Rockets

The police are starting to clamp down on it as I think they are being forced to as the problem is so widespread. Just last week I walked across London Bridge and a cyclist rode up from Monument, on and off the pavements and then cycled across the pedestrian crossing in front of a police motorcycle who was waiting at a red light at the junction in front of Monument tube. The police offer watched them, shook their head, turned on their blue lights and then pulled the cyclist over further along the pavement on Cannon Street and was in the process of issuing something to the cyclist who had the most incredulous look on their face. The Plough junction is particularly bad with many cyclists thinking the green pedestrian lights apply to them and I am reminded of this video by Barbyonabike who works locally and films, amongst other things, Dulwich cyclists flaunting the rules of the road!!!

It's a clear manipulation of the data gathering process, the one on Lordship Lane is now more than 20feet away from the threshold of the crossing and roundabout meaning most traffic will be crawling over it. If that is providing data for that section of the road it is going to be inaccurate data. I see no reason it could not have been placed further up the road. The council know what they are doing and have been doing it since the measures went in - the one near Melford Road at the other end of Lordship Lane (which interestingly has now been removed) started it's monitoring life near the bus stop past the Court Lane junction...the only reason it could have been moved was to make sure if was exposed to crawling traffic for much of the day.

Have you seen how close the one on Lordship Lane is approaching the Goose Green roundabout, that will be recording very little?

P.S. You said: I have a stated position that the earth is round, but I don't have any vested interest in that. But you do if you are asked to assess if it is round or not don't you?

DuncanW - you're getting into semantics and it doesn't undermine my argument at all...if you are a cycle lobbyist and you get a job assessing the impact of measures that benefit cycling you have a vested interest (as you have previously lobbied for measures that benefit cycling) and a conflict of interest (because you have held a position within a cycle lobby). Pretty clear to me.

Ex- I have zero scientific credentials but if I can see the flaws in the data and collection methods then surely the professionals can as well! You are an industry specialist, what are your thoughts on the under 10kph recording issues and when you see monitoring strips in the Dulwich area do you think their positioning is giving an accurate picture given many of their placements near junctions. DuncanW - what you describe is exactly why Aldred has a vested interest/conflict of interest. In fact, and I am happy to be corrected, but in some reports Aldred has published she cites her involvement on the LCC policy forum in the potential conflicts of interest section.

And Ex- one of the reasons there is little point me doing the analysis of the data is that I have skin in the game, I have a publicly stated position on my views on what I would be assessing and reviewing....which takes us back to why Aldred should be nowhere near the "independent" evaluation - she has a well documented stated position on the very thing she is being paid to review. That's called a vested interest - surely even you can acknowledge that?

Good point well made! And in those circumstances if you are a vegan, a meat lover or a Tory you’d probably be overjoyed with the results and see no need for further scrutiny of the process or the people running it….. Hurrah, they say, we have the results we were looking for and this validates our personal viewpoint….how dare they question the independence of the process……I will now place my head back into the sand....;-)

Ex- you forgot to accuse me of being a right-wing, covid denier!!! ;-) Let me clarify something for you: Rachel Aldred was not just a trustee of LCC but also the chair of their policy forum - so she had direct input on LCC policies and lobbying efforts that LCC conducted - that was anything but an oversight role. And don't get me started on Chris Boardman - he runs a company that makes bikes and has been accused of favouring bikes in his role as Active Travel Commissioner - imagine the uproar if someone from a car manufacturer was put in charge as Roads Commissioner.....;-) At the end of the day Rachel Aldred is a cycling lobbyist and has spent her career lobbying for cycling which doesn't make her independent - you know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Makes you think doesn't it...but let's be honest people seem to develop a bit of blind spot when something they want and support gets questioned and that's what all of the pro-LTN lobby are doing - turning a blind eye because it suits their agenda. There's more than enough evidence to show that data, reports and output are fundamentally flawed and being manipulated - if you don't care - good for you - just don't expect any sympathy when it happens to something you do care about. The issue remains that there are people who care and are concerned about what is happening and are trying to voice their opinions but have been ignored and depositioned since the outset. The latest attempt to quell any opposition is to accuse people of being right-wing, Covid deniers etc...seemingly the go-to place when people have exhausted every other means of silencing opinions they don't like to hear. And Malumbu - you may think that my argument is spurious but at least I have an argument - you're displaying some distinctly troll-like tendencies! Have you ever answered a question anyone has asked you on the forum? If you're here to debate then go ahead if not maybe the lounge is more your natural hunting ground - maybe time to revisit the self-imposed Lounge quarantine! ;-)

