LTN: Our Healthy Streets - Dulwich: Phase 3

[SE22_2020er]

@Rockets - not particularly keen to get into a back and forth conversation that will go nowhere (as you and I both know, and 279 pages of this thread clearly prove).

Drop me a PM and let's go for a drink or a walk and talk it through face-to-face. I suspect that may give a more positive outcome rather than typing out yet another post that won't actually get anyone anywhere.

Looking forward to meeting up with you.

[Rockets]

In all seriousness if I was the council I would be getting both sides together and walking/cycling around the area to get the views of both sides of the arguments so everyone can hear the opposing sides' view on what is happening at certain key hotspots in the area. The council could also share their rationale for doing certain things.

Perhaps we could organise it and call it the Dulwich Resident LTN Peace Walk ;-).

The big problem both sides have, I think, is that the council is hiding from the residents on the issue - we have no forum to discuss with them and air our grievances so it looks like the council is operating within its own insular bubble where only the likes of Southwark Cyclists or LCC get invited in to the inner sanctum where the policy decisions are made that are affecting everyone in the area.

[exdulwicher]

it looks like the council is operating within its own insular bubble where only the likes of Southwark Cyclists or LCC get invited in to the inner sanctum

Believe me, if there actually was an All-Powerful Cycling Lobby? and they had paid stooges within Southwark Communist Council, the world would look a very different place.

Thing is, there's never really been a need for a Car-Advocacy organisation. The entire human way of life has been built around the car for the last 60 years, leaving a few campaign groups for various "minorities" (cycling, walking, disabled) and similar fringe groups (like climate change for example). Naturally, most of these could be dismissed as leftie, hippy, socialist do-gooders. It's only fairly recently that people have realised that yes, we need fewer cars / fewer car journeys and more thought given to the environment so it feels a bit like an imbalance.

Bottom line is that most of the campaign groups are quite experienced at dealing with intransigent councils and local Government so they're already in a position to do that - although how often the council listens and actually does anything for them is quite variable.

Most residents who are not especially invested in anything in particular and just get on with life don't really engage with any aspect of local Government other than kicking up a fuss if the bins aren't collected. Nearly half the eligible voters don't even bother to vote in council elections.

Perhaps we could organise it and call it the Dulwich Resident LTN Peace Walk winking smiley.

That's a genuinely good idea, I'd be up for that. I think ultimately, most people on here want the same things - less traffic, less pollution, safer streets. There's just some differences in opinion of how that should be done.

[SE22_2020er]

@Rockets - I am being serious - drop me a PM.

[exdulwicher]

It's like internet dating! I've got this vision of people meeting up in Dulwich Square*...

"Hi, are you Rockets...?"

*sorry, couldn't resist... ;-)

[Rockets]

Southwark News reports from the scene....

There was an initial awkward stand-off. Approaching along Dulwich Village the anti-LTN lobby arrived in a fleet of diesel belching monster trucks all sporting wood burning stoves and announced their arrival by driving over the planters. The occupants, bloated on freshly shot game, emerged taking huge intakes of breath from freshly filled petrol cannisters.

The pro-LTN group unicycled down Calton avenue and dismounted outside Au Ciel. Dressed entirely in Southwark Cyclist lycra the unhealthily emaciated riders dismounted with a resounding click of pedal clips on concrete. They walked towards the anti-LTN groups with an odd gait as if they had recently accidentally sat on something quite sharp.

Cllrs Newens, Leeming, McAsh and Rose stood uncomfortably in no man's land between the two groups, shifting nervously from side to side and lamenting the days when the council could implement projects without anyone caring....

The tension was broken when the LTN Peace Quartet (featuring Rahx3, Malumbu, Heartblock and Rockets) struck up the LTN Peace song on a flute, harpsichord, tuba and Hawaiian ukulele...

[legalalien]

Pity you?ve missed the Neighbourhood Funds round.

Think there?s the kernel of a good idea in there though.

