exdulwicher

That's a bit Conspiracy Theory even for you! It's not a change in category, it doesn't mean less scrutiny. It's a natural evolution of the scheme. You've filtered a junction so there's less traffic through it. You're now left with a shedload of empty tarmac so it gets remodelled, repurposed etc. More pedestrian space, a cycle lane, seating, activities, art installation, plants, space for cafes to put tables/chairs, bike/scooter parking... Can be any/all of that. It comes under various names - placemaking, streetspace, streetscape etc and it can be done either as an evolution of a traffic scheme or as a regeneration project in its own right. There are loads of examples in London, some big scale ones, some little more than a single parklet. They're quite "connected" sort of projects: LTN, CPZ, community spaces etc are all closely related and interlinked. As an aside, have a read of Lambeth's Kerbside Strategy which was published a couple of days ago. A lot of the sort of LTN, CPZ, placemaking etc is contained in that. Link in the tweet below.

That's a bit of a bait and switch manoeuvre. The conversation was about letting Blue Badge holders - by definition private cars - pass through the junction. I was using HH and Trafalgar as example of public realm projects. Since the junction itself never had any parking within it and was solely a through road between Court Lane / Calton Avene and the road through the village, you could easily argue that there's no loss of access at all since you can still park on Calton, on Court Lane or in the parking bays at the front of the parade of shops, at least one of which is specifically reserved for disabled and enjoy the same access via wheelchair or whatever mobility aid is used. The "square" itself is now easier to negotiate (for everyone, not just disabled) because it's not got any traffic going through it. As is the case with the area in front of HH, access is easier and safer for all because of the lack of traffic.

That's not what the Equality Act 2010 says - nowhere is it specified that Blue Badge holders should have unfettered access to drive anywhere and everywhere. As an aside, BB holders are already exempt from the Dulwich Village restriction northbound and the Calton/Townley timed restriction. The document that councils refer to is this one: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1044542/inclusive-mobility-a-guide-to-best-practice-on-access-to-pedestrian-and-transport-infrastructure.pdf It's quite long and involved but it references the EA many times, not just for disabled people but for all groups and it identifies (correctly) that if you make an environment more accessible and welcoming for (eg) disabled people then it's usually more accessible and welcoming for everyone. "Dulwich Square" (or whatever it's called this week) has moved on from being LTN-based to being a "Placemaking" project: https://www.pps.org/article/what-is-placemaking Hence the seating, the activities, the cafe space and so on. You can call it by a variety of different things but it's not dissimilar to what was done (on a bigger scale) at Trafalgar Square when the northern side of traffic was removed to create a public realm area rather than a massive traffic island. Same at Herne Hill (the pedestrianised bit in front of the station was done in 2010 under a Regeneration scheme rather than a traffic control scheme but it had the same outcome). That's the idea at DS. Somewhere buried in the archives of the original (pre-Covid) traffic plans was a similar idea up at the Eynella / LL junction with the library as the main backdrop for a "public square" type area. Having vehicles driving through the middle of that is not helpful to anyone - especially disabled but actually also to everyone else using that space too. The more exemptions you put in, the more complex and expensive it is to manage and monitor and the more difficult it is to understand for drivers. It's far easier for ALL if there is a blanket block on the whole thing, that way it can't be misunderstood. And the council can't be accused of "raking it in" from fines. It's not unique - every pedestrian high street in the country operates in a similar way.

The sheer number of articles that they've published about Diana in the last 25 years probably makes them world experts on vehicles being inappropriately driven in tunnels...

Yeah, I picked up a fallen one along College Road the other day. Not sure if it had been left that way, blown over in the wind, knocked over by a pedestrian / scooter-ist / cyclist clipping it or bumped into by a car pulling a 3-point turn but whatever - it was still functional. I rode it down to the Village and left it by the bike stands there and it all seemed to be working OK. And it was removed from being in the way!

See my post above. No.

