actually contributing to the problem? Is the average Lime bike journey still under one mile?

Not sure if anyone else has had Labour canvassers door-knocking to ask about voting intentions for the local council elections in May of next year (my how quickly this has come around). One wonders if Labour are trying to get a mood board now they are in government as last time round they leaned almost exclusively on a vote for them is a vote against the Tories....I suspect they might be trying to determine how not having the protest vote against Boris might impact things this time round.

And many of these journeys on Lime bikes and scooters are replacing journeys that could easily be walked - they're creating a generation of non- walkers.

Yes and I think the council we able to lean in on vested-interest local lobby groups like EDST, Mumsforlungs, Melbourne Grove RA etc to do their bidding for them.

Funny isn't it but before the council started meddling no-one ever complained about parking pressure? Dulwich parking pressure is being created by a council hell bent on securing revenue from CPZs. It's so transparent it's laughable.

Mischievous is a wonderful description for our council and their approach to such things. How many parking spaces have they managed to remove? @march46 I think the council misled you with their clever misuse of plurals.....look how the decision document talks of a request coming from " the businesses on Lordship Lane" (which implies more than one) and then in the very same sentence it very quickly switches to...."that they have large vehicles coming to collect and deliver goods to the business" (implying a single business). And then later it said the council officers met with "the local business". - although, to be fair, the whole thing is so poorly written it could well be that the council officer who wrote it struggles with sentences and basic grammar 😉

"Parking pressure" - catnip to the LTN fan bois......it's almost as if the council do things just to create "parking pressure". Well fancy that...why on earth might that be.....?

Ha ha, but the pedestrians are on the crossing - the cyclist has to give way to them and stop....the Highway Code is very clear about that. I think that poster is hilarious and I cannot believe someone from the WHO didn't notice their visual Freudian slip.... Because it is not a myth but a fact. A fact backed up by comments from your beloved Southwark council and TFL. You know that the further outside a city centre you get the worse the transport links get right? Or are you arguing that the southern most parts of the borough of Southwark have better or comparable transport links to the northern parts? And please don’t start talking about comparing here to some village in the countryside - that is basically doing the same as the council bleating on about most people in Southwark don’t own a car….it’s trying to create a narrative to fit your argument.

But the vast majority of households in this area (where the council has decided to roll out these measures) do have a vehicle. Why? Because the transport links are poor and there are more families. This whole "majority of households do not own/have access to a car" is such distraction narrative nonsense - Southwark is a big borough - in the north of the borough (where the highest density of housing is) transport links are excellent and car ownership is low. In the south of the borough transport links are poor, the density of housing is lower and car ownership is high. Go figure.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ge92xldrjo

@march46 sorry I have to laugh that even the WHO poster shows what looks like a cyclist speeding towards a pedestrian crossing with clearly no intention to stop.....;-) Not the best clip art selection by the WHO there....

Does anyone think Lambeth has helped, or hindered, the goal by what they have done? From day one of these debates I said councils risked doing long-term harm to the active travel cause by behaving in the way they were - by forcing measures on a lot of residents (often by bending the rules) without engaging them or getting them on the journey risked alienating the very people who councils needed to get support from. Lambeth have done exactly that and now the LTN will need to be removed and they have turned a lot of people against the measures - of course they are also likely going to have to repay the huge number of fines generated by the LTNs and fund that from (likely) allocated budget after spending tax-payers money on defending the case their constituents had to bring against them. They have created one hell of a mess which may have long term negative impacts - and this is what I feared from the outset - it's well and good pandering to the active travel lobbyists and the small number of people directly benefiting from the measures but if you're not convincing the majority then you are digging a deep hole for yourself. Lambeth find themselves at the bottom of said hole.

@Earl Aelfheah the challenge facing many councils now is that so many of the tactics that Lambeth have used (and the judge had issues with) are the same that others councils have been using to force these measures in and to suppress legitimate concerns raised by local residents. Unfortunately for councils it is not the cycle/active travel lobby or posters on forums who are deciding whether claims made by residents in opposition to the way councils have implemented these are B*****S or not it is now high court judges and they actually properly assess what happened on a point of law. Lambeth have opened the floodgates. Yes there are lots of great, and effective, active travel interventions that have a clear ROI but there are also many that are local ideologically driven vanity projects that actually are doing more harm than good. This is the problem when politicians (of any kind) only listen to lobby groups - things get forced through that then have to be taken out because the proper process was not followed. How much time and money has Lambeth wasted on this? It is not that many messages ago that people were coming on here saying that the West Dulwich LTN would not be removed and saying the same for more local ones too. Trust me, there will now likely be a number of very nervous councils getting their legal departments to go on a discovery exercise to determine what happened during the implementation of their LTNs - whether they were installed one year ago or 5 years ago and determining what their defence will be if people come after them. Bottom line is if councils have cheated the system they will get found out as Lambeth have found to their cost and ultimately this is no longer about just the LTN process but also political reputation particularly timely for Southwark given one of the favourites to take over from Cllr Williams is the councillor responsible for oversight of the Southwark LTNs.