[malumbu]

exdulwicher Wrote:

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

> It's like internet dating! I've got this vision of people meeting up in Dulwich Square*...

>

> "Hi, are you Rockets...?"

>

>

>

> *sorry, couldn't resist... ;-)

I suggested this a few days ago, there are so many posts here that I can't find my OP. I'm still waiting......

[Earl Aelfheah]

Read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Then look at all the published research examining the effects of LTNs and the data gathered by vehicle counts.

Once you?ve done this, ask yourself honestly, what is the thrust of 99% plus of that evidence? Don?t go straight to looking for any bits that you think might be flawed. Consider what the overwhelming direction of that significant body of evidence is first. You can then look at where there may be issues with discrete bits of data, but don?t go straight there without first seeing where it sits in the full context of all the available evidence.

If you?re still convinced that LTNs (and like the poster above, congestion charge and the ULEZ) actually increase traffic and reduce active travel? well good luck to you and your conspiracy theories.

[SE22_2020er]

Readers,

I woke up this morning, excited like a small child on Christmas Morn. You won't even be able to imagine my disappointment when I saw my inbox was empty. Not a jot from Rockets.

I feel so let down, my hopes for a relationship have been dashed. I'm sorry Rockets that you've chosen a life of being a keyboard warrior over a relationship with me.

Oh well, I'm off for a long bike ride to try and mend my broken heart. I'll pop back in the New Year to read through the next 50 odd pages of pointless hyperbole, but until then, goodbye Rockets. I will miss you.

Yours,

Spurned of East Dulwich Grove

[Rockets]

SE22_2020er....just dream of what could have been!! ;-)

And congrats to Rahx3 for shattering the Christmas Truce with the shots fired in the wee hours of this morning! ;-)

[heartblock]

I think we all want the same - less traffic, less car use, less pollution. I know I do and my ideas are far more radical than LTNs - I would certainly bring in a complete ban on fossil fuel cars and bring in policy of only having one car per household, plus road charging on all so called 'main roads' or residential ribbon roads as I like to call them.

Also a huge investment on local public transport - small - green - very regular buses, with good spaces for heavy shopping and prams/buggies/bikes.

Investment in free pick-up of large rubbish from the council - as it was before.

We just disagree on whether LTNs reduce or increase traffic miles/pollution and social injustice.

[Rockets]

Heartblock - agree with all of the above and I would do more to incentivise people to move to electric vehicles - if they have to drive far better they go electric.

I would go further and say road pricing on all roads.

I would also look to focus on providing cycle and walking infrastructure that is not in isolation and forms part of a joined-up London-wide approach to helping facilitate modal shift (but also being cognisant of the challenges of trying to turn London into an Amsterdam)

[goldilocks]

and we're back to - this data doesn't support my own perception, so I'll continue to believe that I must be right and the data is wrong...

The only thing we can say is that its true that you think traffic has increased. That doesn't actually mean that overall traffic has. There is clear evidence showing that actually traffic has fallen. Indeed, outside Heartblock's house and her neighbours who are sad about the current levels of traffic on the central portion of EDG, its actually fallen by 20%. This isn't gaslighting, just data supported fact.

Its clear that you aren't individually going to accept the data, and thats up to you, but for anyone else reading

- the latest data shows traffic down from the previous counts,

- down overall on the section of East Dulwich Grove where there is a 'remove LTNs sign' on every house, and

- active travel is up.

[heartblock]

Oh dear Goldilocks... just continued gaslighting and we were all getting on so well. Data - made up figure and not a 'fact'. On my bit of road there is nowhere for the 28% increase to disappear as all the other roads are closed- how 28+20% (equating to more than 1000 vehicles) and 48% of traffic can just 'evaporate' when there is nowhere for that traffic to go - surely must give you a slight question mark on this made-up data?

It is so sad that I can see the pro-LTN point of view, yet disagree and all you can do is gaslight my experience and my reading of the data. If a table of counts has no data counted in Sept 2019 - then no data was collected.

