Forum topic: New chance to comment on Fox Lane LTN

Reasonable points and the precautionary principle is inevitably a good yardstick to employ but the traffic picture in London / Enfield / locally is more than air pollution in any or all of its several forms. Personally I would never lead the case for LTNs on air quality. Where I see the government and Mayor is in seeking ways to tackle the issue of congestion before everything grinds to a halt. It’s a dire problem, also causing adverse externalities and forecast to get so much worse that it’s unsustainable. The intro section to the London Transport Strategy 2018, confirmed in 2021, paints a good summary. I think the UK figures go something like 1m+ vehicles in the 60’s, roughly 40m now and one government scenario putting the possible increase at a further 51% by ?DATE? I guess that’s a worst case line but clearly road space hasn’t increased at anything remotely approaching that rate, and barely at all in London and roads also have to absorb much bigger cars (+30% or so in size over the period). Something has to give. There is and long has been any amount of bad congestion not so distant and independent of any LTN impact.
The UK’s top air quality man puts it this way, if AQ is the focus then to travel, walk, else cycle, else use public transport and if none of those is possible and you must drive then do so using the cleanest meant possible, I guess he means electric. I always thought it was perfect guiding principle for the issues we face.

My understanding of what Karl Brown was saying was that predicting, on first principles, the outcome of changes in traffic arrangements, particularly on local levels of vehicle emissions, is complex and subject to many variables. There are academic examples on the Web and they are not simple. However, the Council has not tried to do that. It has effected a change and has endeavoured to measure the outcome across a number of parameters, an experimental rather than theoretical approach, if you like. There will be data next year. I'm sure there will be a spirited discussion over its interpretation.
To take one effect of vehicle use, there is no solution to the current climate problem that does not involve less driving. There is likely to be some form of road pricing before the end of decade, both for this reason and because the Treasury is going to have to recover the taxes lost in fuel duty involved in the switch to electric cars.

Some really interesting posts here but I still don’t understand why the answer to too much and increasing traffic is letting all roads be treated as main roads.

Hi Peter,

Maybe have a look at this link and remember it's up to you to start making the change:

www.pgweb.uk/forum/road-traffic/1331-if-we-all-choose-the-fastest-mode-of-travel-in-a-city-the-whole-city-gets-slower#6260

Paul.

As others have joined this thread I’ll try to reply specifically using post numbers.

#6247 Adrian. With respect to BSfE I can say I broadly agree with four of the asks, but my research, much of which you have seen, leads me to believe the LTNs are largely negative with respect to the environmental claims as well as having great regret on how it has divided the community and the real negative effects it is having on many people’s lives. If this were a fair trial one would expect it to be judged fairly whereas we are being told that one person is going to make that decision, he has already made up his mind, he doesn’t enter into debate or discussion, he tweets only information in favour of the LTNs and blocks anyone wishing to give an alternate view. It is reminiscent of Peter Cook’s judge at the Secret Policeman’s Ball.

I do thank you Adrian, Karl and occasionally Basil for at least debating your positions and not blocking the views of others you disagree with, at least on this site. However we are told the main architects of the local LTNs, and apparently many more to come, are all within the BSfE and the likes of Oliver B, Clare R and Ian B himself do not engage on any platform. I fear that the information given to members of BSfE by the administrators is so controlled that, although they may be aware of vast opposition they might be surprised WHY there is vast opposition, since they have not been exposed to factual correct statistical analysis, all from TfL figures, or indeed analysis of evidence such as the Waltham Forest report, The Cairns paper, The WF Kings Report, The WF traffic counts, Rachel Aldreds paper on effects of LTNs on active travel etc., plus the claims that traffic in London has increased by 20% in the last ten years which even TfL do not believe (see next post).
When I have raised all these issues at various times in these forums, not once has anyone actually shown anything to prove me factually wrong except Basil once corrected me on how much was spent on Walthamstow Village which I immediately admitted my error.

In #6247 you claim you are against High Traffic Neighbourhoods and yet you are creating them all around the Low ones because your evidence for traffic evaporation is questionable and shown practically by the trial not to have happened. We were promised by the (flawed) evidence of Cairns and WF that after a time things will settle down. Well it’s been well over a year now and I think people sitting in queueing cars every morning and evening will beg to differ. You also claim “From what we have read, seen and experienced we are confident that ending through traffic from unclassified roads is a good idea.” How can what you are seeing and experiencing be so different from the majority of residents who are so moved by their experience they marched in their hundreds last weekend ? Further, with respect to “unclassified roads” is Brownlow Road an unclassified road ?

