Road Closures

Details here of even more road closures. They do keep sneaking them in under the radar …

or not…
I might be mistaken but I notice there is nothing here for Forest Hill as in SE23 or the Forest Hill Ward. Our Councillors and ward assemblies have over the years talked about practical changes to make the ward a greener/cleaner area for cyclists/pedestrians/kids/residents. There have been various working groups on various roads but I see nothing here about our area, perhaps our Councillors are still in lockdown.

None of our councillors are the Deputy Mayor.

It’s not the easiest site to navigate. Deliberately piecemeal I imagine. And the suggestions on the map are pretty random and mine asking for school crossings have disappeared.
Our ward boundaries are badly drawn. A bit like the Irish border - the result of a bunch of Puckoon type characters all tugging on the same pencil in different directions over a map? Probably not so innocent.

Part of Forest Hill ward is SE26 and therefore Sydenham for everything other than political purposes The works at Wells Park Road are to the pavement on the park side and therefore Sydenham ward. The ward boundary runs down the middle of Wells Park Road but both sides are SE26.

The Silverdale/Bishopthorpe Road closures will impact Dacres Road and FH School.

https://lewishamcovidtransport.commonplace.is/?utm_source=London%20Borough%20of%20Lewisham&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11608883_COVID-19%20120620&dm_i=402,6WTGZ,WXWRBP,RRVEA,1

The Wells Park Road bits make sense as essentially put up bollards so people can’t drive to the park and park on the pavement which makes it difficult to walk past. Now both sides of the pavement car free and everyone can fit on the pavements. Will fully support such measures. Road fully open for traffic, but it is a bus route anyway.
Also for those less able who may need to drive to the park there are other roads to park on by entrances to the park but makes sense to keep Wells Park Road clear as it also leads on up to Sydenhamhill woods. Hence pavement likely busier. Will certainly be heading there looking for shade in the coming days.

But just decanting cars from one street to another is not a good outcome for streets like Longton Avenue. Tanks on the pavement is just as much of a hazard for the visually impaired as cars. I really think a lot of these problems would be solved by sensible use of ticketing on all pavement parked cars (not just here) and some short stay on road zoning (1-2 hours?) in suitable areas, plus some blue badge spaces for the long term disabled.

But what really to gets me is lack of consultation and joined up thinking. I read now they’re going to close streets with schools during drop off time. Where I live we have Kelvin Grove on upper Kirkdale and Eliot Bank on Thorpewood. But by closing those two roads you drive all the traffic onto Dartmouth Road, where you have Holy Trinity. I believe they need organized drop off zones at the schools themselves - like in the US. We who live on the affected streets ought at least to get consulted. Not just a fait accompli which we don’t even know about if we don’t use Commonplace.

With social distancing being eased, 3 months after lockdown started, surely this has missed the mark by now?

I must admit, I never really understood the approach here - if this was an emergency response to Covid-19, changes should have been made immediately and without consultation, but in a time-bounded fashion pending review in say 3 months after installation. If it is something different to that (which I think it is), there should have been an honest and proper scheme of proposals and consultation - something more akin to the planning system rather than a thrown up website with little structure or verification as to who is commenting and why, as well as limited reach to some demographics (not everyone has a computer, or is able to use one).

In the mean time, as pointed out by James D Evans, we have Key Recommendations from the Mayor of London’s 2018 air quality audit program being ignored, affecting air quality for our local children:

And then we have Aldi running their shop from diesel generators 400m away from Heseltine School, still waiting for a decision on planning permission which was filled almost exactly 5 months ago back in February and should have been decided by now. At least with 5 objections, the planning application will have to be considered by the Planning Committee Chair for review by the committee even under the proposed new rules.

Superb post, @ForestHull

All credit to James D Evans for keeping an eye on these things and tweeting the relevant Councillors (who appear to be ignoring him with just a generic reply from @LewishamCouncil).

Note I’m not opposing well considered and researched changes to streets to make them better for pedestrians or cyclists where needed, it’s just the method and priorities here seem fairly underhanded, to be polite.

Are you referring to Lewisham Deputy Mayor Chris Best who lives/lived on Bishopsthorpe Road according to this council record.

But that’s one of the roads having modal filters fitted. I’m sure with a complete and thorough consultation process, this can only be a mere co-incidence!

You appear to contradict yourself here and then here

Ha, yes! The sarcasm of my second statement that you quote is sometimes lost on the Internet

Some other residents of Bishopsthorpe Road (from the conversation on se26.life):

I think it is great that Councillors live within the ward, they are more inclined to improve the local environment and if it just happens that the road where they live is resurfaced or traffic filters applied then at least some people are happy and Lewisham money is spent locally.

They use the local facilities and meet their constituents more regularly just by walking down the street. In many peoples’s minds, it is probably a small price to pay for having more informed local Councillors who on balance will do a better job for their constituents.

There may be objectivity benefits to Councillors living outside FH ward but on balance it is probably negative as it means that un-elected local Labour Party luminaries have more sway than where Councillors see things for themselves.

I think it’s good Councillors live locally too, but there is a conflict here which I think looks suspiciously ugly.

When the commonplace ‘Covid-19’ website was first rolled out, someone commented (on this forum) how the lack of due process and open nature of the website could lead to it benefitting well organised streets or being easily ‘gamed’.

I think it now appears that Bishopsthorpe is a very well organised road and stands to benefit from this scheme, perhaps disproportionately given the prior reports of air quality issues 1km down the road at Bell Green and Heseltine Primary School are apparently being overlooked.

I will be daring enough to suggest that if more (any?) residents from Bishopsthorpe sent their children to Heseltine, the Majors air quality audit would have been looked at and action taken already. Similarly I imagine the diesel generators at Aldi would not have been allowed to run for so long.

I think that where a development directly affects a Councillor’s own property, then that Councillor should recuse themselves from the decision making process. Same for roads as for Planning. They would do so at Planning Committees, but we don’t know how these decisions on roads are being made or who is informing or making the decisions. That can’t be right.

Obviously residents’ associations are going to push for plans that benefit their own properties, but that shouldn’t be the case with Councillors. I’m not saying it has or hasn’t been. I don’t know. But it doesn’t look good and constituents deserve transparency.

I am not advocating that Councillors vote on something where there is a potential conflict of interest but we are all affected by where we live. It may be that our Councillors say to their neighbours there is not much I can do but if you write/click to the council and organise yourself in groups then you can work the system (some might say this is gaming but it is the new democracy).

There is always conflict in our perceptions such as Mais House, some might say really important that we put in as much social housing as possible others might say what about where we live, extra traffic, parking, height of buildings damaging skyline. There will always be winners and losers but we should learn from those who win rather than be jealous of their achievements.

Mais House is a very good example here. It has also used a commonplace website to aid consultation and gather feedback, but unlike the ‘Covid-19’ streetscape changes, Mais House has ended up in the planning process. This gives a set time for the proposed plans to be scrutinised by the public and objections, support or comments made. Depending on the level of public interest, the planning process will then either move to a decision with a letter detailing the reasons, or go to the Planning Committee for further scrutiny with a chance of further public representation. The Planning Committee will likely be guided by a brief prepared by the Planning Officer overseeing the case and made publically available. Committee members will recuse themselves if there is a potential for conflict of interest e.g. living locally to the development. There is also the chance for a case to be ‘called in’ should interest or conditions exceed the level of the local council on conflict national policy. Most of this happens in public and on public record according to a well defined process.

This is far from the process being used to justify the ‘Covid-19’ street changes which are pressing ahead without such scrutiny, suspiciously to the benefit of Councillors own properties. At the same time, the London Major’s recommendations made two years previously are still not implemented.

I think it’s heading more towards corruption personally.

Can we get back to the old democracy somehow?

The one where people were treated fairly regardless of which road they lived on?

Forgive me for labouring the point, but the overarching problem here is zero-sum policymaking.

If the council could come up with more constructive policy ideas that helped everyone, residents wouldn’t be forced to compete with each other in a system that creates winners only by creating losers.

Nothing democratic about it. There may have always been some who knew how to play the system, but the Council’s use of Commonplace as the sole means of consultation is discriminatory as it excludes some people. Lewisham is supposed to be inclusive.

The Assemblies are subject to an Equal Opportunites Assessment that asks:

5. SCOPE AND FOCUS OF THE EQUALITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT
   The key questions this Equality Impact Assessment has to address are:
   •Could the service affect some groups in the community differently?
   •Will the service promote equality of opportunity?
   •What are the potential equality issues and factors that will impact upon the service?
   •Is the service indirectly discriminating any equalities categories?

There isn’t an equivalent requirement for Commonplace. And yes, I have asked.

The Assemblies are by no means perfect. It’s sometimes a real struggle to get people to attend the FH Assembly. Not so much the Sydenham one, maybe because Sydenham has an accessible town centre venue, which Forest Hill lacks. But Assemblies are never the sole means of consultation. In this case, Commonplace is and it’s an “after the event” retrospective type of consultation. The stable door is well and truly open, the horse has legged it and it will take a lot to calm it down and make it see sense again now.

There are very strict rules about lobbying of and by Councillors (for financial gain or otherwise) and they shouldn’t be seen to be favouring one group of constituents above another. @SophieDavis has always been scrupulously careful about this in relation to Mais House and I’m sure in other matters also.

Lewisham’s Code of Conduct may be downloaded here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjv6v_M-JrqAhXNi1wKHalVCRUQFjABegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Flewisham.gov.uk%2F-%2Fmedia%2Ffiles%2Fimported%2Flewishammembercodeofconduct.ashx&usg=AOvVaw2oq9dRs5KRg2LWvcnTBhdG

The Code of Conduct makes clear that the perception of impariality is important:

Non-registerable interests
5.9 Occasions may arise where a matter under consideration would, or would be
likely to, affect the wellbeing of the member, their family, friend or close
associate(s) more than it would affect those in the local area generally, but
which is not required to be included in the Register of Members’ Interests (for
example, a decision in relation to a school closure, where a member has a
child at the school). In such matters, members must comply with paragraph 5
in its entirety as if the interest were a registerable one.
5.10 Decisions in relation to the declaration of interests are for the member’s
personal judgement. However members must consider not only whether they
have an actual interest in a matter under discussion but should at all times
seek to avoid the impression being created that their judgement of the public
interest is or is likely to be impaired by their personal interests.
5.11 The provisions of this paragraph 5 apply not only to meetings but to
circumstances where a member makes a decision alone.

As I said before, I’m not aware that relevant Councillors have or haven’t been impartial over the road closures. But that’s rather the point. The process should be transparently impartial.

But there were lots of comments and sugestions on the Commonplace map during the ‘consultation’ - where are those comments now and HOW HAVE THEY BEEN ASSESSED?! Last time I looked, when the consult was still live, there were loads of comments about the pedestrian crossings for the A205 next to Forest Hill station and at the junction of A205 and Dartmouth Road.

I assume they’ve been pruned. But I don’t know who did the pruning. I had put suggestions for pedestrian controlled crossing points on Kirkdale at the junctions with Thorpewood and Kelvin Grove, because Kirkdale is crazy busy at school run times and many uncontrolled children running about.

I’d also put a suggestion for double yellows on Kirkdale towards the top of the hill, where cars can only pass one at a time and sightlines are terrible.

Those suggestions disappeared, along with many others I had read and agreed with. I’ve put some of mine back in again, but haven’t checked if they’re still there.

I get the impression of someone sitting in some small back room somewhere just selecting those propisals they’ve already decided on.

perhaps you’re not making enough donations to the local planning department!

That’s the problem @clausy - this stuff doesn’t appear to be going through the planning process. It’s going through an unknown/undefined process which seems arbitrary, without oversight, impartiality or equal opportunity for residents to put their ideas across. And there’s no feedback on why some items are taken forward and others just disappear.

To complicate matters, I think it’s possible the council are using multiple Commonplace instances. The map for “Covid” improvements looked very different from the Commonplace map I saw a few months ago when I last used it.

Similar advice was given on the Radio 4 Today program this morning.

Yes, that looks to be the case. We don’t know which Commonplace ‘consultation’ we’re looking at. The purpose of each needs to be clearly labeled, also whether what we’re looking at is a ‘live’ consultation or the the supposed outcome of a previous Commonplace exercise. How the outcomes are arrived at is crucial. I don’t know anyone who understands how decisions are made, which leads people to conclude that decisions are made in private conversations and that the so-called consultations are a sham.

As shown here, I think the home addresses of local councillors are in the public domain. So in that regard there is transparency. I have also been to planning committees where councillors declared the connection to the application, once through domicile and once through business ties, and rightly recused themselves from the discussion and vote for those applications.

I’ve also gotten to know a number of our past and present local councillors including for Perry Vale and Forest Hill, I am highly confident in their integrity and would be surprised if they wouldn’t approach this issue in the same way. I appreciate this is my personal experience but I feel it is widely shared. But like with all institutions there are exceptions. I am aware of a local councillor who pro-actively lobbies on planning decisions around pubs, but does not declare connections to special interest groups associated to the campaigns.

By all means a local councilor or any public servant should be called out on these issues. But we should also be very careful about casting suspicions on people based solely on domicile.

I am, however, becoming very wary that when there are these clear breaches to these codes, that action may not be taken. There are many prominent examples recently at all levels of government where obvious breaches are either ignored nor investigated. And some bold members of government, as on Radio 4 this morning, even publicly announce ways to “game the system”.

If you can find evidence that local councillors are using their position to gain the system on the road closures please share this. I’m just not accepting that domicile is sufficient to cast aspersions on the reputation of these individuals.

[Humouring the whataboutery for a moment] That’s hardly sinister behaviour. A lot of people care about pubs.

Whereas it’s only really people that live on the Thorpes that care about traffic management on the Thorpes.

Yes in regard to what’s happening on Waldenshaw I do care, for example ridiculous speeding while I’m trying to wash my car parked by the side of the road and don’t want people flying by at 40+. But I also care about traffic management at the FH station crossing and various intersections or stretches where I feel it is unsafe to cycle, for example.

I think it should be up to our elected representatives and council to use processes which adhere to principals of transparency and integrity such that their actions can be clearly justified and seen to be proper if questioned.

While I like the presumption that there is no problem unless evidence to the contrary can be found, I unfortunately lack the investigative powers that are probably needed to out any foul-play or collusion that may be going on behind closed doors. Also note that while the Council member’s addresses appear on public records, I do not think they are intended to be advertised or published as any declaration of interest.

Hear hear. Whilst I agree with @starman that we shouldn’t cast aspersions, the simple point is that if these process and decision making was transparent then it wouldn’t come into question in the first place.

If people are posting suggestions and they’re being removed with no explanation then that’s bound to invite conspiracy theories.

The entire quote was.

So yes, a lot of people care about pubs. But not a lot of people are also in a position of influence to directly lobby those in a decision making capacity. Which I gather has been the concern of many posters on this thread. And that concern I think is well placed and is addressed in part by the part of the Code of Conduct which Marymck posted.

Foresthull is spot on in his later comment about the use of processes.

Property ownership is included in the declaration. But it does appear some feel that domicile should be a declared interest as they would suggest that interest affects their actions. For example.

I would hope those in that position would recuse themselves from any direct decision making process that would affect their residence. Or inform if their actions private or public would have some influence.

This thread has become a good discussion on conduct and conflict by public servants. But it might also be a good time to split this discussion onto a new thread for it to continue.

I remember trying to wash my car and getting the c"ap scared out of my be people going fast on that section. Some seemed to do it on purpose. I did step back in shock a few times accidentally soaking cars!!

I’m not sure we need to split it but happy to hear other opinions, it’s local politics and relevant to the road closure theme, although I would say allegations and generalisations don’t help (from anyone to be clear, no one singled out in particular)

Something something too much moderation…

Hi all,

I just want to comment on a few of the things I’ve seen in this thread and on previous threads discussing our transport strategy in response to covid-19.

Firstly, I’d like to challenge a common sentiment in these threads which is that the ‘knock-on effect’ of model filters - i.e. displacement of traffic onto other roads, is necessarily a bad thing. Modal filters prevent rat-running and funnel traffic down a more limited set of avenues - if the same number of cars utilise the roads it will cause congestion on these ‘displacement’ roads.

How do you avoid getting caught up in this congestion? Simply don’t use your car.

Two-thirds of car journeys in London are under 5km (a 20-minute cycle ride). This is not sustainable. Relatively few people ‘need’ to drive short distances.

Model filters will create ‘quiet ways’ away from rat-running traffic to help you safely and comfortably cycle. The hope is that by creating quiet roads for cycling, more people will take up walking and cycling for short journeys, thus alleviating congestion across the borough.

Model filters will make driving from A to B ‘more difficult’ in a certain area. This will hopefully nudge Londoners to pause before they jump in their car and ask themselves, ‘do I really need to drive?’. In the long-run, it’s about changing our behaviour.

Personally, I would’ve liked to have seen us implement these space-making strategies sooner, without consultation and earlier in the crisis. The consultation period would have been the period in which these modal filters/pavement widening/cycle lanes were active during the crisis - afterwards we then have a thorough consultation and assessment on their relative success and whether they may be made permanent or not. The Department of Transport seemed aware of the need for rapid action. They expanded the remit of traffic regulation orders to encompass Covid-19 response measures. TROs are temporary but can last 18 months but they do not need a 21-day prior consultation period. The DfT understood the need for a rapid response by local authorities before the lifting of lockdown.

Alas, I’m not in charge - the Cabinet member (who is an elected representative) appointed by your directly elected Mayor, is in charge and oversees these decisions. While I certainly understand the frustration of residents with the fact that many councillors have limited power - we haven’t had any more of a say than individual residents on where these filters or pavement expansion may be placed - I do accept that due to the urgency, it was right to delegate these decisions to officers (who at the end of the day are the transport experts).

Consultation is one element of the decision-making process. We delegate many day-to-day or crisis management decisions to officers, overseen by our elected representatives who are guided by personal judgement and the views of those who elected them (views within just one ward, are often very varied!). Executive judgements are scrutinised by the elected members on Overview & Scrutiny committees. I am certain that our traffic-management response to Covid-19 for example, will be poured over by the Sustainable Development SC and officers will detail in their reports their decision-making process. These reports are made available to the public.

I hope this clarifies my position and to some extent that of Lewisham Council.

Many thanks,

Leo

Thanks for your detailed response, @LeoGibbons.

Regarding this point:

Let’s say the local broadband exchange was highly loaded and everyone’s Internet connection was slow as a result. Sure, some of us are shopping online for non-essential items etc, but regardless of our use case, we should be getting the broadband capacity we’re paying for.

I would not take kindly to a broadband provider saying: “how do you avoid congested broadband? Simply don’t use the Internet”

I would certainly not be impressed if that broadband provider then selectively reduced the capacity of customers’ connections in order to dissauade people from using the Internet.

That’s effectively what the council is doing here with our road network, which was paid for by our taxes and which we would like to use regardless of how “necessary” you judge our individual use cases to be.

I don’t think that analogy is right - in the case of broadband it would be like saying, our service is really busy and causing problems for everyone, so here’s a parallel service that gets you the same data in a different way, in largely the same amount of time (oh and by the way, the alternative is cheaper and gives you great legs).

The measures the council are putting in place don’t ban people from moving (ie cut off the broadband) they encourage a change in method.

“Our alternative is dial-up: it gets you the same data in a different way. It’s cheaper and it really helps you work on your patience as you queue for two days while your Netflix episode downloads”

I cannot do a big shop without my car (infrequent bulk shopping is a Covid-19 requirement).

I cannot take refuse to the tip without my car.

I cannot take my baby to visit his grandparents in Essex on my bike.

I cannot get deliveries from deliverymen on bikes.

Carers cannot do their rounds on foot.

Need I go on?

You need not go on Chris

I don’t suggest all journeys must therefore be by cat - but that some should be. I have both a car and bike myself and use my bike 7 days a week and my car once a week or so, mostly for the things you refer to. If the roads got more congested around me I’d drive less and invest in some big panears.

Briefly back to the old broadband example, from my experience of cycling in London most days for 8 years, the bike is the broadband in your example, cars might be ADSL, southern rail maybe morse code.

Edit: you also haven’t addressed most important point re. Legs

That’s good if you’ve found that you don’t need to use your car frequently.

But it’s not for you (or anyone else) to tell us that we should behave in the same way as you do.

All our situations are different.

No one should tell you you must behave like me, but it is legislatures jobs to govern, as DfT have done in this case with their advice to local authorities, which Lewisham council seek to implement.

I know you dispute the consultation, but I remain content that the council are acting in the interest of their residents here accepting that might be at the detriment of some residents, some of the time - if there were cost free wins here being ignored then I would be disappointed, but what are they?

• NOT narrowing roads
• NOT blocking roads
• NOT filling roads with hazards such as chicanes and speed bumps

These policies would:

• save money
• ease congestion
• make people’s journeys shorter
• reduce pollution (fewer acceleration/brake cycles, shorter journeys)
• avoid frustration / overtaking, leading to safer driver behaviour
• help drivers focus on safety (e.g. observing pedestrians and other cars) rather than road clutter

I think we’re rather far apart on this, as is tradition, so I’m going to practice what I preach and have a lovely cycle over to telegraph hill for a pizza in the park. Will be there 25% quicker than I would be in a car, and get to to further tone my great legs.

To quote the post prior to your rewrite:

Here’s my #1 solution: Stop pumping money into increasing residential density in London - especially local authority / housing association projects.

This would save the council a TON of money, and it would reduce congestion, pollution and pressure on local amenities.

Yes, everyone who’s not on the ladder would like other people’s property to be devalued by the building of more housing. However, I’m baffled by those who look at this city and think “needs more buildings”:

Sorry that wasn’t supposed to be a rewrite, I’d intended to reply to my own reply but I think reloading the page reloaded the editor pane I stead of reply pane or something.

Rat runners. Rather an insulting term for drivers trying to get from A to B in the most efficient way. We have problems in South London caused by our overground railways cutting streets in half and creating cul de sacs. That means we have fewer through roads and need to use the ones we’ve got, not funnel pollution (noise and air pollution) down a few “avenues”.

Which are these avenues by the way? Those who are unlucky enough to be singled out for this treatment ought to be told. We know Dacres Road is one. As are Mayow Road and Sydenham Road (high street). Assumedly London Road and Dartmouth Road are too. Heaven help those who live, work or study on those sacrificial “avenues”.

@PV we get that you have legs. That’s nice for you. I also am lucky enough to have legs. I’m not lucky enough to have the knees that allow me to cycle. Many of us have other disabilities too - sometimes less apparent ones. These measures directly discriminate against a vulnerable section of the population. I don’t want to sound rude, but not everyone is as lucky as you, or as me, and our Council has a responsibility to them too.

Cyclists will always advocate cycling because it’s environmentally friendly, good for your health etc etc. Even saves you £1500 in annual travelcards if you need to get into town. That doesn’t mean we expect everyone to cycle and obviously if you need to haul shopping or have any kind of physical disability then there are cars. My usage pattern is similar - mostly cycle, and car when I need it.

I have no problem with people using shortcuts aka ‘rat runs’ to cut around traffic - everyone pays tax to use the roads and they’re all open to everyone. But I wish certain people would bear in mind these are residential streets. I live on a ‘rat run’ which people use to cut the South Circular corner. It’s a 20mph zone and I’d say the average speed is 30+. There are people on the street with young kids and it’s not OK to race down the street. If you hit someone with a bike at 15mph it’s a lot different to 2 ton car at 30. It’s not OK, I repeat. Most of the traffic calming is not only to reduce traffic it’s to stop people running people over at dangerous speeds or hitting cyclists. Trust me I’ve been hit by a car twice, both times the drivers have admitted liability, both times I’ve been in hospital and it bloody well hurts.

Excuse me! Where have I said I want to race? I am calling for commonsense. The same sort of idiots who speed behind the wheel of a car race down Kirkdale hill on their bikes. Being hit by an out of control cyclist bloody hurts too. And no number plates to track them down with and no insurance in the case of those who ride recklessly. And I speak as a motorist who was going down CP Park Road at a quite legal 30 and was undertaken by a cyclist who then rammed into the car in front.

