mr.chicken

@Spartacus why do you feel the need to lie? No one had claimed it is a magic panacea. I have repeatedly stated that the LTN and CPZ are two elements of a large package of measures needed to tackle London's pollution and congestion problem. If you can't make a point without telling obvious, outright lies then your point is without merit.

When I cycle, I plonk myself right in the middle of the lane. I'm far more likely to be injured by a careless person opening a car door or an impatient idiot trying and failing to "squeeze past" (something I've seen happen more than once) than by someone intent on murdering me intentionally running me over. I pull over and leave enough space for cars to pass when it is safe for them to do so. The great things about the LTNs and 20mph speed limit is the difference in speed is pretty small so there's much less need to pull over to allow faster traffic to pass.

Further to @malumbu's point: it's about smarter driving. The roads are a painfully limited resource so we can't have a free for all. Let's say we get a borough wide CPZ and that reduces the amount of driving. It could easily be implemented such that blue badge holders can park wherever parking is allowed but controlled. That's well within Southwark's capability. At that point it will likely be better for disabled car users, since there will be fewer cars on the roads and less contention for parking spaces. I suspect though at that point the conversation about disabled people will disappear, and there will be other reasons to get rid of the CPZ even though at that point it would be harmful to disabled users.

Excellent prevarication there first mate! You managed to Sounds like your are saying no without actually adopting the clearly absurd position of denying there are any problems. And yes it is revealing about who I am! I really don't think it's good when you misrepresent my arrangements to the point of dishonesty. I will say though that if your only option for debate is dishonesty, has it not occurred to you that your position is flawed? Otherwise why the need for it? Edit: No scratch that, you literally don't know what "premise" means. A premise is a starting point. If my premise is that a CPZ is necessary then it's a logical impossibility that I want an alternative to be found. A premise is what other arguments flow from. Saying "a CPZ is necessary [that's the premise] therefore we must have it or an alternative" is nonsensical. Because of an alternative is an option them by definition it cannot be necessary. If I'm looking for a CPZ OR an alternative, then those must logically be a conclusion drawn from an underlying premise. So no I stand by my original wording. I was being snarky but actually you don't know what a premise is. And yes this does make it impossible up have a debate because you're accusing me of insisting a CPZ is necessary while I'm asking you for an alternative. A CPZ in not necessary in an abstract sense, it is one of a package of measures that's proven to be able to tackle the underlying problems I'm taking about. Anyway feel free to have a snit about that thereby neatly avoiding a concrete answer to what you think the problems are anna are not and what solutions you thing would be practical and effective.

My premise is that the current levels of pollution are too high and the high levels of traffic impeding public transport are bad. Do you agree or disagree? A CPZ is not part of a premise. Do you even know what word means? If you have trouble with basic terms then having a rational discussion is going to be very hard indeed 🤣

There are for bikes, it's just not very well enforced. It seems the Tories would rather the limited amount of police time available after the decade+ of cuts is used to suppress protest than police the community. Why are you inventing a viewpoint that literally no one holds? Realistically, there is limited police time to dedicate to any one task, and it's far out of the hands of Southwark council to provide significantly more. So, what strategy would you choose to police it, and importantly what would you choose to not police in it's place, because that is a necessary tradeoff? I remember as a student, every so often a bunch of police would camp out on a bridge in winter and issue fixed penalty fines to every cyclist passing over the bridge without lights (a lot of them). It was, I admit, richly satisfying because I always used lights and was annoyed by people who didn't, but over all it just didn't make that much difference, because the fines aren't immense, lazyness is a powerful force and the likelihood of getting caught are low. However resources should be spent rationally, not based on what you or I find satisfying in the moment. So go on what's your idea? How would YOU like to see it policed and which resources would YOU divert to police it?

Excellent, so if you don't like the CPZ, what would you find an acceptable way to reduce traffic, improve busses and reduce pollution? Or do you believe the current changing status quo with growing traffic is the best choice? Because at the moment we're at the stage of "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas.". I think that alternative suggestions to the CPZ from people who think the CPZ is a bad idea is entirely on topic, otherwise objections are more or less meaningless.

Prioritizing cars over other forms of transport will harm the segment of the disabled population who don't own cars. @Spartacus and @first mate despite your high and mighty attitude you seem to care little for them, since their interests don't align with yours. Or rather than flinging muck, you ought to admit that the situation is complex and offer some ideas. So far we've had: * make the roads safer. * Have a consultation The first isn't really an idea so much as a notion and the second already happened but you didn't like the answer of that or the election or in fact anything which shows that the majority in Southwark doesn't in fact love cars (even though they have no access to them). London has high levels of air pollution and traffic well away from LTNs is up versus pre covid making the air more polluted and the roads clogged which slows down public transport. LTNs and CPZs are proven methods which have been tried in other cities to help get this under control. You seem to have no ideas except that everyone else is wrong and established urban planning principles don't apply to Southwark for reasons you can't or wont explain. But go on, I invite you again to put forth your alternatives to the CPZ to actually improve the situation. Give me something, anything at all that is (a) acceptable to you and (b) implementable and then we can discuss it like rational adults. Or we can go back to flinging muck and accusing pro LTN/CPZ people of borderline genocide (thanks @CPR Dave for that comparison, you really raised the tone there).

