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cover of gear change one year on publicationThe publication last week of Gear Change: One Year On, along with news of additional funding and updated guidance for local authorities, is a clear sign that the government expects councils to continue introducing new active travel schemes - cycle lanes, low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) and school streets - in order to encourage people to walk and cycle more and drive less. What does this mean for the future of such schemes in Enfield, where opposition councillors have been among those calling for the two existing LTN trials to be terminated and condemning them as "undemocratic"?

My reading of the content of the documents that were published last week is that they do not support any of the claims by councillors and others opposed to the schemes that they are "undemocratic" and should be removed immediately - on the contrary, premature removal is expressly forbidden and could lead to the government reducing financial support to Enfield Council and less money being available for road maintenance. So the council's actions have been in line with the government's thinking, and as such you might expect the Conservative Group on Enfield Council to support them.

The newly issued documents are:

I've extracted some of the most important passages from all three documents - click on the links at the end of the article to read the extracts.

Here are some of the most relevant points from all three documents:

  • it is not possible to solve increasing congestion by providing more roadspace, especially in towns and cities, so it is essential to make it easier for people to switch from driving to cycling or public transport for some journeys;
  • "an authority’s performance on active travel will help determine the wider funding allocations it receives" - I take this to refer to funding for road maintenance, rather than for all council activities;
  • LTNs have been around for decades (though not under that name): "It is estimated that more than 25,000 road closures of the type used in LTNs existed before the pandemic";
  • analysis of more than 100,000 emergency call outs has shown that LTNs do not delay emergency services;
  • research shows that LTNs reduce, rather than increase, street crime;
  • when councils assess public opinion on active travel schemes they must obtain a genuinely representative picture of views by using professional polling companies, "especially when there is public controversy";
  • consultation "is intended to inform decisions that members and officers make on these schemes, not to substitute for that decision making" - which means that the public opinion is not of itself a decisive factor;
  • councils must consult before modifying or removing schemes as well as before introducing them;
  • "the longer a scheme is in place, the greater its effect, on both the LTN and the surrounding roads. This is why we are clear that schemes must be given enough time to prove – or disprove – themselves";
  • "schemes need time to be allowed to bed in; must be tested against more normal traffic conditions; and must be in place long enough for their benefits and disbenefits to be properly evaluated and understood";
  • schemes must be left in place for the duration of temporary or experimental traffic orders;
  • "the aim should be to retain schemes and adjust, not remove them, unless there is substantial evidence to support this".

So what are the implications for the Fox Lane and Bowes LTNs?

I think that with the government having given such a clear indication of their thinking, any attempt to take the council to court over either scheme is highly unlikely to be successful. However, this is not to say that either scheme will necessarily be made permanent in its present form.

Fox Lane: The outcome will depend on the data that's been collected. To quote from the council website:

How will the success of the scheme be monitored?

There will be a range of assessments that will need to be balanced when judging the overall success of the trial. Assessments will include:

    • Residents' views on how the benefits of the scheme compare against the disbenefits
    • Data on the volume of motor vehicle movements in the area
    • Data on the speed of motor vehicles in the area
    • Impacts on the primary roads surrounding the area
    • Air quality considerations
    • Bus journey time considerations through discussion with Transport for London
    • Outcomes of ongoing dialogue with the Emergency Services

Source: letstalk.enfield.gov.uk/foxlaneQN/widgets/17155/faqs#5263

If congestion on peripheral roads, especially in Southgate, is really as bad as some people claim, it will inevitably have prolonged bus journey times, and in view of the fact that the scheme is being funded by Transport for London, this may well turn out to be a deciding factor. However, the government is now saying that schemes should not be abandoned without further consultation and should be amended rather than simply removed, so we could expect consultation on trial changes designed to mitigate the most problematic effects of the scheme.

Bowes: The trial has been extended and is not yet finished, so a decision is further off. The situation is more complex than in the case of Fox Lane because:

  • When TfL is again able to fund new schemes the council will probably apply for money to trial Phase 2 -  installing a bus gate in Brownlow Road to prevent its use by cars and lorries as a through route.
  • The council has floated the possibility of changing the scheme so that access to the LTN is from the south (Bounds Green side) rather than the north (Palmers Green side).
  • Haringey Council are planning to create an adjoining LTN and the two schemes will need to work in conjunction with one another.