Traffic WILL be displaced and it will be displaced to some mystery, yet to be named “avenues”. But this is south London. We don’t have avenues. We have residential streets. Very few streets are non-residential. Even Dartmouth Road is largely residential. According to newspaper reports, Ella Kissi-Debrah lived “yards” from the South Circular. So these proposals wouldn’t have helped her and they won’t help those children unfortunate enough to live or play or study on or adjacent to these “avenues”. I get very cross about the “I’m all right Jack” attitude that’s become all too obvious lately. Nuff said. I suggest we all take some time out and await @LeoGibbons sharing on here the names of these sacrificial “avenues”. We have a right to know where these ghettos are going to be.

I think the point of Leo’s post was that the aim was to reduce traffic overall not to push it elsewhere. That’s the same principle as induced demand that I posted about elsewhere.

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Apologies I’ve edited my comment. It wasn’t accusing you personally. I meant ‘if you’ as in the internet world of people want to race… It was directed at those morons who do race down residential roads

With regard to congestion and transport, One of London’s main problems is that it’s not dense enough. Higher density in cities makes car free liveability far easier, countless cases across the world.

suburbanisation combined with car-centric planning has got London to this point, would be idiotic to think more of the same is any kind of solution.

I’d rather not get bogged down in tit for tat here. The reason your residential street is clogged with cars ‘efficiently’ going from A to B is because far too many people are making short journeys (under 5km) when they could be using public transport or cycling instead. Making it safer to get from A to B by bike, while harder to get from A to B by car, will hopefully change people’s behaviour.

With less cars on our roads we might see a reduction in the thousands of deaths and serious injuries caused by road traffic collisions each year (how many people are killed or seriously injured by cyclists I wonder?). We will also see countless lives saved by our cleaner air.

Try not view model filters as an infringement on you (or your road) personally, but look at the broader positive impact these changes may have. The impact for example that more sustainable transport will have on air quality, people’s health and safety, and the local economy.

Also completely agree with @djoyner we have a housing crisis, we need to build en masse (where people want to live) and this will mean densification. Densifying our cities keeping people close to amenities, will also assist us in the transition away from a car-centric and polluted city.

We have nothing more than an asset price bubble.

While we can temporarily slow price growth by building more housing, the inevitable collapse of the asset bubble will be even more economically devastating if we do.

Covid-19 is already prompting a rethink of London-centric aglomeration. If the London asset bubble collapses, the last thing we want is even more empty housing as a result of over-enthusiastic building projects during the growth phase of the bubble.

Oh utter rubbish. If you knew the residential road I lived in you would know that it is an extremely steep hill and a heart attack waiting to happen for many of the red faced cyclists I see wobbling up it. It takes a very experienced and very fit cyclist to manage that. You don’t know where the motorists I see are going. I know the road they’re trying to avoid and it’s Dartmouth Road.

This will see countless lives cut short by the increased traffic on your mystery “avenues”. why are they a mystery, by the way? When are you going to let us know? Obviously you’re against consulting the residents, but you ought to at least let us know. What about the lives of the people who live on those avenues? What about the children at Haseltine? Trinity? Kelvin Grove? The after school study clubs on Sydenham Road?

You may see some headline grabbing photo opps in the short term but will you be here to face the headlines in 10 or 20 years time when the death rate really shoots up? You’re just shifting the problem to some future politician’s bag and to someone else’s backyard … and lungs.

Increasing traffic in Sydenham Road (the high street) will kill trade as well as people. Post Covid more people will want to shop locally, rather than travel into town. But our high streets will be clogged arteries and we’d be mad to let our children anywhere near the levels of pollution this measures will create.

We all know of your passionate support for densification. It will destroy the community at Lammas Green/Otto Close and massively increase pollution and strain on services in what is a very low PTAL area with no GP practice. Lockdown has seen the City of London carry out ground works at the Estate that have kept people indoors. Densification does not work here and is counter to the social distancing that needs to take place to control Covid-19 and the next wave of infectious disease. Our building control and planning controls came about as a result of the Metropolitan Board of Health’s hard work and foresight. Some of these pioneering measures were introduced here in what is now your ward, to fight a Scarlet Fever epidemic. Reducing density and shared facilities was key to fighting that epidemic and it will be in the future. It would be a shame if those ideals and our health were compromised on your watch.

Perhaps you could persuade your associates at the City of London Corporation to consider building on their land in the City - where the work is - rather than exporting people here, who will have to commute to work.

To address both of these in one go… the Covid thing has proven a significant part of City work to not require a commute. On the one hand I’m not sure how you could possibly build residential stuff in the Square Mile, but on the other hand I doubt offices will be more than 50% full next year either. I also doubt that will significantly reduce local traffic as barely anyone drives to the City anyway.

To Chris’ point if anything it will allow people to move out of London because they can still get desk jobs but the desk can now be anywhere. And companies will move jobs to lower cost locations in the UK then overseas and then we’ll be in trouble.

Well of course if people move out of London then they will need their cars because there is no public transport. (I’ve posted on SE23.Life before about this, so I shan’t bang on about it now.)

But there is a real issue with the lack of internet coverage. I have just bought a new phone. It is not 5G compatible, which doesn’t bother me a jot because at my mum’s village in the New Forest I’m lucky if I can get 3G.

My work are already asking me if I can remote work once I move away
At the risk of going off topic I wonder if we are at a turning point for London, other large cities and working life in general. The amount of people I have talked to who do not want to return to the “old ways” is substantial.
It could have enormous social and economic ramifications in years to come, maybe even the decline of big cities or at least central business districts.

I wonder the same thing, but I had my first face to face meeting in a while with a few people in the same room for work this week and it was such a relief after months of Skype, I suspect as soon as we get back to some extent of normal we’ll start to slip back to old norms. As you say, if big changes are permanent, how many businesses go under because they are set up around high capacity offices? The domino effect could be huge.

Half of Lewisham’s population manage without cars. We pay taxes that go towards roads and pavements, so a bit of focus our favour is nice.

I think we all pay taxes for things that we don’t use. I’ve been paying them and NI for 50 years (never claimed job seekers or child allowance and still no pension, heigh ho ). But that’s just what you do.

But as far as roads and pavements go, we do all use them because even if we don’t go out of our homes, we have services that use them - everything from refuse collection, through buses, via online shopping to emergency services - I think I even heard an ice cream van yesterday and got terribly excited, but couldn’t find it. Maybe one day I’ll have visits from a carer or district nurse or chiropodist that will be my only visitors from the outside world.

But work is about so much more than getting the job done, isn’t it? It’s about getting to know people and socialising and bouncing ideas around. In my salad days it was even sometimes about romance.

Well yes that is my point. We all pay for and benefit from roads. The views of non drivers are as valid as drivers particularly as we are half the borough.

However fixing an issue means sometimes the dominant group, in this case drivers, ceding a bit of ground.

No one is saying disabled people or those otherwise reliant on cars should be disadvantaged but to echo Leos point there are a lot of short car journeys in London made by abled bodied people.

In the end most of the issues drivers complain about are caused by drivers - to fix this everyone has to want to change and be prepared to cede some ground.

I know myself I am guilty of this. Lived in london for 10 years without a car. Now have one shared with other half since last year. Partly because my personal life has also shifted from London centric to heading to the countryside to visit friends and family. And as 2 of us the car makes more sense versus two fares always. I know since getting the car I have become more lazy. Sometimes hoping in the car whereas previously I would have wait a day or two for several errands and walked down/travelled to wherever to fulfil all. Now can pop out whenever I need to immediately. In my block of 7 flats a couple of years ago there were 2 cars in the car park. Now we have 8 (so clearly 1 outside neighbour taking advantage). Residents have changed. But lots of coming and going from several cars which supports the theory of short trips.
We are looking to move further out of London, accelerated on the back of offices moving towards supporting more home working. My partners frustration is certainly when driving back the congestion on South circular and just the final couple of miles back to our flat. That isn’t to say we want to change the layout here but we recognise we want a different life style and move out. As a driver being stuck behind 3 red busses can be frustrating but for 10 years those busses were a life line. Particularly moving into my flat I was doing so many trips to Wilkos in Penge and B&Q in Sydenham. Probably one of the reasons I managed to secure a flat was because of money I saved not having a car in London and relying on public transport (and friends to pick me up from train stations in the sticks when visiting).

Well one of the drivers in growth of car ownership is cheap car finance. I wouldn’t bank on that lasting.

I have been offline for a while but will reply regarding my two comments:

I am not advocating just using CommonPlace as the only form of comment/voting but I would say that it reaches more than the Assembly system. The Forest Hill assembly was poorly attended both by Councillors and local people in the last few years. It didn’t reflect the diversity of the borough across most criteria race, age. There was rarely anybody under 50 and the average age was probably 65. I don’t think the location where it was held made much of a difference to attendance though the Pools and Sydenham School got the crowd over 20 whereas the Honor Oak venue struggled.

The Assembly was the old democracy and was subject to gaming in the sense that you got people inviting their neighbours, friends and family to sway matters especially at funding times where a small strategic group could sway a vote.

I don’t see Gaming/Social Media as bad though it might be an age/outlook thing. Gaming to me is engagement, you need to get people involved, talking about stuff to get momentum for change. In the road sense, is it that wrong that a group of neighbours come together to make their road a better place by putting in modal filters.

I agree with the majority that we should start with trying to make residential roads less friendly to cars. I think it will make through roads less busy in the long run but probably not initially as it takes people time to adjust. Hopefully we can get rid of the play out street scheme as we won’t need it any more. We should be able to let our kids play out or cycle on our roads every day of the month not just the one day a month where we block off the street from cars.

There are comments but I have seen nothing concrete. @DevonishForester , I am sure you know about the working groups for Devonshire road and Thorpewood Avenue, it seems strange that the Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe got it’s original impetus from something similar and had been acted on but I haven’t heard anything similar happening here. I have seen comments about the 2 roads, traffic, cycling, pedestrians, 700 kids plus carers and teachers but no action on these.

On a more personal note, many of us are cycling and walking more. I wonder if we should run a scheme to reward roads that are more environmentally friendly, give people rewards for not having a car or driving low miles, points for having a front garden, penalties for creating a driveway out of their garden, cycling, walking to the shops, I know it is gaming but it might get engagement. Reward would be modal filters for your road. @LeoGibbons, this could be done with an app relatively cheaply with a Council audit afterwards to validate self-reporting.

This is much more of a problem with online consultation.

Not only can people invite their friends and family (and also complete strangers from around the world), but people can create multiple accounts to boost their own opinions. Commonplace has no checks and balances to protect against this.

I think as a minimum level of protection, people should be required to enter a unique code from, say, their council tax bill, which is then validated against their address, and which gives one vote, and one vote only.

What majority is that? Measured how, exactly? Looking at the comments I see on social media (not on dot life forums), the response to modal filters is absolutely scathing.

Apologies for the fruity language below (Facebook doesn’t attract the same quality of conversation that we do here), and don’t take my posting them here as a personal endorsement

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I’m no expert here but doesn’t the majority of road tax go to the pockets of the Highways Agency for the upkeep of motorways? I’ve got by in London (two and a half years now) without a car but as soon as the dust settles I’m gonna buy one so I can move further out. Beyond the M25 you’re stranded without wheels.

Hi there - can you elaborate on the below at all? Thanks!

Vehicle Excise Duty is structured around CO2 emissions and is just general taxation i.e. goes into the big pot. It’s not X amount in, X amount back on roads.

It’s daft because it penalises people in towns who drive less. So if you drive 3000 miles in your 3.0L Merc you pollute less than 12,000 miles in your City runabout but you still pay more VED. Apparently a proposal to drop it and increase fuel duty was shot down because it was proportionally worse for people who live in the country.

Anyway, pollution in town is horrible if you want to walk or cycle anywhere - if road closures cause more congestion and more diesel fumes then that’s also not ideal. You can’t win.

The majority in Lewisham who don’t own cars which is around 53%.

I am part of the minority who do and am not anti-car just choose between using the car, walking or cycling. I tend to use the car for long journeys, bike for medium journeys and walking for local trips to the shops. I am avoiding public transport.

I don’t rate Facebook groups as most are controlled and tend to be similar people with shared opinions. I have to compliment .life forums for at least being a more open to all form of communication.

I will agree though with a lot of the criticism of the council that they seemed to forget basic commonsense about filtering/blocking roads. You need to give people advance notice, there wasn’t any from Sydenham or Dacres roads. You have to put in barriers that people can’t easily move, the last time I walked past, people had moved the signs/barriers.

Me too. I’m surprised by the lack of interest in what Councillor Gibbons has posted.

Please can you quote your source for this info? (I doubt it includes commuter journeys via the A205 at rush hours.)

So they don’t make decisions, they just ‘oversee’ them?

I am not sure you are right to place your faith in this process. These traffic officers are the same experts who preside over the worst pedestrian facilities in London (IN YOUR WARD). I am talking about the disgraceful pedestrian crossing in front of Forest Hill Station. It is absolutely clear that the current design prioritises the flow of motor transport on the A205, over pedestrians trying to get across the road.

It’s an air pollution nightmare, and the pedestrian island in the middle of the road is doubly unsafe as it’s impossible to keep 2m distance from other hapless walkers stranded waiting for the lights to change.

10 posts were split to a new topic: The A205 Pedestrian Crossing Problem at Forest Hill Station

As a small data point, this is the straw poll we put to SE26.life members this evening:

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For @DevonishForester http://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-note-14-who-travels-by-car-in-london.pdf. ‘A little over a third (35 per cent) of all car trips are shorter than 2 km, just under a third (32 per cent) are between 2 and 5km and the remaining third are longer than 5km’. It is an illuminating read.

I’d never condone this kinda thing, just posted as it’s relevant:

Yes, the scheme is not without it’s troubles. News Shopper has had a few articles, and I believe some of the modal-filters near Blackheath were upgraded to bollards on the 22nd since the planters got moved or ignored.

At least some feedback from the commonplace scheme is being listened to:

Given the failings of the initial scheme I’d be interested to know how much taxpayer money was spent on it by the council.

We’re talking about a council that spent £30K on a “green wall” at Haseltine Primary last year that’s barely more than a few strands of ivy now.

They should plant clematis armandii with some supports - that would take it over in a year and cost a lot less!

Close to half a million, according to that News Shopper article.

That’s about the same amount as was spent building and then demolishing the Adamsrill School decant buildings on the Council (ie local taxpayer) owned depot on Willow Way. The contractors took pride in building it. Lovely buildings. Used for three terms, then demolished by some very upset contractors. The site remains derelict to this day. At least one local business tried to buy or rent it. And received a “no” from the Council. Sydenham Society funded a student project/report to come up with suggestions for multi use of the site (a Local Employment Zone) to fuel discussions with the Council. That report disappeared into Kafka Towers. The rest is silence.

I’m sorry but that’s a false statement. The actual article says:

This is despite the council starting work on a host of schemes across the borough, which it expects will cost £460,000.

There are clearly multiple schemes underway and it’s a cost estimate for ALL of them not just for Blackheath.

I’m not disputing that government wastes money at all levels (Garden Bridge anyone?) but I think your comment is selectively quoting a number to fit your narrative.

Apologies. But I wasn’t “selecting a number to suit [my] narrative”. I made a mistake. By the phrase “the scheme” I misinterpreted @anon5422159 as wondering what the entire scheme cost, rather than just that small part of it. I don’t need to select a narrative to suit my purposes, unlike elements of our Council and certain pressure groups.

So I will rephrase. According to the News shopper these temporary/trial road measures (still being called temporary trial measures) are costing 460k across the borough.

So how much do you say it cost?

Lewisham has form on wasting our money and I used the Adamsrill School decant as an example. Those buildings cost us 500k and could have been repurposed, rather than demolished after one academic year of use. The Kirkdale area had lost all its public infrastructure in the few years preceding that, including the Kirkdale Institute Adult Education Centre, so even if the area has plenty of children’s schools and facilities I’m sure a use could have been at least discussed.

I think a broader discussion about local government spending & efficiency would take us off topic.

What I do find daft is the people in the News Shopper story claiming they’re more likely to run over a kid if they have to drive past a school. Jeez if you’re genuinely worried about that then try cycling instead if you can, or perhaps even just slow down in general.

Dear Leo, thanks for this. The report only deals, however, with London Residents. What I think we really need is solid data on is how many long distance and medium distance commuters are driving through Forest Hill, New Cross and other busy locations every day. My guess is that many commuters (perhaps 40%) driving through the Borough every working day are coming in from Kent, Essex and Sussex via the A2 and A20. [edit. The report itself states that over one third of car journeys in London are non-resident drivers. I couldn’t see anything in the report about the differences between Boroughs in this respect. Also not clear overall where the data is from.]

It’s easy to penalise London residents with high charges for parking a car that they use once a week to go to Sainsbury’s and twice a year to go on holiday. But the non-resident commuters are paying nothing to drive through residential streets causing air pollution, noise pollution and congestion.

https://twitter.com/BBCTomEdwards/status/1277974899768700935?s=20 check these people out in Lewisham . Does anyone find driving on the pavement acceptable?

It makes a mockery of the scheme! Mind you, the scheme sounds like a bit of a mockery.

So we’re OK to break any laws we disagree with? I don’t think that will end well. I bet these are the same people who complain about cyclists jumping red lights.

No it’s not OK to break laws. They are making a mockery of the “barriers”! A poorly thought out and executed scheme. I hope Openreach take action on their van driver!

Is there anywhere for the vehicles to turn, or is it literally an instant traffic jam?

I can’t see from the video, but the map on this page suggests the modal filter maybe on the borough boundary in the middle of the road with no turn off:

If that’s the case, trying to get that lot to back up may be impossible, hence the drivers getting frustrated and going around.

I could be completely wrong, but I rarely trust something I see straight from Twitter!

This seems quite a big scheme for just £20,000?

Yes, you can see from the vid, the drivers have no alternative. And I’ve read in comments online that there’s inadequate signage at either end of the road warning drivers of the blockage in the middle.
https://twitter.com/l_minellsolak/status/1278212388496592896?s=21

I see people have taken pleasure in reporting these drivers to the police though (62 likes of the below comment):

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Let’s hope the police “plan” is to a) demand adequate signage or b) remove the scheme

Its inappropriate to punish drivers for doing the only thing possible when they’re stuck in a impossible jam that they cannot back out of due to the queue of traffic behind them (which is probably unaware of this arbitrary road block).

When discussing this on Twitter I once again heard the trope that a “majority” wanted this scheme. So I pointed out the straw poll on SE26.life (an early indication that a majority is actually against the scheme). I was derided for the low participation in the poll (68 people), which is a fair criticism. So then I asked my skeptics to count how many people had voted for the Upwood Road scheme during the council’s official “consultation” on Commonplace … suddenly the skeptics went quiet…

Another failing here is that the traffic planners should be experienced enough to know that some drivers would choose to take the pavement if presented with such a partial blockage. It’s still not right for the drivers to take to the pavement, but the traffic planners should have implemented something to protect the pavement too.

I also can’t help but feel if this ‘emergency response’ had been implemented a few months earlier - when there was much less traffic - these schemes would have bedded in much better and may have had a more desirable outcome.

The poor placement and lack of signage could also be because the remainder of Upwood Road is in a different borough and Lewisham didn’t consult the other council? It happened in Blackheath too:

This is probably because Colfe’s School is on Upwood Road and there could be children walking along the pavement. Perhaps they’re parents.

I’d be doing an annoyed 3 point turn and then telling anyone else who’s backed up behind me they need to turn around. It does seem like it’s in a daft place, but that doesn’t excuse driving on the pavement near a school entrance.

If you’re the lead car, how do you communicate with every driver up to a quarter of a mile behind you? And how do you prevent further cars from joining the jam?

Trust me, I’ve been in this nightmare scenario before, and there’s no way backward. Only forward.

And I feel very sorry for the tradesmen in the video who are now being reported on twitter for mounting the pavement. They’ll probably lose their jobs. These are the kind of skilled people that travelled miles into London to fix everyone’s broadband, or repair dangerous sinkholes. I wouldn’t blame them for refusing to ever drive in London again.

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When we’re complaining about slow responses to infrastructure emergencies, let’s bear this topic in mind. Calamitous traffic management, which leads to commercial drivers refusing to drive in London, will affect all Londoners.

A fair point and one I had not considered.

So the argument is: if my broadband is out, I’m probably getting a slow response because of a road closure? And I should be happy that my engineer is driving on the pavement to get to my outage sooner rather than later. OK cool, got it.

So if I need to get home urgently I can ignore the dumb pedestrian crossing traffic light on my bike because there’s nobody crossing and it’s safe for me to go through it? Better still I could go around it over the pavement! Seems fair.

That’s not really my argument, no.

So is it that my broadband is taking longer to fix now because Openreach fired one of their engineers for driving on the pavement outside a school and as an organisation they’re taking action to deal with the reputational risk associated with it? Sorry, I’m confused.

If it’s unavoidable then I’m sure he’ll make his case and they’ll decide to keep him on.

In a similar vein you’re not supposed to break the law moving out of the way for emergency vehicles either - if you go through a red light to let an ambulance through and get photographed, then the emergency vehicle doesn’t give you a pass to break the law. It’s still your ticket.

It’s not as simple as that. When it’s framed as a “driver broke the law” scenario, the employer will have no choice but to fire the driver.

My argument is not that drivers should mount pavements.

My argument is that we should try to understand what kind of awful situation would compel tradesmen to do so. They know that if they’re caught they might lose their entire livelihood.

Notably absent from any pro-roadblock comments is a recognition of motorists as human beings. We hear them described as “rat runners” and worse. This kind of dehumanising rhetoric is, I think, deliberately applied in order to justify hostile measures against them.

Also on a broader note, we’ve got to be wary of any leaders and decision-makers who have become swept up in ideology:

Here’s one of the councillors who led the road block campaign. She’s implying that somehow, if we block cars from the roads, we’ll be able to behave like the lady in the video, who is carrying two children on a bike, one on her shoulders, with no helmets on:

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Let’s be clear, this councillor evidently isn’t serious about safety if she believes the above behaviour is a desired end state.

She’s romanticising Amsterdam (population 860K) and mistakenly imagining that London (population 8,900K) could be made similar by council policy.

If you search the topic you’ll see that there’s only one other person who used the term ‘rat runners’ and it’s not one of the ‘pro-roadblock’ commenters.

The term ‘rat run’ is used, yes, but what else would you call it? Rat run is simply by definition a residential street that people use to avoid traffic on main roads. I’ve never opposed people using roads, I stated that as a resident on one of these roads I would respectfully ask people to stop speeding down them.

Yes people use rat runs, nobody compared these people to rats. Would you prefer it if we used the word short cut?

I just went for a cycle around town to get a subjective view of a few of these. First of all Silverdale… this is probably the worst implemented one from a road closure notice perspective. If you come from Sydenham Rd then the sign is halfway up the road - no option to do anything except a 3 point turn. Coming from FH the sign is outside the main Mayow Park entrance so you again have to turn around as Bishopsthorpe is also blocked off.

Admittedly it seems daft although 2 separate people cycled through as I stopped to take a pic, so that’s potentially 2 less cars on the road for the rest of you stuck in traffic on Sydenham Rd. Isn’t that a good thing?

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Woodyates Rd over in Lee is closed at the top on the S Circ. There’s a Nursery on the corner. I don’t understand what this has to do with Covid-19 to be honest.

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Upwood Road Update… no need to worry about anyone else putting themselves in a position to lose their job for driving over the pavement as they were apparently inundated with complaints and they’re putting in a post in the pavement. 2 Police onsite on bikes too…

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The person in the red car stopped at the signs at the end of the road, had a brief think about it, then carried on anyway. 10 seconds later he caught sight of the police and did a smart 3 point turn. I gave him a friendly smile.

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A couple more around the area, in each case they see, to be properly signed at the start of the road. Surprisingly at each one I saw one if not more cars who slow down, read the signs and carry on in denial. I then had to wait for them to do a u-Turn while they blocked the road.

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Yeah, they are sorting out the signage at last, which is a relief, given the carnage that occurred yesterday.

Thanks for the citizen journalism on this. Good pics

Yeah I’m sure they got a fair amount of feedback. The guy onsite said the internet ‘exploded’. I can see why as there are strong opinions on both sides

I can imagine some angry calls from Greenwich council to Lewisham too.

