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Low Traffic Neighbourhoods


OutByEaster?

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I thought this might benefit from its own thread.

At least one London based poster has strong views on it and it seems like those views are echoed in Brum.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-56927371

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For some residents, a traffic reduction scheme has created a haven of cycle-friendly roads and outdoor dining space, but for others it has turned into a "nightmare" of frustrated drivers and idling buses. The BBC has spoken to some of those who have been affected. 

Four miles south of Birmingham's city centre is the popular suburb of Kings Heath, known for its independent coffee shops and cafes. When a scheme to reduce traffic and pollution in the area was first discussed, keen walker and cyclist Suzannah Wilson said she thought it sounded "amazing."

But her excitement has turned to annoyance after, she says, the Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) has led to cars and buses "continually idling" outside her home.

 

Anyone live in one of these zones?

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I think the key to all of this is in this line:

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"People take time to adjust, they aren't stupid, they're not going to sit in traffic every day before they'll start to look at better, sustainable and more attractive solutions."

Which sounds sensible enough - but I'm not sure is true. Not that people are stupid, but that people use their cars for all sorts of reasons. I think people will sit in traffic for long periods of time rather than look at different options, I think they'll be unhappy about it, but I don't think they'll give it up.

People prefer to travel by car for all sorts of reasons and yes, time is one for sure, but it's by no means the only one.

Whenever I've worked in Birmingham city centre, I've driven. There's a bus stop outside my house that goes there - but I know that if I used a bus every day in Birmingham city centre and waited in Birmingham city centre every evening to get the bus back, I'd be much more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. It's violent crime that keeps me in my car - the tempting safety bubble that cars are, with the air con and the radio. I'm not giving that up for the bus because my journey takes ten minutes longer now the side roads are closed off, I'm just going to sit in traffic grumbling. I realise that's not socially great of me, and that it might be based on a false assumption, but there's probably something in Maslow's triangle that I can point to by way of an excuse.

There always seems to me to be an assumed utopia by the people who look at traffic management, that cycling and walking are always pleasant experiences in our towns and cities - that's not true, they're often edgy, anxious experiences, fraught with danger - and I feel that as a reasonably normal bloke in his forties, it must be worse for a young woman alone or for vulnerable groups.

So for me, I see what the aim is with LTN's and it's a laudable aim, but I think you have to tackle both ends of the problem - you have to both make the driving experience less attractive and make public transport and good old fashioned walking feel safe safe and welcoming - one without the other doesn't solve the problem - and I think it can be too easy to be seen to be doing something by pushing to make driving 'worse' without making the alternatives 'better'.

 

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The reality is that making driving more inconvenient is only going to solve so much. It's not going to force everyone on to the bus or onto their bike, but it might nudge more and more people over time, especially for short journeys which are the real problem. A huge proportion of journeys that people drive are well within walking distance or have public transport.

Part of the solution also has to be improving infrastructure around public and green transport, but that becomes easier and more justifiable as more people use it.

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50 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

It's violent crime that keeps me in my car

I know I live in leafy Surrey and not a major City , but tbh the thought of being a victim of violent crime has never entered my head   ...  is violent crime a concern for many people on here  ? (quoting you as you mentioned it , but for the wider audience)

 

 

45 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Part of the solution also has to be improving infrastructure around public and green transport, but that becomes easier and more justifiable as more people use it.

agreed ...the corrupt rocket polishers that run our local council keep taking back handers from developers and let them decimate the area building houses with the genius idea of not building garages , to encourage people not to own cars and thus use public transport  .. and then run 1 bus an hour  ... and of course people still own cars and with nowhere to park them , they  park them on the pavements or blocking roads

cost is the other thing  .. Woking to London if i take the family  on the train costs £55 for a return (its a 25 min journey)  .. I can drive and just pay for petrol  ( and now congestion charge , thanks to them  extending it to weekends

why would i take the train at those prices ?

