LTN: Our Healthy Streets - Dulwich: Phase 3

[malumbu]

OK some medical facts here. Air pollution can lead to chronic poor health for example through asthma or cardiovascular disease. We have to live with a certain level of risk and cannot totally eliminate possible harm - be it from natural sources or man made. Even if we went back to pre-industrial revolution times (the air on the Southbank was putrid in particular due to the leather industry) or back to the stone age - more deaths currently are associated from air pollution from cooking and heating in doors over open fires (which is what much of the world still does).

Pollution rarely gets severe enough to lead to death and sadly this will be to those who are particularly vulnerable and should be protected. This is not the 1950s when the great smogs had some pretty acute affects.

Maximum roadside limits on key pollutants are set to help reduce health consequences. The main source is from the internal combustion engine, in particular older diesels (pre mid 2015) - these are being reduced in number both as the vehicle fleet is replaced and in due course due to the ULEZ. Older petrol cars, allowed under the ULEZ, will be polluting. Most of the older London buses have been cleaned up by fitting a chemistry kit on the exhaust. There are other factors such as driving style, if the masses of drivers were bothered about air pollution they would adopt a much smoother driving style rather than the accelerate/brake.

We have a network of main roads across London that should take the bulk of the traffic. Some flow better than others for example the dual carriageways A2, A3 and the like. Others can be awful - parts of the South Circ, A23 trough Brixton, Putney High Street, Marylebone Road. But the main problem is capacity and few of us would want more roads.

Meeting the air quality limits doesn't make the air safe. It is simply what the regulators decided (in this case the EU, WHO and implemented by national governments) was realistically achievable. People live by most of our main roads. Society has to decide if this is right, and if not what to do about it, an extreme fix would be to have canopies over the main roads. An even more extreme one is to ban all motorised traffic.

I doubt if most on this thread would go for either. So if you want to maintain your current standard of living you will have to tolerate some level of risk from air pollution. It simply wont vanish. As individuals and a society we all need to do more to reduce both pollution and CO2 resulting from our activities, be this the food we eat, the clothes we wear, leisure, work, shelter, hygiene and warmth.

If those of you who have posted 1000s of times about the Dulwich LTN put their efforts into reducing pollution we would be in a much better place. As some have said doing nothing is not an option. I expect there will be gnashing of teeth from some who are already playing their part - but we need everyone to do this.

Government talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk, leaving it to local authorities to do their dirty work. Labour has no position on this, and some such as Paul Wheeler has taken a retrograde stance.

[alice]

Is there anybody else who finds the above poster condescending and irrelevant to dulwich ltns?

[heartblock]

I will take Prof Stephen Holgate?s information on this matter as the more valid information. Peaks in pollution can trigger severe asthma attacks.

The same peaks that have been measured on ED Grove morning and evening during the school run.

If you work in medicine, you know that we don?t work in ?facts? we work with evidence.

[Rockets]

The "Do Nothing" narrative seems to be doing the rounds at the moment.

It follows fast on the heals of the "Small vocal minority", "Petrol head climate change deniers" and "A roads are where all traffic should be sent" nonsense we hear time and time again.

Bottom line is the LTNs in Dulwich deliver cleaner air for some and dirtier air for others - I just can't get my head around why normally rational people think this is acceptable.

[Otto2]

Thank you for posting the link to the Gear Change update rahrahrah.

- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gear-change-one-year-on-review

[northernmonkey]

Having heard Prof Stephen Holgate speak on a number of occasions, I also know that he would caution against using individual air quality monitor readings, being very clear that this is a hugely complex area and cannot be simplified to getting a monitor and recording one off peaks for inference. There are many different factors that will affect monitoring including building works, weather, localised activity (eg a bbq / cleaning etc)

In addition - he also says that the best thing everyone can do is stop driving. He isn't hedging his bets - saying its ok if you lead a busy life etc. He's clear. We need to walk more and drive less.

heartblock Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I will take Prof Stephen Holgate?s information on

> this matter as the more valid information. Peaks

> in pollution can trigger severe asthma attacks.

>

> The same peaks that have been measured on ED Grove

> morning and evening during the school run.

>

> If you work in medicine, you know that we don?t

> work in ?facts? we work with evidence.