I think rat running, rat runs, rat runners etc all vile, dehumanising terms and deliberately devisive.

It’s been used by Cllr Leo Gibbons on this very forum.

It’s used all over Commonplace by those people in favour of for example the Bishopsthorpe road blocks:

Lewisham Council uses the term, for example here:
https://lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/roads-and-transport/our-traffic-reduction-programme-healthy-neighbourhoods

So who are the rats? Everyone who uses the road who doesn’t live on it? Whether they be cyclist, pedestrian, jogger, old lady with a zimmer frame, motorist etc - “rat runners” one and all? I’ll take bets that everyone who uses this term is thinking of motorists. I don’t call anyone using my residential road as a route to get from A to B a rat runner. Everyone who uses a car or any form of motorised transport - be it a delivery or a service provider or personal transportation - uses roads they don’t live on.

My point was that ‘rat run’ is a commonly used term. ‘Rat runners’ was called out as being dehumanising. I don’t think that was in any way intended by the use of the term rat run in the same way was it’s not dehumanising to say someone has gone down a rabbit hole with an argument for example.

Yes of course, and they’re perfectly entitled to do so. Rat runs specifically applies to roads that are notorious cut throughs. People tend to speed down these roads so councils put in force traffic calming measures to deter people from using them unnecessarily, or for example one way systems like Manor Mount (and people STILL come down the hill) - we’re not talking about people getting from A to B using residential roads.

Lovely set of hazards for the sight impared there, with tactile paving that leads straight to them.

Cool, I had no idea that’s what they were for - I thought it was to stop people slipping down the inclined kerbs!

The trouble is that the people who install the barriers don’t know either. Or they just don’t care, the less able having lost so many hard one rights since the pandemic. Those particular patterns indicate a safe place to cross, with dropped kerb and no hazards to bump into.

Personally my main issue with all this is the lack of process, proper consultation and accountability, which seems to even include safely implementing the changes and co-ordinating with other councils.

Anyway, I thought I might be able to look into the data, because it’s on a webpage and I can count things.

So earlier today there were 322 comments listed here:

Of them I counted some stats and threw in a graph to make it less boring:

In answer to the question “Would you like this scheme to be made permanent?”

• 55% of respondents said ‘No’
• 38% of respondents said ‘Yes’
• 7% of respondents said ‘Undecided’

The question “How effective do you feel this scheme is in helping you socially distance and walk or cycle more?” allows a response on a scale of 0 to 100 to be chosen on the slider. 0 represents “Not very effective” while 100 represents “Very effective”.

• The average value of all returned responses was 39.7
• The average value of returned responses that also said ‘No’ to making the scheme permanent is 4.8
• The average value of returned responses that also said ‘Yes’ to making the scheme permanent is 90.0
• The average value of returned responses that also said ‘Undecided’ to making the scheme permanent is 40.0

The distribution of the responses can be seen in the following chart, which is pretty polarised as we would expect:

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The site also features an ‘Agree’ button where other people can give a thumbs up to multiple existing comments quickly and simply. Interpretation of these is difficult as we don’t know which part of a response is being agreed with. Since the question about making the scheme permanent is simple to interpret (and matches well with the 0-100 answer), we can use that:

• There are a total of 3998 individual ‘agrees’ across the 322 comments counted
• The average ‘agrees’ across all comments is 12.4 per comment
• The average ‘agrees’ for all comments which responded ‘No’ to wanting want the scheme permanent is 11.2 per comment
• The average ‘agrees’ for all comments which responded ‘Yes’ to wanting want the scheme permanent is 15.4 per comment
• The average ‘agrees’ for all comments which responded ‘Undecided’ to wanting want the scheme permanent is 5.7 per comment

So in conclusion, a significant majority of respondents are saying they don’t want the scheme to be made permanent. The average response to whether the scheme is helping socially distance and walk or cycle more was also leaning towards the negative. However, about 4 more ‘agrees’ are being given to each comment that does wish the scheme to be made permanent, than those that don’t.

We don’t however know why, or who has entered any of this data, so we will have to trust the council to make proper use of it and hope they tell us later.

Similarly you don’t know exactly how I got or processed all this data, so you’ll have to trust I’m not making it all up!

Amazing depth of analysis, @ForestHull. Well done!

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

I had a very unscientific look at the comments and likes and detect a late surge towards the keeping it permanent vote. Probably just 10 locals liking the positive comments about keeping their local streets free of excess car pollutants. 10 seems to be a number that comes up very often liking it but it could just be a coincidence.

I agree and think the likes are being ‘gamed’ as that’s the easiest thing to do, and the "agree’ count does seem samey on a lot of positive posts.

However, after I got out of the data, I realised that the headline is probably that the majority don’t think the measures help social distancing, won’t encourage waking or cycling and don’t want the changes permanently.

But here we are with the modal filters installed.

It’s outrageous that we have to guess why some schemes have been chosen and others ignored.

What was revealed with the flawed Commonplace so called consultation on Mais House was that a lot of people didn’t even clock the slider and on some consultations you move it one way or the other depending on what is written directly under it. It’s not intuitive and even on the various current traffic ones I’ve moved one of the sliders the wrong way, not realizing the question had changed. My fat fingers and small phone screen meant I hit yes rather than no on the permanency question. Once you’ve hit enter, you cant change anything.

Plus when Commonplace produced the results, they produced a very confusing graph (I’ll try to find one and post a link) and they added up all the “agrees” and said they had had X-hundred people voting agree. But it was actually the TOTAL number of people that had agreed with a comment. There was no breakdown of whether these “agrees” were in favour or not in favour of the development.

The questions are wrong and there’s no policing of who’s voting and how often they’re voting. I think if I were a road signage manufacturer for example, I’d be encouraging all my staff to vote early and vote often, even if they didn’t know the area.

I was pondering the slider, why it was 0 to 100 rather than 1 to 100. I think the answer is so that there is a ‘dead spot’ at 50 which is entirely neutral to avoid skewing the data incase no input is entered on the slider (it starts at 50). That said, most people wanged it to one end or the other, and in the above data the slider value almost always agrees with the answer to the final question “Would you like this scheme to be made permanent?”.

To make such a mis-interpretation is plain stupid, though making objective sense of the ‘agrees’ is not easy. ‘Gaming’ the ‘agrees’ isn’t hard, and the whole agrees thing would be best being completely dropped in my opinion.

Commonplace

To be honest I’d not have heard about anything to do with Road Closures if it wasn’t for this thread. I hadn’t heard of Commonplace as a way to register opinion either. It certainly isn’t a democratic way to garner public opinion if it’s not well publicised. Either that or I missed a leaflet through the door that said ‘hey we want your opinion’.

The comments about traffic remind me of the phrase ‘you’re not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic’.

What I do find bizarre about the whole thing, and I agree with people complaining about this, are that they seem to have shoe horned it in as a ‘social distancing excuse’, to quote myself earlier when I saw the signs on the planter boxes:

I think it’s a lame excuse for blocking roads and just frustrates everyone on both sides of the discussion, they should stick to the main argument: cars pollute, cause traffic and for a majority of short journeys are unnecessary. Walking and cycling is better for your health, you’ll be less of a drain on the NHS, you’ll have better mental health etc etc etc. Reducing traffic promotes safer environments for more people to cycle.

Are we going round in circles yet?

Out of curiosity, let’s recreate the SE26.life poll here, and see if there’s a difference in opinion (note that our poll is restricted to trust-level-1+ members in order that we’re only sampling people who’ve participated in this forum as opposed to new signups):

The council has now blocked traffic on certain roads in Lewisham, in a plan designed to discourage motorists from using their vehicles and encourage walking, cycling and social distancing.

Critics pointed out the lack of formal consultation, the resulting increases in congestion on other roads, and the peculiar choice of roads to target.

How do you feel about this new traffic management strategy?

I filmed and reported 3 drivers that all did this one after each other last year on a FH road. Although this was because of roadworks and there were clear diversions in place and they ignored the short diversion next to the roadworks!Children had been walking along here just minutes before. The police fined all of those drivers.

It does annoy me when drivers are too arrogant to obey signs but not sure how I feel about this situation though if there’s no warnings and no alternatives…

I’m confused by the signs at the end of Devonshire Road. Cars obviously still coming off the south circular and cutting through in the morning as a short cut even though the south circular is not busy and they’re just being too impatient, so what purpose were these barriers meant to serve?

18 months ago. That’s interesting. I thought these measures were temporary, and Covid-related…

This is not the work of the Deputy Mayor.

Even though we may disagree about the closures, we can agree that using Covid as an excuse is daft. I don’t approve of the method even if I agree with the solution. As I said before it detracts from the real issues.

There was something in that tweet which made me wonder whether those specific interventions had already been planned and consulted. It looks to me as they were. For context the tweeter along with and the two other people referenced are the local councillors for Lee Green Ward where that specific intervention fell.

So perhaps not so nefarious as suggested.

There’s been a lot of discussion as to whether these plans have been simply pulled out of the hat. No doubt some have, or at least plans advanced in light of the Covid-19 crisis. And I too hope that the post-intervention consultations are in full swing, they will be more robust.

But the Council’s plans for interventions of this nature was very much a part of their transport strategy released in February 2019 and widely consulted on in 2018. This included statutory consultees including emergency services, disability groups, and other special interest bodies for road users. Specific recommendations for the aforementioned Lee Green (May 2019) and East Sydenham (June 2019) were already advanced following area specific consultation processes before the Covid-19 crisis hit. It wouldn’t be that far fetched to suggest the results of those consultations would be replicated to a degree in other Wards. Hard to say yes… hard to say no.

We should never lose site either that these actions are, in part a result of central government direction to local authorities and in response to the Covid-19 crisis. No doubt this has helped some within the council - councillors and mayor included who now find their programs conveniently aligned with central government policy.

I think I speak for many here when I say: I don’t care which arm of government, or which party is behind these poorly implemented, poorly thought out traffic blocks. This discussion isn’t about political point scoring, nor should it be.

The main concerns raised in this topic are:

• how did the council choose which roads to close?
• is the means of consultation fit for purpose?
• why was the signage so poor, or missing in many cases?
• is it appropriate to punish drivers for escaping the impossible situation of being trapped midway down a long narrow road with a long queue of vehicles behind them, having encountered a blockage which was inadequately signed?

I’m glad you posted James’ tweet containing those stats:

image1200×696 97.9 KB

If you look closely you’ll see none of those statistics imply actual support for the specific schemes that have been implemented. Take the “1506 text comments” stat for example. How many of those comments were positive, and how many of them were scathing, critical of a scheme which we’ve seen criticised widely over social media?

compared with, say, Cllr James Rathbone who has gone to the trouble of living in the Borough whose people he represents and getting himself elected.

Bashing Lewisham Council at every opportunity seems to be a part time sport for some on this forum.

There are differing opinions on that scheme from local residents but as to the process of evolving the plan on the Lee Green scheme this was a detailed Council response on that matter earlier in the year.

‘From the outset the Council has been keen to engage as many residents as possible in the development of the Lewisham & Lee Green Healthy Neighbourhood scheme. On this basis, upon commencement of the project the Council wrote to 9,000 households to provide background information on the programme objectives and to invite residents/businesses to a number of events so that any transport issues could be raised. These events were run by our community engagement specialists Sustrans. Officers had a positive response to this letter drop, with over 1,500 unique visitors to our website and over 100 people came down to the four workshop events at Manor House Library, held between 5 June and 6 July 2019.

The biggest issues that people raised were the amount of traffic using local residential roads to avoid nearby main roads, as well as the resultant pollution from motor vehicles. Residents identified better pedestrian crossings, more tree planting, more cycle provision and closing roads to through traffic as desirable solutions to the issues raised. The community engagement reports can be found on the dedicated Lewisham & Lee green page listed below.

The Council has developed a DRAFT scheme that it considers tackles many of the issues that were raised during the engagement outlined above. The evolving proposals have been discussed by a working group of residents that was set up at the beginning of the process and at Local Assembly meetings, Local councillors have been door knocking in the local area to speak to residents with residents, and responded to a large number of enquiries by email. The feedback from this further phase of resident engagement has meant that the scheme has been continually evolving over the last few months, as officers take on board some of the useful suggestions that have been raised. Now that the community’s aspirations and concerns for the area have been gauged, officers are carrying out some work with Transport for London, to understand the likely traffic impact of the draft scheme.

The borough is committed to ensuring that as many residents as possible have a chance to engage in the healthy neighbourhood programme to help shape proposals as they evolve. In the week commencing 20th January, the Council sent out a further letter to 12,000 household’s in the area to provide an update on the programme and include the latest draft plan. The letter also set out information on the next steps and a full list of FAQs. This letter will be followed up by a public drop in session, which has been arranged for 6th February, 1-8pm, Good Sheppard Church Hall, Handen Road, SE12 8NR where residents can provide feedback on the draft proposals. An update was given at the Lewisham Central Assembly on the 16th January and the Lewisham and will be given at the Lee Green Central Assembly in mid February.

The Council statement concluded:-
“The purpose of the trial is to allow the Council (for a relatively low cost) to ‘test’ the design to see how it works in ‘real life’ and it also allows us to ‘tweak’ the design if required as all the interventions during the trial phase will be relatively easy to move. A formal consultation process will start during the trial which will include the following:
• Officers will be stewarding key locations in the first week of the trial to answer public enquiries
• An email address will be available for people to let us know their initial views of the trial scheme and raise any urgent matters that need addressing
• A public drop-in session will be organised for half way through the trial
• A dedicated webpage and consultation questionnaire will then be launched, seeking final views on the scheme, including the proposed complementary measures
Responses from the consultation will be analysed, and a proposed way forward taken to Mayor & Cabinet for decision.”

That seems a reasonable effort to me.

Are we not allowed to rationally criticise council policies? Only allowed to support them?

This is good, I agree with points that you’ve both made.

@starman thanks for the Transport strategy link: it’s pretty clear what’s literally number 1

If streets and street networks are designed to encourage walking, cycling and public transport use, people will rely less on cars.

@anon5422159 agreed the implementation is far from perfect: I didn’t get a leaflet and as far as consultation goes I had no idea it was happening, although they seem to be catching up with better signage as I saw yesterday.

I will however take you to task on cherry picking stats.

Since you used the words none and imply I’d say that subscribers to Green Healthy neighbourhoods does in fact imply support.

I would hope anyone wishing to rationally criticise them might also then consider the external influences which in part drive those policies. And perhaps recognise this has nothing to do with political point scoring.

But the councillor advises that support was very large and overwhelmingly positive. I chose not to believe he was lying.

The “external influences” you were discussing were political. As I said, it doesn’t matter which politicians or councillors, or which parties came up with these bad ideas. It just matters that we have a way to influence their implementation by the council.

Why do we commission extensive and rigorous public consultations when we could just “ask James”…?

Because James is a duly elected official representing the people of his ward. And I trust him to not be so vagrant with the truth. You of course can chose to believe otherwise and if you have reason to believe he is dishonest on these matters, I’d welcome to hear it.

If Lee Green ward gets the level of consultation claimed, then it seems strange that Forest Hill and Sydenham wards don’t. I’m not disagreeing with you that they did I have no knowledge of that area. But our local wards certainly did not get consulted. I don’t think I’ve missed any FH ward assemblies in the last year but I will check the minutes.

Lewisham’s website lists all their public Consultations over the last few years, open and closed. There is one consultation that might be claimed to be relevant but it closed in 2018. It is the one where I asked for school crossings on upper Kirkdale. I see from the map that others asked for school crossings on Mayow Road. There were just two requests relating to traffic on Silverdale. None at all for Bishopthorpe.

https://consultation.lewisham.gov.uk/consultation_finder/?sort_on=iconsultable_enddate&sort_order=descending&advanced=1&st=closed#cs-finder-results-container

Lewisham Public Consultations, none at all for Bishopsthorpe, so why was the Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe road closure implemented where the Deputy Mayor of Lewisham happens to live ?

As Clausy said it is a commonly used phrase to describe notorious cut-throughs on smaller residential roads.

Think of it a bit like ‘the rat race’ - used to describe the fiercely competitive struggle (often a self-defeating one) in corporate life where people act in self-interest. It’s a common term, and it’s figurative rather than literal. We’re not literally calling people rats.

On the term rat race and rat-running, I think they reflect a similar philosophy. I think of individuals battling it out in their cars, trying to find the quickest way in the race from ‘A to B’ with disregard for the impact their traffic has on residential roads as symbolic of the rat race. Everyone acting as an individual (rather than sharing space on more efficient communal transport), causing blockages that in the end impede everyone (ie are self-defeating).

The broader message is to get out of your car if you can travel by other means. If you need to travel by car, stick to arterial roads (which should be clearer, if people collectively start moving to other forms of transport).

The Lee Green Healthy Neighbourhood is a response to the Mayor’s Transport Strategy to reduce car dependency. Council’s are provided with funds (through their Local Implementation Plans + and possibly a few other sources of funds) to develop and implement local schemes to achieve the Mayor’s overall goal. Lee Green was the first Healthy Neighbourhood in Lewisham. These are long-term plans which involve (in my opinion) fairly comprehensive consultation.

The smaller schemes we’re now seeing in Blackheath, Sydenham, Telegraph Hill etc are temporary (for now. Further consultation will be necessary if they are to remain beyond 18 months) measures to respond to Covid-19. Some have said we should have acted sooner, while others have said it we should have had a wider and more comprehensive consultation period - it is hard to find the balance.

I’d request that people try and be patient with us. Due to the emergency, we needed to plan and deliver these schemes rapidly. Not all schemes are going to work perfectly first time and might need to be amended (for example, additional bollards to prevent drivers going over the footway to avoid planters!).

Is this support for the consultations or support for the closures from people who live in the favoured streets to be closed to thru traffic? (who wouldn’t support that?!)

There is no info I can find anywhere about how the assessments and decisions were made about which streets should benefit from the schemes.

Look, I don’t know about yours, but I have difficulty getting my cat to stop snoozing in my office chair, let alone letting me ride him to the shops and back.

Perhaps I could encourage him by telling him about all the rats running about.

Well I’ve actually changed my position since this post and now I DO think all journeys should be by cat. They’re cheap, mostly quiet and run on environmentally friendly biomass fuel. Regardless of views, I think we can all agree the consultation process has woefully covered this as an option. Probably due to the ideologues in the council who have been targeted by the pro dog lobby.

Unfortunately I feel Lewisham Council has neither acted promptly in an emergency fashion, or had comprehensive consultation.

Note lock down started almost 15 weeks ago. The process for planning permission is nominally 8 weeks, extended to 13 in complex cases. It should have therefore been possible to run proper consultation in this time frame, if immediate and emergency changes could not have been made much sooner after the Covid-19 crisis started.

As it stands now, it looks to me that the Council is muddling on without proper remit or process, cheered largely by those benefiting from the schemes while other issues are overlooked without comment or justification.

I understand the benefits of reducing car use, but this is not the right way to go about bringing change that affects everyone in the borough and beyond.

It’s not up to you who use the phrase “rat runners” to describe motorists to decide whether it’s offensive. I am a motorist. I find it offensive. If I were young I might find it offensive to be described as a “snowflake”. If I were black I might find terms like “blacklist” offensive. If I were an elderly patient in hospital I might find it offensive to be described as a “bed blocker”. These are all offensive and hurtful terms. I don’t use them and if anyone told me a generalized phrase I had used to describe them was dehumanizing and hurtful, I hope I would stop using it, apologise and try to be more thoughtful in future.

I went for a walk yesterday and joined Dacres Road at the German Bridge. I noticed 4 signs warning people of the road changes at Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe. The barriers now consist of a bollard in addition to the planter so cars can’t get past them. They were being obeyed though I did see people not heeding the signs and waiting till they past all 4 signs before being forced to a do a u turn.

You can’t really help people who can’t help themselves by reading signs. There were 2 signs from Sydenham Road that I could see.

Overall, it seems to have got over the initial teething problems and if it is put in locally again, the lessons learned from this can make the implementation smoother. The consultation is probably another matter.

Let’s not forget that like any organisation the council is going through seismic change as a result of covid, with a huge shift to officers working from home, whilst also doing all the normal business as usual in these difficult times. That presumably includes figuring out how to keep essential services going during the pandemic, including social care. I for one am not surprised that traffic calming measures weren’t the first thing out of the gate, nor subject to fully fledged consultation, but I would have been dissappointed if they weren’t attempted.

The same applies to councillors many of whom will have full time jobs to hold down and families to care for, whilst also trying to engage in fora like this. Let’s try and keep a sense of perspective here.

Thanks for your reply @LeoGibbons.

To be fair you’re the only person who has used that phrase in this whole thread (aside from Chris, and me when I quoted you). Somehow you’ve ended up offending yourself but I assure you there is no offence intended by the use of the phrase ‘rat run’. Its simply a term to describe a residential road used as a cut through.

It’s used here, under the Scheme Details, from the first post in the thread, by @MaryMck: https://lewishamcovidresidentialstreets.commonplace.is/schemes/proposals/silverdale-and-bishopsthorpe-road/details

I think that’s where the offence is taken.

I don’t see the use of the phrase ‘rat runners’. I see rat run which is a dictionary term to describe this kind of road https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/rat-run - is that offensive ?

Anyway I think the whole rat run storyline is a distraction from the whole issue of cleaner safer streets and changing encouraging healthier behaviour.

7 posts were split to a new topic: Posts moved from Road Closures

Hi Leo, thanks for joining the discussion, listening to people’s concerns, and explaining issues. I’ll make it very clear that I support the schemes in principle however as you can see there’s a perceived lack of clarity and transparency around the process of deciding where the closures are happening and also implementation and signage.

I’ve been out and about to have a 1st hand look at things and they definitely seem to be improving. Please do continue to stay involved in these topics.

Public interest journalism site 853.london has an informative write-up about the Upwood Road debacle, previously bought to prominence by Tom Edwards Tweeting to show drivers mounting the pavement in order to circumnavigate the modal filter installed at the boundary to Lewisham:

In our defence, the legal changes that meant emergency Traffic Orders covered Covid-19 response measures only came into force on 23rd May. About 6/7 weeks go.

Covid-19 has not gone away and social distancing remains necessary. We can’t have our tubes and buses getting ram-packed again, therefore we still need to create more space for cyclists and pedestrians. The remit and need remains.

I do not intend to brusque but I’d say it’s not up to you to police my language. If someone is offended by the term blacklist, I’d probably inform them that it comes from the list of judges who signed Charles I’s death warrant (his son, Charles II, later described it as ‘this blacklist’), and that its subsequent uses mean it has little if nothing to do with race.

Not to be flippant but if someone was offended by the term snowflake, I might call them a snowflake! (I jest)

But in honesty, words are deemed offensive when decided upon the collective. Not when an individual arbitrarily assigns it so. I am quite forthright on this principle and believe nobody has a right ‘not to be offended’. If rat-running was deemed a slur against all people who drive by a broad cross-section of the population, I’d likely change my tune. However, I have a hunch that the phrase is seen, very broadly, as an acceptable and pretty harmless term to describe cut-through traffic on residential roads.

Anyway, I think this issue stands to one side of the main thread here and I don’t want to get into a tit-for-tat back and forth.

This has still not been answered despite participation in this long thread by councillors.

I don’t mean to split hairs here, but accuracy is important.

While the legal changes may have come through on the 23rd, the scheme was first announced on the 9th May and Councillor McGeevor was Tweeting about plans as early as the 4th.

So that’s actually about 8/9 weeks ago.

I do feel that’s plenty of time for things to have moved faster, or the time used for clear and transparent consultation. But I won’t labour that point further.

Anyway, it’s good to see final phase 1 funding has been allocated with £5m going to London Boroughs and TfL to help make improvements. I look forward to more details on this in the near future:

“Silverdale Road Planters targeted by anti #stopkillingcyclists activism”

Looks like someone decided they didn’t like the idea and have taken it upon themselves to vandalise a planter. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was an angry mob but clearly some people think they can take the law into their own hands and don’t care for health and safety of cyclists or pedestrians.

This will just end up spending more council money to fix. Sad.

IMG_15254032×3024 5.18 MB

In fairness (unless you or others witnessed it) we don’t know the reason this happened. Could be someone accidentally reversing into it, could be a few people doing it for ‘fun’ after a few too many drinks or an escaped elephant.