Here is that table again. Pre-implementation Phase 1 and Phase 2 - no data collected in EDG central - it is very clear isn't it?

Anyway - showing that no data was collected and therefore it is nonsense to keep hanging onto the only decrease on EDG -an outlier as ALL other data for the whole consultation shows increases in cars, motorbikes and HGVs is a pointless action by me as the Council and you seem dedicated to this one statistic generated by a 'guess'.

I'm obviously used to far more rigour and critical analysis than both you and Southwark so here we must part ways in this particular line of thought.

[DuncanW]

Heartblock - you're right, there is common ground in that most of us want less pollution and congestion = less cars. There have been a couple of contributors who have pretty much said they don't care - let's consider those as outliers.

I'm not sure about the viability of all your suggestions though:

Banning fossil fuel cars - yes 100%, but it won't happen in the next ten years. Too big a job.

One car per household - just seems really impractical to enforce, what about shared flats/houses - families with grown-up children etc..?

Road charging is an option, but are you suggesting only on certain types of road - like EDG? How is that fair? All the main roads in Southwark are also residential, OKR, Camberwell(S), Walworth etc... - you could extend C-charge to the ULEZ I suppose, but good luck to any authority that tries to implement that

By the way, I would be entirely happy with a 'new world' where all those things were reality - I'm just doubtful they can be implemented in the time-frame needed.

[goldilocks]

Whilst by no means wanting to get into a back and forth with you how on earth did you get to your 48%? Are you really taking the increase at Lordship Lane and then adding on the 20% reduction to get to a 48% of all vehicles that have disappeared? If so there's a massive oversight in your method terms of not understanding the denominators for the traffic variance calculators.

Traffic increases or decreases from a base count before the measures were put in so the increase by Lordship Lane is against a base count pre measures at that point. Similarly the decrease the health centre is based on a base count before measures at that point. I know you don't believe that happened, so thats not something that can be reconciled here, although I assume that once you do understand that the counts in January and September are actuals that you'll be able to revise your calculations?

[exdulwicher]

I think we all want the same - less traffic, less car use, less pollution. I know I do and my ideas are far more radical than LTNs - I would certainly bring in a complete ban on fossil fuel cars and bring in policy of only having one car per household, plus road charging on all so called 'main roads' or residential ribbon roads as I like to call them.

Also a huge investment on local public transport - small - green - very regular buses, with good spaces for heavy shopping and prams/buggies/bikes.

Investment in free pick-up of large rubbish from the council - as it was before.

As DuncanW says above though, most of these are not in the gift of councils to deliver.

ICE vehicles will continue to be sold up until 2030 which means that potentially there'll still be some on the roads by 2050. Even if you manage to swap all 2.6 million cars in London ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/314980/licensed-cars-in-london-england-united-kingdom/ ) to EV overnight, it does nothing to solve congestion, parking, road danger and the associated KSI stats and it brings with it the extra concerns over charging. There are already issues of charging cables trailing across pavements which is a trip hazard to pedestrians, especially blind/partially sighted and disabled. EVs are PART of the solution to reducing pollution at source albeit a lot of that pollution gets shifted elsewhere in terms of mining and extracting the materials to make batteries, disposing of used batteries etc.

One car per household - desirable certainly but to achieve that you have to promote modal shift so that the parent who used to drive the kids to school now feels the roads are safe enough for the kids to walk/ride and can eventually get rid of the car. The thing is that cars are extremely expensive, many will be on lease deals so it's not a case of saying "OK, there's an LTN here now, get shot of it". Might take 2+ years for that to happen but it's certainly achievable for many. You can guide it a bit as well by ensuring that all new-build has only one parking space, has good active travel provision etc. Sadly, the Government are moving the other way by installing charging points in all new builds...

Road charging is (usually) a regional or national policy so Congestion Charge for example. The only way you could put a charge on EDG by itself would be to have it as a private road (like the upper half of College Road).

