Low-traffic neighbourhood barriers put in place in Kings Heath in November 2020 in Birmingham, … [+]
In Pictures via Getty Images
One of the key arguments employed against the installation of “Low Traffic Neighborhoods” (LTNs)—where roads are closed to motorists but left open to cyclists and pedestrians—is that they force motorists to use main roads, thereby increasing congestion and worsening air pollution. Writing in the Telegraph on November 22, Labour MP Rupa Huq said: “Cumulative traffic is forced on to main roads, whose residents complain of constant gridlock and worsened pollution.”
However, traffic counts in London have shown this is not the case.
The introduction of Hackney’s LTNs over the summer did not cause a rise in traffic levels at nearby monitoring sites beside main roads, found an analysis of Transport for London (TfL) traffic data.
The analysis used data from January 2019 to October 2020 at five TfL traffic count monitoring sites in the borough. At each, data shows a significant fall in motor traffic levels during the first lockdown this year. This rose again from May 2020 and reached near 2019 levels by August, largely before the introduction of Hackney’s LTNs.
At the Mare Street junction with Brenthouse Road, the number of motor vehicles has remained largely below 2019 levels throughout the year. At the A10 junction with Richmond Road, motor traffic levels were found to be largely the same as those measured last year, with no impact caused by the introduction of the London Fields LTN.
Hackney council’s transport lead Cllr Jon Burke said: “While we’re encouraged by the initial findings on five key main roads in the borough—which show no significant change in traffic levels after the introduction of the new low traffic neighborhoods— there is more work to be done to measure traffic levels on other roads to identify if changes have taken place.”
Data for the A10 junction at Kingsland Road and Richmond Road does not show an increase in motor … [+]
Hackney council/Tfl
The council will be installing additional monitoring equipment to locations across the borough, some of which may have to be added to police watch-lists because of targeted and costly-to-the-taxpayer attacks.
“In recent days, a number of traffic counters and cameras across the borough have been vandalised, causing tens of thousands of pounds of damage, by people seeking to overturn the decisions of councillors elected to run the borough,” said Burke.
Pollution solution
LTNs and the high-profile installation of wand-protected pop-up cycleways have also come under recent attack in national newspapers.
According to actor Nigel Havers, writing in the Daily Mail on November 21, a “car idling its engine pumps out enough toxic air to fill 150 balloons” per minute. His solution is not to ban cars, it’s to ban cycleways.
For Havers, gridlock on the streets of London is somehow a new phenomenon, and has been caused—without a shred of evidence being presented—by bicyclists.
“We used to relish our brisk morning walks down Kensington High Street where we have lived on and off for the past 40 years,” reminisced Havers.
“But that all changed almost overnight after my local council–without any notice–installed these dreaded new cycle lanes which have caused havoc across the country.”
(Havers—who was convicted of drink driving in 1995—also claimed that cyclists “do not obey the laws of the road.”)
Councils across the U.K. have been trialling pop-up cycleways, some of the most high-profile of which—including the Sunrise Cycleway on Tyneside—have been uninstalled because of complaints by some residents.
Similarly, the installation of LTNs—which prevent the use of local roads as rat-runs—has been more divisive than Brexit, claimed Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing in London.
“I’ve been the recipient of death threats in the past,” said Huq, “but I’ve found [the Lycra brigade surprisingly vicious.”
Huq was asked to supply evidence of any death threats from cycle advocates—ironically, those who wear Lycra are probably the least likely among cycle activists to be interested in LTNs—but has so far not done so.
Some die-hard motorists view LTNs and pop-up cycleways as attacks on driving. The co-founder of British motoring magazine Auto Express claimed on August 23 that “motorist-hating fundamentalists” were “stooping to a new low” by “temporarily banning or severely restricting cars on certain roads.”
Mike Rutherford continued that “under the cover of COVID they have struck, cynically seized their moment, tried to make the road network so bloody unbearable that car users will throw in the towel.”
In the Mail, Havers peddled a similar message, claiming without evidence of any such thing that “cycling zealots have staged a monstrous power grab that has rearranged the country.”
LTNs and pop-up cycleways were installed with emergency government funding of £250 million. The U.K.’s road building budget is £29 billion.