Not great whatever the reason though I agree.

I once witnessed a very drunk man who had pulled a small tree out of a planter (well I assume he did tgat) dragging it down the road and down the steps to Aldgate East Station where he appeared to abandon it. People do strange thinks post alcohol…

Yes of course you are entirely correct, it was an attempt at making a satirical post.

Someone has also stolen or rescued the plants from it too, depending how one would want to spin it.

I saw the damage done to that planter. It is a ton of soil screwed (badly) into the ground. To tip that over would require more than an accidental reverse unless it was dangerously top heavy (with false bottom)

Rather than accept the council’s arbitrary closures, it looks like people are taking matters into their own hands in Brockley:

What a shame, let’s all hope the perpetrators are are caught and punished.

So what can we all take from this thread? A lot of London’s drivers are selfish arseholes and Lewisham Council are, as per usual, absolutely useless. I’d honestly like to see how some of Lewisham’s employees and elected officials would fare in the private sector.

The link to that tweet takes you to the original which is of a couple of kids enjoying cycling down the road…
“Kids are now safely playing on roads in Lee Green where last week thousands of vehicles sped past each day bringing noise and pollution.
This is what Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are all about.”

Some bellend has vandalised the signs and thinks he’s cool for being a rebel and reopening the road. Given the amount of bitching some people do about graffiti this is just plain ridiculous.

“Low traffic neighbourhoods” sound great.

Kids cycling in the street sounds lovely.

But to imagine that’s a realistic proposition within one of most densely populated cities in the world? It’s just completely unrealistic, as much as it’s sad to say so.

London needs its roads. They’re not playthings for children. They’re not the canalside idylls of Amsterdam. They’re vital vehicular transport arteries, all of them.

If the council cherry-picks some roads to close arbitrarily, the council merely pushes traffic onto other roads.

The council are giving to a privileged few by taking from the unfortunate many.

That’s not fair, and it makes people angry. I understand that anger.

Feel free to get angry. That’s fine. It’s the vandalism I object to.

I’m not angry. I just understand the anger of people who are on the sharp end of this council policy.

I wish the council would acknowledge that their policy is harming people’s legitimate interests. They might have been able to avoid conflict if they’d just thought things through and communicated better.

I wish people got as angry about illegal use of spray paint to damage public property as they do about its lawful use to paint murals!

London isn’t one of the most densely populated cities in the world.

A lazy Google search does list London in various rankings for city density e.g. at number 43 in this list from USA Today, noting that the first European city in that list looks to be Athens, Greece at number 40.

Next up the list is Madrid, another European capital.

The density of Madrid and London are somewhat similar, but in terms of square miles, London is much larger.

I think it’s this combination of density and sprawling scale that makes transport such a problem for London, though all cities have their challenges.

Either way, the government message is still to avoid public transport if possible, so alternatives are needed. Unfortunately I think the road closures are arbitrary and costly for what they achieve - I would prefer to see the money spent on directly addressing the issue of safe travel on public transport e.g. by increasing the number of buses and frequently deep cleaning as much as possible and remodelling passenger flows in tube stations where possible.

The government indicated there is a further £20m to be allocated between London Boroughs & TfL for phase 2 of this ‘emergency’ active travel fund (phase 1 was just £5m), so I guess there is much more to come.

Arterial roads are by definition ‘high capacity urban roads’. I think anyone would struggle to define Silverdale Road as such, for example. With all the parked cars it’s barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass in some places. I don’t think it’s an ‘arbitrary’ choice.

the council merely pushes traffic onto other roads.

The council is trying to encourage behavioural changes. Better to walk or cycle 2-3 miles rather than drive as opposed to pushing traffic onto other roads. The idea is to make you think ‘did I really need to drive there’. It’s like smoking campaigns or wearing seatbelts. People generally don’t make healthy choices and sometimes they need a nudge.

Edit: just to add, I’m not anti car by any means - I’m a big car nut, but I just don’t drive unless I have to.

It’s arbitrary because the system and reasons for choosing certain road closures over other suggestions has not been published or explained.

While the intentions maybe good, the survey for the Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe modal filter showed that the majority of respondents didn’t respond positively with the question "How effective do you feel this scheme is in helping you socially distance and walk or cycle more?”. The average response way 39.7, with 0 being strongly disagree and 50 being neutral.

Perhaps they should try something else?

In case anyone is interested, I found this PDF plan of the scheme online which shows it was drawn out in April and approved in May. I’m not sure all the closure signs are actually in place as there wasn’t one further up Silverdale before Dacres Road last time I cycled up there. I will check again later.

A lot of closure signs exist, except they chose to use yellow words instead of the international no through road sign. They often don’t put in the no entry sign.

The yellow signs are for information and I guess to some extent the closures are ‘temporary’. I don’t think a ‘no entry’ sign is appropriate as you can drive right up to the barrier/planters if you need residential access or for deliveries etc.

No, but John mentions a no through road sign like one of these, which would be right:

If you find out anything about the decision-making process, please let us know. As far as I know, the Council is still refusing to share this.

The no entry sign I meant on the actual barrier. Though on second thoughts it should probably be the no motor vehicle sign

No motor vehicle, or no cars? The difference being are motorcycles allowed?

Reading some of the commonplace comments, I did note that one suggested that these modal filters provide the perfect escape routes for the moped mafia if being pursued by a police car. So maybe a no-bandits sign too?

Also of note is that the street plans don’t contain measurements or comment on the width of the pavements each side of the ‘filters’. Perhaps that wasn’t in the draftsman’s brief, but given events I think that was a foreseeable an oversight.

Yes, if the decisions were somehow explained, and even supported by some data and cost / benefit analysis vs different schemes or options, I think it would be easier to be supportive of the difficult choices.

However, Councillor Gibbons recently tweeted:

Really proud of my colleagues @JamesARathbone and @OctaviaLewisham sticking to their guns in the face of fierce resistance from a noisy minority.#HealthyStreets

While Councillor Rathbone follows up with:

Listening to people and doing what they want aren’t the same thing Lizzie.

I don’t think we will get much explanation any time soon…

Motorcycles shouldn’t be allowed if the idea is to create safe ways for pedestrian and cycles

James RATHBONE Leyland Road - yup inside the area

Leo GIBBONS Lowther Hill - can’t see anything happening outside his house

A little suspicious that 2 of the people voting for this personally benefit

I’ve seen this mentioned a few times - it would appear that it is possible to research this from publicly available council data.

Yes he does

While in the public domain I’m not sure we should encourage the exact address of anyone to be published on an open forum. It would be easy to do this if any forum member. We don’t.

@starman I was in two minds about whether I should or not. I decided it was probably appropriate because 1) I was quoting freely available public record 2)these are public servants - by choice 3)any suggestion of impropriety should be immediately clear (pretty much the reason Trump’s tax returns are argued)

@John_Wilson I agree with Starman - whilst it’s ‘public domain’ please could you remove the links and not target people directly. I’ll edit my earlier comment also

@clausy - you asked for it! And it isn’t public domain - it is public record. Literally listed by requirement on the Lewisham council website - removed the second - but you can’t ask a question and then complain I replied

Yes I know - in retrospect I think it would be better to say the information is available as public record. The fact that a couple of them live on streets in question doesn’t mean they voted. You can’t suggest they’re guilty by association of living on the road. There is no evidence to suggest any impropriety: you’re saying they live on the street therefore they must be guilty.

I would argue unless they reclused themselves they are guilt by association - of course we don’t know how much because there has been very little information given as to whether they voted or not. In cases where they are directly associated with an issue they need to deliberately extract themselves.
I’m not saying they are guilty - it just looks suspicious.

BTW Your edit is still there

BBTW This is the wrong chain for this - I shouldn’t have posted the mayor one - so (hopefully) removed that one. This is about Lewisham, TfL and Thames Water awful management of the caves (and I’m pretty much decided they are all guilty there!)
Haven’t been down there in a few days - are they fixed?

I think you could name the road without giving the number.

@starman - well ahead of you

Relevant from the site FAQ:

• Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.

In this case anyone is literally that, not just forum members.

Also note that while Councillors’ addresses may be held on public records, the public records are where they belong. Reproducing and posting full addresses here is not necessary, especially if the same points can be made with a more general description of their residence e.g. just a street name or area.

I was in the area today and Silverdale is not closed between Dacres Road and Sydenham Road. There are some obstacles in the road, but plenty of space for a car to pass through. As I understand it, the rectangular notices with red background and white text, which state “Road Closed” are advisory. This means it isn’t a road traffic offence to drive past the notices to see for yourself if the road is in fact blocked, and to continue onwards if there is no impediment.

Up at Islington town hall, it seems residents are making their opinions on similar road closure schemes known:

Meanwhile here it seems the bollards at Silverdale and Bishopsthorpe apparently keep going missing…

Those darn Islingtonians.

Islington residents revolt against the road closures, TFL and Sadiq Jhan are killing London for the 5%

I can’t see Lewishamites revolt against it saying TFL and Sadiq Khan are killing London for the 54%.

Time for the 54% to have their say.

I believe the 54% you are referring to is the car ownership statistic for Lewisham.

Unfortunately things aren’t as simple as that - it’s clear from the comments on the Bishopsthorpe/Silverdale common place that there are plenty of non-car owners who also oppose that scheme as it is creating problems for them such as traffic on their roads, or difficulties around public transport and access to/for the elderly and disabled.

This is why proper consultation is required - so all views can be taken into account as well as considering wider options.

It seems like the silent majority are in favour of these types of schemes.

If you want more measures to create quiet ways for cycling and walking, remember to speak up. You can have your say here https://lewishamcovidsuggestascheme.commonplace.is/ and on specific schemes already in place here https://lewishamcovidresidentialstreets.commonplace.is/overview

Given the ‘silent majority’ are by the very definition silent and don’t express their opinions publicly, how can you assign any view to them?

If we look at some of the data we do have, last time I tallied up the Common Place data for the Bishopsthorpe/Silverdale site, it was quite a majority in opposition to making those changes permanent:

• 55% of respondents said ‘No’
• 38% of respondents said ‘Yes’
• 7% of respondents said ‘Undecided’

Of course, that doesn’t mean these folks are against reducing car pollution and such - it just means the scheme chosen isn’t one most people agree with.

In the absence of a properly ran consultation, it would at least be nice if some effort could be made on the data that is available, rather than preferring to wade on regardless with baseless statements.

Did that YouGov survey specifically ask about the council’s road blocking strategy? Or just generalised “measures to encourage walking and cycling” (which few would argue against)

‘Given the ‘silent majority’ are by the very definition silent and don’t express their opinions publicly, how can you assign any view to them?’

You enable them to express their opinion in research, such as the survey cited by @LeoGibbons.

“All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2010 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 16th - 17th July 2020. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all

GB adults (aged 18+).

20mph source: British Social Attitudes Survey on public support for and opposition to 20mph limits for residential streets from 2004 to 2017 is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/go”

Correct - then they are no longer the ‘silent majority’. I maintain you can’t lay claim to what the ‘silent majority’ think or believe, you can only try and engage with them.

Also I’m not sure if you missed my point (or Leo’s edit?), but the stats I reproduced are actually from one of the surveys to which Cllr Gibbons linked.

Yes, you are right things are not that simple. I am part of the minority who owns a car, not part of a silent minority I know.

When you add the many from the minority who own cars but prefer walking and cycling both for themselves and for other people, you approach a larger majority. 6.5:1 seems large but probably the question using local streets brings out a higher majority. Of course, like everybody else I want to live on a street with clean air rather than car pollution from others.

I trust figures from an independent survey organisation such as YouGov more than self-selecting CommonPlace.

I have spoken up and do not feel heard. Please can you give an answer to these questions about how the Council selects which streets to close? 1) what criteria is used to make the assessments and decisions? 2) which person, committee, or department actually decides? 3) Is there a public record of the decision-making process?

Residents to get new decision-making powers in England cycling ‘revolution’

Things are about to get interesting, unexpectedly brought to you by your cycle friendly anti-obesity-post-Covid PM.

When it comes to making the transport network less efficient and less well-connected, let’s hope residents are polled properly, and these road blocks aren’t shoe-horned in by nimby-friendly and unreliable Commonplace polls.

LTN s will continue- they certainly seem to concern some who seem very exercised at having to share public space differently. This poster caught my eye today.

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The transport network becomes more efficient the more people cycle, the less CO2 per km, the better people’s health and air quality improves for low distance single occupancy journeys. That’s what this is about.

Go to Peckham Rye - whole road is closed except for cycling and pedestrians. People are walking down the street, next up I expect to see cafe tables out in the road. It’ll be good for business.

I loved how patronising and disingenuous this remark is! Top marks!

I think you’re confusing low-pollution transport for efficient transport. Two different things. You don’t get efficiency by putting blockages into a transport network.

It’s more efficient to cycle 3 miles than it is to drive 3 miles. I guarantee you I can cycle to the City more cheaply and faster than either a train or a car. And that’s 6 miles. I don’t think I’m confused.

I doubt you can. It is about 25mins to shoreditch on the overground. The first 10mins of my journey is getting up Forest Hill! Then 6 miles in 15mins is 24mph

For those who have a bike, are physically able and willing to cycle, aren’t carrying any significant luggage or passengers, who are able to securely store their bike at the destination, and who are willing to ride in whatever the current weather is, then yes, I’m sure it’s more efficient.

And if all those conditions are satisfied, the good news is that everyone is already able to do so, whether or not the council puts planters in the middle of the road.

If people want to cycle, they’re perfectly able to.

The issue here is cyclists and other non-drivers lobbying the council to take hostile action against motorists. The issue is with non-drivers who are deliberately failing to share the roads (which were designed for motorists) with motorists.

@anon5422159 Given that cars are dangerous, polluting and loud I think they are starting as a disturbance and trying to justify by demonising others. Cars are sometimes necessary - but don’t forget the ills they cause. Plus of course everyone can walk - they can’t all drive (either through money, licence or age)

Indeed it is, once you’re on the train. Plus walking to the station and waiting for a train. I did it door to door today in about 30 mins to Rough Trade records. It’s 7 miles. And it’s free versus at least a fiver on the train.

Only some cars are polluting, and only some cars are loud. EVs are emission free and silent.

And as I mentioned earlier, the number of road fatalities has dropped significantly in the last 20 years because car design is getting safer (larger crumple zones, no more bull bars etc).

Cars are only dangerous when driven dangerously.

To attack all drivers for the sins of the few is a bigoted and crude position.

Chris yes obviously all your conditions need to be met and that’s still a significant proportion of all journeys. The point is about making it safer for people who are afraid to cycle to give them the opportunity to do so safely without breathing in as much diesel exhaust.

The point is to change people’s behaviour not to make things inconvenient for motorists. The government want to turn those who are able to cycle into people who will cycle because it’s safe and healthy to do so. I support the government on this.

That’s good and I’m glad you are cycling. But not everyone can, and not everyone wants to. People have legitimate reasons for favouring vehicles. Councils have a legal responsibility to make policy inclusive to all residents. And hurting motorists is not inclusive, for a number of reasons:

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According to the timetable it takes 22 mins from FH to shoreditch high street.

For me I would need to add the 12 min walk to the station which make it 34 mins if I time it perfectly.
I reckon I can beat that on my bike!

Ban diesel cars. That’s what I’d do. And have Volkswagen and co compensate those vehicle owners for cheating them into buying polluting vehicles under the pretence of “clean diesel”

Don’t hurt my fellow electric car drivers with crude anti-motorist policies that lump all motorists together.

We paid a premium so we wouldn’t hurt others with noise or air pollution.

I don’t pay council tax so the council can coercively “change my behaviour” by inconveniencing me and the services I rely on.

From a master of the art, praise indeed.

Pop over to Herne Hill velodrome on a Wednesday morning… the ‘Silver Cyclist’ lot are ‘over 40’ and most of the 70 year olds who’ve been cycling for years will leave you in the dust. I don’t buy the ‘ageist’ thing. Those 70+ lot epitomise what the policy is about. As for ‘classist’ what does that even mean? Bikes are way cheaper than cars.

Yes I agree ‘not everyone can walk or ride a bike’ but that’s missing the point. Most people can, they just choose to drive instead. The government is trying to change attitudes with this new policy.

You’ll note I criticised your comment, not you personally. Please don’t drag this conversation into the ad hominem gutter.

It’s evident from the choice of roads that the councillors are blocking more upmarket roads (property owners love a cul-de-sac to inflate their house value).

I don’t cycle around here as dont feel can do it safely (and right now not fit enough for some hills) but certainly support any nudging to change my behaviour. I find there are an awful lot of people who could do without their cars or using them less. But say neighbour in flat next to me pops into their car and comes back with a take away.
I remember similarly when high Street was pedestrianised where my grandparents lived out in Felixstowe. They were fuming, ruined high street! Etc etc. Actually in the end they could drive and park outside shops as had blue badge (albeit HE couldn’t zoom down the road, had to slow down!) and it made a massive positive impact on the high street. Shops were being used more. I walked there to avoid parking issues but more relaxed shopping experience. As the poster says change is difficult to start with but we also can’t spend years discussing proposals till everyone is satisfied cos we will have bigger problems then.
Chris, I am not able to back any of my points up with facts or studies. Just my opinion, so know likely not worth much.

Actually a disabled member of my family (stroke) cannot walk, and relies on an adapted vehicle. Without her car she’d be housebound and completely reliant on visiting carers (who come by car).

That’s not what the broad policy is about. Nobody is suggesting people who are not able should get on their bike

They most certainly are not. The do not produce exhaust at the point of delivery but there are still emissions associated with production, the energy used to recharge them and of course they still produce particulates form brakes and tyres. The latter can be more for EVs as they can be heavier and is completely unregulated.

This post was flagged and is temporarily hidden.

Air pollution is a very localised phenomenon.

Provided car factories operate in sparsely populated areas and filter their emissions, it is far better for densely populated urban communities to have EVs on the road than diesel vehicles.

My brake pads and discs will last more than 150,000 miles because my car has regenerative braking and barely uses the mechanical brakes at all.

Tyre particulate pollution may be significant by mass (more so than exhaust emissions), but this doesn’t mean tyre particulate pollution is more damaging to health:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10807039.2019.1674633

This study helps explain why tyre pollution is currently unregulated.

By contrast, exhaust gasses are carcinogenic (benzene), contribute to smog (NO2) and are highly toxic to humans (CO).

This demonstration caught my eye lately:

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https://twitter.com/chilligrower28/status/1286283615240892419?s=21

EV aren’t emission free or sound free - you still need to generate the electricity - but the UK is getting better at renewables. But calling people that don’t drive EV cars ‘the few’ is elitist - literally the 1%.
Cars are 1 ton vehicles travelling at 20mph - they are inherently dangerous.
Calling be a bigot because I don’t drive an electic car - like literally 99% of drivers just shows the lack of strength of your thoughts

That’s not what I said.

By “the few” I was talking about dangerous drivers.

“bigoted” was aimed at those comments that generalise and demonise all drivers, and has nothing to do with EVs.

I think you have misunderstood my comments. Apologies if they were unclear.

A recent email communiqué from Lewisham council linked to the following update about the ‘Low Traffic Areas’:

That page includes a statement that a full consultation will take place to determine if the schemes should be made permanent:

It does however still direct people to the common place site and there is no date mentioned, but still a good indication none the less.

There is also passing mention of the plans for school streets, but no further update:

Previous information on the school streets can be found here: https://lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/roads-and-transport/closing-roads-to-traffic-at-school-drop-off-and-pick-up-time-school-streets

Does anyone know what bus stops ate closing during this road works

Here’s an example of a positive road closure that has little effect on the transport network and a huge positive effect for local businesses:

More of this please!

Interesting little snippet in Private Eye magazine, particularly the quote from Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, mother of Ella, whose tragic death was linked to air pollution:

image1266×2048 531 KB

Complaining about air pollution is like complaining about aircraft noise. It’s like the old adage ‘you’re not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic’. If you’re not driving an electric car or cycling then there’s really no point in complaining. (Yes @anon5422159 I know you Tesla).

Do people who complain about aircraft noise and live under flightpaths go on holiday by plane? Do you complain about traffic and pollution and drive a diesel?

The point of LTNs is to get more people walking and cycling. Instead people’s response has been to get in their private cars and drive instead of taking public transport let alone switching to any kind of green option. More traffic, more pollution. People are the problem.

Pollution causes thousands of deaths in London each year. https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/theairwebreathe/3800-deaths-in-london-caused-by-air-pollutant-study-finds-a4345831.html

I’m happy that people are campaigning for cleaner air but LTNs are there to change people’s habits and clearly habits are hard to break with simple nudges. We need some more ‘incentives’ for people to switch.

Indeed, people are the problem, and building additional urban housing, growing the population from its already-absurd 8M people is definitely a cause of congestion and thus pollution.

Yes, I’d like to see incentives to use cleaner transport, rather than the council inconveniencing people who drive, diverting and lengthening journeys.

Cheap, efficiently-allocated ride-sharing EVs (like those being rolled out by Uber) would have been great, replacing expensive decades-old diesel taxis. But under pressure from the taxi unions, Sadiq Khan banned Uber unfortunately.

I think that’s the goal, but what they actually achieve its perhaps different. Hence the ‘traffic is like water’ analogy in the ‘Load of Bollards’ article.

Walking are cycling are also impractical for many journeys and so are no silver bullet on their own. I think that should be acknowledged and efforts to improve other transport, and get the most polluting vehicles off the road should be stepped up as fast as is practical.

There’s the root of the problem. Traffic is caused by cars.

Traffic is caused by cars when the road network is inadequate to meet demand, or where it is suffering a blockage (eg accident, roadworks, planters etc)

It turns out that closing sides streets to traffic doesn’t cause a significant upturn in traffic on main roads- a phenomenon known as ‘traffic evaporation’ can occur- as happened in Walthamstow Village-

I think it all depends on who you listen to and londonlivingstreets.com is surely only going to show one side of the coin. Walthamstow was one of the earlier areas to try these schemes, and faced quite a backlash, though ultimately I guess it was ignored.

Here’s a write up in the ES from 2017:

They should make up their mind if it’s good or bad…

There’s links to other academic studies in the article- it was more those that have weight as it is fair to suggest that living streets could be considered less than neutral on the issue

There’s other factors too- Madrid found a large uptick in consumer spending when a large part of the city centre was pedestrianised

There was a BBC Travel show segment from 2017, repeated yesterday about Ljubljana in Slovenia - same story - it took about 3 years to ‘transform’ now business is up, employment is up, health benefits aside.

Unless it’s an opinion piece, I’d prefer newspapers stick nearer to objective reporting of events and research, which seems to be what the ES is doing in the cited articles.

Anyway, the undertakings of this scheme are too broad to generalise it all as good or bad. There are some successes, and other changes which are poorly-conceived.

Take for example this bit of lane closure just up from Waterloo station a few weeks ago:

IMG_20200731_1248333000×4000 4.95 MB

They have narrowed a bus lane so it can’t be used by public transport or easily by cyclists, but made such a narrow strip of pavement that it is useless to pedestrians too. The intention may be good, but no-one benefits from the change. It would be better to instead remove the charity collectors (chuggers) grouped outside the station entrance who were neither wearing face coverings or observing social distancing when accosting everyone they could.

London has a population of a bit under 9 million. Ljubljana is about 300 thousand (about the same as just the borough of Walthamstow as it happens!) and “known for its university population and green spaces” according to Wikipedia. I don’t think direct comparison is particularly relevant given the vastly different sizes and demographics.

It’s a more complex picture. The reason I would like my own road closed to through traffic, is so I can sleep without interruption. The first few weeks of lockdown were wonderful; I felt properly rested for the first time in years. I think most people who want their street to be part of a LTN, simply want less noise, vibration, air pollution and litter. Walking and cycling also becomes more pleasant and safer.

With Covid-19 many people will opt to use private transport, so we will not see a reduction in car use.

The question for Lewisham is how they decide which streets should benefit from reduced traffic. So far they have been unwilling to publicly share with their constituents, exactly how they are making decisions.

