LTN: Our Healthy Streets - Dulwich: Phase 3

[Earl Aelfheah]

I think we're a long way from 'complete cycle domination' so I wouldn't worry about that. Motor vehicles on the other hand do dominate the vast majority of public space, so there is quite a bit of scope for some rebalancing.

[Earl Aelfheah]

@Rockets - agreed.

[legalalien]

Yep 100%.

rahrahrah Wrote:

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> One thing I think everyone can probably agree on,

> is that the lack of data / baselining and ongoing

> monitoring is extremely unhelpful.

[heartblock]

Living here for 30 years I have noticed all changes and as someone who professionly is very aware of the inflammatory response to pollution in terms of cardiovascular and respiratory health I don't confuse changes in traffic on my road.

When the junction at Townley and ED Grove was changed it caused more congestion on ED Grove, when Southwark planned a pedestrian crossing on ED Grove in the wrong place and then left a useless speed hump that caused more pollution I noticed, when the hospital was knocked down and lorries with dusty particulates drove down the Grove..I noticed.

So as someone who teaches at a clinical level about the dangers of pollution on health..please do not 'explain' to me about my perception.

[exdulwicher]

So as someone who teaches at a clinical level about the dangers of pollution on health..please do not 'explain' to me about my perception.

The problem is though, it's still anecdotal. I don't think anyone is doubting you, I don't think, re-reading rahx3's posts that he/she has called you a liar.

But in terms of the data and monitoring that is also mentioned, it is null and void, it is as it's sometimes termed, "anecdata" - information or evidence that is based on personal experience or observation rather than systematic research or analysis. That's not to say it's invalid either though.

If it's any consolation, most councils lack the funds and/or expertise to be monitoring traffic / pollution all the time anyway and in many cases you end up with such a mass of data that actually not a lot useful can be gained from it anyway.

It's relatively easy to get macro levels of data on stuff like traffic along a road, passengers in and out of a station, pollution within an area etc but breaking it down into (for example) what type of traffic, where is it from, where is it going etc is much more complicated.

You don't really need to have counters across every road 24/7, nor do you need to have a pollution monitoring station on every road but data, by it's very nature, is always a year or two behind anyway.

And when that year includes probably the greatest upset to movement in living memory, the data is massively off. If it helps at all, this has impacted road and rail and it's basically wrecked all the models (rail slightly less so since trains are a lot easier to plot in terms of where they're from and where they're going!).

But yeah, baselines are off (unless you go back to 2018/19) and there's been a lot of interventions across multiple councils, locations etc and the private car stats are impacted by the public transport stats to a far greater degree than normal.

Honestly, it'll take another year to untangle it all but obviously by then things will have moved on again. If there's a plus point to it, it might impress on councils the need to have these kind of figures year in year out but who knows.

[heartblock]

They do have data...data that there are illegal levels of pollution on roads that are not in LTNs and their own research from 2018, where they concluded that an LTN at Calton/ Court would cause congestion on these roads.

I agree that Southwark?s monitoring is at the best incompetent and at the worse purposely missing because they do not want to know the real data as it will not favour the mess they have made of very poorly planned and badly implemented LTNs.

If you look at the history of the lobby and the published document from Southwark in 2018 about closing roads at the request of residents in Melbourne, Court and Calton, it was all about making quiet neighbourhoods for these roads and nothing about pollution reduction. In fact the conclusion was that these road closures would cause so much congestion on LL and East Dulwich Grove, specifically, the rd closures were abandoned.

Along comes a Tory minister, offers Southwark cash and the vanity project rolls into place...

[Rockets]

Unfortunately it was a fundamentally flawed approach from the get go that was pushed through under the dubious justification of the need for social distancing using the pandemic as the Trojan horse to push through measures they had no local mandate to do. They hoped people would buy in but all they managed to do was galvanize support from vested-interest groups who weren't actually reflective of the thoughts of local residents.