Buses - again, it's not a bad suggestion at all but someone has to pay for it. If it's council run, does it tie in with Oyster? In which case you need agreements from TfL. If it's got it's own contactless payment system that needs a separate IT infrastructure and people aren't going to be willing to pay two sets of fares. If it's simply free and it's run as a circular hop-on-hop-off, then the council have to foot the bill for it which is going to be the cost of the buses, drivers, maintenance, storage etc as well as running it. And then you run into Cost Benefit Analysis, usage, what routes it will do, what the demand is likely to be. Cost for a new bus route is in the order of ?250,000 for the first year and we still run into the issues of buses getting down some of the roads. Realistically, if you put a couple of circular bus routes in, how much traffic would it take off EDG / LL? There's already buses on both.

Pick up of rubbish - again, councils have had their funding slashed over the last decade. Why do free pick-ups on the odd occasion someone wants to get rid of a sofa when it can be a service that raises some revenue for the council. The alternative is a raise on everyone's council tax for a service that most people would barely use.

LTNs are a relatively cheap easy intervention, easy enough to remove or tweak as required and they work (or they're supposed to be used in conjunction with) cycle lanes / routes, parking restrictions to drive the modal shift required.

You're focussed on EDG (which is fair enough if you live there) and after an initial spike, traffic levels are trending downwards again.

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

The answer to that, to get less traffic, is to have MORE restrictions, not "open the whole lot up again". There's a area-wide decrease offset by a slight increase in a couple of locations. Rather than trade significant reduction elsewhere for "return the streets to the status quo where everything was jammed", there needs to be something done to further reduce traffic along EDG in particular. Your ideas of segregated cycle routes, restriction on parking, bus lanes etc were very good and a lot of that is within the councils powers (or at least, council with TfL) and is fairly cheap and quick(ish) to implement. You've got the right idea about campaigning for less traffic (which brings with it less pollution, less congestion, less road danger) but the wrong target for it.

Edited cos I forgot to put the streetspace link in!

[legalalien]

Not sure if people have seen this - looks like they are turning the Melbourne Grove North closure around again ie keeping it at the Grove Vale end? Haven?t read it yet.

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=50028079

Temporary order to protect the safety of pupils at Charter ED.

Getting all very messy now in terms of consulting on experimental orders, and then revoking them and putting temporary ones in thereby bypassing further consultation.

[Rockets]

This bit of that order speaks volumes:

Overall the response from the consultation regarding the measures on

Melbourne Grove North, Derwent Grove, Elsie Road and Tintagel Crescent

showed a preference for the measures to be removed. However, the

measures were popular with those who were residents of the filtered streets.

I wonder how much pressure was exerted by those same residents on the filtered streets to not move forward with the revised measures? Is the Melbourne Grove Resident's Association now rivalling Southwark Cyclists for airtime and influence with the council?

How much longer can they use the cover of Covid for the experimental/temporary TOs - it seems ludicrous they can still invoke them two years on - will this ability to avoid talking to residents continue forever - is this not a classic example of a council abusing the powers given to them in a time of emergency?

[legalalien]

Not sure it?s that, as both experimental and temporary orders are available in non-emergency times. I just don?t understand why the school?s input wasn?t solicited and taken into account as part of the consultation. Maybe inefficiency, or maybe wanting to be seen to compromise and then realising it wouldn?t work (or maybe waiting for the movement data).

Did someone mention that the main entrance to the school is to move to EDG? Maybe this new arrangement is linked to the delay in finalising funding / kicking off the construction contract which might delay the change of entrance and make safety at the current entrance more of an issue?

Also think I saw a revised temporary closure on Gilkes, removing parking bays etc outside St Barnabas Hall to facilitate the construction project. Until Oct 2022 if I read it correctly, will look properly next time I go past.

[Earl Aelfheah]

So just to recap. The same people who were last week saying the LTN pushed more cars past the school, are now demanding that the LTN is removed so that more cars can be pushed past the school? Oh, and they say all the vehicle counts are fake, then pull a 48% figure out of the air? It?s absurdist nonsense.