There is a fundamental inequity with high speed transport - the faster and further the travel, the more disturbance and environmental damage is caused. It’s not a random coincidence that the same high speed travel (especially aircraft) that causes noise disturbance and air pollution is the very same industry that has helped spread the Covid-19 globally.

Agree with all of that.

…just a shame it’s cars and not bicycles or walking (to re-iterate ‘where practical’)

And definitely we need more transparency and a better process to track and log decisions and also outcomes.

Definitely. When I lived in #ebsworth-st I very much appreciated the road blocks at #garthorne-rd, which blocked through traffic and made my road quieter. It’s just a shame that the primary school and residents of #brockley-rise would have to pay the price for those road closures … but from a purely selfish point of view, I was in favour of them.

Now I look back at this objectively, I see how selfish that attitude was.

Here’s an infographic on the need for ‘Emergency LTNs’ stemming from reduced capacity on Buses

Arguably there are less people travelling of course, on the other hand this doesn’t take into account the fact that people many people simply don’t want to get on trains or buses at the moment.

Those numbers look odd. Only 14/57 with access to a car?

Approx half of households in Lewisham have a car.

The figure is bus users. Not general population.

I see, thanks.

Yes, they’ve put sources for the numbers at the bottom, unfortunately you can’t click the links from the image!

The 50% figure means households have 2 working people with 1 car to share also I believe the multiple car households are skewing the 50% figure (and a lot of retired people have multiple cars)

NewsShopper reports on last night’s Overview and Scrutiny Business panel meeting at Lewisham council where some Councillors questioned the Covid-19 transport measures:

The video of the meeting can be found here: http://councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=121&MId=6330

Councillor Luke Sorba asks ‘three’ questions raised by his Telegraph Hill constituents at 13 minutes into the video.

First he asked how long the temporary traffic orders would last, and when consultation on permanent changes would begin. Next he asked what consultation had taken place with the emergency services prior to the measures. Then he said:

"There’s a claim being made that some of our measures, rather than reducing traffic, are displacing it from one set of streets to another, and there’s a rather alarming suggestion being made that in one part of our borough [it’s] being displaced from the more affluent streets to the more deprived streets,”

And finally he asked what processes are in place to “measure the effect of these measures”.

NewsShopper writes up the responses to these three questions nicely in their article:

It is interesting to see Mr Sheehan deferring answers on details and specifically dates of the road closure schemes to the head of highways and transport, Louise McBride, but that she was unable to give any dates or definitive time frame for the assessment, consultation or even the duration of these schemes, instead talking generally about “taking a future review point” and the maximum duration of the temporary traffic orders.

Would be great to have some detail on that claim

They will ask the affected council members if they think traffic has gone down and if it has it becomes permanent

Hopefully you are not serious. What about streets where there is no resident councillor?

They only had enough money to carry out a small survey and sadly that means only certain streets were surveyed (maybe in a little jaded - I’ve had 5 sets of roadworks on my street this month)

They report proposals were abandoned in Harrow. Councillor Paul Osborn, the leader of Harrow Conservatives, said the suggestions “had not been particularly well thought through” and pointed to an online consultation that attracted 1,192 comments from concerned residents.

“There’s no real demand from residents. Lots are, in fact, against the schemes. So they just end up being taken away anyway, and wasting a lot of money in the meantime,” he said.

Under photographs of Manor Lane, Lewisham and Oxford, the article includes: “They’re justifying this as a way of helping the city out of Covid,” the veteran hotelier and restaurateur Jeremy Mogford says. “The truth is that it’s going to make it far more difficult”. Besides the bus gates, planned new parking and loading restrictions and further pedestrianisation would create still more pressure on trade, he says.

“It’s as if the extreme end of Extinction Rebellion has got some hold over the policy-makers. They’ve become zealots – they just don’t want motorised vehicles”.

You can always find stories that align with whatever viewpoint you want to make a point. Here’s a Bloomberg article.

“Change is scary for everyone, especially for people who have been told their whole life that owning a car equals success…. and then the rules are changed, and it’s disincentivized. It must be really confusing, and not feel great. But I’m hoping that the fear of change will dissipate.”

The Telegraph is paywalled, I did find a nice (recent) article from the Mail about someone reluctantly admitting the health benefits of cycling but I’ll save them the free traffic.

Whilst that article is clearly an opinion piece in favour of LTNs, it does at least mention the other side of the argument. Some more quotes from that article:

The article is largely in favour though. The end paragraph gives a hint at the author’s “let’s stick it to the motorist” viewpoint (which appears to be common amongst LTN advocates):

This piece from Spiked also mentions the Lee Green LTN. They are certainly speaking out in Islington!

That looks like a fair and balanced web site

Honestly the irony is fabulous in protesting road closures.

protesters brought a major London artery to a standstill for the second time in two weeks

As I’ve said before people seem to be missing the point. The aim is not to forbid people from using cars, merely to change behaviour an provide safe alternatives to driving less than a couple of miles. But this is one of those topics where people will never change their mind. So around in circles we go!

I don’t think many people are disputing the aim - we would all like less traffic, cleaner air, quieter streets and more exercise.

The problem is whether the changes being made actually achieve those goals, and that’s where the debate starts - at least in my view.

From watching the Lewisham’s Overview and Scrutiny Business panel meeting, it was apparent that there is, and was, no real plan to consider these changes, or monitor the effect. When asked about the impact of these changes, Kevin Sheenan (executive director for housing, regeneration and public realm) only spoke generally, deferring the detail to Louise McBride (head of highways and transport). Again, she could provide no dates, prior results, metrics, or details on traffic prior to the changes or after them. She spoke generally about “taking a future review point” but gave no solid timeframe for that, and while air quality monitoring stations were discussed, it was said that there are currently only 3 in the whole of Lewisham, though they do intent to place more - again with only a general description of when and what they would be assessing.

Clearly these changes have a huge impact on resident’s lives, both those that may now enjoy a quieter street, and those who actually are seeing more ‘displaced’ traffic right now (as admitted by Mr Sheehan) or whose lives are being made more difficult, or even find their livelihood under threat.

To rush such measures on such a huge scale without any consultation, oversight, and plans for review seems reckless. Using covid as an excuse seems dishonest.

I think that is why many people are upset. Not because they don’t agree with the goals.

There are plenty of road changes that the council could implement that would greatly benefit the residents of SE23, we have voiced our opinions on speeding cars, traffic crossings, air and noise pollution in our roads etc to them for them to hear our concerns.

These have been ignored.

Instead the council have opted to put in these opinion-divisive bollards everywhere without neighbourhood consultation. The money could be better spent implementing long-term traffic arrangements that really would improve the enjoyment of the resident’s roads, I personally just don’t think road closures is the answer but better traffic management could be (one-way streets to widen the roads for cycling, and reduce rat racing in both directions).

A fire engine, stuck due to the residential road closures implemented haphazardly by a London council without consultation:

Can the LTN advocates see how serious this situation is, now? Lives are literally under direct threat.

Presumably there’s a way in that isn’t blocked by a planter.

In many streets which are closed to through traffic, there is a gate to which the emergency services have a key.

Yeah this isn’t the first time a road has been closed off… From the Twitter thread it looks like a) the council consulted the emergency services on placement before they put them there as I presume is the case for all bollards and b) the car blocking the way could be on double yellows.

How would anyone know, if they’re guided by a map or by satnav? None of these planters are visible on either.

I think that’s about Loughborough junction?

That’s a good point, they should try to ensure stanavs are updated, I’m not sure how this works but I assume there must be a process for when road layouts change for all sorts of reasons.

This is a 1 minute video I took of the “road closure” (more like money grabbing trap) on Dermody Road which is now camera enforced and was implemented for “social distancing” (ha ha ha, if you know this quiet back road which is basically a rat run for cars only). There are no warning signs of the closure as you approach it other than these here (I just love those inviting blue arrows!!)

4 cars a minute on a quiet Sunday at £130 a fine. I wonder where all this cash will be going? (here’s a hint - it won’t be on roads!!!)

I have raised freedom of information requests for this and the 3 other camera controlled closures in lewisham for the breakdown per hour per day of fines issued. I also have the press involved and will be working with them to expose this blatant attack of motorists.

If you don’t know this road - it’s a cut through from east to west lewisham and now adds on 15 mins to a journey with option to travel via lewisham centre. This must be doing wonders for the traffic there and the environment…

Lewisham council are really going about this the wrong way

I drove to Sydenham the other day and both Silverdale & Bishopsthorpe have been closed off by street planters. I did wonder why these 2 routes to Sydenham High Street where closed, because when I turned round, I then went past Forest Hill School reception entrance road and the other way would be along Mayow going past the children’s main entrance at FH Sch & exit of school. So both alternatives go past the school which will cause more concentrated pollution around the school. Surely those 2 closed roads, if open, helps filter out road usage.

Also hope emergency services are aware of all these road closures going on. As will definitely slow response time down if they have to keep turning around. To find another route

I cycled home up Court Lane last night. They’ve put planters down at the Dulwich Village end and closed the road. It was wonderful. No diesel fumes and not one single car on the road. Made a nice safe change from the usual overtaking and being pushed off the road by people in SUVs.

The Court Lane closure HAS had a knock-on effect to College Road. When I was driving back from work the other month the congestion along there was awful - at a standstill for 10minutes, never seen traffic that bad in the area and definitely didn’t resemble the Dulwich Village I recognise. I actually thought about how it was creating more air and noise pollution for the leafy area.

I really don’t think closing off roads in one area and displacing it to another, bringing traffic to a complete standstill in multiple directions really achieves the air pollution reduction that they are after. Beneficial to pedestrians and cyclists? Yes. Beneficial to air and noise pollution to local residents and the area? Very doubtful.

This has been discussed a lot above, but I think that in the short term more congestion on other roads is an accepted downside. But longer term the scheme aims to get some of these people who are popping to the local shops in their SUVs looking at how fast Clausy is going on his bike and deciding to give it a go themselves. The aim isn’t to hope that traffic just keeps moving on fewer roads, it’s to effect behavioural change. There are some stats used above that suggest this is a beneficial aim, less than half of Lewisham residents own cars, and a large proportion of car journeys are only a couple of miles - if even a fraction of those journeys switch to bikes or walking then the congestion could start to ease with fewer vehicles on the road overall.

Agreed. But this was during rush hour, this wasn’t people nipping to the shops it was most likely people like me who were driving to/from their place of work.

I am now getting public transport because the traffic has got so bad but for people like me, who don’t have the luxury of WFH, public transport felt very unsafe at the beginning of lockdown. There was no option but to drive to my place of work which is on the other side of London. It’s too far for me to cycle and walk, and if truth be told London motorists terrify me too much to cycle as well.

The aim of encouraging people to cycle/walk more might be the motive but that only really works if it’s practical for people to be able to do that based on their journey distance.

Whilst I’m happy that cyclists now feel safer on certain roads and have more space it’s a lose-lose situation for a lot of commuters who are not WFH who either have to face busy public transport with people not wearing masks or sitting in hours of traffic in their car.

I personally think IMPROVING the roads to facilitate cyclists is much better than closing them.

I agree there will always be people who need cars and busses etc so it is important roads work well for all types of vehicles and I think that’s the plan, there have been some really good bits of cycle infrastructure built in recent years with more to come.

4 posts were merged into an existing topic: If anyone wants to switch to Cycling

Also adding significance to Mayow Road is the new Brent Knoll school which is due to be rebuilt, see New Brent Knoll School site planning application

The Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe closures do seem somewhat at odds with the aims of the announced, but yet to materialise, plans for school streets.

Maybe they will close Dacres Road next?

Schools that cannot take part

Unfortunately, schools with entrances on A-roads or B-roads (for example the A205 or B218) are unsuitable for closure as a school street. However, these schools can still take part in the school travel planning programme and other initiatives.

Dacres Road (Fh Boys) is unclassified, so they might try to close it.

Thorpewood Avenue (Eliot Bank) is unclassified and upper Kirkdale (Kelvin Grove) is CIII. They could be closed, and if they are would obviously have to be both done or neither. But that means all traffic diverted past Holy Trinity (Dartmouth Road - A road.)

And no school buses.

And of course no chance of getting to work for those who aren’t lucky enough to be able to ride cycles or can walk to work or work from home.

We have very few non residential roads in this part of the borough - I cant think of any. Even Willow Way is having a big residential estate built on the site of the old police station.

I haven’t heard many calls for Dacres Road to be a school street. I get the impression this is more aimed at primary schools whereas we expect our boys to take public transport or walk to secondary school.

I would see closing Thorpewood Avenue and upper Kirkdale as being totally independent of each other.

Upper Kirkdale, seen by many as the Forest Hill Bypass is probably seen by the council as a primary route for cars, bicycles and is served by the 356 bus. The current Mais House development will probably make the road a more important route especially if/when construction starts. It would be difficult to close this without major implications for the whole area.

Thorpewood Avenue is a more residential road with no buses but with 2 primary schools. It is probably a better candidate and would benefit the forgotten Holy Trinity kids who have their main entrance on it. I doubt though you will get the local residents to agree but you will probably get most opposition from the schools themselves as they want free parking for their teachers.

I blooming well hope not! By that thinking a lot of people probably think of Thorpewood Avenue as the Kirkdale/Sydenham Hill roundabout bypass.

Upper Kirkdale is an entirely residential road. There aren’t any businesses on it at all. Unless you count Kelvin Grove School as a business.

Children cross upper Kirkdale to go to Elliot Bank and obviously closing Thorpewood would make upper Kirkdale even more dangerous for them as well as the Kelvin Grove children.

I didn’t make it up just passing on how people refer to it.

Kirkdale has an interesting past and despite attempts at referring to it differently for different parts such as Kirkdale Village the middle bit and upper Kirkdale for the hilly bit, most people just see it as Kirkdale, a very significant link road that gets you from Sydenham towards Dulwich avoiding Forest Hill. It would be very hard to close any part of Kirkdale without affecting the other parts although I can understand why you would be in favour if you had a business in the Village or a house in the upper part.

I do cycle on Kirkdale regularly and dislike the level of traffic but accept that what might be good for me would probably be bad for others and on balance closing it would be a bad idea.

I am not in favour of closing the top of Thorpewood. I would say though that during school time, the excess traffic using the junction with Kirkdale makes it more dangerous than normal and removing that traffic would make it a safer junction but it would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

20 mins to get to a man 30-40 meters away

Is there a name for it when one takes a valid argument and then exaggerates it so much it weakens the original argument?

Nope, 20 mins to park, and then they had to go back and forth 40m on foot to treat the patient, rather than being able to park next to him.

I expect they encountered road blocks and tried to park elsewhere, but in the end parked by the bollards

First paragraph says “Paramedics were delayed from treating a patient by 20 minutes”

I skim read article - seemed like they were obfuscating what happened. My question on the exaggeration was genuine - it’s something I see often.

The whole article is all over the place. Later on it says

“London Ambulance Service claimed they reached the first patient within their target of 18 minutes for a category 2 emergency call.”

Also if they’re really in a rush they’ll literally park in the middle of the road. I doubt they’d ever drive around for 20 mins looking for parking rather than walking 40 yards - that sounds like some kind of random anecdote. Must have been at least 20 mins guv.

It sounds like it’s the council’s fault for not issuing keys and updating the emergency services properly - they should know exactly which roads are closed and where.

Might be poor reporting by the Evening Standard, here, but I think it’s clear that the bollards hampered the ambulance. We could argue all day as to whether this created a delay of five minutes or fifteen minutes.

The critical point is that a delayed ambulance, even for sixty seconds, will mean the difference between life or death.

Imagine if this were your mother or father dying on the street while an ambulance driver fumbles around looking for keys to a bollard (potentially multiple bollards).

Imagine how you’d feel in the ambulance, clasping the hands of your loved one, light fading in their eyes, as the driver stops to unlock and put the bollard down, gets back in, drives through the gate, stops again, gets out to put the bollard back up, locks it into place… then reaches another bollard… etc…

Glad you asked, I’d think:

‘Although my time on this fine earth is coming to a close, I’m glad that I lived long enough to see these safer streets measures introduced so future generations can live healthier, happier lives.’

Cue Brian Eno track playing me out. Camera fades to black.

@andy

The problem here is not the road closures, which have good aims, but the lack of co-ordination and care in rolling them out.

Neighbouring boroughs were not consulted, signage was inadequate and lead to drivers getting caught in dead-ends, planters and bollards were not correctly spaced to prevent people bipassing them and emergency responders have been needlessly disrupted on more than one occasion.

All of this just generates needless friction and further polarises opinion on what could have been a lot more positive and beneficial if managed with more care.

If you want to play ‘what if’ then what if we hadn’t closed the road and a rat running motorist killed a kid because he/she was doing 40mph down a residential street. This happens far more often than an ambulance needing access. What if my metaphorical father hadn’t died prematurely from air pollution. These news stories are concocted to make a one sided point pro motorists. If you want I can link you to the fabulous article in the Daily Mail this week which shows shock horror empty bicycle lanes! Half of which are actually pedestrian street widening areas that look like bike lanes. They’re taking people for a ride that they want to go on and half the time they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Yes as a parent I am not happy about the impact of the road closures on traffic near Forest Hill school and Mayow park.

I am in agreement with reducing car use but it feels like these road closure measures are being put into place in isolation without looking at the bigger picture.
Students are being encouraged to walk or cycle to school but no extra provision has been put in place to make the roads adjacent to the school safer. There have already been a number of deaths and accidents on Mayow road so this is a real danger not just an inconvenience.
There is already a petition asking for proper pedestrian crossings on Mayow Road but nothing has happened as yet.

The lack of extra buses or a school service on the 75 route is also a bit baffling.

We could definitely benefit from a more joined up approach to all this.

That said we still have diesel generators powering Aldi 24/7 just 350m away from Heseltine Primary.

Is there a link for the petition?
Kids crossing for school was bad enough before the closures came about.
I know they are using more entrances to get the boys in. But it will end up going back to main gate, with increased traffic for them to try and cross the road.

Yep, see this topic Make Mayow Road Safer, or a direct link to the petition:

Thank you

Seems that’s not quite the case:

This is deliberately misleading propaganda attempting to justify chaos, upheaval and tens of thousands of lives being turned upside down.

The implication that every bus journey now has 43 passengers looking for an alternative means of transport is simply not true and it is dishonest of the originator of the graphic to suggest so.

Buses do not run full, and certainly aren’t anywhere near full now. Anyone who wants to make a bus journey can do so, or use the totally under-utilised tube network.

Using a superficially credible but completely misleading argument to justify the nightmare that is being thrust upon some of the most vulnerable members of our society is appalling. We’ve probably already had the first death at St George’s due to a blue light ambulance being stuck on Balham High Road.

This was supposed to be under the graphic showing a nonsense justification for current policies. I can’t see how to reply inline.

there’s no ‘inline’ via the forum, don’t worry - you can see the comment you responded to by clicking my username at the top right of your post.

Ok, but there are replies under your original post?

I’ve added a quote to your post to help show the context

Thanks!

Why is it always propaganda when it doesn’t align with your world view? You’ll note all the sources quoted at the bottom are .gov websites, so now the government is pushing propaganda? I’m actually confused now.

That’s the beauty of the graphic. It has nothing to do with TfL or the government. It was put together by a cycle lobbyist to defend/support the LTNs/TfL. The links are genuine but only support individual assertions, not the core argument. Totally false but very clever and unfortunately It has been accepted and reposted by many organisations, including Wandsworth council and the local Labour group.

I hope you can see the logic gap. The 43 travellers for every bus journey looking for another option do not exist, let alone justify the plans it claims they do,

Are you accusing Lewisham Cyclists of using statistics!? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

I’ve been on a few packed buses in my time - they do exist. As do the Jubilee Line trains at rush hour. I don’t think anyone suggested it’s every busy journey but I’ve seen plenty of buses go by with a ‘Bus full’ sign. I think the argument made in the graphic is valid. To suggest it’s propaganda is just discounting it so you don’t have to argue a point.

Forget the hyperbole. The argument is are there 43 people for every bus journey looking for an alternative? No. Your anecdotal experience notwithstanding of course

Sadly the misleading use of stats is common in these discussions.

For example, there is the whole ‘more than half of households don’t have a car’ stat which has been tweeted by Lewisham Councillors, features on the Lewisham website in various forms and has been recited here too.

However, this was a survey of car ownership and says nothing of support for the LTN schemes, or how many households benefit or rely on cars directly or indirectly (e.g. company cars/vans, Zipcars, taxis, ambulances etc…). There may also be multiple people per household sharing a car, or people whose whole livelihood depends on a vehicle.

Yet this single stat is presented as though it is justification for sweeping changes made without consultation under the guise of emergency action.

Another example is the car journey survey which @clausy linked to up thread. 60% of journeys are under 2km - if you don’t count the 18% of journeys from outside London (so it’s more like 50% or all journeys, and most of those are on the weekend while LTNs are 24/7).

Unfortunately too many people read stats and don’t question what they really mean, perhaps because they don’t have time, or don’t want to think what’s inconvenient.

Statistics can be used to bend to any reference point. BTW I think the 60% actually includes the 18% from outside London - but either way it isn’t a great number

I can’t remember if I posted here again, but I raised 4 freedom of information requests relating to the camera operated “closures” in lewisham broken down per hour per day since they were switched on.

I was explicit that this data would be sent to motoring journalists of the national newspapers along with photos of these closures, bus and cycle route maps in order to get the media involved because lewisham council were not listening to residents and that these closures (and many others) were not adequately consulted and were targeting motorists to raise revenue.

I have now received a reply that none of these camera controlled closures have issued and fines. I have now issued another FOI request for the overall costings of each of these camera controlled closures to be provided.

I’m hopeful that my (and other people’s) interventions will make the council think twice about imposing their revenue raising plans under the guise of “maintaining social distancing”

I’m not sure what your argument is: that the closures were designed to raise revenue? that they have failed to raise revenue?

Thanks @Simon_Warren. There must be significant cost associated with these cameras, and this kind of intervention by the council needs to be made with our consent.

It’s unbelievable they’re still using Covid as a cover for these measures.

Hi all,

Here comes a long post…

The amount of space cars consume is mind-boggling if you think about it. As a councillor, I’ve been struck at how much of my casework has been car-related - illegal pavement parking on Dartmouth Rd, Devonshire Rd, Kirkdale (this is so challenging and costly to enforce against), obstruction by cars on Halifax street, Longfield Crescent, parking congestion on Thorpewood Avenue, Fransfield Grove, dangerous traffic congestion near schools on Thorpewood Avenue and Honor Oak Road, rat-running across the entire ward but in particular in Honor Oak.

One of the recurring arguments against any desperately needed new homes? Our street can’t take any more cars.

All these casework issues, all this pollution, noise, and all this space, taken up by cars. Space that could be used for homes, for cafes and restaurants, for simply mingling and talking. For too long we’ve viewed streets as just a way to get from A to B, rather than a place for interaction, where life happens.

Six in ten car trips are made for shopping, leisure and personal business purposes. One fifth is for work purposes. As I’ve said previously, said far too many car journeys are taken when other forms of transport are feasible. One-third of all car journeys in London (by London residents) are under 2km, a distance that is walkable and very easily cycled. Two-thirds are under 5km, a manageable 15/20 minute cycle ride.

Lots of people claim they ‘need’ to drive, yet over 50% of household in the borough don’t even own a car. All our under 17s don’t drive even in those households. All this space is taken up for the few, not the many.

So, what’s the plan? Our Mayor of London’s transport strategy, says that by 2041, 80% of all journeys in the borough to be made by sustainable modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transport. We’re always fighting for better public transport on infrastructure and for better cycling infrastructure, but that in itself I do not believe will be enough. We need to change our culture around driving and drive less.

Therefore, we are creating Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Closing off residential streets to through traffic. The feedback that I’ve seen from residents who live on these closed-off streets, has been (understandably) great. I know that there many residents in the Honor Oak area which would love similar proposals in their neighbourhood. But closing rat-runs does have another effect. If the same level of traffic continues to pass through an area, it will need to go down other thoroughfares and is likely to cause congestion on those roads.

While schemes will be assessed and designed to try to minimise this knock-on effect, it will still happen. My response to this is fairly blunt. Fed up with the amount of traffic on your street? Blame the drivers. We know that a large chunk of them will be making an unnecessary car journey. If you’re sick of being stuck in traffic, you are the traffic, consider getting to work by different means. If you know someone who frequently drives unnecessarily, have a word with them. This is about changing people’s behaviour.