Interesting use of words by Will Norman in one of his celebratory tweets: Firstly he is retweeting what looks like a sponsored byline article by a pollution monitoring company called Vortex and his headline data is from claims made by that company about monitoring done by one of its sister companies for Lewisham council The use of the word cut is important as it implies the journeys are no longer made but when you read the text itself it paints a different picture: Think about the reduction in traffic volume; it’s extraordinary. Our sister company Videalert provided Lewisham Council with intelligent CCTV technology to control vehicles entering the zone. Any offences committed were conducted in a post-implementation analysis. After analysing data on traffic patterns outside individual schools, they found that 96,000 fewer car trips were taken outside of just one school in a year and reduced 862,500 vehicle movements. So suggesting they were cut implies the journeys are no longer made but actually the piece was stating that, because they had closed the road 96,000 fewer cars passed the school - and of course that is great news for the school but not so great news is those journeys were not cut - if they were re-routed then the cut claim is disingenuous at best. Also, re-tweeting what appears to be a sponsored or placed article is not best practice by Will - it's kind of a continuation of trying to control the narrative and hope that people don't scratch beneath the surface and only read the headline.

Malumbu - do you actual read the posts before you respond with your musings? The government's response was in response to people signing a petition complaining to the govt about the LTNs and asking them to initiate an independent review. They then responded saying that have appointed UoW to manage an independent evaluation of the impact of the LTNS....to which people have, quite rightly stated that Rachel Aldred and UoW don't tick many boxes on "independent". The argument is hardly silly - it's a serious question about how independent the evaluation is. We have stated that we think the evaluation is flawed (in terms of data collection and the presumptions made by UoW that impact the outcomes) and the authors of the report cannot claim to be independent. In light of this maybe you would care to counter with your argument as to why you think the data is robust and the evaluation credible - it's about time you actually debated something rather than just name-calling ;-).

It's a self-fulfilling cycle of spin - it's laughable that they call Aldred's work independent.....I do think it is interesting that they refer to the work as evaluation rather than research - at least that is accurate because all the UoW is doing to taking the council's numbers and presenting them in a different form than the councils presented them - it appears UoW is doing zero of their own research - just marking the council's homework and saying...jolly well done your answers are right (and we don't care that you haven't provided any of your workings out so we have no idea how you got to the correct answer)!

With the budget challenges all councils are facing they will be very keen for teams like the events team to be able to self-fund, and I suspect ultimately, keep themselves in employment as I am sure those types of services are the first to get cut when councils look to reduce spending and that £244k would likely include the salaries etc of the events team themselves (as well as the events they organise).

Joined-up is the key here - nothing about what the Mayor or councils are doing in relation to active travel is joined-up and this is why it is proving to be an unmitigated disaster that will actually damage the long-term viability of active travel measures and damage the city we live in.

Lavrov and Khan both had hard times spinning their warped narratives in front of live audiences this week! ;-) On an unrelated matter I noticed today that there are two sets of monitoring strips in Dulwich village...one close to the lights at Turney and another set up close to the pedestrian crossing at Gilkes Place and it got me thinking as to why there are two strips there. I can only think that they are monitoring numbers of traffic turning left from Turney to DV but both are regularly under crawling traffic (especially the one closest to Turney) and I wondered whether the placement might have been determined to "inflate" the numbers of cars turning from Turney onto DV - which anyone who spends anytime in DV will know is not traffic heavy.

Remind me where anyone describes the pro-LTN crowd as looney-lefties...... I can assure you there are unsavoury characters on both sides of the argument but for the pro-LTN lobby and the likes of Sadiq to call it out so frequently is nothing more than a brazen attempt to paint everyone with the same brush in a desperate attempt to kill opposition. It's a clear sign they can't make the opposition go away so have resorted to nothing more name calling. It's sad to see an elected representative stooping to such levels and I think it could well backfire - but seems to be point one in the pro-LTN playbook - look even you Malumbu have resorted to repeated childish name calling on more than one occasion on here - a sure sign you ran out of rational arguments!