Which doesn't work for cargo bikes, bikes/trikes for the disabled, recumbents and, depending on the setup, some bikes with kids in/on/on tow. It's also a total pain if you're using cycle shoes with cleats And it's pretty much unenforceable.

They're still not calling for the closure to all vehicles; they're calling for measures to prevent the illegal and dangerous driving going on through there. As an aside, you pretty much always get this with ANPR enforced "closures". There's always a few who'll cover number plates, use cloned plates etc to circumvent them. Perfectly possible to have automatic bollards, or emergency service gates that prevent the illegal driving but allow emergency vehicles. You seem very keen on crackdowns against these supposed hordes of pavement-riding, RLJ-ing, unlit, speeding cyclists so I can only assume you're also strongly in favour of preventing dangerous and illegal driving?

That's what currently happens. Finish ride, tap "end" on the app and it requires you to take a photo. There are geofenced areas too - Brockwell Park is one although Dulwich Park is not. I'm not sure if it actually stops you parking there or you can park but just get fined. The app does say not to park in the red zones and also tells users to park responsibly although I have no idea if the photos are reviewed. There's a few places up in town that have designated spots now - a big parking bay saying "rental bikes/scooters only" which is a decent way of keeping them relatively neat and tidy.

It only goes out to the M25 where that's the boundary of the London borough. Map on TfL website shows the new zone, there's a few parts (notably south / southwest of here) where the boundary is a fair way in from the M25. That'd be the mayor that was democratically elected based on the ULEZ expansion being a key part of his manifesto, yes?

Why don't you ask the relevant council department? You're aware that there are hundreds of different funding streams, grants etc for councils, mostly very tightly ring-fenced, yes? What the Transport Dept spends (or doesn't spend) on streetlights or LTNs or potholes has no bearing whatever on what is available for libraries or toilets or computers or bin collections. It's not an either/or thing.

That actually doesn't appeal to me at all. With Santander, I know where my favourite/routinely used docking stations are and I can reliably park or pick up a bike there. Lime, you sort of get to know the popular places where bikes are often parked/dumped but it's a complete lottery and you can end up being in a dead zone - even if that same area had half a dozen bikes in it yesterday. It's a minor point, and to some people, the convenience of being able to leave it wherever clearly appeals but I'm not a fan at all. Absolutely agree on designated parking zones. Personally I'd prefer an extension to the Santander scheme out to Dulwich/Peckham rather than 2 or 3 competing dockless systems.

Again, not really. Let's suppose that heartblock is right and it misses 1 car in every 20 (so 95% accurate). For the sake of argument we'll assume that's consistent and it never over-reads. Again, for simplicity, we'll assume that the council are getting their data from this one counter and nothing else. The counter reliably tells the council that an average of 9500 vehicles are going past it every day. Of course that's not the true figure, it's missing 1 in every 20 so the actual number of cars going past it is an average of 10,000/day. Post intervention, the council, based on info from that same counter, announce there's been a 2% drop in traffic. That must mean that the counter is recording 2% less so 9310 vehicles (on average) going past it (2% less than 9500, yes?). Of course, once again, it's missing one car in every 20 so the true number of vehicles going past it is (on average) 9800. Still a 2% drop. Still the same percentage. The counter doesn't need to be 100% accurate, it only needs to be precise* and consistent. And in practice, this will be cross-referenced with other traffic data anyway. *precise is not the same as accurate Not really cos working with shit data doesn't benefit anyone. I fear you're attributing too much conspiracy theory capability to Southwark Council. Most councils aren't very good at conspiracy theories cos you need to be quite competent to run them... I've not even bothered to look at which count sites are active to be honest so I have no idea if they're getting any info from there or not.

"Some reports"... Which ones? Link? And 1 in 20 is 95% accuracy which is pretty decent. If it's always counting at 95% accuracy then it's the same baseline throughout and the figures get processed anyway to account for a few % either way. If it's consistently missing 1 in 20, that's not the end of the world; you really don't need to count every single vehicle on every single road 24/7/365. What you're looking for is trends and patterns. Nothing is going to give you 100% accuracy 100% of the time but you actually don't need that.