At this point one has to conclude that there are some people on here who are more interested in trying to prove themselves right, than doing what?s right.

[Rockets]

No Rahx3 we are questioning why the council's plan to move the closure on Melbourne Grove has been changed and what /who influenced that decision and why the council seems happy to make u-turns (no pun intended) to appease some on Melbourne Grove yet won't hear or consider anyone else's concerns.

Look at the bigger picture, you can see how the council works from the statement from the report on how they are justifying the u-turn on the Melbourne Grove relocation of the closure, which I have pasted below again (although this is a reference to the initial consultation before you accuse me of talking about the removal of the measures completely).

That the turkeys didn't vote for Christmas comes as no surprise but the bigger concern is that the views of everyone else were ignored to keep the turkeys happy in the very first consultation....

For the few, Not the many......

Overall the response from the consultation regarding the measures on

Melbourne Grove North, Derwent Grove, Elsie Road and Tintagel Crescent

showed a preference for the measures to be removed. However, the

measures were popular with those who were residents of the filtered streets.

[exdulwicher]

How much longer can they use the cover of Covid for the experimental/temporary TOs - it seems ludicrous they can still invoke them two years on - will this ability to avoid talking to residents continue forever - is this not a classic example of a council abusing the powers given to them in a time of emergency?

Experimental Traffic Orders can be put in at any time. Section 9 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

It's not an abuse of power at all, it's specifically within legislation.

It's actually a far better way of doing things than endless rounds of consultations and what ifs and modelling and "well we think x.." and then spending ??? rebuilding an entire junction.

Get on and do it, monitor it, decide if it has or hasn't had the desired effect and then either remove it, adjust it or make it permanent. Answers via a mix of consultations and real life "we can see what is happening and why".

[Earl Aelfheah]

heartblock Wrote:

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

> Oh dear Goldilocks... just continued gaslighting

> and we were all getting on so well. Data - made up

> figure and not a 'fact'. On my bit of road there

> is nowhere for the 28% increase to disappear as

> all the other roads are closed- how 28+20%

> (equating to more than 1000 vehicles) and 48% of

> traffic can just 'evaporate' when there is nowhere

> for that traffic to go - surely must give you a

> slight question mark on this made-up data?

>

> It is so sad that I can see the pro-LTN point of

> view, yet disagree and all you can do is gaslight

> my experience and my reading of the data. If a

> table of counts has no data counted in Sept 2019 -

> then no data was collected.

>

> Here is that table again. Pre-implementation Phase

> 1 and Phase 2 - no data collected in EDG central -

> it is very clear isn't it?

>

> Anyway - showing that no data was collected and

> therefore it is nonsense to keep hanging onto the

> only decrease on EDG -an outlier as ALL other data

> for the whole consultation shows increases in

> cars, motorbikes and HGVs is a pointless action by

> me as the Council and you seem dedicated to this

> one statistic generated by a 'guess'.

>

> I'm obviously used to far more rigour and critical

> analysis than both you and Southwark

Oh please. It?s not just the vehicle counts. You?ve also rubbished the peer reviewed, published research looking at the effects of LTNs. You deny the possibility of ?evaporation? even though it?s a well researched, well documented and widely accepted concept. You even tried to impugn the reputation of a well regarded academic researching in this area.

The evidence all reaches broadly the same conclusions. And yet you seem obsessed with Trying to find discrete bits of data that you might be able to find flaw with, whilst at the same time completely ignoring (or rather deliberately avoiding any acknowledgement of) the overwhelming direction of a significant body of evidence.

Answer me this- If a wide body of evidence all suggests that LTNs are reducing traffic and increasing active travel, why would you conclude the opposite is true? You talk of rigour, but are so obviously falling into the trap of confirmation bias it?s painful to watch. Especially from someone who talks so much about how rational and rigorous they are.