Karl you have often complicated things by showing that things are indeed more complicated, but you haven’t actually disproved or factually questioned the data, because you know it’s all from TfL or reputable sources. In #6248 in your ABC example you seem to agree with me that more pollution and GHG are produced by the forcing of traffic around an LTN. I am not however “generating more complex assumptions…” I have shown if you get rid of 90% of the short journey traffic you only need to delay the remainder by one minute to regain all the pollution back. It is an approximate assumption because of complexities in measuring different pollutants but it aint gonna be far out. Your only real argument to this would be to prove traffic isn’t being delayed for more than one minute. For the traffic that was going through the LTN, almost certainly the ACB trip rather than the AB trip will account for this additional time, irrespective of additional congestion. For residents of the LTN 50% of their journeys are likely started going in the wrong direction, irrespective of additional congestion. For traffic that was always on the perimeter (and beyond) roads you would have to show there is no, or very little congestion, for them not to be adding additional minutes on their journeys. But the other figures show this short journey traffic constitutes so little of total traffic that the 97% that is remaining is being concentrated on fewer roads, all being diverted to junctions already close to peak flow at many times of the day, so causing congestion, delays and pollution. In addition, if there are any problems such as roadworks or an accident, there are often no alternatives so even more pollution is produced.

Would I open up old road closures? This would have to be a judgement call on an individual basis. There are obvious cases where individual road closures are necessary. Where a small road offers cars the opportunity to avoid a set of traffic lights for example, and Broomfield Avenue probably falls into this category. Whereas I would open up Connaught Gardens onto the North Circular to relieve the pressure on Callard Avenue and the narrow surrounding roads off Hazelwood Lane. Traffic could join the NCR and use the underpass, relieving traffic on the Cambridge Roundabout itself. Keeping the width restriction at Hedge Lane end to stop large vehicles, Connaught Road is nearly twice the width of other roads in the area. Some individual road closures make sense and I am fully in favour of school street closures at the appropriate times. This is very different to closing 10km of road network to through traffic, as in Fox Lane LTN, particularly when there are further proposals to create more such large areas of LTNs often butting up against one another.
No I am not proposing building new wider faster roads. This is not a genuine extrapolation of what I am saying is an existing problem with the current LTNs.

The additions complexities you bring to light, you say make my broad statistics questionable. You then say, in #6257, “So while not perfect, the simple traffic data count I believe is to be used in the final report should be adequate for what is needed.” So all these complexities will be solved by counting traffic on one random week, many on roads where there is no pre LTN baseline figures for comparison ?

I thank John Machin for further analysis of the pollution claims posted by Adrian from BSfE. I presume the original BSfE post was done by the same person who did a similar analysis some months ago (Hal Haines ?) Yet on his original post he tried to prove something by comparing the Bowes site to other local sites. In this case he doesn’t. Did he forget to do this or did he do this and got the same outcome as both John and myself, and decided not to report this because the pollution readings show a detrimental effect caused by the LTNs ?

I agree with much of what Tony Maddox says in #6249 except the very last lines. That’s before you get to traffic volume, for which the status quo before 2020 was a straight line with a positive gradient ie increasing and not static. LTNs may be a blunt instrument but, to paraphrase the Prime Minister, “if not this, then what?”

Karl also leads the same way in #6259 with regards to ever increasing traffic. Karl admittedly is using figures relating to the whole country but the assertion that car traffic figures IN LONDON are on a constant straight line increase is not what TfL believe has happened. TfL believe that car traffic mileage has not gone up AT ALL in the period 2000- 2019 but has been in slight decline. This is the opposite of what the Dept For Transport show in their files. I’ll cover this further in my next post.

Tony, yes others may jump on these facts for other reasons, be that party political or they don’t want to adjust their lifestyle, but that doesn’t alter the facts. Similarly there will be many who have jumped on the “active travel” selling of the LTNs who simply want a quiet road, an “oasis of calm” in one of the largest commercial cities in the world, and don’t give a monkeys that they are exporting their noise, pollution and stress to their neighbours, and causing further damage in net pollution and GHGases.

Karl, in #6259 you state “Personally I would never lead the case for LTNs on air quality.” But whatever you lead the case on you would surely have to show it is not detrimental to air quality. The rest of this post relates to an ever increasing traffic problem with more and more cars on the road. This is not the case for London as I will show in my next post.