As it is not one of the London boroughs that are in the DfT's bad books for removing schemes prematurely, Enfield is likely to be well placed to win funding for further LTNs, though we don't yet know how much money TfL will have at its disposal. Undoubtedly, the next scheme will be Phase 2 of the Connaught Gardens quieter neighbourhood, as design work has been in progress for some time. After that, the council may well look to the east of the borough, to counter arguments that LTNs have been favouring wealthier residents. A map issued by Haringey Council showed the outline of an LTN in Upper Edmonton, south of the North Circular and east of Fore Street, so perhaps this will be next.

Extracts from the documents issued by the Department for Transport

Gear Change: One Year On

Gear Change - One Year On (excerpts)

(Italics and bold added.)

(p7 - prime minister's foreward)

I support councils, of all parties, which are trying to promote cycling and bus use. And if you are going to oppose these schemes, you must tell us what your alternative is, because trying to squeeze more cars and delivery vans on the same roads and hoping for the best is not going to work.

And as the benefits of schemes increase over time, what opposition there is falls further. That is why schemes must be in place long enough for their benefits and disbenefits to be properly evidenced.


(p9)

There are only a few ways to deal with the enormous growth in demand for roadspace. The frst way is building more roads in urban areas, which is politically and practically diffcult in most cities, with little public support for the demolitions of private property which would be required. There is also evidence that it does not work, simply attracting more traffic.

The second way is building more railways, which takes decades. The third is some form of congestion charging, as in London. The fourth is to make better use of the roads we already have, by encouraging vehicles such as buses and bikes that take up less space per passenger. In the short and medium term, this is the only way to keep the roads moving for the traffic that most needs to use them.


(p21)

We will discourage the weakening or removal of schemes without proper evidence, and require full consultation that fairly reflects local views

We are revising our additional Network Management Duty guidance to make clear our expectation that schemes will remain in place and that schemes need to be given the time to bed in. The guidance also reminds authorities that gathering and publishing proper evidence about the effects of schemes is essential; and that any proposal to remove a contested scheme should involve a process that genuinely refects local opinion – typically professional, representative polling. We are writing to all local authorities to underline this position.

We will reduce funding to councils which do not take active travel seriously, particularly in urban areas

This includes councils which remove schemes prematurely or without proper evidence, and councils which never installed them in the frst place. As Gear Change said, an authority’s performance on active travel will help determine the wider funding allocations it receives, not just on active travel. We will require more from all local authorities, urban or rural, but we will not take a one-size-fits-all approach.


(p28)

LTNs have been perhaps the most contested element of our recent cycling and walking programme – though the concept, under various names, has been widespread for decades. Many of the LTNs in England existed before 2020, in some cases since the 1970s. It is estimated that more than 25,000 road closures of the type used in LTNs existed before the pandemic.

There is now traffic data, collected by the councils concerned, from several of the early post-pandemic LTN schemes installed last summer, typically covering their frst few months. Changes in and around the LTN area can also be compared with changes in wider traffic volumes well away from it, allowing us to separate as far as possible “LTN-specifc” effects from the wider effects of the pandemic. This data is preliminary, and only gives an indication at this stage.

There is also data from longer-established schemes installed before the pandemic. In these, traffic from before the installation of the scheme is compared with traffic in the latest available year before the pandemic, usually 2019 or the fnancial year 2019/20.

In both kinds of scheme, longer-established and recent, the data shows significant reductions in traffic, and significant increases in cycling and walking, within the LTNs, as you would expect.

But it also shows that a common claim about the LTNs – that they simply displace traffic to other roads – is in most cases not happening. Sometimes it did happen at the beginning, as travel patterns adjusted. But now the schemes have been in place for longer, councils are also reporting reductions in traffic on most (though not yet all) of the roads around the LTNs.


(p29)

LTNs work because the people living in them, several thousand in each area, change their travel behaviour – taking fewer short local journeys by car and walking or cycling more. This takes local trafficaway from the surrounding roads too. On those roads, the reduction in these local car journeys appears, in most though not in all cases, to outweigh any increase caused by the diversion of longer-distance car journeys by people passing through.