[malumbu]

heartblock - the fact is that air pollution in isolation does not kill you, it is a contributing factor, in particular for those most vulnerable. I know you are pretty knowledgeable on the subject but others may appreciate this summary from the American EPA https://www.epa.gov/no2-pollution/basic-information-about-no2

If you were in a room with high levels of nitrogen dioxide, or carbon monoxide, that would kill you. But not at the levels seen at the road side. A brief trawl on the evidence on fatalities suggests LC50 for CO in the 1000s of ppm and for NO2 about 170 ppm. Typical ambient concentrations for CO are 0.5 - 15ppm (later I understand is indoor with gas stove) and for NO2 short term ambient limits of around .1 PPM. Apols, the air quality limits are in micrograms per metre cubed and I haven't cross referenced against PPM.

I am sure our general views on the subject are not a million miles apart. There is, for example, a text alert system for those most vulnerable to air pollution. https://www.airtext.info/ GLA were working with schools on safer routes for walking away from the most polluted roads. Al this stems from well before LTNs were introduced.

Alice - my point, which I have made numerous times, is that one cannot take a narrow perspective on this. I've made little or no comment on the details of the Dulwich LTN, but my view remains is that through carrot and stick (and probably big ones too) that you have to discourage driving, in particularly journeys that could be considered non-essential. I believe that most motorists couldn't give a fig about air pollution, and simply don't want to be inconvenienced. I also expect that most posting on this thread are far better informed/more environmentally conscious that the average motorist.

[Rockets]

Malumbu - why did Dulwich require the stick approach - we were already doing very well (68% of all local journeys) without it? It seems to be punishing the people who were already bought into it by creating higher levels of pollution in areas outside the LTN.

[heartblock]

In 2013, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) confirmed that outdoor air pollution is a cause of cancer. Tiny dust-like particles just millionths of a metre wide, called ?particulate matter?, make up a part of outdoor air pollution.

Measurements found that 5.8 grams per kilometre of harmful particles are emitted by tyres as they wear when a car is being driven. That compares to 4.5 milligrams per kilometer produced from exhaust pipes of the latest vehicles on sale today - meaning harmful tyre outputs are higher by a factor of over 1,000.

[Abe_froeman]

Rockets Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The "Do Nothing" narrative seems to be doing the

> rounds at the moment.

>

> It follows fast on the heals of the "Small vocal

> minority", "Petrol head climate change deniers"

> and "A roads are where all traffic should be sent"

> nonsense we hear time and time again.

>

> Bottom line is the LTNs in Dulwich deliver cleaner

> air for some and dirtier air for others - I just

> can't get my head around why normally rational

> people think this is acceptable.

It's shameful really when all their paid professionals have come up with something objectively worse for some residents that they then put the onus on those victims to find the solution to the mess and pollution they created for us.

[heartblock]

Exactly, this is a very Tory narrative that has been weirdly picked up by Labour Councils

You are unemployed because you haven't made enough effort to find a job

You are poor because you didn't work hard enough

There is a bike for everyone ... indicating if you have mobility issues but aren't riding a bike..it's because you just aren't trying hard enough.

Your road is polluted because of LTNs by 26% more traffic - what are YOU doing about it

Thankfully I plan to move away in the next few years, but I know two families that have just scrapped enough money together to buy small flats on ED Grove, they are now stuck on a road that is poisoning their kids and they are trolled and insulted for wanting cleaner air for their family.

[ab29]

Yes, it is rather scary how this has become some sort of quasi-religion for some and how an ordinary person is completely overlooked in all of this pro-LTN self-righteousness..

[ohthehugemanateeLTN3]

Rockets Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The "Do Nothing" narrative seems to be doing the

> rounds at the moment.

That's because One Dulwich, with the support of many here ultimately suggested that course of action. And you refuse to suggest an alternative which is in any way practical.

> Bottom line is the LTNs in Dulwich deliver cleaner

> air for some and dirtier air for others - I just

> can't get my head around why normally rational

> people think this is acceptable.

I'm going to drop my side for now and engage with your argument on its own terms.

What you're saying is that the choices are:

1. Keep the LTN and some people get cleaner air and some people get dirtier air

2. Drop the LTN and some people get cleaner air and some people get dirtier air

Ultimately you're describing a variant of the trolley problem, except that the council already pulled the lever and now you claim it's obvious that we have a moral obligation to pull it back. I'm glad that this area of philosophy has been solved, by you, on a local interest forum. Do you have any other pearls of wisdom to share with us? Do you have an opinion on the ship of Theseus or the nature of consciousness?

Now I don't even think this is what we actually have. Traffic is growing and the roads are becoming ever more choked out. Even if (after evaporation occurs and the effects of the pandemic end) there is a rise, we'd have got there anyway in a few years just be default. Even if you're right, you're talking about buying a few years and of time. LTNs are just the beginning of a raft of measures ultimately aimed at getting cars off the roads. Nothing else will work.

