LTN: Our Healthy Streets - Dulwich: Phase 3

[Rockets]

Indeed but don't expect any noise from our council or councillors to tell Sadiq not to make the cuts to TFL - they will be forced to toe the party line and will stay silent even though it would impact their constituents. Of course, if the mayor was not Labour you would not be hearing the end of this. Gotta love party-politics hey! ;-)

[DuncanW]

I'm not sure it's within Sadiq Khan's gift to not make the cuts. There is a huge cash shortfall caused by reduction in travel due to the pandemic.

He is looking for a bail-out from central govt so as not to have to make the cuts, and is spelling out what the services will look like if that money is not forthcoming.

[Bic Basher]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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

> Our closest representatives are those we elect

> locally - and they should be fighting our corner

> against the other groups, if their plans reduce

> our life quality. Not acting as if they didn't

> exist.

And that's just it, I received an email from my local Dulwich Wood Cllr who span the figures for me and claimed ULEZ would improve issues. So that's why at 2.30pm there was a queue from the Dulwich Common junction of LL to just past Friern Road.

[malumbu]

I suggest that you all read up on the subject and become better informed. Many of you have big issues with the LTN. Your prerogative. You crunch through the figures. Fine. And then talk about lack of joined up-ness. Start by looking at the top and then going down. You are looking from the wrong way round.

Here's the government's plans for tackling roadside air quality (a legal requirement following action in the Supreme Court): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/633270/air-quality-plan-detail.pdf

This is the role of the Mayor:

The Mayor of London is responsible for air quality in the capital and has reserve powers under Part IV of the Environment Act 1995 to reflect this. Under the Act the Mayor may direct the boroughs in the Greater London area on how they should assess and prioritise action in their areas.

Here is how the Mayor is working with the boroughs

https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/pollution-and-air-quality/working-london-boroughs

I'm offering no opinion (beyond read up on the subject). The main thrust of the London air quality plan is the ULEZ, the original commitment being the last Mayor ie the current PM. You can speculate how he is working with the current Mayor and DfT's relationship with GLA. Government does have the upper hand.

[ab29]

Totally agree BB. The traffic that we experience now in the area during the day is of a volume that we used to see only during rush hours.

And what about people living on South Circular? They've been double hit with HTN and now ULEZ.

What has the council done or is planning to do to improve the air quality for them - or anyone who has to walk there or wait at the bus stops? Nothing.

Bic Basher Wrote:

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

> Penguin68 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

>

> > Our closest representatives are those we elect

> > locally - and they should be fighting our

> corner

> > against the other groups, if their plans reduce

> > our life quality. Not acting as if they didn't

> > exist.

>

> And that's just it, I received an email from my

> local Dulwich Wood Cllr who span the figures for

> me and claimed ULEZ would improve issues. So

> that's why at 2.30pm there was a queue from the

> Dulwich Common junction of LL to just past Friern

> Road.

[smooch]

apologies if this has already been covered, but the concerns of local businesses regarding the impact of LTN's upon them seem to have been justified. In Melbourne Grove, Callows had to move and now it seems the Hairdresser's have shut the branch there. I know they had said that the closed road had seriously impacted upon their trading levels. Bet the councillors have nothing to say about this.

[northernmonkey]

And yet - their note in the window said their landlord had put the rent up. Or actually said the landlord was unreasonable. The same happened with the barbers opposite, but they did re let quickly so perhaps GM?s landlord thought they could do the same and make more money?

[Rockets]

Northern - check out their note. ED NAGAIUTB posted it earlier today on this thread. It clearly says that the landlord, residents and council have all contributed to their demise and they call out the road closures as one of the factors.

One wonders what will go in it?s place - another artisan coffee shop or two I wonder? It increasingly looks like the road closures are starting to take their toll.

Remind me again, beyond a few children cycling to school, what are the actual benefits of these LTNs because with every passing day it seems there fewer and fewer?

[tiddles]

I cycle along the south circular three days a week (to and from work so twice a day) so I am wondering what the pollution levels are now since the cars etc are stationary or very slow moving. Remind me of the aims? Lower pollution?

[malumbu]

Why on earth would you cycle along the South Circular? I do it if I really have to. It's always been busy. Anyway the good news is, say for an hour or so each day, the cardio-vascular benefits outweigh the harm from pollution. Yes I got that from a real medic not plucked it out of thin air. Not so good if you are a courier or Deliveroo cyclist. But there again as we all now the air quality inside a car can often be worse than outside. An article by some sir or other, something about being the government's former Chief Scientific Advisor https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/12/children-risk-air-pollution-cars-former-uk-chief-scientist-warns

There are worse places to cycle such as the A3, A10 and A13 cycle routes, ie the cycle lanes that follow these 'motorways'

There's a nice cycle route through to Clapham Junction via Herne Hill and Brixton Hill, lots of quiet traffic calmed roads. I had to cycle to New Eltham a few months ago, and found a similarly tranquil route through parks and lots of roads with traffic restrictions. I am sticking true to my word and doing positive posts today.