On a personal note, I find the response of people who say broadly - ‘I want to be able to drive wherever I want and I don’t care about the consequences. LTNs are bad for me personally and I don’t want them’ - easier to accept. It’s honest and it is direct. I disagree with that attitude and find it selfish, but I accept their differing view.

What I dislike more is the attitude of groups like One Lewisham, who claim to be in favour of LTNs in principle, but not in practice. They suggest that any consultation is never enough, never thorough enough. They claim to support the idea of LTNs but abhor increase of traffic on main roads, despite traffic evaporation being a gradual process. They seemingly criticise any radical traffic reduction measure while claiming to want to see traffic reduced. I find it disingenuous.

There was a huge amount of consultation for Lee Green Healthy Neighbour Partnership.

I do accept that consultation was limited for Covid-19 response model filters, pavement widening, and other measures, but these were an emergency measure that needed implementation as quickly as possible. As mentioned in this thread earlier, this was urged by the Government who changed the law to allow these measures to be implemented without consultation for 18 months. Think of the 18 months period as an assessment period.

Finally, if LTNs and School Streets end up raising revenue for the cash-strapped local authority. Great. It’s the enforcement of the rules and raising funds. A win-win.

Here is a Twitter thread outlining my views on LTNS.

Thanks for the impassioned and detailed update, Leo.

And now they can take even fewer cars due to deliberate policy choices by the council

If the road network is inadequate, leading to traffic, then we should blame those responsible for providing the road network. And that’s not the drivers.

Broadband providers don’t tell customers to blame other customers when the network is slow. Neither should the council pit residents against other residents.

The council exists to serve the residents that fund it.

We don’t pay council tax so the council can boss us around.

If you want to “police” us you need to start “policing with consent.” That means running a proper consultation (not a Commonplace sham). That way, we can be assured that you’re taking into account the priorities of residents and you’re not acting unilaterally.

Thank you for being honest about the motivation here, unethical though it will seem to many of us.

I wish all councillors communicated as well as you do.

So we put tolls on the rat runs and put the money towards local road fixing (you know - like you are legally supposed to do with parking revenue)
There is a toll road in southwark and even worse Kensington has barrier controlled public roads

In a borough like Lewisham, the council would never get away with a policy that favours the wealthy and hurts the poor.

1. We have a policy to support car-free development on new homes that have a good public transport accessibility rating. Creating private car parking spaces encourages people to get a private vehicle. It’s again about reducing induced demand, so people think to themselves ‘maybe I am better off without one?’.

2. If you increase road capacity, you encourage more traffic. There is too much traffic on the road because too many people are using their cars for short journeys that can be taken by other means. As a man of your politics Chris, you certainly understand the importance of taking personal responsibility for one’s actions.

3. Our consent comes from a myriad of different things. The Mayor of London’s and Lewisham Labour’s manifestos and our election. Consultation are just another part of what forms our authority. We believe we are serving the public correctly, by trying to reduce traffic across the borough.

4. I do not think it is unethical. Fines are an incentive for people not to break the law. I think it perfectly legitimate for us to utilise the money raised from these fine, for example, on local transport projects.

Also I do appreciate that your comment about my directness. It might get me in trouble sometimes, particular if my words I can be misconstrued or I’ve expressed myself badly, but I’ve always wanted to be straight and honest with people.

As a man of my politics I understand the relationship between supply and demand, and I understand the negative consequences of distorting the market.

If traffic increases when you improve the road network, it’s because there is unsatisfied demand at present. We don’t have an equilibrium. Due to over-development in London, our road network under-serves its residents. And LTN policies simply exacerbate this.

Indeed they are. And when driving becomes illegal (by an act of Parliament, passed by a democratically elected government, under full scrutiny of parliamentary process), then it will become ethical for you to fine people for driving. Not before.

Thanks for explaining this so eloquently.

My view is that many people struggle with change. I think it’s generational to some extent. One of my kids can’t even be bothered to learn to drive - he’s 17 and cycles everywhere or gets public transport, occasionally a ride-share (the more of these hybrid electric the better). I think we’re the car culture generation - we can’t change people’s minds, we’ll just have to wait for it to expire. Sadly people can’t see the simple health and economic benefits of walking and cycling (disclaimer, assuming they are able) as well as the fact that it’s mostly also time and cost saving.

Residents in their zone free of course!

It is amazing how people don’t see the health benefits of car free travel mainly because the driver feels immune from their pollution.
The closure of the swimming pool has led to a healthier existence for the residents of neighbouring streets due to a lack of congestion and pollution caused by traffic from people seeking to improve their health.
It is probably not possible but it would be good if the council could price its services to reflect the pollution cost of travelling to avail of those services. Perhaps a walker/cycler discount for swimming pool users.

The use of ‘supply’ and ‘demand’, which are quite technical terms, lose meaning when applied to road usage in this way. There are a series of overlapping issues:

*car manufacturers are happy to advertise cars as lifestyle choices and for social status. The ads all show cars on empty roads, often with admiring looks from people watching them pass. This is fantasy but many people are happy to buy into it.

*We also have a pollution and emissions issue which is a dis-benefit of private motor transport.

*Then there is the amazing success of design and manufacturing which is able to produce excellent machines, with clever financing, but … these machines spend most of their life sitting around doing nothing. Ah, except sitting around doing nothing takes up road space and limits the space available for buses, delivery vans and lorries, dustcarts and so on, let alone private motorists. The effect of economies of scale for the firm becomes a diseconomy of scale to communities - ie too much stuff and nowhere to put it.

‘Supply and demand’ does not address these points unless we take a level of analysis well above that of the individual, which is where the local council comes in. Here costs of supply will include the external costs of disbenefit on certain scales. ‘Demand’ as the term has been used is not simply desire, but the ability to pay. Extending the road network is not funded by individual drivers (and let’s not pretend that the Road Fund Licence has anything to do with it. That’s just an unhypothecated tax nowadays based on emissions) Road networks are funded by general taxation and consequently by many people who do not drive cars. In any case, enlarging roads simply takes up more space squeezing out what? Houses, gardens, open spaces and in the short term squeezes out pedestrians and cyclists, pushchairs, wheelchairs and so on.

Leo set out a detailed case which has my support. And moves on private cars will always cause a reaction because driving is appealing. The bigger picture includes health, environment, resources and so on. But as is well known, the freedom for one person can be an infringement on another. Striking the balance is tricky and some people will always disagree.

In terms of ethics, the local Council is elected by local people. Trying to trump that by appealing to a national government is also of questionable ethics.

The point is, as Clausy has indicated, cars have rather had their day. The judgment is now fitness for purpose, and in towns there are now too many cars for the space available. Clearly living out of town in the countryside might make a person car a necessity, but in a great urban complex like London they are now an encumbrance. Perhaps we now have to consider leaving the roads for buses, emergency vehicles, tradespeople and private cars for individuals with mobility issues. We have to look to the future and move on…

Hi Leo,

I am all in favour of reducing traffic, but unconvinced by the quality of the current Lewisham policies. The 20mph rule also has had unintended consequences, mainly because there is no way of actually enforcing it without very expensive infrastructure. It is bad practice to introduce laws with no way of enforcing them. In the case of 20mph, it has made law-abiding drivers either be constantly intimidated by aggressive boy racers, or go with the traffic flow. Once you are breaking the law anyway, do people think that they might as well go a few mph faster?

Can you tell me whether it was considered bringing in a strict no idling policy, including stationary traffic at lights etc? Having to switch off engines would be incredibly annoying, and it would make the area less popular as a through route, or for road racing. I wonder whether, if combined with help to upgrade old polluting cars, it might help? In addition, it would be really easy to enforce, as the culprits would, by definition be stationary at the time! Easy for the police to net by the dozen …

I do wish the Mayor of London had considered this, as I appreciate it might be difficult for Lewisham to go it alone on this policy.

Definitely - this is the kind of sensible policy that would encourage drivers to switch to electric cars, eliminating noise and exhaust pollution.

We need to look to a future where cars continue to get smarter, safer, quieter and less polluting.

That’s a future where everyone’s interests are considered, and a future where residents are not pitted against each other.

Let’s have less “divide and rule” and more positive thinking.

I really think that when any new law is proposed, it should develop from knowing how you are going to enforce it. If you can’t work that out, then the law is just about virtue-signalling, and creates an atmosphere where people think they can choose which laws ‘count’, as far as they are concerned.

Just to pick up on a couple of points here.

I agree 20mph areas are somewhat flawed as they are so routinely ignored. I think likewise, even if we had strict no-idling policies, it would be very hard to enforce. Again, it comes back to the same issue it is very difficult to enforce against speeding and illegal parking wherever it takes place. We try our best with hotspot and self-funding CPZs. However, we often get criticised for ‘making money’ via enforcement. All in all, we have a myriad of issues (seen through casework issues I’ve mentioned and through tragic road death figures) caused by over-reliance on cars.

On Chris’ point, while I think electric cars are an improvement - we’re doing our best to get more and more charging points rolled out across the borough - they don’t combat the fundamental issues. Electric vehicles still need electricity, often from unrenewable resources. They still produce a large number of pollutants from tyre, road and brake wear. They continue to be an incredibly inefficient use of space - just look around and see how much room cars take as they spend most of their lives on the kerbside. Look at the urban sprawl of road networks, to facilitate large hunks of steel to carry on average 1.58 persons%20(see%20Figure%201)) about. Buses, trains and cycling occupy a much more efficient use of space on our transport network.

More than half of UK electricity now comes from zero-carbon power generation due to the massive ramp up in renewables over the last decade

Also, EVs produce less brake wear (due to regenerative braking), and the tyre/road dust is much less harmful to human health than the various noxious and carcinogenic gasses in exhuast fumes

@LeoGibbons you do make money through selling permits and then don’t police those areas. Don’t tell me that an electronic mark on a spreadsheet costs £175 (plus £50 for diesel).

100% agree. I would also add that all new cars should have intelligent braking systems that can stop for pedestrians and cyclists. And yes I know there’s an amusing Volvo CEO video out there but it’s a few years old. Make cars smarter, cleaner and safer then I don’t care if people still want to sit in traffic.

@anon5422159 - close but not quite.
Currently about 50% gas, 12% nuclear the rest is renewable - obviously very changeable

https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Oh yes, of course we could cherry pick different times of day to produce wildly different energy mixes.

On average though, we surpassed the 50% zero-carbon mark back in 2019

Edit: here’s the latest data from BEIS, showing an incredible increase in wind and solar in 2020 so far. At this rate we’ll eliminate fossil fuel electricity generation in just a few years:

Screenshot from 2020-09-08 18-15-43915×545 90.8 KB

Zero carbon includes nuclear which is technically true - but not really a strong argument when you are talking about renewable or pollution - it ain’t renewable and can be really really really polluting (instead of its normal really polluting)

Nuclear is considered “renewable” because the supplies are abundant. Breeder reactors could match today’s nuclear power output for 30,000 years using only the existing identified supplies, let alone the undiscovered supply. And if we need it, there’s a 60,000 year supply of uranium in seawater.

Note to @moderators, I’m happy for my EV/power posts to be moved into #geeks as you see fit. We’re drifting off topic here - apologies!

I was about to suggest this myself. Let me review and make a proposal and see what the other mods think - we’ve all been pretty directly involved too, so welcome other opinions. This has been one of the busiest threads for a while now, and some good discussion on both sides. Thanks everyone for keeping it cool.

Leo, why do you think that no idling would be hard to police? Much better than police chasing speeding cars, and it would catch the same people. Have you asked the police what they think? They are the ones who would presumably enforce it. Spot checks at major junction traffic lights could be effective.

On illegal parking, there is an easy answer to that. Currently, if members of the public report pavement parking on the phone, they can send staff to the problem area quickly. Trouble is in getting through to them. Sometimes you have to be on hold for 40 min; I know because there’s a big problem with pavement parking near me. They don’t have a system for getting emails checked in real time.

If Lewisham Council parking enforcement had a twitter account, we could DM them with photos. Even if they couldn’t respond, they could use the data to analyse where and when to send the enforcement team.

@LeoGibbons thanks again. Do you have any updates on what information is being captured in relation to road closures (my attempt to tie things back on topic) in relation to things like traffic counts, pollution monitoring.

I appreciate it’s difficult to compare before and after counts given the whole lockdown situation and everyone’s work life balance changing significantly.

Anecdotally I know bike shops are selling stock as fast as it comes in, petrol prices are still relatively low, so is there demand? It would be interesting to see how travel demographics have changed e.g. the TfL stats we’re all referencing.

I honestly don’t have an issue with trying to get people out of their cars and agree that many of us use them for journeys which are easily done on foot / bike / public transport. But closing off “rat runs” under the guise of Covid is just plain wrong and it is increasing traffic and air pollution. And try getting from Honor Oak to Blackheath on a wet day with a 3 year old on public transport in 15 mins on public transport!

Personally, I think the council need to do much much more to get people into electric vehicles (let’s not have debate over electric versus ICE and the environment!). With energy storage, de-centralised smart grids and the use of excess base load generation - there is no reason why cars cannot be charged at night, and parked cars used as energy storage to release power into the grid when needed. Smart charging, AI and use of learned behaviour to determine how much of a charged car’s battery could be released into the grid when needed and energy losses from this would be minimised and much of the power can come from green energy despite its intermittency and the damage it does to the grid.

So, how about lewisham council get their act together and provide kerb side charging points or allow residents to pay a set fee to have power run from their houses to a charging pod on the street outside their homes?

Dare I even suggest that many people would happily pay an annual permit to have a space outside their home to charge their vehicle (sorry if you feel this is elitist)

Car charging facilities in lewisham (and to be fair london) are run by multiple different companies and are inherently complex, ridiculously expensive and inefficient and I (with no off street parking) just gave up when I changed cars and bought myself a nice 3L Euro 6 diesel.

I know it’s chicken and egg, but the council urgently need to find a way for residents to charge their cars outside their homes and then perhaps start looking again at these modal filters - free for EVs and sliding scale of charges (not fines!) based upon age / engine type. This sort of nudge nudge approach is proven to change behaviour but it won’t happen overnight.

What the council fail to realise is that pushing cars off these pesky “rat runs” increases congestion and air pollution on the arterial roads and fining residents and inconveniencing them (cut off Dermody road = sitting in traffic in lewisham = more pollution = +15 mins journey time) is not a way to win hearts and minds.

Just found this thread. Some interesting points of view. It feels mostly like a crusade by a minority of people who are obsessed with trying to push cycling on others in areas where the road configuration is just not suitable not changeable. Sometimes I think people forget where they live and the historic infrastructure layout that can’t be changed (ie: choosing to never build the south circular properly).

Most people aren’t cyclists nor will they ever cycle in any meaningful way in a city like London. Many people do short journeys in cars due to health reasons, age, children, carrying things etc.

And the council…well the council will just do whatever gets them some additional government funding and suck up to the Mayor (if the Mayor comes from the same political party as they align to).

I’m sorry if it comes across like that. I think I said above you’re free to choose your options. I actually set up a thread to offer to show people safe cycle routes to where they want to go, but I’m not twisting anyone’s arm. Feel free to drive but accept that safer roads means sharing more space as the balance begins to tip and more people start to cycle. I’m not on a crusade and I’ve also said a couple of times I’m a car enthusiast too. I repeatedly put a disclaimer to say ‘where able’ when talking about cycling. Anyway apologies again if I offended anyone by promoting healthy pollution free transport.

They don’t fail to realise that at all - read @LeoGibbons post above. He totally acknowledges it will happen. The idea is to make people think about alternatives. Time is money, if you can find another way to travel then you have an incentive, leave private transport for people who absolutely need it (yes this means everything from a big weekly shop to disability transport). This is not supposed to be a binary thing. If 10% of people use rat runs and are now ‘arterial traffic’ then you only need 10% of people to switch to get back to where you were. The reason for saying time is money is that they can’t tell you not to drive in the same way they can’t tell you not to smoke or drink - they just make it expensive so you think about whether it’s worth it.

A common theme in pro-cycling posts on this topic is the suggestion that drivers are ignorant of better modes of transport, and if only they could understand the benefits of cycling, they might give up their car journeys.

I’d love to see some evidence to back up this line of reasoning.

When I drove in Lewisham I made this choice fully aware of “healthy alternatives”

I had a nice full carbon road bike in a cycle locker right outside my house. I wasn’t ignorant about the pros of cycling vs driving. It’s simply that cycling wasn’t practical for 99% of my car journeys. Weather, luggage, kids, passengers, distances, changing facilities, secure bike parking etc etc. Cycling wasn’t practical for me, for anything other than the occasional pleasure ride.

Commuting from Kent to London, I do use e-bikes for the last short leg of my journey within the Square Mile. But cycling regularly from Lewisham to work would never have been practical for me.

Interestingly, aren’t people trapped inside their vehicles more likely to suffer pollution than somebody walking outside?

That depends on what they’re driving

Is Tesla’s “Bioweapon Defense Mode” an optional extra?!? Like him or loathe him, that Elon Musk has some character and vision!!!

It was made standard on all Model S and Model X vehicles in 2018. But I have it on my 2016 Model S.

You get hospital-grade air filtration at all times, but with Bioweapon Defence Mode turned on, the car maintains positive cabin pressure, guaranteeing that no unfiltered outside air can leak in.

I don’t have off street parking, there is no parking outside my house and the nearest electric points are always filled with those red hire cars (even before the company existed and after it dissolved) or estate agent cars - and of course that is only for 2 hours

Hi JRW,

I’m sorry to hear about your experience trying to report illegal parking near your home. If you’d like to email me your address at cllr_leo.gibbons@lewisham.gov.uk, I can take a look at the issue and speak to officers about it.

Leo

Afraid it is a bit too early to tell.

Here is a our monitoring strategy for the Lee Green LTN, which might also interest @ForestHull

An assertion without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. One can easily say we’re facing a crusade by a minority of people obsessed with keeping things as they are!

Forest Hill’s roads were predominantly built in the late Victorian era (I think, correct me if I’m wrong). They were never designed for cars, and certainly not for this level of traffic. As my Twitter thread comments on, wealthy residents used to live on large houses on the arterial roads. Then the car came along… and the wealthy residents moved to quieter residential streets and large houses were sliced into flats. It is large numbers of cars that spoil our roads.

As I pointed out earlier, we accept there will be a knock-on effect in the short-to-medium term. But we believe the reduction in road space will lead to traffic evaporation, as people realise there is not enough room for everyone to keep making short unnecessary journeys in their car. This is not certain, and so we are monitoring the first Low Traffic Neighbourhood (and all future ones) to judge its impacts.

Finally, our LTNs and Healthy Neighbourhood Programme have been part of a long-term ambition to reduce car dependency in the borough, it wasn’t simply a response to Covid-19.

Hi Leo, thanks for the offer to take up my pavement parking issue, but I am in Sydenham ward and Liam Curran has promised to look into the specific problem.

My point is that there is no way of alerting the enforcement team of an issue in real time. Councils will never be able to afford constant patrols, but can respond to alerts.

It would take so little to set up a twitter account to contact for enforcement issues, and would massively improve residents’ satisfaction with Lewisham services. Can you look into this as a possibility?

Most communication between council employees and council employees and contractors takes place via organisation-email. Twitter isn’t really the ideal vehicle for dealing with complaints. Most councillors ask for casework to be reported by email for example. I understand your frustration and it is good that Cllr Curran is looking into this. I’ll speak to him as well about your experience of slow/non-existent responses to traffic/enforcement complaints.

All my reports have been sent by email, copied to councillors. I also rang the team directly, and found them very helpful and keen to tackle the problem immediately. They said there is one generic email contact, so specific operational alerts don’t get through to the team in time to deal with it. They advised me to phone in, but as I said, sometimes you can spend ages on hold.

A new app has just come on line to report fly tipping. I am suggesting that some similar arrangement would work for parking enforcement.

BTW, re twitter being unsuitable, the Metropolitan police @mps or @MetCC services work extremely well.

Scientifically probably yes but I know if I had a choice with my old diesel of sitting inside with the windows closed or standing at the back when I start it. I would always favour inside where you don’t smell the exhaust. Yes, if I could afford it I would buy an EV.

On the general thread, I don’t think there is a crusade from the cycling minority just people interested in their own health. The people who want roads closed don’t hate motorists or cars just the pollution they cause. Given a choice between 100 walkers/cyclists passing my house or 100 cars, most residents would choose the former. I haven’t seen a percentage figure for cyclists but I would say it is about 20% so using the standard 50% for car drivers. In most case the residents who want their roads closed are motorists but they just dislike other motorists polluting their roads. I doubt the cycling lobby really comes into it that much.

I have lived in London (in several different Boroughs) for many decades and it seems clear that Lewisham tolerates pavement parking more than anywhere else. In Devonshire Road it’s worse than I’ve ever seen it in previous years, just when we need more pavement space for social distancing.

If there was one thing that would have a big (“for the many”) beneficial impact - for pedestrians, and for encouraging public transport - it would be re-designing the pedestrian crossing next to Forest Hill Station.

962×734

The video shows the blue-lit emergency vehicle appearing to be wedged between a wooden planter and a parked white vehicle in Ferndale, south London

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The fire engine became blocked as it attempted to enter a road which has been shut off to motorised vehicles

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Firefighters had to continue on foot after it became trapped between a planter and a car

You posted about this two weeks ago…

yup I posted a tweet. But the article in the national press (with all the details) was published only today.

True, I think important to flag that it isn’t a separate incident, I don’t think that would be obvious to many. Some useful details from the article which of course the daily mail leaves to the end:

Meanwhile the London Fire Bridge (LFB) said the incident involving the stuck fire engine in Ferndale happened when firefighters were attending a person locked out of their home six doors down from where the fire engine was pictured.

A spokesperson said: ‘There was no delay to our attendance and there was no damage to the fire engine or the parked cars.’

The spokesperson added the the brigade ‘supports the LTN in order to assist the recovery from the pandemic and to promote active travel,’ and that it is consulted by councils on any proposed road changes.

Lambeth Council meanwhile says the position of the planter, which was placed as part of the trial LTN scheme, was changed the day after the incident.

Cllr Claire Holland, Deputy Leader added: 'It is important to ensure those who do not have access to a car - around 60 per cent of Lambeth residents – aren’t forced to walk or cycle on dangerous roads or forced to use public transport whilst the risk of transmission remains high.

As previously discussed too, I think that white car may be on double yellows…

Yes, I was just going to highlight this section as well:

'A spokesperson said: ‘There was no delay to our attendance and there was no damage to the fire engine or the parked cars.’

The spokesperson added the brigade 'supports the LTN in order to assist the recovery from the pandemic and to promote active travel,’ and that it is consulted by councils on any proposed road changes.’

@PV, @LeoGibbons - fair, of course, to point out those details. But I wouldn’t want us to casually brush off an incident like this.

We can all see how this could be far more serious if there was a fire, for example, or if the fire engine had got physically wedged and couldn’t manouevre out.

I think it would require a little more than redesigning the pedestrian crossing. With the train tracks and London road Forest Hill is basically split into three (or four) bits.

Devonshire Road is often the choke point because it is a very narrow road (too small for lorries and buses - no matter how funny that is) and tfl tries to control traffic on Honor Oak Road which means people chose to drive on a parallel road

The fire brigade are quite sanguine about it, so I think the assessment of risk is ok.

The Fire Brigade spokesperson doesn’t want to get into a political disagreement with government and local councils, you mean?

I can’t read in to their plainly worded statement in any more detail than they’ve written I’m afraid.

If there’s any more info that suggests they’re taking a political stance do share.

The definition of minority is anything less than the majority so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say a minority of people are pushing these schemes.

What we really need is a time machine to do two things

1. Go back to when the EU/UK relied on bad scientific data to push diesel vehicles which have ruined air quality/livability in European cities for a generation.

2. To go forward to the year 2050 when all vehicles are electric and have some form of autonomous technology that makes it incredibly safe for cyclists.

Given these two options require time machines, we could just focus on cycling and walking initiatives instead - we have the technology!