Oh my....the fact that Sadiq used that to demonise anyone who objects to ULEZ is absolutely outrageous and you can actually see it in his eyes as he says it that he thinks it might have been a mistake playing that card at that time and could backfire and galvanise even more opposition, I haven't seen the full session but I very much suspect he went to "far right. Covid deniers, Tories etc" to distract from the pounding he was taking from the residents affected by it who were giving him a hard time. Given we have a mayoral election again next year Sadiq might be feeling the pressure a bit as his policies come back to bite him. DuncanW - these last few posts validate my point completely on why Southway HAVE to make LTNs be seen to be working. To my earlier point this is why even if Southwark had proof that LTNs were increasing pollution they couldn't remove them because they have to toe the party line. If they (and other Labour run councils) were to remove them Sadiq's policy house of cards would come tumbling down.....ah the beauty of politics...it's always the people who ultimately suffer no matter which party is in control ;-) And yes, I am characterising Southwark council (and Southwark Labour for that matter) as far-left - Southwark have a well-earned reputation for being on the far-left of the party - just look, we have a self-proclaimed Marxist as a local councillor in James McAsh and I refer you to the thread on the in-fighting that went on within the party over Harriet Harman's replacement - /viewtopic.php?t=2249079&hilit=harriet+harman And then there's the influence Party HQ tried to exert on trying to ensure a Momentum candidate didn't get selected in that process: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/10/labour-dissolves-harman-seat-selection-panel-in-row-over-candidates

Because it is a strategic policy and the far-left of the Labour party always struggle to admit they get anything wrong. And also because I think they really believe that short-term harm will deliver long-term benefits - that they have to live with the harm as the measures "bed-in". But the belief that "evaporation" not "displacement" takes place is looking more and more misguided. I truly believe when Cllr McAsh described what success for LTNs looks like he really thought they would deliver that but they clearly haven't and clearly won't.

Rahx3 - the council pays companies to collect the data and then the data is analysed and presented by the council to support their narrative that the LTNs are a good thing. That data is then collected by active travel lobbyist and ex-LCC policy chief Rachel Aldred and used to create reports (funded by TFL and active travel lobbyists) to try and prove LTNs are working. In these reports she makes huge leaps of faith on the validity on the data being presented to her by councils whose interests it is to prove LTNs are working. That's not close to being independent - you know, I know it, everyone knows it and it is laughable that anyone would even try to claim as much. At what point has anyone been involved in the process that can actually claim they have no vested interest in the outcome?

There was a picket at our kids' school some years ago and many of the children found it very upsetting, not because of any action by their teachers on the picket, but because they were confused as to why their teachers would be encouraging others not to enter the school and felt they were betraying their teachers by entering the school themselves. It's a very difficult one to get the balance right on as children, especially younger ones really can't comprehend what is going on. The school in question asked the picket to move away from the main gates and asked them not to make as much noise (whistles etc) as some of the children didn't like it. They did so and replaced it with very enthusiastic flag waving!

The film industry is in turmoil. The problem is a lack of good films to draw people into cinemas because Netflix et al are the preferred channels to release content. Tom Hanks was saying the challenge for the film industry is a large chunk of their audience (teenagers) is bingeing on a diet of 20 second clips on social media and don't have the patience for films and how do you get someone to sit for 90 minutes when they are used to bite-size content clips.

Can anyone hazard a guess as to why the barriers might have been put there in the first place?

Rahx3 - there is no research on that because no-one has paid Rachel Aldred to research it and come to that conclusion! ;-) She is paid to come to the opposite conclusion. The challenge remains that Aldred's research is based on numbers given to her by councils (who are keen to show the LTNs are working) based on monitoring that she, herself, suggests may not be accurate if the monitoring strips are placed close to junctions (she doesn't say this directly but that is the clear from her last report). It's a mystery to me why academics working on this can't ask the councils for details of where the strips are located and determine this - surely that should be part of the due-diligence of any piece of research - there seems to be a lot of "trust in the numbers" which may not be warranted? It's clear a lot of the Dulwich LTN monitoring strips are placed close to junctions and Enfield is the only council to admit that their data is not accurate on the basis of that. So there is a more than a chance, wouldn't you say, that Southwark's monitoring numbers may not be a true reflection of reality and therefore Aldred's research based on potentially inaccurate date?

Clean Air Dulwich are just never happy are they - all that moaning about everything must be very emotionally draining? ;-) Do they ever stop to consider why barriers like that were put there in the first place?