Make no mistake: your proposals will have people choking with fumes worse than the alternative.

[Rockets]

Manatee - if you've come on here to debate things then debate things but keep it civil - you are now becoming rude. Perhaps you're aiming to get banned for a third time - you might want to rethink your approach to ensure forum longevity?!

This has all been debated and plenty of alternative solutions have been proposed - just because you arrived late to the debate doesn't mean we have to rehash it for your benefit.

We will just have to agree to disagree on all your points but perhaps, just perhaps, the council pulled the wrong lever and should redress it. LTNs are not the solution to the challenges we all face, never have been never will be - as I showed you to rebuff your claim that Waltham Forest has been a success - it has been a success inside the LTNs not outside. The same pattern is repeated at every LTN - reductions inside, increases outside (even the interim council data shows this trend and it is missing data from the roads most likely to be soaking up the displacement). So unless you're planning on making the whole of London a massive LTN then there will always be winners and losers and that is not at all equitable.

And therein lies the problems with LTNs they are a very blunt and ineffective instrument to try and tackle pollution and actually create more problems than they solve. Private car ownership has declined in London and whilst you claim it's about getting cars off the roads it actually isn't - it is more about getting vans and PHVs off the roads as they are the problem and throwing roadblocks in doesn't deter those vehicles. Not sure if you read the Guardian article I linked to but it is worth a read to help understand what the problem is and where it is coming from.

[exdulwicher]

I'm not sure that even the most pro-LTN people are suggesting that LTNs are THE answer. They're not, they are ONE OF a suite of measures to reduce traffic. Some complementary - it's quite difficult to do X without doing Y in some areas of traffic design, some can be standalone and there's an element of needing stick and carrot as well.

So unless you're planning on making the whole of London a massive LTN then there will always be winners and losers and that is not at all equitable.

Is it equitable that the roads are too dangerous for kids to ride to school?

Is it equitable that people who do not own cars find it difficult getting public transport because it's held up by private cars taking up proportionately vastly more road space than any other for of transit?

Is it equitable that car owners get massively subsidised public space to leave their vehicles - space that then cannot be used for any other user?

Is it equitable that car owners (in spite of the "I pay road tax, I pay fuel duty" argument) are vastly subsidised by the public purse - some of that subsidy in the form of addressing pollution-related issues?

LTNs, broadly speaking, work pretty well and they're a cheap and easy thing to implement at short notice - they can also be cheaply and easily modified or removed at short notice. There's nothing special about Dulwich in terms of LTNs or traffic, the principles are exactly the same as anywhere else - you have to remove as much of the traffic as possible, you have to enable and empower active travel. If you don't remove the traffic, you can't push active travel unless you're also putting in segregated bike lanes because, much as there will always be a few folk who can tolerate riding in traffic, most people can't or won't. And a comprehensive network of bike lanes takes years to put in and also attracts just as much vitriol as LTNs.

Same with all the other nice ideas like trams, extending the Tube line, changing every car to electric, autonomous cars... It's all stuff that won't happen before 2040, if at all. Extending the Santander Cycles scheme - that might come by about 2025 or so with a bit of luck.

Pollution on a lot of London's roads has been above legal limits for years and you don't lower it by "spreading it around a bit". If you removed every LTN in the area tomorrow, the air pollution on EDG would still be above legal limits because it was well before the introduction of LTNs. Hardly "clean air for all".

You can't start bleating about woodburners or buildings being worse - maybe they are in terms of air pollution but equally no-one has ever been run over by a speeding woodburner, nor is there a queue of them outside my house in the morning rush hour.

You can argue semantics about cars being fine but PHVs and vans being not fine (?) but it's still splitting hairs. You just need less traffic. That addresses air and noise pollution, road danger and congestion all at once.

[dougiefreeman]

I think Rockets and ex just summed up really well in polite civilised terms the main points of the opposing views. After pages and pages of mud slinging this is certainly refreshing to read.

My personal take is that LTNs have been tried, but they have created at least the same problems with air pollution that they replaced (just in different areas). I believe it?s worse because there is so much more idling now. Before, fhe traffic in the area most definitely flowed more freely - albeit using a wider variety of roads.

It should now be the people who decide which is the lesser of two evils? I reckon the consultation will show most in favour of removing them.