That's not technically true. If you count traffic along (say) the South Circular via whatever means you want - sensors, manual count etc - at some point you're going to find that only 20 vehicles passed your count in 15 mins. That's kind of low so there are two conclusions. One: it's a really quiet road, very little traffic. Two: it was really congested and slow moving at that time. You can therefore do a number of things to cross reference that. Look at the speed data (if available), collate counts from different times of day/week/month, video or in-person surveillance to report back on the situation, look at other info for live traffic data (Google Maps is great for this plus it has historical data and will calculate delays based on time of day to a fair degree of accuracy) and go from there. Plus you'll have historical data from various sources and be able to cross reference. Bottom line is, it's not (or it shouldn't be) based on JUST a count, it's a range of data.

I didn't say it wasn't a problem, just that any errors tend to average out since a vehicle is not stationary on the tubes for long. Worst case you get a week of slightly duff data and just change the location. Generally they work out at about 90+% accurate. Normally, any readings from those are used in conjunction with other info from (eg) Vivacity sensors, manual counts, other automated counts in the vicinity, GPS / mobile phone data and so on to allow cross-referencing. I'd be more concerned that the council are apparently (from that short excerpt posted above) trying to "measure" pollution by pneumatic tube traffic counters since that's not measuring, that's inferring. OK, you can (to a certain extent) model it but honestly, the results are so variable you're often better off not even bothering. It's easier (and just as accurate) to say "too many cars = too much pollution". Pollution is highly dependent on external factors too like surrounding buildings, weather, type of traffic etc and it'll vary seasonally and of course "pollution" covers a huge range of issues like greenhouse gas, NOx, particulates and so on.

Different funding streams. Councils have 15+ funding pots provided by DfT to bid for - it's a confusing mess of very specific pots of money, a lot of which is allocated according to factors of work already done by the council, ongoing work, a "deprivation weighting", the possibility of match funding from other sources and so on. There is a General Fund which is often used to backfill shortfalls from other, more specific, pots of money - for example if DfT give you £150,000 for streetlamp repair and maintenance (and yes there is a specific Streetlamp Fund) but you need £200,000, you can take £50,000 from the General Fund. Also, LL is a TfL road, not solely owned by Southwark Council so it's not entirely up to them. No they don't, they're not allowed to. CPZ, once you factor in the back-office stuff, admin etc are broadly cost-neutral. Surplus always comes from short-term parking costs (ie the on-street machines where people are paying for parking of 2hrs or so) and parking fines (which is allowed but also has to be proportional / reasonable - ie, you can't charge a parking fine of £10,000!) The provision to put a CPZ in comes from the Road Traffic Regulation Act; the RTRA 1984 is not a revenue-raising or taxing statute and does not permit the Council to use that provision to raise surplus revenue for other transport purposes funded by the General Fund. The exact wording in the RTRA that covers CPZ etc is to allow the council to "secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of vehicular and other traffic (including pedestrians) and the provision of suitable and adequate parking on and off the highway…" So for a CPZ, the purpose is to temporarily limit the parking supply to prevent the residential areas around schools and stations in particular from turning into Piccadilly Circus for 2hrs every morning and evening.

Sorry, very poor phrasing... Scooters, you can be arrested and have your licence endorsed. Cycling - arrests are incredibly rare, there'd have to be aggravating factors. Same with endorsing a licence - I think it theory it might be possible but since there's no requirement to hold a DL to use a bike, it's pretty meaningless.

Bikes, no. There's no law of cycling while under the influence although the police can stop you riding for your own safety, they can't actually arrest you for it. Scooters, yes! They're under different legislation and because it's a trial scheme and you need to sign up on the app using a driving licence, the same drink drive (drink ride?) laws apply. I know of at least one case, I'm sure there are probably others... https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/man-caught-drink-driving-e-5557035

I'd happily see a ban on fireworks sold to the public and strictly limited / regulated professional displays for dates such as Bonfire Night / NYE / Diwali. There was a much older Guardian article that cropped up on Twitter earlier about the pollution too: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/15/fireworks-bonfire-night-diwali-pollution It's a bit rich on the one hand to be going on about climate change, air pollution etc and then go "hey everyone, let's burn the crap out of everything for a few nights!"