Since then they have been desperately trying to skew everything towards the outcome they so desperately desire.

Meanwhile us local residents are having to live with the fallout and you know if the review forces a council about turn not a single councillor will be accountable.

[malumbu]

A number of you use the term "illegal levels of pollution". It may help your cause if you toned the rhetoric down a little. There have been 'illegal' levels of pollution ever since the limits were set. Government has been through numerous challenges through the courts, and would have been subject to action by the EU (obviously as long as we stayed in it), until the Supreme Court Stepped in. So illegal levels of pollution are not something new.

As this is seen all over the UK who should be taking action against most of the local authorities?

I could soap box about illegal drivers (and other road users), speeding, using their mobile phones. But I choose other ways of campaigning. Personally I'd be happy to have drivers with hands on mobile phones having their cars sent to the crusher. That would learn them, five points just isn't enough.

There are some adult discussions to be had on reducing pollution. There is nice thread that has died a death since being put on the Lounge (shame). Ultimately we need to use our cars less. I do. On a parallel subject why do we have traffic calming? Because so many motorists will not keep within a sensible speed, so we have to have these clumsy interventions. Same can be argued for air quality and carbon emissions.

I've attached the government's 2019 Air Quality Strategy for some weekend reading: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/770715/clean-air-strategy-2019.pdf

[heartblock]

Personally I would say if you are going to read anything this weekend, stick to some scientific facts and a fascinating article by Dr Abigail Whitehouse, Centre for Genomics and Child Health, Queen Mary University of London, UK, for clean air day.

https://www.physoc.org/magazine-articles/air-pollution-and-me/

[redpost]

heartblock Wrote:

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

> Living here for 30 years I have noticed all

> changes and as someone who professionly is very

> aware of the inflammatory response to pollution in

> terms of cardiovascular and respiratory health I

> don't confuse changes in traffic on my road.

>

> When the junction at Townley and ED Grove was

> changed it caused more congestion on ED Grove,

> when Southwark planned a pedestrian crossing on ED

> Grove in the wrong place and then left a useless

> speed hump that caused more pollution I noticed,

> when the hospital was knocked down and lorries

> with dusty particulates drove down the Grove..I

> noticed.

>

> So as someone who teaches at a clinical level

> about the dangers of pollution on health..please

> do not 'explain' to me about my perception.

UK car ownership has doubled over those 30 years from 20m to 40m

Of course, it's nothing to do with this though

[ab29]

"UK car ownership has doubled over those 30 years from 20m to 40m" - so?

How does this justify road closures and pushing traffic from quiet roads to those already busy and polluted?

Overall air pollution stays the same or is even worst - idling traffic - so how does his help at all?

Shouldn't the busiest and dirtiest roads be treated as priority?

There has to be a bigger change: stop producing cars; stop exporting cars; make it illegal to have more than one car per household (with exceptions); make people pay for driving.

Or do the LTN supporters want to make it better only for themselves?

[redpost]

ab29 Wrote:

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

> "UK car ownership has doubled over those 30 years

> from 20m to 40m" - so?

>

> How does this justify road closures and pushing

> traffic from quiet roads to those already busy and

> polluted?

> Overall air pollution stays the same or is even

> worst - idling traffic - so how does his help at

> all?

>

> Shouldn't the busiest and dirtiest roads be

> treated as priority?

>

> There has to be a bigger change: stop producing

> cars; stop exporting cars; make it illegal to have

> more than one car per household (with exceptions);

> make people pay for driving.

>

> Or do the LTN supporters want to make it better

> only for themselves?

because with current traffic growth on sideroads continuing at its current rate, ALL roads will be chock a block in a few years time unless something is done about it ... and something more than the vague handwaving of timed school road closures expressed on this forum

at least this gives children, pedestrians and cyclists the use of clear side roads

[ab29]

"because with current traffic growth on sideroads continuing at its current rate, ALL roads will be chock a block in a few years time" - so it is ok for people living on the main roads to die of lung cancer ten years earlier because of the worsen air pollution due to the increased traffic (=LTNS)? Really?