[Rockets]

Ex- but the point everyone seems to be missing is that us Dulwich'ites have already been embracing active travel (without the need for any intervention) and the intervention the council chose is a very blunt stick that unfairly punishes those in the area who have already embraced active travel. LTNs are an even blunter stick when you consider they have been put in in isolation - there is no joined-up thinking between councillors yet alone councils. So we have a random smattering of LTNs designed to reduce overall traffic numbers that merely reduce traffic numbers for some and increase it for others, allow active travel in one area but make it less likely to happen further up the road.

No one is suggesting that removing LTNs solves the problem and you may choose to deliberately misinterpret the Clean Air for All mantra but the bottom-line remains that LTNs benefit some but impact more negatively. The council has wasted so much time, effort and energy on their LTN folly that they have failed to deliver anything tangible. I see new segregated bike lanes in Bromley and all over other parts of London - which, in my opinion, are a much more effective way of managing the challenges and encouraging active travel than LTNs.

The point on PHVs and vans is that LTNs do nothing to resolve that issue - a delivery driver still has to make a delivery whether they can drive there directly or around the LTNs and if, as the data suggests, that a large % of the traffic is now delivery vans and PHVs then LTNs will create more problems than they solve by increasing journey times and congestion. That's just common sense.

We can agree on this though - we do need solutions that address air and noise pollution, road danger and congestion but I am afraid LTNs aren't sophisticated enough to deliver (nor it seems, the people responsible for putting them in).

[heartblock]

Dougie you are correct, idling is a big issue for LL, Croxted and ED Grove, it?s the constant braking and accelerating that causes huge amounts of particulate matter, highly toxic due to the human immune system taking up these particles at a cellular level, this is why they cause inflammation leading to cancer, coronary disease and chronic respiratory conditions.

Leaving it up to the locals appears to have gone out the window if it is true that Southwark are now going to weight all responses equally. i.e. responses from people who do not live in Southwark but have used an address in Southwark to answer the Consultation will have an equal say. I hope this is not the case as this leaves the consultation open to the influence of lobby groups from all sides of the discussion rather than just local residents.

[malumbu]

Rocks - the big stick is across the board, not specifically at SE22. Us inner borough leftie political elite wokey educated etc (I am being facetious) are generally far more environmentally conscious than our cousins in the outer boroughs and the shires. Elsewhere it is far more difficult to prise people out of their cars.

You will be more aware of how much traffic is local, as opposed to through traffic coming from other boroughs. Not so far away people are known to drive to the streets near Honor Oak Park station as this is zone 3 and with the connections to the underground seen to be a good place to get on the public transport network, whilst paying less for your season ticket if you are from further out. Lewisham has so far avoided a CPZ.

The private school run is probably a similar example.

[Rockets]

Heartblock - I think it puts councillors in a very difficult position if the over-whelming number of local people who respond say one thing and they do the opposite on the basis of the views of people from outside of Dulwich. Granted people who use Dulwich, be that to walk in the park, visit the shops, drive through it or cycle through it on their way up Sydenham Hill should be allowed a voice but it cannot be allowed to over-ride the views of those people who live in Dulwich and are having to live with the good and bad of the LTNs.

I have a hunch that the local results within the review are not what the council want or need to justify retaining the measures - hence their mobilisation after the extension of the review by the councillors and their door-knocking exercise. I think they have massively under-estimated the weight of feeling against the measures within the area.

I think back to the One Dulwich research that said 80% of those polled within the Dulwich area (many of the streets being the streets most benefitting from the closures) were opposed to the measures and whilst the pro-lobby will say there were leading questions, bias etc that is bad news for the council if it is anything close to that in terms of actual responses to the review. And a lot of people seem to have been mobilised to respond, such is the level of anger and frustration towards the council at the way the council have handled this.

[exdulwicher]

I think back to the One Dulwich research that said 80% of those polled within the Dulwich area (many of the streets being the streets most benefitting from the closures) were opposed to the measures and whilst the pro-lobby will say there were leading questions, bias etc that is bad news for the council if it is anything close to that in terms of actual responses to the review.

You mean this one?

https://eastdulwichgrove.com/content/uploads/2021/07/East-Dulwich-Grove__-LTN-Survey-Results-3.pdf

The one that went along EDG and polled the residents there. 236 residential properties along there (quoted from the report itself), 127 responses so a 53% response rate. 84% of the responses were to reverse the LTNs, 84% of 127 people is 106 against.