@Spartacus right so you don't actually have any ideas. That's good to know. I like how you went with the whole authoritarian German accent impersonation trope. Did you do that because I'm Jewish?

Lalala I can't hear you the lib dems do not exist lalala People had a choice of two politically opposite anti LTN parties. They chose neither. But I look forward to more flagrant reality denial pretending Tory was the only viable anti LTN choice. Can you do it again? It's funny 😂

lib dem is an option too. Much more progressive than the Tories, but they threw their hat into the anti-LTN ring and did very badly. Can't really blame the vote collapse on people hating Johnson. In Dulwich Village and goose Green, labour increased their share and the strongly anti LTN parties (Tories and Lib Dems) decreased a lot. The greens equivocated a lot along the lines of, well we support LTNs in general but it could be done better and they should talk to people more. Their vote share went up a bit. "may" even increase pollution. In other words you don't know. Thing is, we know that traffic overall has increased as people moved into their cars during covid and did not entirely move back. When it's been studied in detail, traffic levels are up away from LTNs, up by less on the controversial boundary roads and down inside. There's no actual evidence that LTNs have themselves caused more congestion, more idling and more pollution. @Spartacus OK, so you want to make them a safer shared space. How? @Rockets it looks like we can add "multiple choice" to the list of things you are deeply confused about. (b), (c) and (d) all invite thoughtful free-form answers, meaning it is not multiple choice.

Your opinion is not a fact. There are people who have always objected to the LTNs. There are also people like me who have always approved of them. I specifically voted Labour because of their pro LTN stance. The lib dems who stood against LTNs saw their vote share collapse. This forum had under the old admins a very anti-LTN stance but that's because all the pro LTN posters were hounded off the forum or banned. Stop pretending everyone in in the local area is uniformly against LTNs, that is simply not true. There is a strong feeling among some people that the LTNs are not producing the benefits stated. There is a strong feeling among some others that they are. You are again presenting your opinion as the one true fact. Having strong feelings and being upset does not make you correct. In the places where it's been thoroughly studied nearby, traffic on the boundary roads has gone up, but that's because traffic everywhere has gone up. It's easy to blame the LTNs, because are a visible change and plenty of people are offering a simple, easy solution to the boundary road traffic: rip up the LTNs! Like so many simple, easy solutions not only will it not work, it will make things worse. It suggests nothing of the sort. If lots of residents ask him to look at something it's pretty much on him to do it. And we both know you would not be satisfied if he came back after one day and said "yep it's all good". No, I do not. This is you refusing to have any stance other than "rip em up". It's sometimes even hard to get you to concede that pollution and high levels of traffic blocking buses is a problem. And you can offer no solution you would be happy with other than "not LTNs". Between the personal attacks, bad faith arguments and comparisons of LTNs to mass murder (and worse), there's a lot to put up with on this thread. Humour lightens the mood. LTNs are widely established as a good way of improving cities and the thorough measurements nearby show they're working. You have no argument as to why it's not working here other than you feel like it isn't and no solutions to curbing car based pollution and overwhelming traffic. And I'm not talking about generalities, I'm talking about Southwark and what Southwark council can do. You complain abut me ridiculing you and then you post stuff like that. The depth of your echo chamber is without limit. You are convinced everyone in the Dulwich area hates LTNs therefore if more than one person on the forum is for them, there must be some sort of conspiracy. The alternative, that actually there are quite a lot of people who do like them, seems to have not occurred to you, despite the local election results. If you don't want your arguments to be held up to ridicule, make them less ridiculous.

I do love a bit of poultry related fanfiction. I'm a little interested where I'm meant to travel from and to through Dulwich, but mostly I'm curious about my purpose. Where did it come from? Is it life long? Do I have any other purposes? Am I just a tool of Southwark Council and the Illuminati? Can I blame the Jews and if so, is it my dad's Rabbi, or a more general sort of thing? Limited to the Ashkenazim or do the Shephardic crowd get a look in? Do I meet with the shadowy cycle mafia exchanging secret handshakes while (secretly?) wearing Lycra outside the East Dulwich Cafe or do we go in for a very reasonably priced pie and chips and a nice hot, fresh, strong cup of tea? I must know my purpose. Have I, like Edgar, found my purpose? Or has it been thrust upon me? I feel @Bic Basher and @Rockets that you really need to fill this in a bit more fully. It's a bit scattered and nonsensical, but with a bit of effort I think there is the beginnings of a really good conspiracy thriller. And well they should be! Fortunately for them the LTN has suppressed that a bit, compared to what it would be otherwise. Hopefully the CPZ will have a further effect. Unfortunately, traffic continues to grow so further measures will likely be needed. Indeed, Southwark it turns out is extra super duper special. I mean sure, such measures work in other countries and cities and even other districts in London which are really near by, but Southwark is a special place where none of the normal methods of urban design work. It's amazing how reality can shift to an alternate plane of the spiderverse in just a half a mile.