[Rockets]

Malumbu - you do realize don't you that you could always find quiet routes before LTNs? My route to Hammersmith used to take me along lots of quiet backstreets (in fact the busiest point was the Battersea Park roundabout) and the council didn't have to close roads, and the associated negative impacts, to allow me to do that.

There even used to be a great website that would plot routes that used backstreets to get around London.

[DulwichCentral]

Back streets that filled up with cars.

[Rockets]

Did they? Or was that another modelling/mathematical "mistake"?

[northernmonkey]

Yes, I?ve seen the note. But these businesses aren?t breaking their leases no matter how much you?d like to blame the LTNs, their leases are up for renewal and the renewal price is too high for them. The question about whether the LTN means that they have less trade is still there but really, the note didn?t seem to indicate that the landlord was offering to renew on the same ongoing basis.

Will be interesting to see what business moves in instead.

[heartblock]

The 'data' that 'shows' side-streets have increased traffic over 5 years, is not due to more traffic - it was actually a change in how traffic was counted and introduced about 5 years ago, so it looked like a sudden change. A FOI uncovered this and I put this information up eons ago.

In fact it was boundary roads and main roads that had the increase in traffic far more than compared to so called side roads.

Certain authors and organisations continue to use this 'increase' that is just a different counting exercise for much of the flawed data.

I have read GMs note - they blame 'closed roads' and lack of customer parking very high up in their reasons. Same as the locksmith - every business has a poster campaigning against closed roads - these are all very long standing businesses and I imagine they do know how and what impacts a business.

They also know that some residents of MG will not be unhappy to see them all close so the rd is purely a residential rd - with maybe one coffee shop.

[legalalien]

An interesting list of deputation requests for next week?s cabinet meeting, including a joint request from Living Streets and Southwark Cyclists to tell the Council what good stuff they have done and what Council should do next. I bet they have a better chance of being selected to speak than the tenants group who want to discuss poor consultation on infill housing or the leaseholders suggesting that Southwark should refuse to engage developers on new projects when they haven?t fixed fire safety issues on existing ones.

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s103171/Report%20Deputations.pdf

Hopefully they?ll choose the litter picking one as would be interested to hear that. Also the guy from the British Afghan Society.

[Penguin68]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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

> TfL services may be cut due to funding gap, mayor

> warns

>

> Apparently the ULEZ expansion has not led to the

> money bonanza hoped for - as too many Londoners

> have chosen to get ULEZ compliant vehicles or not

> come in - which means that the expansion, for

> which the Mayor prayed-in-aid reduction of

> pollution and improvement of air quality was

> actually (anything sound familiar here?) about

> revenue raising. The Mayor was hoping for a

> continued influx of polluting vehicles, which he

> could charge, not for what has happened.

>

> How unlike the home life of our own dear Council -

> or not?

Any evidence for this (e.g. tfl minutes) or are you just making it up?

This story from the Evening Standard https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ulez-expansion-compliance-less-money-fines-tfl-b966901.html

[redpost]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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

> Penguin68 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > TfL services may be cut due to funding gap,

> mayor

> > warns

> >

> > Apparently the ULEZ expansion has not led to

> the

> > money bonanza hoped for - as too many Londoners

> > have chosen to get ULEZ compliant vehicles or

> not

> > come in - which means that the expansion, for

> > which the Mayor prayed-in-aid reduction of

> > pollution and improvement of air quality was

> > actually (anything sound familiar here?) about

> > revenue raising. The Mayor was hoping for a

> > continued influx of polluting vehicles, which

> he

> > could charge, not for what has happened.

> >

> > How unlike the home life of our own dear Council

> -

> > or not?

>

> Any evidence for this (e.g. tfl minutes) or are

> you just making it up?

>

>

> This story from the Evening Standard

> https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ulez-expans

> ion-compliance-less-money-fines-tfl-b966901.html

That's a non story, just speculation and no mention of covid which has been devastating to tfl fare box

[ab29]

One Dulwich should also put a request so they can tell the council how thousands of people on the boundary roads have to put up with more pollution, dirt and noise and how the idling traffic makes the air pollution worst.

What a farce.

legalalien Wrote:

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

> An interesting list of deputation requests for

> next week?s cabinet meeting, including a joint

> request from Living Streets and Southwark Cyclists

> to tell the Council what good stuff they have done

> and what Council should do next. I bet they have a

> better chance of being selected to speak than the

> tenants group who want to discuss poor

> consultation on infill housing or the leaseholders

> suggesting that Southwark should refuse to engage

> developers on new projects when they haven?t fixed

> fire safety issues on existing ones.

>

> https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s1031

> 71/Report%20Deputations.pdf

>

> Hopefully they?ll choose the litter picking one as

> would be interested to hear that. Also the guy

> from the British Afghan Society.