The electric and autonomous (or at least emergency brake assist) tech exists now. We just need incentives. Yes electricity still needs fossil fuels as we transition but at least it’s produced out of town as opposed to diesel. It’s all do-able - people can keep their cars (electric and safe) and others can cycle safely. Change is the hard part.

John, I think it’s helpful sometimes to separate things out. My point is that if Lewisham is sincere in its stated policy to encourage walking and use of public transport, they would make improvements to the crossing next to Forest Hill station. The Forest Hill Society has been trying to get this sorted for YEARS, and the crossing was a hot spot for comments on Commonplace.

The A205 Pedestrian Crossing Problem at Forest Hill Station

There’s an entire thread on this, plus there’s another one re the Perry Vale crossing at the ‘back’ of the station depending which way you look at it.

Pedestrian Crossing Forest Hill Station x Perry Vale

I’m genuinely very excited about electric cars and hope I’ll be a relatively early adopter myself in due course. I also closely watch reports on our energy mix optimistically. Pragmatically though, we’re a long way from a full shift from petrol and diesel vehicles, and electric cars still leave problems with space and traffic, and the environmental impact of production of the cars themselves. Those problems are lessened in scenarios where autonomous driving steps in, but only majorly when car sharing replaces car ownership. I haven’t seen a convincing case for any other short to medium term options that address the major issues of private petrol/diesel car ownership better than cycling/walking/public transport initiatives, even if they are at the expense of owners of cars (inclusing myself!).

We are some way off fully electric, but we’ll get there faster with the right initiatives.

For example, recent and relevant to your comment, Uber have promised 100% electric vehicles by 2040 globally, together with $800m funding to help get there:

In Europe things are even faster - from the article:

Of course this will also drive infrastructure and hopefully help scale electric vehicle production to bring down prices. It may fuel a second hand market too.

I’ve not yet seen a convincing case that the exact closures being enacted by Lewishaw, which are disrupting a great many people, address this either as under the cover of emergency Covid response much of the planning and scrutiny has so far been avoided. I did see and was encouraged by @LeoGibbons message about the Lee Green measurements now being put in place - hopefully that will provide some good data to end the arguments, though I do fear further misrepresentation of statistics (on all sides).

Yes. Making it other people’s problems. A bit like diverting traffic down other people’s roads. People live, work and play in those areas too.

There is an ethical cellphone brand that doesn’t exploit people in the third world or dump pollution into other people’s backyards. It’s neither flash nor efficient. It’s clunky, weighs a ton and fizzles out in the rain. But at least it exists. I don’t know that there’s the same ethical alternative for car batteries and computer chips. (And don’t say it’s a cycle or shanks pony. I’m talking about cars.)

If they are serious they should close the car park at the station to discourage driving to the station and it would help with improving the safety of the crossing.
Devonshire Road is actually tied to the safety of the crossing 1) cars often block the A205 taking right turns onto and off it causing backups past the crossings (Davids road is the same) 2) the sharp right turn slows traffic flow causing slow downs and accidents 3) frequent accidents slow traffic down
If the council did something that slows traffic down at the station crossing and didn’t look at the wider area they would cause more accidents

Yes, this thread is becoming very broad.

I was hoping to engage Councillor Gibbons regarding pavement parking: about the fact that Lewisham facilitates pavement parking in many areas. I think more than any of the many Boroughs I’ve lived in, there are roads with official notices permitting pavement parking.

If the Council is serious about encouraging residents to walk, then why reduce pavement space? There seems to be a massive disconnect between the stated policies of councillors, and the reality. What actually happens where there is a lot of illegal pavement parking, is that the Council obliges the drivers and makes it legal.

I’m also not convinced by Councillor Gibbons claims about the difficulty of enforcement. It sounds like a basic management problem. In Devonshire Road, for example, how could it not be cost-effective for two wardens to issue 20 tickets in one visit?

@LeoGibbons could probably confirm but the parking enforcement company isn’t on any kind of metrics. I did an FOI a while back and they visited Devonshire Road once in a year. I commonly see the parking guys drive straight out of Sainsburys ignoring all the residential parking outside Sainsburys

4 posts were merged into an existing topic: School Streets

But the council would have the money if the job was being done. If the money isn’t being collected, it appears to be a management problem as far as illegal pavement parking is concerned.

My question to the Councillors is also about permitted authorised pavement parking of which there is loads in Lewisham. Why is pedestrian space being re-allocated for vehicle use, if the stated policy is the opposite of that?

They won’t ticket people for parking on the paths or parking irresponsibly at junctions but they were more than happy to give me a ticket a few years ago at Xmas for my front wheel overhanging the path by a few cm’s … b@s7@rds!

Meanwhile over in Wandsworth the council has suspended it’s LTN trials after a high level review. From their press release:

https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/news/september-2020/low-traffic-neighbourhood-trials-suspended/

It is interesting to note that TfL’s actions are cited as antagonising the LTNs in Wandsworth. Here in Lewisham the Catford cycleway in the A21 was initially supported by the council, but since postponed due to concerns:

I do hope that after a ‘pause and rethink’ changes can be made that get closer to achieving the goals of these schemes, but with fewer losers, less disruption, and less division.

Let’s include the objectives of the scheme at the top of the linked article…

The LTN trials were introduced last month to make residential streets more bike and pedestrian friendly and to deter rat run traffic.
They were part of a series of measures introduced as part of the COVID response by freeing up additional space on the highway in support of social distancing and to promote alternative forms of travel as people gradually return to work.
The trials also supported the council’s ambition of combating climate change by encouraging people to use more sustainable forms of transport and tackling air quality.
…

It looks like there are more people with SUVs in Wandsworth than there are cyclists given it only took them a month to U-turn.

The objectives of the LTNs are pretty well trodden and widely accepted as good aims, so I felt no need to reproduce them here as that’s not the ‘news’ in the press release. The ellipsis at top indicates where I’ve abbreviated and the link is there for anyone that wants to see the full thing.

It’s based on my personal observations from cycling through Wandsworth on multiple occasions.

Edit: fixed the accidental ‘quote’ formatting in my above comment

Also their tweet thread looks like a clone of this topic. LTNs are Marmite

I will look into this for you. I share your concerns about pavement parking and will bring it up with members of our Sustainable Development Scrutiny Committee.

This morning I received a Penalty Charge Notice of £130 as a consequence of the road closure on Dermody Road.

Given how infrequently I drive through Lewisham, on this particular journey I was being navigated via Google Maps which took me to the entrance of Dermody Road; and at no stage before this did I notice any signage indicating that the road ahead was closed. There were cars behind me. By the time I realised the road was closed (despite the road closed signs not blocking the road but being totally open), I was literally at the entrance to the road. At this point I had two options (a) try and effect a 3-point turn despite cars being behind me; or (b) continue down the road.

I am reasonably neutral as to the road closures in general despite being a car user but I really resent having to pay this PCN on the basis that it was an honest mistake and I saw no advanced warning of the road closure. Has anyone had any success appealing a PCN issued in relation to these road closures?

Separately, I have made a Freedom Of Information request to determine the volume of PCNs being issued in relation to the road closure on Dermody Road. I wonder if there are grounds for judicial review on the basis that the Local Authority has acted beyond the scope of its power in putting into place a cash cow deliberately (or carelessly) constructed for the direct or indirect purposes of raising funds; rather than issuing fines to protect or preserve greater public interest, which is surely what these road closures should be about?

We have heard a lot about residents removing bollards or moving planters to stop these roads from being closed and the council putting these back.

It does seem deliberate if the council leave a road open but push the planters to the side. I presume concerned citizens would be fined if they decided to put a visible notice between the 2 planters to say the road was closed and subject to CCTV enforcement.

I am in favour of closing roads but Lewisham need to do things properly.

Sorry to hear you got a ticket. Unfortunately it seems that residents are in some cases moving signs or unblocking roads. Blaming Google or not seeing signs is sadly not a defence.

Remember the council can’t block the end of the road with Road Closed signs as residents still need access up to where it’s actually closed. So it’s unfortunate you got a ticket. I’ve had a couple when I’ve misread bus lane signs - sometimes they’re 7-10 and the next one is 24/7 and you miss the second sign - it’s cost of doing business when driving.

I’m not at all sure it is residents. I did see one of the Bishopthorpe ones that had clearly been moved by an industrial vehicle and the Devonshire Road blocks were moved by people using it as a rat run (or by the pavement people despite the fact it was closed due to a sink hole!)

Ah yes good point about residents not being the ones moving the blockades.

Interesting details emerging from Wandsworth council over their decision to scrap LTNs:

image1125×444 225 KB

wandsworth.gov.uk report (Page 110)

Road congestion levels in outer London higher than before lockdown

I know it’s easy to pick and choose one’s quotes but:

The findings also reflect the impacts of changes to congestion charging in central London, as higher charges may be encouraging drivers to switch to routes outside the charging zone

The government made this a condition of the TfL bailout. If that hadn’t happened then there’d be no money to run the bus and rail network… what would have happened then.

Also the increase in traffic is kind of needed to get people to realise it’s time to rethink or switch behaviour. You saw in Wandsworth lots of people complaining that the Road Closure initiative wasn’t in place long enough to get people to rethink. In other cities it’s taken months if not years.

In my direct local observation I was cycling to Sydenham yesterday - a parked car pulled out in front of me on Dartmouth Road from around Boots and proceeded to drive to the Sushi parking at the other end of the road and pulled in with no indicator again and parked. These are the journeys they’re trying to get people to change (disclaimer again, as long as you’re able to walk or cycle). Clearly people don’t get it yet, but bear with it, it will happen slowly.

From the article:

The most congested day so far was Monday 7 September, when congestion stood at 153% of 2019 levels.

I’m not sure 153% congestion for ‘months if not years’ is a reasonable or particularly effective way to persuade people to walk or cycle.

Note that the article states this is not a measure of traffic volume and is estimated from Waze GPS journey times. 153% means 53% increase in congestion. I’d have thought that is a great way to convince some people to look for alternative transport!

Also they noted that was on the day when everyone went back to work and to school all at the same time and people are probably still worried about public transport - if it’s not getting worse then people might. be adapting already.

The flip side is you can now race across central London in double the time…

Congestion within the central charging zone stood at just over half the levels of 2019

Sorry, did I mention traffic volume?

I still don’t think a 50% increase in congestion is reasonable and represents a huge loss of productivity and personal time:

There must be better ways to encourage alternative modes of transport.

There are obviously two sides, if you are living in a less polluted street then you probably think that it is reasonable for the motorists to keep their pollution and lose time and productivity rather than negatively affecting your health.

Interesting to see the euphemism of strengthened for increasing prices

There are better ways to encourage alternative modes of transport just like laws but unfortunately the stick seems more effective. There is no prize which of the following slows down traffic: a sign or camera enforcement.

I won’t be driving my car north of the South Circular from October next year. If the ULEZ wasn’t coming in, I wouldn’t change my behaviour.

@GHCranston

Please can you DM me when you get a response to your FOI Request.

When they responded to my last FOI they stated no PCNs has been issued up until 24th August as the cameras were not live so I’m guessing they’ve switched them on (can you please confirm when you drove through there?)

I have raised several FOIs asking for hourly / daily breakdown of PCNs and am in contact with two national journalists whom I am sharing data with because I believe Lewisham are simply using Covid as an excuse to close off “rat runs” and raise revenue without and sort of proper consultation or consideration of the impact on traffic / pollution in other areas.

Statement posted on Twitter this afternoon from Mayor of Lewisham on the Lewisham & Lee Green LTN:

image376×763 115 KB

Oh good, I’m sure everyone will be fine about being consulted properly this time around before they make any further changes!

Also I noted that Ealing are extending their trial for another 6 months - at least I’ve seen it on BBC London news in the mornings but can’t seem to find any notices online.

Lewisham will now perform a full statutory consultation about the measures.

It’s a great shame they didn’t perform this beforehand - they could have saved a lot of time, money and frustration.

Relevant to this topic is the following change.org petition which has reached in excess of 9,000 signatures (note this is different to the Make Mayow Road safer one mentioned earlier which stands at about 800 signatures):

For balance I did try and find a petition to keep / extend the road closures in Lewisham, but didn’t find anything quite comparable. Perhaps someone here can find something comparable?

Interesting. Democratically elected council takes action on road safety measures. Some people petition it to change on the basis there was no proper consultation. It is impractical to have a consultation every time anything needs to get done: we could but it would be prohibitively expensive, time consuming and people would lose interest rapidly. That’s why you have local elections: to elect people to make decisions for you so you don’t have to bother. We elect these people to represent us. Someone is going to disagree every time government at any level does anything, constant petitioning…why? 9000 out of 300,000 residents is not a huge number.

On the flip side, why would you petition to keep something that’s already there? I expect a proper review at the end of the scheme then let’s decide if it’s effective and if we want to keep it.

A 9000-strong petition is huge and represents a groundswell of opinion that the council are picking up on. They’ve gone very quiet on social media about LTNs now and have acknowledged the need to ask the public about this divisive policy.

I’m only reporting what I would say is a not-insignificant petition which hasn’t been mentioned here before. 9,000 isn’t a huge number, but comparing it to the population of residents isn’t particularly useful either (and the petition also doesn’t require signatories to be a resident). For comparison, the “Save Duncombe Hill Green” petition reached over 5,000 signatures before it was presented to the Council and I wouldn’t belittle that.

But personally I don’t think democracy is limited to a couple of days voting every 4 years and petitions are a time honoured way for people to show what they care about and influence the decision making of those that have been previously elected. This is important, especially given that Covid response wasn’t on any manifesto or agenda at the time any elections were last held.

I know it sounds a bit regressive but I would have more faith in a paper petition of a few hundred people than an anonymous online petition even it has thousands of signatures.
There is no qualitative control that I can see with this petition. Many of the people signing will be people who contribute nothing to our borough except their pollution.

I am in favour of petitions but they have to be local and there has to be some quality control to ensure that they reflect local opinion. It takes a lot more effort to walk the streets collecting signatures, writing to councillors and writing your name on a petition than clicking Sign this petition with complete anonymity.

Indeed, and the same criticism can be levelled at the council’s own use of Commonplace for consultation.

Personally I think a paper based petition can also be faked or manipulated because it’s unlikely anyone is going to check names and addresses supplied.

The benefit of online is that it reaches a lot of people, but at the same time it does exclude other groups (those without easy access to computers).

So perhaps paper + online?

Yes - definitely do-able. The council has just sent me a form to confirm the electoral register is up to date at my house with an option to complete it online using a unique two part security code. That would seem like a perfectly adequate way of achieving a paper/online consultation. Send it by post to local residents and give them the option to fill it out online. I think the chance of people abusing something like this are fairly low.

I think there is comparatively little faking or manipulation of paper based petitions when they represent a local group whether civic society or local residents. It is a thankless task knocking on doors and asking people to sign in all weathers so tends to be only the very dedicated rather the armchair keyboarder sitting in the warmth.

I would agree though something that combines online and paper would be the way forward.

It would appear that online maps still don’t correctly understand these road closures, as shown by the following walking directions:

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It looks like Google maps think that Silverdale is closed to cars, bikes and pedestrians!

I guess that’s one way to encourage more walking at least

It would appear it also takes a lot more effort to come out and protest. 30 or so people out on a demo opposing Lewisham LTNs this weekend. Did anyone here go?

If just a single person cares enough to take to the streets to protest, the likelihood is that it’s a serious issue (and thus affects a lot more than one person). Most of us have jobs, and don’t have the luxury of time off to attend demonstrations.

Describing the opposition to LTNs as “anti healthy streets” is a massive conceit, as well. Totally disingenuous. The mother of Ella Roberta Kissi-Debrah is opposed to LTNs. Is she “anti healthy streets” now?

It’s simply a counterpoint to 9,000 signatures on a petition. 0.3% of those people turned out to protest. The point was that it’s easy to collect signatures from out of towners when you do it online as opposed to canvassing local people on their doorsteps to get real local feedback.

Ealing had a couple of thousand people show up on the streets in comparison.

This demo above was at a weekend when most people aren’t working.

We’re not supposed to be out on the street protesting. We’re supposed to avoid crowds. So maybe the size of the protest goes to show that the organizers are being sensible and sensitive in keeping the scale of the demo responsible and healthy. As opposed to those who direct traffic into smaller and smaller areas and thereby create unhealthy streets.

Interestingly, just two Twitter posts back, that same Martin McKee was complaining about someone breaking the rule of six by attending. So in his book you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

It was also pouring with rain most of the weekend

You may need to redo your sums as the petition is now in excess of 10,100 signatures. They also claim more than 100 people joined the protest at the weekend. Of course each side is going to try and under-represent the other, but some things are hard to ignore.

Moving on, interesting new data on the Lee Green LTN is provided by the Lewisham Lib Dems who have conducted their own survey of 1,000 people who live in and around that area. Their report lacks any snazzy info graphics but has interesting stat’s none-the-less; it can be read here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rUBrsMz3eaVWKYS3Ht1NmBm6Dv6lPfDs/view

This is certainly not from ‘out of towners’:

Here are selected questions and responses from the survey report (many questions have long textual answers omitted for here for brevity):

It is interesting to note that in response to Q2a, many people wish the restrictions only be on weekdays. However, the TfL data that is often cited in supporting the LTNs shows that many of the <2km journeys which would better if walked or cycled happen at weekends.

The report says that many of the ‘other’ responses are simply asking for the complete reversal of the changes.

A couple of questions are somewhat leading, but still interesting:

It certainly looks like Lee Green LTN is the current battleground, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out there, and if results affect other road closures in the borough.

It was on BBC Breakfast national news this morning too. The Mayor was saying he’s listening to people and considering how to move forward.

In the mean time, this is an interesting article about how the underlying problems can’t be solved without fundamentally rethinking how our cities are designed.

Was that Damian Egan on BBC Breakfast? Do you have a link?

I think the pros & cons of electric vehicles is a different discussion.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1017860088638274 - sorry all I can find is a Facebook link - should work… my favourite is the delivery driver worried about pollution yet has a pack of (red) Marlboro in his cab.

Despite the title the article is really about 15-20min cities and redesign of urban architecture. The electric thing is secondary. The delivery problem of going door to door could easily be solved with central drop off locations. You can still organise delivery for people with mobility issues.

And I agree with the earlier comments about using tech to solve this - rush hour closures with cameras and/or average speed checks would be excellent as people could then cycle commute on quieter roads.

Monbiot’s statement regarding tire wear pollution is simply wrong:

In actual fact, this kind of particulate pollution presents a low risk to human health.

I wouldn’t want a far-left, anti-capitalist eco-propagandist like Monbiot redesigning our cities

I wouldn’t want a far-right, capitalist climate denier redesigning our cities either. And I’m not pointing any fingers, just echoing/reversing your statement.

I think the primary point about the 15 minute cities and road closures is that it encourages communities to build up again and it’s good for local business. I would love to be able to get most things I need on Dartmouth Road but we’ve engineered things to be cheaper to buy in Retail Parks that it’s easy to drive to and park at. I can’t even buy a screwdriver without having to go to Bell Green

Reversing, why? Did anyone propose such a thing on this topic?

It’s interesting that that study was sponsored by the tyre industry. I confess though that I haven’t read it all, as to do so would mean following many links to other studies and I haven’t had time to do so. I wonder if they looked into the impact of gradient and speed bumps? The studies Lewisham relied on in the introduction of the blanket 20mph zoning were carried out on horizontal surfaces.

From Damian Egan’s ‘Covid-19 Update’ email yesterday:

It will be interesting to see what changes are made, as well as what evidence is used to inform those decisions.

Lewisham council begins removing LTNs:

Yet they certainly did work out as many of us expected them to.

It’s a shame the council listened to ideologues as opposed to the general public. Could have saved a lot of money and avoided creating congestion.

The general public is not represented solely by motorists who are too lazy and selfish to change their behaviour. The general public includes me who would like to cycle safely from A to B. The general public includes parents who want their kids to be safe walking down the street and not breathe pollution.

Yes indeed everyone expected there to be a whole load of congestion to the point that over time it would push people to change their behaviour. In other towns it has taken 2-3 years.

Backing down now is daft. So yes they’ll need to retreat and rethink and hopefully have a better executed plan next time.

Did anyone suggest that it was?

This is good news. They have finally twigged the damage these schemes have done to local businesses and the massive traffic problems and resultant pollution and the impact it has had on local residents trying to go about their daily lives.

The council are also doing their best to be elusive and not respond to my freedom of information requests on the number of fines issued by the camera controlled “closures” - I wonder why that is?

Luckily I have two motoring journalists on the case - one whom has been collating data from the businesses in the commercial estate off Manor Lane and is helping me to get the fine data from the council.

Time to end these sorry schemes and accept that people need to drive. If you want to get people out of their cars, try waiting until the pandemic is over and try not implementing ill advised schemes under “Covid-19 Maintain Social Distancing” when it is blatantly an attack on motorists. Or maybe try and encourage people to drive electric cars by finding a solution for people to be able to park and charge their cars at home.

And the sad thing is that the ideologues have succeeding in pitting non-motorists against motorists, as is evident from some of the unpleasant comments above.

Even after the LTNs are gone, the resentment will probably remain.

This should never have become a tribal “us vs. them” stand off, but zero-sum policy-making has that effect unfortunately.

It was actually statutory guidance from the government to implement the schemes. This is the basis for the so called ideology… direct from the Secretary for Transport.

The execution of these plans, rather than the actual principle behind them, is surely what is causing the issues here? The key way to getting people to start cycling is surely to introduce proper cycle lanes, proper facilities for cycle storage, and perhaps even cycle lessons for the less confident. This surely needs to happen before anything else? In SE23 people will inevitably use cars more than ever before at the present time because at weekends we have almost no public transport options.

Yes, it’s somewhat clear the Councils implemented something other than the Transport Secretary’s vision - seeing the problems it caused, he later threatened to remove funding:

Small steps such as this would have been an excellent start. The head-on approach has probably needlessly set things back a fair bit

That’s behind a paywall, so I used the next google result which (coincidentally) is

This part of course I agree with:

“But as you’d expect with things which are trials, not everything has worked. That’s why they’re trials – so they can be changed.”

However the examples he cites are then regarding ‘random one-way systems’ and plastic pavement widening barriers which ‘narrow the carriageway for traffic, causing congestion and increasing danger for cyclists’ so it’s nice of him to be concerned about safety issues and totally appropriate to review these for those reasons.

I can’t see from that road.cc coverage whether he cited road closures as a bad idea in the original article but it doesn’t appear that they’re the reason he threatened to remove funding.

I shared the article earlier in this topic

Some key quotes:

Yes, it’s quite clear that Shapps doesn’t want to choke off all access by motor vehicles. From the same article:

This seems somewhat more pragmatic and a bit more realistic than just closing roads with the expectation that traffic will simply ‘evaporate’ without any negative effects.

This is a map of cycle storage facilities, taken from Lewisham Council’s website.

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The cycle highways map is another eye-opener.

If we can get cycle highways and cycle storage sorted, people may be inclined to give cycling a go.

This is not an ‘us and them’ thing pitching motorists against non-motorists as others have suggested. I’m both a motorist and a cyclist and it’s perfectly possible to blend both together where it makes sense. I definitely cycle more miles than I drive in London every year. That means I’m making space for other people who need to drive and reducing congestion and pollution. The more people that can do that the better. As you said the more people that switch to electric the better too.

Shapps did say in his opening paragraphs of the statutory guidance page intro:

And millions of people have discovered, or rediscovered, cycling and walking. In some places, there’s been a 70% rise in the number of people on bikes - for exercise, or for safe, socially distanced travel.
When the country gets back to work, we need them to carry on cycling, and to be joined by millions more. With public transport capacity reduced, the roads in our largest cities, in particular, may not be able to cope without it.

Anyway as I’ve said before I agree with the implementation of the closures initially being rushed which is what made them somewhat divisive. I do think that they’ll now roll them back initially, then come back with a better more well thought out approach, hopefully including more technology like cameras and speed checks and ANPR based residential access.

Nobody wants more pollution from congested main roads, but also not many people want to switch.

Unfortunately that’s the sad effect of some of the LTN policies which have been very divisive. Taking roads away from cars and giving them exclusively to cyclists is bound to create bad feeling when cycling isn’t practical for every journey or person. Similar divisions are created by making some streets quiet for residents while others nearby have seen an increase in traffic, congestion and pollution.