If you can't win on facts, attack the person and misrepresent their arguments. I said down relative to the control area not down. That means that the boundary roads are worse than pre covid but better than they would be without the LTN, because areas far from the LTN are even worse. But you already knew that didn't you?

Uh huh. I mean I'm sure you'll agree that London's illegally high levels of air pollution are not fair, and neither are the clogged roads which slow down buses? We know the LTNs work because traffic is down inside and on the boundary roads it's lower relative to the control where traffic is up quite a lot. So what's your solution to reducing traffic and pollution? I bet you don't have one that will actually work or be in any way implementable.

Oh really... do grow up. It's not about the environment it's a conspiracy! 🙄 🤣 They pollute while they are being driven to the parking place. If there are fewer parking places to drive to, less of the polluting driving gets done. Completely different thing designed to tackle different problem was different THEREFORE CPZ IS BAD. The CPZ will reduce car journeys which will reduce pollution. That's a different problem with a different solution than commuters hogging road space near a station. Ah yes, making the local area more pleasant and more accessible (I'm sure those 4 SUVs parked out Moxons for an hour at a time are bringing in hundreds of people to the local area) will hurt shops because reasons. If more cars are better, then we should reduce the pavement space on LL to create more room for cars. Perhaps demolish a few shops to install a nice big multi-story carpark. There's always one or two empty and the uplift in trade would surely offset that. Or is it that the status quo is the absolute best possible system the way it is and any change at all in any direction will be worse? Well that got bonkers. If they're not polluting and not competing for space, they're not being driven on the roads so you won't be affected by the CPZ and have no reason to complain. Keep your front lawn decoration if you like, it's no skin off my nose. You don't even need to pay road tax.

So yet again, the problem is not the council, or Lycra, bikes, or the Illuminati, it's yet again entitled motorists. If drivers stuck to the rules, the council would not need to concern itself with something that it needs to police, just on the optimal outcomes. But when entitled motorists come into the mix, the council has to pick the option that it's able to heavily enforce, because without heavy enforcement nothing will change.

Nope. Only the anti LTN people expected the LTN to be the perfect and compete solution to all problems. Welp I stubbed my toe this morning. Clearly the LTN is a massive failure because it didn't prevent that. Back in my car to get a coffee at the local shop 3 minutes walk away. In reality the LTN is one element of many needed to reverse 50 years of relentlessly pro car policy. On street bike parking is another small element. Not giving colossal amounts of massively subsidized free storage exclusively to cars aka the CPZ is another. There will be more. I and most likely the majority of fellow residents will use our democratic right to vote for people who promise to do more.

Defending the Tories now by blaming labor? Er remind me who's been in power for a while...? Discussion about the topic? Does that include the weird insinuations about myself and @malumbu that you've been making? For what it's worth you, the press and Keir Starmer are all guilty of towing the Tory party line as if it's a fact. I don't really get it but it looks like you don't have to be a Tory to carry their flag.

Huh? Oh I understand! You know for a fact that no one supports the LTN, therefore all the pro LTN people must be in cahoots otherwise that would mean or might have actual support. And we all know no one likes these green policies which don't treat cars as sacred because the Tories said so. And they are never wrong about anything.

No. Next question?

Those are Tory talking points, and I'd recommend against repeating them uncritically. Some additional points which get much less air time: * Expats (i.e. people not living in the UK) were allowed to vote on whether to kick people out of a country they don't live in but long term permanent residents (i.e. people living in the UK for decades) had no say. That was a Tory choice, not a fact of life, and stacked the deck in favour of leave. * Election rules were broken during the referendum. If it was a binding referendum, then by law the election would have to be rerun. However, no such requirements exist for advisory referendums. Treating an advisory referendum as binding is a massive weakening of the rules protecting our democracy. The rules I will note were broken in favour of the leave side. One can argue there was complacency sure, but there were also non complacency factors which pushed the result towards leave.

Yeah yeah we know. I mean sure, polls have people in support. But those are wrong. And the actual local election saw a swing away from anti-LTN parties (including the lib dems who are not associated with the unpopular Tories) towards the party implementing LTNs. That's wrong too, I'm sure. The only possible non flawed results it one that shows that the majority hate cyclists and LTNs. One day we'll get one, but since we know the answer already we can simply assume it's true without a poll.

You know except it did. Traffic has been on the rise country wide continuously. The congestion charge pushed the clock back about 10 years in terms of growth. Based on everywhere else in the country, the amount of traffic in London is lower than it would have been without the charge. And smoking has been subject to an enormous combination of measures over decades: reduction and removal of advertising, education, decreasing convenience, increase in cost and as a result smoking has been on a pretty consistent downward trend. The attitude of the anti LTN position is that unless a change is both instantaneous and perfect then it has failed. Even banning tobacco advertising had a negative effect on people who relied on it. And changes took years to have a big effect. With your attitude to smoking no changes would have been made and we'd still be where we were in 1970.

Indeed. I do not think there is a credible alternative. I've yet to see one. Oh except for: Someone should do something and everyone else should stop driving except me.