That would depend on the T&C's / operating agreement that the council has with the e-scooter company and TfL has some oversight in it as well. More info here: https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/electric-scooter-rental-trial#on-this-page-2

Doesn't need to be that complicated. Dockless scooters and bikes work off GPS, they have geofenced "go-slow" zones where the speed is automatically capped at about 8mph, the parking zones are all programmed in and (in theory), if you leave one randomly lying around, the app is supposed to dock you credit for not leaving it in a designated parking spot. (I don't know whether it does or not, I'm not signed up to them although I've read the T&C's which say they will charge you more per ride if you leave them outside designated zones). Part of the trial stuff is finding out when and how people use them and moving the parking zones accordingly. If you find a host of scooters regularly being left outside the pub, then it'd be logical to put a parking zone there, which means one can be painted in properly out of the way of pedestrians. If you "install" a parking zone and its never used, it's an indication that it's in the wrong place!

It's not correct or at least, your interpretation of it isn't correct (and neither was the Times article which they later admitted). Firstly, data gets "re-baselined" routinely anyway - sometimes due to revised statistical methodology, sometimes to accommodate new streams of data (good example being the info from Vivacity sensors which is far above the previous traffic count stuff), there are various reasons and none of it means the previous stuff was "wrong", just that it's been revised. The data in question is DfT and is essentially estimates based on a series of actual roadside counts of the number of vehicles passing. Main road stuff is pretty straightforward but back streets (residential streets, whatever you want to call them) are much harder; some have very little traffic anyway, some have lots so accurate averages are very hard to come by and the averages themselves hide lots of extremes. The traffic counts in those places are also extremely infrequent, you simply cannot count traffic along every single road so for many roads there's gaps of years between actual counts with the rest filled in by estimates and modelling. That fact also hides info like what has happened along that road in the 10 years since you last did an actual count there - has it become an LTN, has the land use changed (say from residential to business or vice versa), has a new development been built...? Any of those would have a very significant impact on the count. Suppose you did an actual count in 2010 and then another in 2020 and found it was 50% more or 50% less traffic - the data doesn't examine WHY that happened, it simply says "twice / half the number of cars from previous count". Cross referencing with TfL and council data (noting that the councils are responsible for most residential streets, TfL for the major roads and DfT sort of indirectly responsible at this level) and combining things like population density, walking/cycling casualty figures, schools, deprivation indices etc gives a much more complete perspective - the DfT data is simply nowhere close to enough to come to any kind of conclusion. The revised counts don't offer credible evidence that traffic *hasn't* increased, the data is simply too scarce to be used in that kind of context. It can however be combined with other info and assessed in that way. The Times did later (quietly) admit that their article made connections that couldn't be backed up. During the height of Covid, TfL produced a Strategic Neighbourhoods Analysis which showed the potential and need for LTNs, you can see it here: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/lsp-app-six-b-strategic-neighbourhoods-analysis-v1.pdf There's this recent study as well which is a meta-study of 800 peer-reviewed studies on traffic control in cities across Europe: https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/most-effective-ways-reducing-car-traffic Far and away the three most effective ways to reduce traffic are congestion charging, parking controls and modal filters (LTN's / Limited Traffic Zones, they have various names). Again, it's best to do a combination of these things, as no one control on its own is a perfect solution. In the same way that no one data set on its own is accurate... Edit because I posted the same link twice...

This is very true. Can be an issue for blind/partially sighted pedestrians or for people pushing prams/buggies/wheelchairs.

It's classified as micro-mobility rather than Active Travel although it does fulfil a gap for journeys too long for easy walking but not far enough to bother getting a bike out for.