Statements dismissing opposition to the schemes as a ‘vocal minority’, or calling motorists ‘lazy and selfish’ or only wanting consultation processes where it may benefit themselves also don’t help bring the sides together.

I think it’s a little bit unfair to say that I’m suggesting roads should be given exclusively to cyclists. Way way back to my original point this is about reducing car journeys not eliminating them or declaring war against the car - we simply looked at the 30% of journeys under 2 miles where walking or cycling might be an option for some people.

But I don’t want to go around in circles, I think we’ve pretty much covered it a few times over. Statements by people describing those they disagree with as idealogues also don’t help bring 2 sides together.

Sorry, where did I suggest you were suggesting anything? I’m critical of the way LTN policies have been implemented and their effects. I think that’s clear from my post above, sorry if it’s not…

Also not me.

One thing that is often forgotten about cycling is parking at your destination. This is fine a lot of the time especially for many if they are commuting, pre-covid, I had underground controlled parking at work which meant that my bike was out of the rain and relatively safe. At home, I have it locked outside in the elements.

The problem I find though is locking my bike when going shopping. The FH Sainsburys is fine, bike racks outside the shop in very visible location. The Bell Green Sainsburys bicycle racks are beside the trolleys far away from the visibility of the entrance rendering it relatively vulnerable. I see the odd person just walking their bike inside. I think we need shops to do more to encourage cycling. If there is no safe parking then I am likely to take the car or not bother.

I agree with the blended life approach. I walk, cycle and drive and think you can balance road use appropriately. It is awkward sometimes but for the general good.

Totally agree. If you are nipping down to the shops on a bike, if just for a few items, you need somewhere secure to leave it. Appreciate you do for a car too but that’s about finding a space. A bike you need to have something to lock it to. I nip to Dulwich Library on the bike and it’s great because there are multiple cycle hoops to put it on. There are times that I’ve resorted to Google Streetview to try to identify potential parking if I’m going somewhere unfamiliar.

My work has a secure underground cycle park, but I am loathe to leave my bike anywhere else, except for proper storage facilities.

There is a Cycle Hub at Peckham Rye Station, that is great for anyone it is convenient for.

Also, Waltham Forest Council have a cycle storage units at several stations, and they are very good.

One in Finsbury Park too, https://cyclehoop.force.com/RentalsCommunity/yourcycleparking?id=a0h0O00002OCDo8QAH

You need these kind of facilities if people are to take a serious look at the potential for them to invest in a bike and then use it regularly.

With the LTN in Lewisham it was kind of like we just woke up one day and there they were! Did they do a small scale trial to iron out issues that come with any new initiative?

People need to be communicated with, google maps etc need updating, proper cycle facilities need putting in place…

It seems like Lambeth managed to do it right - Railton Rd closure resulted in 90% increase in cycling.

It will be good to see this planned properly next time around. I hope Lewisham figure it out. It’s interesting because there are no bollards blocking the road so there is easy access for emergency vehicles and yet it doesn’t seem to get abused. I wonder if they have cameras and residents’s cars registered via a scheme?

Lambeth’s petition against the LTN gathered over 3,000 signatures:

Revealingly, a freedom of information request showed that sixteen Lambeth councillors live within LTN-closed roads:

Gosh, is it a surprise that councillors live in the areas they represent?

Railton Rd is one of the main routes from FH to the West End. It’s great cycling along there now, and my son cycles up and down twice a day on the way to Vauxhall so I’m glad he has a decent portion of the journey as a safe route. He’s also a big fan. So from personal experience, I think it’s great.

Err…

The councillors don’t just live in Lambeth - they specifically live on the roads closed by LTN schemes. They therefore benefit personally from traffic being displaced from their own roads onto others.

If I were solely focused on my own personal situation, I might ban all cyclists and pedestrians from the roads I drive on. This would reduce my risk of collisions and damage to my car.

However, disregarding the rights and priorities of others would be completely sociopathic, and so I’m quite happy to share the road with others even if it makes my journeys less safe and enjoyable.

But I don’t make the rules - I didn’t ban the cars, I’m just enjoying the benefits and sharing them for anyone else who wants to cycle that way

Do you understand how others might perceive your comments?

You are effectively gloating about how these divisive policies have personally benefited you, while criticising those who have been negatively affected.

Lewisham have announced the revisions to the Lee Green LTN:

There will also be a public information session on 22nd October:

It seems to me that’s a much better solution. Enforce it with technology instead of closures: seems like the directional nature also targets so called rat running. It doesn’t mention residential access though: I expect that’s more complicated to track in terms of license plate registrations and residency.

The net effect will still be to reduce traffic in those neighbourhoods so it will still be pushed onto the main roads, so the congestion/pollution problem won’t be solved until people switch to electric or human power. I agree we still need more incentives light street charging facilities and better cycle routes.

I’ve also thought that it must be possible to upgrade the camera software to do speed detection using AI algorithms (instead of expensive radar systems) in the same way that self driving cars monitor other moving vehicles.

I wanted to share this Twitter thread because I think it is illustrative and informative.

To lighten the mood, I was once cycling up Railton Road on a wet evening with an obviously loaded pannier and rack. A car slowed down to drive alongside me, rolled the window down and asked me if I wanted to hang on and get a tow.

Always brings a smile to my face when I’m pedalling up there.

Here’s the government’s response to a petition to remove guidance and funding for LTNs

The Government is committed to delivering a step change in levels of active travel. We know the majority of people support giving more road space to cycling and walking in their local area.

It goes on to outline how well planned improvements can improve local business retail sales by up to 30% amongst many other benefits.

It does of course say that:

Effective engagement with the local community, particularly at an early stage, is essential to ensuring the political and public acceptance of any scheme.

and

Many schemes have been installed as trials. This approach can help achieve change and ensure a permanent scheme is right first time, but schemes will take time to bed in and for the benefits to become apparent.

Understandably Lewisham have proposed some changes to the local schemes, I’m hoping they will continue to improve them with continuous feedback and monitoring.

More from the agenda of Lewisham Council’s Scrutiny Business Panel meeting, 2020-11-24T00:00:00Z, there is a brief update on how the current modal filters are performing:

Also in the following section. the measures to increase pavement space are considered:

Throughout the report the commonplace feedback is noted as ‘mixed’ for these schemes, though no actual supporting data seems to have been published.

Reports continue to come in of the life threatening consequences of councils disrupting the road network:

Updated sat navs (to include the closures) would have only mitigated this issues caused by the road blocks.

Delays would still mount up, affecting both paramedics’ response time and also their capacity.

Here’s a counterpoint article.

https://collegeofparamedics.co.uk/COP/Blog_Content/the_paramedic_case_for_safer_streets.aspx

The Southwark News article is highlighting findings from incident reports it obtained through FOI requests.

The College of Paramedics article (written by a Committee member of The London Cycling Campaign in Hackney) makes the general case of the benefits of LTNs (lower traffic, longer life expectancy etc…) and is broadly in support of LTNs. When it comes to the topic of emergency response it only says:

Though there is a lack of published research on the interaction between emergency responders and LTNs, ambulance services are among the consulted bodies who must be involved in a scheme’s design.

Both articles reference London Fire Brigade studies that show emergency response times dropping after LTNs have been implemented in Walthamstow and Waltham Forest.

So in summary, I think the two articles are different things and my own view is that the aims of the LTNs are great (as highlighted by the College of Paramedics article), but the implementation has caused undeniable problems (documented in the Southwark News article), and these should have been avoided with a more considered roll-out, which would have upset fewer people and maybe avoided some of the resistance.

It’s a campaign piece written by a cycling campaigner who also happens to be a student paramedic

Great to see Forest Hill MP Ellie Reeves lending her voice to the majority of people in Crystal Palace who want its LTN entirely removed:

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When will the rest of Lewisham see proper consultations like this? And will elected representatives honour the results?

I find the title of this article a bit click-baity to be honest. " High Court rules London’s Streetspace scheme was unlawful". That’s not entirely true as it relates to one specific road…

a judicial review mounted by the London taxi trade, concerning a specific Streetspace scheme, the A10 Bishopsgate Corridor in the City of London, which removed taxi access to a key arterial route

This doesn’t have any bearing on road closures in SE23 or Lewisham from what I can see. As has been suggested before, private hire schemes like Uber are far more efficient and environmentally friendly yet the black cab lobby remains extremely powerful.

The ruling may have wider implications as the judge ruled that it was wrong to make changes without a proper accessibility assessment. Because a number of LTNs have been implemented without consultation or consideration of of accessibility concerns, they might be subject to further challenge.

Lewisham have published a report on the Lee Green LTN. It covers a fair amount of data, both from air quality measurements, bus journey times and also commonplace feedback, and even comments on impact to emergency services - all commonly voiced concerns.

The report summary also states:

1.7 The Council has used Commonplace to seek feedback from residents during the trial period. This online platform has been used to allow the public to comment on the various measures with the LTN. This is not a consultation tool, but a feedback tool which some members of the public have used. A full public consultation will be undertaken with all affected residents in March.

The executive summary is here:

Lewisham LTN report - executive summary updated 18 Jan 2021.pdf (599.4 KB)

There’s a couple of nice graphs too. The first shows bus journey times decreasing with the first lockdown, then increasing co-incidently with the installation of the LTN on some roads:

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Commonplace feedback also looks somewhat negative, though the full report breaks responses down by road (using the respondents entered postcode):

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Most crucially the report notes the air quality monitoring data does not show a significant increase in air pollutants around the LTN:

1.4 The report includes air quality monitoring data from three points at Upwood Road, Leahurst Road and Manor Lane. These monitoring stations show that the Lewisham and Lee Green Low Traffic Neighbourhood have had very little to no impact on the surrounding air quality.

Links to each of the detailed report sections can be found at the bottom of the following page:

It would be nice if such a report are produced for other road closures such as Bishopsthorpe & Silverdale Road, though some of it must have taken considerable time to put together.

It’s great that they’re monitoring and gathering statistics. It seems like the most important part of that report is section 3: Context. which lists 8 reasons why the stats could be skewed.

It is important to acknowledge that any transport related monitoring carried out within a pandemic will always need to be considered within this context before drawing any conclusions

Plenty of road works (I remember mid year doing Foodbank deliveries to Lee area - we could get there in 20 mins by bike, drivers were complaining it was an hour each way by car because of SCirc works). They also note huge shifts towards car use versus public transport, and yet an overall reduction in traffic volume because people are staying home.

Also re Emergency Service Response

We have so far received feedback that there has not been any negative impact on response times as a result of the LTN.

…again with the caveat that the pandemic will impact any stats as they’re far from normal operations.

Thanks for sharing this, good news they’re monitoring and publishing stats, but it’s difficult to draw conclusions.

I think that’s very true. I have bought a car after 25 years of living in London without one - despite not expecting to use it other than for journeys that require multiple modes of public transport. I’ll still use my feet and bike for short trips; it’s quicker for me to walk down to Forest Hill from near the Horniman than drive there and back.

But last summer, I didn’t feel comfortable visiting friends who were that bit further afield and relying on public transport, particularly when that involved going through Central London. And that made me feel more isolated - so I finally dusted off my licence and bought a car.

The report shows a clear and consistent preference against LTNs, which mirrors polling from elsewhere in London.

If councils won’t heed public opinion (as Forest Hill MP Ellie Reeves pointed out) then it falls to the London Mayor, or MPs, to stand up for residents instead.

The postponed Mayoral election will hopefully happen in May this year. Mayoral candidate Sean Bailey has pledged to reverse LTNs:

The Mayoral candidate should be aware of the limits on the Mayor of London. Or are there any LTNs on TfL controlled roads?

The Mayor can (and does) intervene in several ways, including funding, collaboration and intervention.

There’s a review process which looks at whether each LTN will affect the strategic road network:

Sure. And I would hope there to be some connectivity in these matters. This FOI response covers the implementation phase. But it does not address how the Mayor of London could reverse an LTN, unsurprisingly as the Mayor of London has no authority in that matter.

Any candidate for this position, regardless of the colour of their silks should be aware of these limitations and be careful of what they can and cannot promise. And if they do make promises on matters outside their jurisdiction be prepared to advise on how they would do achieve those ambitions. This is not a new issue for this Mayoral candidate. Hopefully he can move beyond the rhetoric by the election in May. When a candidate makes a pledge hopefully they have a pathway to fulfilling it.

Sean Bailey going against his own Party there, LTNs after all are a Conservative Party policy.

Also, Bailey might want to reconsider this plans if we wants to win in May… the polling shows LTNs are, broadly, a winner with the public. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2021/01/exclusive-london-support-poll-LTNs-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-car-driving-charge-toll

Actually, central govt was disappointed at how the cash, intended for green measures, has instead been used to block roads and exacerbate congestion:

Please note that we’ve dropped this topic into ‘Slow Mode’ to keep any potential heat out of the discussion. See the FAQ for more info on how this works and why.

True. LTNs and other measures to create safer spaces for cycling and walking are still very much apart of Government policy as the Department for Transport confirmed in a press release from November supported by the Secretary of State and the PM. Additional money for these measures was announced alongside further guidance on implementation.

Perhaps Shapps was encouraged by the overwhelming public support across England for these measures.

While I disagree with his position on the matter, I am heartened to see a mayoral candidate step away from their own party’s policy and pursue a course which they feel is right for London. Though given the broad appeal of these measures in London it may not be the vote winner he hopes for. For what’s it’s worth, this time I think the government is on the right course with their proactive support for LTNs, School Streets and Cycle Lanes.

I think the amazing thing is how low the support for LTNs is?

Doesn’t everybody want to live on a road that hasn’t got loads of traffic, pollution and noise? Doesn’t everybody want to live longer without dementia, breathing diseases and other illnesses that pollution brings? Would a single person vote for their road to be turned into a High Traffic Neighbourhood (HTN)? Similarly there should be widespread support for School Streets and Cycle Lanes.

The government is right to support these measures but I think people question whether the councils are able to deliver these without doing the basics of speaking to local residents and getting the detail right.

Lewisham seems to stand out as an example of what not to do.
They adopted the we know best attitude in putting in the Lee Green LTN together and then had to re-engineer it when the residents told them they didn’t.

Some schemes are seen as making it up as they go along, we’ll put in a school street, oh we don’t have enough money, we’ll put in a permanent one way system to make it work, oh that means we displace the pollution to the school excluded from the school street and local residents will have an extra 1km detour, oh they won’t notice if we keep quiet …

There are some really good LTNs, school streets and cycle lanes but all the good work is tarnished when councils don’t talk to residents and they don’t get the detail right.

Unfortunately, I think the councils should either come up with or the Government should impose a decent set of rules that all these schemes should pass before seeing the light of day. I think if they did that, support would be back to nearer 100%.

I am sure everyone would love to live on a street like this, the issue is close one street to traffic and where does that traffic go? I am also surprised that people think that pollution stays on one street with cars. A bit of wind and it gets carried around.

The article cited does say that “44 per cent of respondents support the schemes compared with 21 per cent who oppose the schemes”, but it doesn’t say who was polled, how the respondents were selected. Seems obvious that those inside a scheme are going to support it; those in the next street, or those having to take long diversions are not going to be so happy.

Great news @marymck, but unfortunately it looks like the council will install money-making ANPR cameras in their place.

And this is despite the poll highlighted by MP Ellie Reeves, which clearly indicated the public don’t want ANPR cameras (or LTNs at all)

ANPR gates won’t protect nine-year old kids from regularly cycling through these zones. In fact the false sense of security offered by these new cash-cow-camera LTNs will be dangerous

Why would that be? Are you suggesting that cars driving down residential streets are a danger to children ? Isn’t that just proving the point for why we need safer streets?

I think it’s less black-and-white than that.

IMO much of the danger comes from parents allowing nine year old kids to cycle on their own on London streets (see article). It’s only a matter of time before one of these poor little things has a wobble toward the middle of the road / gets distracted / forgets the rules of the road, and an accident happens. They’re only nine years old

When they were barrier-controlled, LTNs gave small bubbles of safety for small parts of journeys (at the expense of others). But these LTNs are going away because the public rejected them.

ANPR-controlled zones are different. If they’re branded as “LTNs” they’ll give a facade of safety. Unlike a barrier, ANPR cameras won’t stop cars, and with less traffic around (due to ANPR controls), individual cars will drive faster through the zone.

We do need safer streets, which means all road users have to behave sensibly, including cyclists and pedestrians. It’s not sensible for the council to place some signage up, proclaim “LTN,” and hope for the best (same issue with #20mph zones). If kids are tottering through ANPR zones on bikes because parents assume they’re an Amsterdam-style cycling idyll, it’s only a matter of time before an accident happens.

Part hidden by moderator

Here’s a reminder of the kind of worryingly unrealistic proposals we’re up against:

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Yup - that’s two children on the bike, one on the parent’s shoulders.

And that’s an LTN advocate in a position of authority and responsibility endorsing this dangerous behaviour.

What’s stopping London becoming like Amsterdam? So many benefits for everyone’s health and the health of the environment that we all share!

The size, the geography for starters. Plus, Amsterdam’s trams scare the bejesus out of me😁

Amsterdam is a lot flatter than London as well.

Once again you’re making the argument that motorists are simply not able to obey simple traffic rules and are therefore dangerous to children, pedestrians and cyclists because they can’t read signs. All roads use signage to indicate speed limits and regulations - how exactly is this ‘not sensible’ of the council?

I don’t really want to get into another ping-pong argument with you here, so I’ll make this my last response to your rhetorical points.

Look at the success rate of the blanket 20mph limits. Draconian limits, applied inappropriately, ignored by motorists (and understandably so, IMO). Lewisham achieved a mere 0.5mph reduction in speed, and no discernible improvement in safety.

Same is likely with ANPR “LTNs”

If roads are arbitrarily chosen to be “closed” without the buy-in of motorists, or residents’ acceptance, then some motorists will ignore the closures. And some people will just miss the signs. Human nature.

It’s a naive mistake to imagine that signage alone (even with ANPR) is sufficient to achieve 100% compliance - in the case of a poorly thought-out, arbitrary and zero-sum policy. You’ll reduce traffic, sure - but you won’t make the roads safe in the way you think you will.

This post makes a great case for LTNs with physical barriers.

London is larger than amsterdam and yes adam is less hilly than areas like SE London. But is this really the reason people are still using cars as their main form of transport, or is it because it’s what they are used to, and perhaps also because lack of provisions for cyclists deter people from taking it up.
We cannot change the habits of people who have always driven, but we can change the habits of the next generation who are in school now and can be taught from the start that cycling/walking/public transport are how to get about.

Electric cars are probably better but they must still end up as waste and also creating electricity creates pollution even if not in the immediate vicinity.

Absolutely no danger whatsoever of people confusing amsterdam with london. If you (not you who I am replying to ) cycle even 3 seconds from your drive you’ll be reminded of this

Why not?

That’s absolute slander. I demand you take that back. I am so hilly.

Are we taking nominations for comment of the year in January already? Park this one please

Free the hill one😁

Hills are difficult you know. I’d be an easier terrain like plateau or oasis.
I’ve spent a lot a time looking at contours on google map and finding ways to avoid dropping down too many contours that I then have to schlep back up, specially as we’re only allowed out once a day ATM, it’s gotta be the specific type of climb I was looking for.

We do live in a hilly spot but really there’s a lot of London that’s pretty flat. I started cycling about 10 years ago and it’s true that the more you cycle up them, the less they hurt. But, there are often ways around the steepest parts and gears are your friend.

Many people say what puts them off cycling is not feeling safe. That is partly familiarity; my first commute scared the living daylights out of me till I had some training (free via councils). But decent provision of cycle lanes and bus lanes make a huge difference. London is better than most UK town and cities but could still be better. I was absolutely blown away by the cycling provision through the Netherlands. It felt like going from candlelight to a spotlight.

For single person journeys, up to a 20kg load and a 5 mile journey - particularly going into London, a bike will probably be quicker unless it’s late at night. It’s never going to work for every journey but it can work for more.

Having said all of that, LTNs do need to be properly thought out and part of a strategy rather than just knee jerk reactions that just move the traffic problem.

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We could do with some of these bike lifts that they have in Norway to help us with the hills.

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As a keen cyclist I am not sure I agree with this idea that LTNs promote cycling in the long term. Yes, they will when kids are little and they want to cycle up and down the same street for hours on end but once they get bigger they want to go places just like adults. It is more about getting from A to B and if the LTN is just a few 100 metres from A, it becomes a small cycling world and they will soon give up.

All my kids did Bikeability courses with their local school and I am happy to say they went out on local roads and had to deal with the reality for most people rather than cycling within LTNs.

I think we should put more of our emphasis on cycle lanes, quietways and education. If you want to get people to cycle and replace car journeys then you need to build a way for them to feel safer getting from A to B. LTNs and small school streets most of the time give a zero sum gain to cyclists, you cycle through the displaced congestion and pollution before and after you pass through them.

Perhaps a strategic placement of LTNs, School Streets and Cycle Lanes that combined to get people from their home to schools, supermarkets, etc would work but currently we have these LTNs that benefit the residents within but contribute little in my opinion to the cycling community.

I think all car drivers should be made to cycle or use a motorcycle for 6 months prior to getting a driving license. If it makes just a few people appreciate other road users it would help.

This is incredible

I can’t speak for the other LTNs, but the network of streets around Garthorne/Bovill and then Grierson Rd (basically pre-existing LTNs from before they were cool) effectively does this, it means you can get from Forest Hill to Peckham Rye on roads that cannot be used for rat running, and so tend to have slower/more considerate drivers (although sadly not always as a previous poster on here has described re. a hit and run). It also makes them lovely places to live and potter about to and from Honor Oak high street. I suspect even if other LTNs aren’t directly connected to cycle lanes/other cycling infrastructure they could still make cycling more palatable for the wider area, and so encourage bike use beyond the LTN itself.

if only !

It depends on what end of Forest Hill you are going from. I used to cycle daily from beside the Library to town.

Up Thorpewood, Kirdale, Sydenham Hill, Lordship Lane, Friern Road, Peckham Rye, Rye Lane onwards. It was good once you reached Rye Lane but the rest wasn’t great especially the right turns there and back but good for my physical and mental health. I came back via Dartmouth Road rather than go up Sydenham Hill past parked cars with a line of traffic behind you. It may be that just where I am I can’t avail of quieter roads.

One of the most pleasant stretches was Friern road which is a long road parallel to Barry road. You had the occasional problem with local drivers being faster and inconsiderate often driving kids around rather than rat running.

I am not a fan of the expression rat runner, if I live on a road beside your road, am I a rat runner if I drive through your road? Where does this expression start and stop, if my road is long, are residents of the bottom rat runners when they drive through the top?

I do find the term abused quite a lot. It seems to be used professionally without evidence to support some scheme or other. This scheme will stop rat runners using the road is often said when the evidence suggests this scheme will stop through traffic, the majority of whom are local residents and yes the odd driver who is not local using it as cut through.

Back to cycling and driving, I agree with the the need on both sides to understand the other’s point of view. We need to get away from using labels such as rat runners or lycra louts when we normally mean people cycling/driving too fast without consideration for others and I would say a lot of the time they are the same people.

Yep, most people don’t race to their front door.

Many many years ago Lewisham Council looked into spending huge amounts on traffic calming for a problematic area of Brockley. But instead, they decided to simply close off two roads, blocking cut-through traffic. This successfully curbed speeding and traffic collisions in the areas (and also saved a lot of money). Not only did it reduce traffic volume but people usually go much slower on their own street!

If London did what Broadband providers do to heavy internet users, we would have road pricing and driving bans for excessive driving.

We still need fewer cars on the road though. That isn’t up for debate.

No doubt true for the blocked streets, but also true of surrounding streets? How wide was the impact assessment following the road closures?

This, although we could probably have done with just a little bit more road, too. The kind that avoids lorries from the Channel Tunnel having to run through our high street (albeit fewer of them now). The one that would allow more road space to be given for people to walk, cycle, play, dine etc.

Unfortunately that opportunity seems to have been missed a long time ago.

Perhaps bizarrely, I think a lot of the traffic calming measures would be an easier sell if there was less traffic in the first place.