Babies and bathwater?

The backlash against Low Traffic Neighbourhoods being implemented increasingly in our cities is, perhaps, the first gasp of anguish at major change.

Most LTNs involve closing one end of a residential road so that it cannot be used as a ‘rat run’ by through traffic. The theory is that residents can access the street – albeit with a detour – but overall, there’s a huge traffic reduction which makes the street safer and reduces the pollution on that street. In general, they have been well received by residents in LTNs.

Not so much the non-residents, whose habit of using those streets has had to change. They find themselves displaced on to perimeter roads which were already congested at peak times, and are now worse. Opponents of LTNs say this just displaces the pollution and gives it to someone else. They’re right….but only if everyone in that traffic queue continues to make the same mistake.

There’s a latency in all major changes to traffic priority, during which the message slowly sinks in. In point of fact, almost half of all private car journeys in London are less than 3km, and a third under 2km. Only a fifth of all car journeys in London are connected to work. I feel the angst of essential car users stuck in that traffic, but why direct your ire at LTNs? The actual cause of your problem is the majority of drivers who should have walked, cycled or caught the bus for their non-essential journey.

When it comes to public protest, very few nations show the commitment of the French. Yet when in 2015, Paris’ Mayor Anne Hildago decided to close roads across the city and create a new cycling infrastructure, convert parking into bicycle parks and generally make car driving very difficult. There was minimal protest, mainly because traffic speeds were at an all-time low, and Parisians were fed up with the situation.

In this sense, perhaps the LTNs will support modal shift; making drivers’ lives hell until they, finally, look at alternative ways to get around. Logic suggests that there will then come a time when the 20% essential car users will have an easier journey to work as more of the 80% leisure drivers come to their senses.

This really isn’t a ‘war on motorists’ any more than green belt is a war on homeowners. In towns and cities, we physically cannot build more roadspace to accommodate unlimited cars, and at the cost per mile, can’t really afford to Tarmac over the countryside either. I’m 67 this year, and have lived through the period when we convinced ourselves we can have unlimited use of private cars; it is becoming plain that we can’t, for our own good and that of the planet.

But I have significant concerns that in the drive for modal shift, cycling has overruled bus and coach services. Sharing bus stops with cycle lanes is a real problem, especially for unsighted and elderly people. We have cycle lanes displacing coach bays. In the cycling heaven of Amsterdam, coaches have been effectively barred from the city centre. We are failing to integrate public transport on which our most vulnerable people depend.