[Penguin68]

That's a non story, just speculation and no mention of covid which has been devastating to tfl fare box

As the story was about a shortfall in anticipated revenues from the extended ULEZ the reduction in TfL fares because of low public transport travel through Covid is hardly relevant. The suggestion is that the ULEZ charges were anticipated to act as a (part) replacement for these lost revenues. Of course Covid has massively reduced travel revenues (and indeed increased, through more cleaning) TfL costs. It's rather more journalism than speculation, and I suspect the figures were sourced by bona fide journalistic methods rather than just invented.

The story:-

TfL said ?early indications? were that the Ulez ? which expanded to the suburbs on October 25 ? would not generate as much cash as it hoped due to ?greater compliance? with the rules.

TfL had predicted that about 135,000 cars and vans a day would pay the ?12.50 levy as a result of their exhaust emissions breaching the new rules, while about 2,000 HGVs would face the higher ?100 charge.

This would have generated up to ?2m a day, in a mixture of levies and ?130 fines for motorists who failed to pay.

This is in spite of the fact that the Ulez was set up to reduce toxic air, not to generate cash.

has too many hard figures in it (easily disputed if invented) not to stand up. Or are you arguing that the ULEZ wasn't set up to reduce toxic air (which it apparently doesn't (yet) seem to have done either - or not much).

[Rockets]

The fact the ULEZ will deliver ?600m less is actually great news because it means that TFLs modelling on tbe number of higher polluting vehicles coming into London was wrong.

It's bad news of course for TFL as that was a revenue plug they desperately need.

It is also amazing that just one month after spending hundred of millions rolling out the ULEZ scheme TFL is basically admitting it probably wasn't needed or the threat of it alone has delivered the desired effect. I wonder if, again, TFL has modelled something that just wasn't actually happening in reality and got things very wrong.

I don't know about anyone else but it seems a bit rich to use one of your own schemes that you are solely responsible for as an example of why you can't make the books add up and one of the reasons why you need more money from central government.

Isn't this the point the Tories are trying to make about mismanagement at TFL?

[Metallic]

The more you look at the activities of Southwark Council, the more you see that they are completely dismissing any constructive criticism, even when it could be that it would positively help the Borough and its residents. Especially their own Council tenants who seem to be the bottom of the pile for getting their voices heard. The road issues have brought to the fore quite a few poor Council decisions, but the one I am most annoyed about is Williams promising all the data to be openly available, and now, somehow, (presumably he has been overruled) we can't see it.

[heartblock]

Data that shows the negative impact will never be released voluntarily- FOI's are delayed with 'Covid-19' as the excuse.

They are hoping we just go away - but the traffic outside our doors, polluting our children and our schools, the delayed buses and the impact on carers, the elderly and residents with mobility issues remains.

So - we won't stop telling Southwark and we will not go away.

[malumbu]

Not sure why the joy about the ULEZ failing to bring in the expected revenues.

Not sure why it is so difficult to grasp that vehicles are causing the emissions and there needs to be a fast solution to this - the Tories are not going to raise Fuel Excise Duty nor are they going to rush to introduce road user charging.

Not sure why so many of you want to return to the old ways of unfettered driving - the right to drive where you want, what you want, how you want, where you want etc.

Not sure why the thread at times morphs to local shopping. Across the country most either order on line and/or drive to their local out of town retail park.

How come we are we all suddenly expert transport modellers and cardio vascular specialists? I'm not but have had the pleasure of working with some.

At the end of the day private vehicle owners and us as consumers need to change our way

Otherwise this thread is blah blah blah and more blah blah blah.

More useful homework for you: https://www.trueinitiative.org/media/597602/oliver-lord-london.pdf To summarise: T H E A N S W E R I S C L E A N E R V E H I C L E S B U T A L S O L E S S K I L O M E T R E S D R I V E N (cut and pasted from the above, I try not to use capitals but maybe on this occasion...)

Just checked this post and the capitals above are a bit busy on the eye (looked fine when typing) but leaving them as it makes the point)

[legalalien]

Malumbu, agree with your message in caps, just don?t think LTNs result in less km driven. All the figures, if to be believed, talk about number of trips, not number of kms. If you cancel the small percentage of short trips but elongate most trips that doesn?t achieve your desired goal.

I think the threat (or ?advance warning? to use less emotive language than the media) of ULEZ has worked in large part, several people I know have swapped non compliant vehicles for compliant vehicles in advance of the expansion (although I did speak to someone earlier in the week who had worked out that doing the math and given how often he drove, it was more cost effective to pay the daily fee. He?s now planning to get a small electric car to use for daily run around and keep the old non compliant one for longer journeys. I suspect he is not alone, I have warned him that CPZ will almost certainly be rolled out everywhere ASAP after May 2022, which will affect the arithmetic.)

I?m not a particular fan of driving I just think this Dulwich LTN configuration doesn?t work. There was a lot of traffic congestion in DV and EDG today and I don?t think we can blame it all on early Xmas tree purchases.