106 out of 236 is 44%. Obviously there's no way of telling the opinion of the 47% who did not respond but you can't claim "80% of those polled". 236 properties were polled and responses received from about half of them. At absolute best (assuming a perfect survey which it wasn't) you could state that 44% of people in EDG are against the current traffic control measures.

That's before you come to the questions asked which were (this is copied / pasted directly from the questionnaire):

A) Make the present temporary road closures and timed camera restrictions permanent.

B) Replace closed road junctions with timed camera enclosures around the school day start and finish, removing delays to emergency services.

C) Reverse the schemes and return the roads to pre-closure with no restrictions.

That is a *terrible* set of questions. especially B

Replace closed road junctions with timed camera enclosures around the school day start and finish, removing delays to emergency services.

That's a leading and biased question right there. It implies that there are delays to emergency services (without specifying what they are, how long they are and why they are directly attributable to LTNs rather than any other cause) and further implies that removing LTNs will fix the delays.

The word "closure" is very misleading too. The roads aren't closed, you can access all of them with a vehicle. They are however filtered to prevent you driving through while still maintaining through access to bikes, scooters, wheelchairs, pedestrians...

It's a terrible survey but once again OneDulwich have been very good at putting out the "80% of people are against LTNs" without specifying that it's 80% of 126 respondents to a biased survey of people on one road.

You don't get to pick and choose data the way you are. You cannot blindly dismiss anything from TfL and Southwark Council (as well as numerous other related reports from the likes of Professor Aldred et al) as fixed, biased, out of date, not relevant to Dulwich, not from the location you want it from while simultaneously blindly accepting anything from OneDulwich.

Same with the summary leaflet from Southwark Council where every dataset showing traffic reductions was questioned, rubbished and denied but where the one dataset showing an increase (EDG, 26%) was taken as gospel and widely quoted as proof that the LTN has FAILED and needs to be removed immediately.

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/improving-our-streets/live-projects/dulwich-review

I'm not saying that the council have been perfect in any of this but the level of conspiracy theory and confirmation bias now is at such a level that pretty much any suggestion from the council that things are broadly positive will be met in much the same way as Donald Trump met the news of his election defeat.

[Rockets]

Nope - this one - the one that polled a lot more street within the LTN area: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ee5b2552f1141316ee2efc9/t/60eb234fdb8bb141baed2fdd/1626022736278/Report+on+the+results+of+RA+surveys+July+2021+FINAL+V4.pdf

Ex- this is the monster Southwark council and their councillors have created with the shambles that is the LTN programme - they have divided a community. This is what happens when you fail to engage properly with the people you are supposed to represent - they go off and do their own research!

[Abe_froeman]

It's hilarious that someone defending a council consultation accuses anyone else of putting leading questions into a survey.

Take the beam out of your eye before commenting on the mote in others'

[DulwichCentral]

@Rockets

Some people love the LTNs some don't. We're allowed a difference of opinion.

Using words like 'the MONSTER' is divisive. Language is divisive. I must congratulate you - you're very good at it as are One Dulwich. Scaremongering about; 'kettling', women's safety, social injustice, leading questions about emergency services (as detailed above by ExD).. One Dulwich have tried every trick in the book to create fear in the community whilst dismissing any hard evidence against their preferences as biased. THAT is divisive.

You can put a nice little smiley face on it if you think that makes it sound better - but at the end of the day exaggerating, scaremongering and inventing conspiracy theories just because you personally don't like what the council have done - is divisive.

[Rockets]

Ex- can you explain to me, as I know you work on the game-keepers' side of the fence to us on this ;-), how the council can, in their interim survey, have a lead headline stat that traffic is "down 79% on internal roads in East Dulwich" yet they have no data east of Lordship Lane to back that up and on the final page of the report state that:

Additional traffic surveys

are being carried out in the

area east of Lordship Lane

(Underhill Road, Barry Road,

and Wood Vale).

Additionally, can you explain, from an industry professional's perspective, how the council can claim a 26% decrease in traffic on Lordship lane yet data later in their pack shows bus journey times are taking longer than they used to along it (especially southbound, where, since the measures went in it has been consistently higher than the pro-Covid base)? What's even more interesting is that from the council's data (and even to my untrained eye) it is clear that the catalyst for the slowing of buses along Lordship Lane was the closures - there are very pronounced steps up following the closures and, without lockdown impact, the trend curve towards delays would have likely been much more pronounced.

This is why people are really scrutinising the council's numbers in minutia and take the headlines at face-value - far too many times the council headlines are seemingly trying to distort the reality of the situation.