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LTN’s are part of that bigger problem of making public transport more accessible and palatable. But not just by keeping public transport as it is and making car journeys worse.

For me to get to Isleworth for 10:30am, I have two options.

£25 in petrol, leave the house at 7:00am, £6.40 to street park. 

Or

£262.20 on trains and tubes, leave the house at 5:30am... except of course this week they cancelled the train.

 

So unfortunately for now, they’re gonna need a lot of street furniture before I change my travel plans. But obviously what it hopefully does, is persuade people they might walk to the shop that’s 800 metres away, rather than jump in the diesel Astra, and maybe cycle little Tarquin to school rather than a drop off in the Evoq.

I completely accept that my car should not have right of way, all residential streets should be 20mph max., more of them should be resident only. More of them should be reclaiming road for a couple of trees or benches.

 

 

 

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I live/work in the Kings Heath/Billesley/Moseley ones. A pain in the arse but not the end of the world. It’s basically shifting cars from one road to another one. The traffic hasn’t decreased, it’s just moved. Posh Nimbies want their Tarquin’s and Cressida’s safe from being squashed by cars when out on their Pendleton branded bikes. 

A walk takes 35 minutes. When I’m working 07:00-20:00 I just want to get in the car and drive. It doesn’t affect my route home really but it does mean I don’t go into Kings Heath as much so I just spend my money elsewhere instead. 

I get the idea behind it but in the case of Kings Heath it’s just the posho’s moving the riff raff in their machines to the poorer roads of the area and makes those roads more full and dangerous. It doesn’t make me get the bus, it doesn’t make me walk or get on the bike. It just sometimes adds a minor delay to my journey to work and back and stops me going into Kings Heath.

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9 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

I live/work in the Kings Heath/Billesley/Moseley ones. A pain in the arse but not the end of the world. It’s basically shifting cars from one road to another one. The traffic hasn’t decreased, it’s just moved. Posh Nimbies want their Tarquin’s and Cressida’s safe from being squashed by cars when out on their Pendleton branded bikes. 

A walk takes 35 minutes. When I’m working 07:00-20:00 I just want to get in the car and drive. It doesn’t affect my route home really but it does mean I don’t go into Kings Heath as much so I just spend my money elsewhere instead. 

I get the idea behind it but in the case of Kings Heath it’s just the posho’s moving the riff raff in their machines to the poorer roads of the area and makes those roads more full and dangerous. It doesn’t make me get the bus, it doesn’t make me walk or get on the bike. It just sometimes adds a minor delay to my journey to work and back and stops me going into Kings Heath.

I'd say round here the more affluent areas are less liekly to have them or want them

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10 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

know I live in leafy Surrey and not a major City , but tbh the thought of being a victim of violent crime has never entered my head   ...  is violent crime a concern for many people on here  ? (quoting you as you mentioned it , but for the wider audience)

I live in east London and it rarely occurs to me that I might be in danger

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I live in an area where they have just been introduced.So many roads are now closed whilst  one main road now has a 1 mile jam all the time.

Not sure what this achieves.Some journeys are not feasible if they require a number of bus changes and walking.

I would always use public transport if it involves similar travelling time.Around here it’s extremely divisive,some roads are now extremely quiet and people who don’t have to commute in the morning are happy.People that live on these new congested roads and people that need to commute are unhappy.

Who makes these decisions are they accountable?No.Is it reducing traffic ?No it’s moving it to busier roads.

To me having 1 mile tailbacks,and increasing journey times don’t make sense enviromentally.

 

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I'm in South brum too (not KH) and there's a LTN on the side roads the other side of the main road from where I live. Lots of commotion in the local FB group that the LTN is in the posher area, forcing cars over to our side.

I dont drive so doesn't affect me really, and it definitely hasn't caused anything like the same reaction as the one in KH. However, our road is used for parking for people going to the High Street and that has got noticeably worse as all the roads opposite are now blocked off, it was always tricky getting a parking space outside the house, but my partner often has to park 2 or 3 roads away now and walk. Annoying, but not really a massive deal.