Sue Beard #6263. No one is saying that all roads should be main roads. Traffic through the LTN before it was closed was substantially lower than on main roads but a minority of residents were not happy with their share of the level of traffic and wanted none whatsoever. If this could be achieved without making problems considerably worse for everyone else, including the planet as a whole, then I doubt there would have been a problem.

Paul Dick #6266. I have read the article and there is some truth in it. However, it concentrates on improving things for cyclists, pedestrians and public transport. I am not against any of these, assuming they are designed in such a way they encourage people out of their cars without increasing pollution or GHGases. I have never been against encouraging active travel or cycle lanes, provided they are well designed and not deliberately constructed to slow down the remaining traffic. What the article doesn’t address is closing large areas of roads leading to increased congestion and concentrated, net, increased pollution. Deliberately increasing congestion is regarded by many as a way of persuading people not to use their cars. It is a very blunt instrument with many knock on effects especially when, as I have pointed out many times, if they are used to remove a proportion of short journey traffic whilst delaying the vast majority which has to remain. In case you missed the earlier post, removing ALL available 2km or less traffic leaves 97% of traffic on the road. Well over 80% of traffic is vehicles doing over 5km journeys and they average 17km. The only real alternative among the car drivers of this group, apart from really keen cyclists, is public transport. One role that LTNs play in public transport is to slow down the buses.

The main area I agree with the article is that much could be achieved by education, and there will be a generational change as we are seeing that in some demographics car use is falling considerably. I also agree that for those that have to drive, the faster the move to electric cars the better which is why I feel the amount of money being wasted by councils on LTN schemes, being negative to the environment, could be better spent putting in the required infrastructure for electric and ultimately hydrogen vehicles.

Has Traffic in London increased by 20% since 2008 and will it carry on increasing ?

This is fundamental to the traffic debate in London yet the Dept for Transport (DfT) disagrees with with Transport for London (TfL) quite dramatically on this. DfT say car traffic in London has risen around 20% in the period 2008 to 2018, and following the trend will continue to rise, whereas TfL say it has fallen slightly over this period and will continue to fall. So why do they differ and who is right ?

The difference arises directly from one survey carried out by DfT over the whole country, known as the Minor Roads Benchmarking Exercise (MRBE). TfL basically say the effects seen do not apply to London and the adjustments caused by this survey don’t agree with their independent figures.

A quick review of how traffic volume is counted is helpful here. Traffic is counted by various means but predominantly on major roads it is automatic 24hr counting, either by strips driven over or by people counting from fixed video cameras at junctions. In addition certain fixed points on the road network, on more minor roads, are counted by people using hand clicking counters and they do this at the same time of year, at the same places for a limited number of days per year. Once they know how much of each category of traffic is travelling over which category of road they multiply the figures up by the total length of that type of road on the whole road network. It is generally agreed the final figures, although they may appear to be very precise, are not that reliable as total kilometres driven, but because they are measured at the same points, either constantly, or at the same time of year, they are very good at showing any changes in the amount of traffic, ie whether it is increasing or decreasing.

In the graph below the brown line represents the car traffic measured annually in miles by the above methods for London. As you can see from 1999 onwards the car traffic has shown a steady and constant decline to about 2013 and has flatlined since then. Then in 2018 came the Minor Roads Benchmarking Exercise. During this nationwide survey they hand counted traffic on minor roads chosen at random. They divided the roads up into urban and rural traffic and as a result they discovered there appeared to be 20% more traffic on urban minor roads so for London and other urban areas they increased their actual measured figures for 2018 by 20%. As this would look ridiculous to have a flat line graph suddenly jumping up 20% in one year they revisited all the data back to 2008 and increased them proportionally to show the blue line in the graph and these are the figures you can now find in file TRA8902. As they didn’t introduce a new file with the new adjusted figures, they simply changed ten years of data overnight. You cannot now access the old figures. I have them if anyone wants to check.



So how do we know that TfL do not agree with the changes? TfL do their own traffic flow measurements and, in addition, do many more calculations including an annual survey known as the London Travel Demand Survey (LTDS) where they ask thousands of people about their travel methods, distances etc. TfL state in their Travel In London Report 13 (2020) section 3.9 around page 92.