[ab29]

Do you realise that people using the "quiet roads" do it for 5 - 10 minutes every day while people living on the roads taking the extra traffic have to put up with it 24/7?

[heartblock]

1. The Department for Transport?s (DfT) carried out a minor road traffic benchmarking exercise, where how they estimate traffic on side roads was changed. In their own words they do not know how this effected the data set that has been used to justify LTNs on the basis of an increase in traffic on side roads. In fact the major increase has been on so called 'main roads' rather then 'side roads'. Presently - TFL "are currently working through how the DfT have made this assessment, and also what this could mean for London data sets". It also notes that the TFL traffic data in the report will be unchanged "pending further investigation of this revision with the DfT". In plainer language - the data is flawed, they admit it is, but they are not unpublishing it.

For clarity - Previously, the data suggested a decrease in vehicle kms between 2009 and 2018 of 2%, whereas the revisions now suggest an 18% increase after the flawed benchmarking.

2. The population has also increased in this time period..does that mean we should shove poorer people into dangerous and not fit for purpose homes.

3. LTNs kettle traffic onto other roads, there is absolutely no data or evidence they reduce pollution

LTNs just tinker around at the edges, cause more pollution on already polluted roads and really don't change anything for residents except for those living in LTNs, many of whom have large houses, big gardens and more than one vehicle per household - with a high percentage of SUV ownership.

Solutions

1. Only electric vehicles in London

2. One vechicle per household

3. School buses

4. Close private schools, so all education is local

5. Ban BBQ, fires and log burning stoves

6. All commercial vehicles to be electric

7. Open canals as commercial transport routes

8. Clean trams and more local public transport

[jazzer]

1. not feasible

2. as above

3. quite possible

4. You can't dictate how people educate their children

5. Not a dictatorship just yet

6. If the UK had the infrastructure to support this, but we don't. The UK electricity power network was not designed to deal with so much usage

7. If the canals had not been filled in, then yes, but see what happened to the Surrey Canal, train lines replaced many

8. The trams are clean, trams did exist before buses were introduced, take a look back at history, London then had hundreds of trams. Again more use of electricity and as already stated we don't have the infrastructure to support this.

I'd suggest not trying to create the, them and us, rich against poor, weak against strong senario.

[ab29]

"I'd suggest not trying to create the, them and us, rich against poor, weak against strong scenario" - Southwark council has already done that.

If having a BBQ is more important than working towards clean air(ish) for ALL (including those living on main roads) than that's your answer.

[alice]

The unanswered question is why do the main beneficiaries live in the least polluted, most wealthy part of Southwark?

[jazzer]

BBQ's, fires and log burning stoves are filthy and quite possibly carcinogenic but you can't stop people using them

[ab29]

Why not?

jazzer Wrote:

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> BBQ's, fires and log burning stoves are filthy and

> quite possibly carcinogenic but you can't stop

> people using them

[alice]

Anyone struggling to get into the southwark zoom ltn meeting?

[Rockets]

The TFL side road stats were manipulated to convince people streets needed closing. Car ownership in London has been declining year on year, probably not as fast as we would all wish but the doubling and massive increases in traffic on side roads is a narrative manipulation tactic used by self-interest groups.

[DulwichCentral]

ab29 Wrote:

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

> How does this justify road closures and pushing

> traffic from quiet roads to those already busy and

> polluted?

Why do people keep denying the roads that were closed were quiet? They clearly weren't - see the video in the tweet.

[ab29]

Oh, so it is ok to make the already busy and polluted roads even more so? Shouldn't the 'clean air for all' start from making it better for those already very badly affected e.g. people living on South Circular?

And looking at the bigger picture - how is pushing the traffic from one road to another better for the overall air pollution and climate change, which the pro-LTN groups like to refer to?

[legalalien]

Today?s meeting was interesting. They didn?t record it.