But changes in travel behaviour don’t happen overnight. We are noticing that the longer a scheme is in place, the greater its effect, on both the LTN and the surrounding roads. This is why we are clear that schemes must be given enough time to prove – or disprove – themselves.

Other claims sometimes made about LTNs are not true. Using years of data and more than 100,000 emergency callouts, academic research found that they do not increase emergency service response times – echoing statements made by the emergency services themselves about the post-pandemic LTN schemes26. Indeed, they benefit public safety. New research shows that the pandemic LTN schemes have halved road injuries in their areas, compared with no reductions over the same period in non-LTN areas27.

Other research has shown that LTNs reduce street crime, increasing safety by putting more pedestrians and cyclists on the streets28. And they are socially inclusive: in London, people in areas of higher deprivation were 2.7 times more likely to live in a 2020 LTN compared to those in the least deprived quarter of the population29.


(p30)

Multiple independent professional polls over the last year, and the government’s own polling and surveys, show consistent public support for the measures on cycling and walking we and councils have taken: more than two to one on average among those who express a preference. Support for individual schemes, such as low-traffc neighbourhoods, by people living in the areas concerned is at similar levels, whenever polled or surveyed professionally


(pp30-31)

There appears, however, to be a gap between real and perceived public opinion on this subject. One poll showed people believe that there is more opposition to these schemes than there actually is: that even though respondents themselves supported them, they believed that the public as a whole did not.

It is therefore important that consultation captures a genuinely representative picture of local views. That means listening to all, including the quieter and less vocal, not simply the most passionate; it is intended to inform decisions that members and offcers make on these schemes, not to substitute for that decision making; and the consultation materials must include proper evidence and information about the effects of the proposals.

While schemes will usually have majority support, no scheme (or indeed almost any meaningful policy of any kind) will ever have unanimous support. Some councils appear to be searching for a formula which can make meaningful cycling and walking schemes acceptable to everyone, but this does not exist. We are clear that councils must not expect or require universal support and must avoid allowing any group to exercise a veto.

We revised our Network Management Duty guidance" to state that measures should be "taken as swiftly as possible, but not at the expense of consulting local communities" and that "local residents and businesses should ... be given an opportunity to comment on proposed changes" to schemes. These requirements apply as much to the removal or modification of existing schemes as to the installation of new ones. Our updated NMD guidance includes more about how to ensure that public views on contested schemes are captured accurately, through professional polling.

Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007619/gear-change-one-year-on.pdf

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Karl Brown posted a reply
04 Aug 2021 22:55
A report that is well worth a (full) read and I think should be mandatory for anyone at this stage promoting non-evidence based opinion. In terms of expressing the direction of travel this government report puts it on a stick and waves it in your face.

On LTNs specifically it evidentially debunks so many themes raised over the last year or so: boundary road and other nearby road overspill; adverse issues with the emergency services; street crime problems; inclusivity / exclusivity; and apparently there being no such thing as traffic evaporation.

It suggests there is no alternative to the paths it outlines, but if there is, you need to specify exactly what that alternate is to meet the same goals. A fair shout and there’s 35 reports listed at the back which give a good start point for any research supporting such work.

This comment has been copied across from an earlier forum thread that is now closed.
Karl Brown posted a reply
05 Aug 2021 09:23
Basil’s summary questions the likelihood of success in any legal case against Enfield’s LTN’s given the import of this government report. Now adding to that is this week’s Court of Appeal’s view on a Judicial Review brought against the “Streetspace” plan and guidance issued by TfL to the 33 boroughs, which included policies on low traffic neighbourhoods and school streets. (That was the brief Covid driven implementation window for schemes such as the LTN trial now in Bowes.)
The three appeal justices said: “Each was in accordance with the policy not only of the Mayor and TfL but also of the Secretary of State for Transport of encouraging walking and cycling rather than other means of travel. (This might also imply something about the “undemocratic” claims of opposition councillors which Basil also highlights.)
The Evening Standard described it as a “thumping victory” (for TfL and the Mayor) and a ”comprehensive demolition” of the arguments.
Full costs have been awarded.
You pay your money, make your case, and take your chance, but the legal hill to climb for any victory looks ever steeper.
The judgement is attached
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