" The result of this exercise includes revisions to the minor road traffic estimates covering 2010 to 2018. The revisions mean that, for 2018, the DfT estimated vehicle kilometres were 20 per cent higher than previously reported last year (and included in Travel in London report 12). The previous estimates suggested a fall of 1.8 per cent in vehicle kilometres in London between 2009 and 2018, whereas the revised series now suggests an increase of 17.9 per cent over the same time period, this suggested change wholly arising from revisions to the minor road estimates. We are currently working through how the DfT have made this assessment, and what this could mean for London datasets. For this report therefore, and pending further investigation of this revision with the DfT, we consider it reasonable to base our assessment of changes between 2018 and 2019 on TfL’s own traffic monitoring data – applied to the historic DfT series – which had previously shown trends broadly in accord with the DfT data.”

This is slightly couched language but the “applied to the historic DfT series” means they are using the old figures, now not available to the public, as the new figures bear little relationship to the figures they are measuring themselves.

On page 93 we have “Trends in the numbers of motor vehicles crossing the three London strategic counting cordons and the Thames screenline provide a third indicator of traffic volumes, and they also show a broadly similar pattern to the other two indicators, prior to the revisions to the DfT series.”
And “Total flows across the three cordons were down by 0.6 per cent between 2009 and 2018 – a broadly similar trend to that shown by TfL data and, prior to the 2019 revisions, by the DfT data.”
And for cars specifically “The overall picture of declining car volumes over recent years has not affected all parts of London in the same way.”

So who is correct for London DfT or TfL ? DfT measurements were broadly in line with TfL until the nationwide MRBE was applied to London. TfL do far more research in London than DfT. But are there other ways we can check ?
If car traffic has gone up 20% in London this could only be achieved by more cars on the road or people driving more trips and/or longer journeys. The DVLA file VEH0204 shows cars registered in London increased by 2.5% between 2008 and 2018, so unless these cars were particularly busy you are looking for an increase of around 17.5% from the existing number of cars.

The London Travel Demand Survey looks at total number of trips taken by car which over this period is consistent at 5.8 million car trips per day, dropping slightly from 6 million a day ten years ago.
TfL also track the time taken for real trips in central, inner and outer London boroughs and this has barely changed over the ten year period.

So taking the above statistics together, if DfT are correct, there has been an increase in car traffic of 20% from an increase in cars of 2.5%, from the same number of trips with no slowing down of traffic overall. This would mean existing traffic would have to drive 17.5% further on average for every trip driven, with no addition congestion to slow things down. If you own two cars each would have had to have been driven 17.5% more on average. This is over a period where fixed road network length has barely changed, CPZ’s were rolled out and tube traffic increased.

Given that TfL are probably very confident they are correct why do they allow people like Rachel Aldred of Westminster University (whose work they fund), many councillors such as Ian Barnes, and numerous lobby groups such as the London Cycling Campaign, Better Streets groups and other professional lobby groups to continually claim there has been increasing car traffic in London? So much so that in Trumpian terms, if you say it often enough this becomes the facts.

That’s a lot! I will study, not yet but did notice something early about blocking and LTN architects before I realised there were more words and detail than current time permitted. I can’t block anyone on here and other than local press – who can and do ignore letters – that’s me. I also think it’s really important for everyone to realise that it’s HMG / Department of Transport who are pushing LTN’s (and paying for them) and here in London with the full support of Mayor Khan and the GLA / TfL. Cross party stuff, unusually. The local issue is how best to manage traffic in line with the requirements of the London Plan (Transport Strategy) rather than whether LTN’s generally are good or bad things.

I just wanted to briefly throw my hat into the ring here. Obviously this is quite a hotly contested debate but I just wanted to fly the flag for those like me who don't live in the LTN, do drive and also support the scheme. I think its a very dubious argument when people say schemes like this only benefit people who live within the LTN. I live on the other side of Green Lanes but think the LTN is great. Yes, there is some minor disruption but the positives are fantastic- I can walk up to Grovelands Park with my child on a much quieter road, cut along to alderman's hill and cycle through the area (which I would never have done before the implementation of the LTN).It makes the area so much more pleasant. I think that there is a sense of jealousy from some people that they don't reside in the area, don't feel the immediate benefits and just see more traffic jams in the surrounding areas. I empathise as I have experienced this but a few minutes on to people's journeys (I think) is a small price to pay for having safer and quieter streets. Clearly this is the (if you pardon the pun) direction of travel in the future. Our streets were never designed and built for motor traffic and if people won't drive less than segregation is the only viable option. I remember the outcry when small city centre's were first pedestrianised (Canterbury/ Norwich etc..) and now people think its crazy that traffic was ever allowed down them. I think large residential neighbourhoods will eventually go the same way. Transition is never easy but if you look around at everything happening in tandem- electric cars/ driverless cars/ the climate crisis it's pretty clear that we're moving to a more sustainable world.