LTNs are only part of the solution, particularly in Brum the public transport and cycling infrastructure needs to be massively improved in order for them to really work. I know there's plans to reopen the train line through KH which will presumably help things - I think the city council may have jumped the gun with that particular LTN and set it up before there was sufficient supporting infrastructure in place, KH was already very congested and a nightmare to drive through most the time anyway. By contrast, where I live the transport links are better and traffic not as much of a problem, so there's been very little noticeable impact.

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22 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I thought this might benefit from its own thread.

At least one London based poster has strong views on it and it seems like those views are echoed in Brum.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-56927371

Anyone live in one of these zones?

I feel honoured. 😂 im not going to reply on the subject for nos as ive said enough about these 😂

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2 hours ago, bickster said:

fox_lane_qn_redesign_july_2020.png

Just for Dem

Ok bicks you are aware thats something from ian barnes and nesil caliskan the biggest liars going? Barnes blocks people on his twitter if they criticise him for the LTNS. 

Also the emergency services  WERE NOT consulted. Thats another lie from them. They ahvent even been given keys to unlock the  barricadez for certian LTNS that have  barriers. There is videos on social media ill see if i can find and share.

Also you are aware than when they say they spoke to residents they would speak to 100 people. 96 woumd be opposed to their plans and 4 might agree then they spin the data and will say people are in favour of them. 

 

 

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On 12/05/2021 at 11:06, chrisp65 said:

The obvious boring answer is that they are a part of the solution, not the whole solution.

The streets are for the community, for kids to learn how to ride a bike, for people to cross the road to talk to a neighbour. They are not for people to zoom through rat runs at 40mph, urgently trying to get to that pointless destination in record time because they couldn’t be arsed to leave their house in reasonable time, stinking up the place with air pollution and noise pollution.

Anyone that thinks reducing and constricting the burning of fossil fuels is a bad thing, is a dick.

Now, just dead ending some streets to make life awkward for the rat runners, is not the totality of the answer. Needs to be joined up.

Very much this.

The root problem is too much motor traffic. So people's behaviour is to take short cuts through rat runs to try and avoid the congestion, which means residential streets becoming dangerous, polluted, unsafe for kids etc.

If you block off those streets, then the traffic is all concentrated on the main roads, and the congestion there is worse, as is the pollution etc.

So you have to reduce traffic. But you can't do that if there is no viable alternative. Until there as an alternative, you're just inflicting misery on people - whether that's motorists, residents or whoever - someone's gonna be affected.

So put the viable alternative into place and then add to the "persuasion" element by using stick - traffic reduction methods like the LTNs and congestion charging and carrot - affordable fees for Public transport, safe routes for cycling and walking and so on.

Just moving motor traffic from one road to another solves nothing.

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2 hours ago, blandy said:

Very much this.

The root problem is too much motor traffic. So people's behaviour is to take short cuts through rat runs to try and avoid the congestion, which means residential streets becoming dangerous, polluted, unsafe for kids etc.

If you block off those streets, then the traffic is all concentrated on the main roads, and the congestion there is worse, as is the pollution etc.

So you have to reduce traffic. But you can't do that if there is no viable alternative. Until there as an alternative, you're just inflicting misery on people - whether that's motorists, residents or whoever - someone's gonna be affected.

So put the viable alternative into place and then add to the "persuasion" element by using stick - traffic reduction methods like the LTNs and congestion charging and carrot - affordable fees for Public transport, safe routes for cycling and walking and so on.

Just moving motor traffic from one road to another solves nothing.

Why not put the age limit up then potentially to 18? That would reduce the amount of new drivers?

LTNS actually increase pollution because of all the pollution it moves onto the main roads like you said.

 

Edited by Demitri_C
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