The Government’s promise to make towns and cities safer for cycling and walking is wobbling, with more than a quarter of low-traffic neighbourhoods installed across Britain during the pandemic now scrapped, i can reveal.
Since March 2020, hundreds of experimental Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) have been rolled out in cities around the country in an attempt to encourage more people to walk and cycle rather than risk infections on public transport, or clog up the roads in private cars.
“Modal filters” in the form of bollards and giant planters blocked motor vehicle access to make networks of streets safer and quieter. They were part of what ministers promised would be a “walking and cycling revolution”.
But councils installing LTNs faced a fierce backlash from local residents, businesses and disgruntled motorists, with complaints of more traffic being pushed to perimeter roads and difficulties for the elderly and disabled.
The opposition is taking its toll – 28 per cent of the schemes installed since March 2020 have subsequently been ditched, i analysis shows.
Back in 2020 ministers hastily assembled £250m of emergency funding announced to fund immediate, “experimental” changes to road layouts, as part of a wider £2bn investment in walking and cycling across England.
Many local authorities also used other sources of funding to roll out schemes. But while the action was rapid, the “lasting transformative change in how we make short journeys in our towns and cities” that the Government wanted has often not materialised, due to some swift U-turns.
A Salisbury city centre LTN was abandoned in November 2020 after resistance from local businesses, even though it had only been in operation for a month, during a national lockdown.
Disputes over LTNs have often been bitter, with planters repeatedly moved, tipped over and covered in angry graffiti, drivers mounting pavements to dodge the obstacles and councillors supporting LTNs subjected to torrents of personal abuse.
Hackney Council in East London had to plead with the police for help to stop an LTN-induced “crime wave”.
i asked regional transport authorities and local councils in Britain’s main urban areas to provide information on the number of experimental LTNs installed since March 2020, and how many had been scrapped.
The responses received covered 105 local authorities and showed that in these areas 189 LTNs had been installed since March 2020 and 52 (28 per cent) have since been removed.
In London, the removal rate climbs to 30 per cent. Some authorities – such as Wandsworth, south London which scrapped all seven LTNs after negative feedback from residents – didn’t even wait for consultation periods to end before dropping them.
In Ealing, west London, seven of the nine LTNs installed in 2020 have been removed after a consultation revealed strong opposition among residents.
LTNs were an issue in this month’s local elections in the capital – with some arguing a backlash against the measures helped the Conservatives take Harrow, west London and halve Labour’s majority in Enfield, north London.
More LTNs are likely to go in London, with the newly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets council Lutfur Raman pledging to scrap them, saying they were leading to poorer air quality.
But Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK, said some councils removed schemes without even waiting for data to show whether they were encouraging more active travel or improving air quality.
“Too often, people wanted to remove things because they thought it would cause more congestion, that it would cause increased air pollution,” he told i. “They didn’t wait for an evaluation.”
“Not every scheme that was put in place was therefore fully consulted on, or perfect,” he added. “The problem we then had was that too many councils ripped out schemes that weren’t perfect, instead of saying ‘how do we tweak it?’”
But other councils have pressed ahead, making schemes permanent despite local opposition (see box).
Adam Tranter, cycling and walking commissioner for the West Midlands said some of the scrapped LTNs were poorly planned projects, drawn up in a hurry by councils working to the Government’s tight funding deadline.
“We have across the country many local authorities who have not been prioritising active travel for decades,” he said. “So the councils that I think did a particularly good job of Emergency Active Travel Fund [schemes] were the ones that had already decided that they were prioritizing cycling and walking and they already had plans ready to go.”
Some schemes failed simply because of a “lack of political will”, he argued, with councils conceding too readily to LTN opponents.
“Changes is really hard, and you have to bring people with you. But the important thing here is not to mistake bringing people with you as some sort of veto for making the bold decisions we need to in the face of a climate crisis and inactivity crisis.”
The government is doubling down on its ‘active travel’ agenda, seeing it as a cheap way to tackle obesity, cut air pollution and reduce carbon emissions.
And campaigners say the experience of being instructed to act on an emergency footing has prompted a shift in thinking inside many councils. “We’ve had a slow but positive mindset change,” said Mr Dollimore. “There is definitely a culture change within local authorities towards considering walking and cycling infrastructure.”
In London, which has played host to the bulk of the LTNs, walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman has vowed to continue with further change. “Walking and cycling have been hugely popular and vital ways to get around London since the pandemic started and we are continuing to work closely with boroughs across the capital to sustain this success by transforming streets and ensuring there is enough space for people to walk and cycle safely,” he told i.
**‘It’s neighbour fighting neighbour’**
In King’s Heath, a suburb of Birmingham, residents have been getting to grips with new road rules since autumn 2020 when a new LTN was installed. Planters have been installed on nine different streets to cars, and one of the main shopping streets has been pedestrianised.
The measures have divided the community, with some praising the quieter streets and “cafe culture” it has created, while others bemoan an increase in traffic on boundary roads.
Martin Mullaney, a vaccine co-ordinator for the NHS, lives just half a mile from Kings Heath and has campaigned for the LTN’s removal. “I know all the shopkeepers, and they keep telling me how their trade has just crashed because of it,” he told i, adding that the roads around the LTN are now “one big logjam”.
“This LTN has split the community, big time,” he said. “It’s neighbour fighting neighbour”.
But Labour councillor Lisa Trickett believes there is a “silent majority” of residents who disagree with Martin and want to see the LTN stay.
“Some people have harnessed the LTN as a wedge issue, and have sought to divide communities,” she told i. “It’s a very small and loud group who break down the overall harmony of the community.”
Birmingham’s Labour council said the Kings Heath LTN would become permanent in March 2022. Ms Trickett said her re-election to the council just weeks later proves the LTN has the support of the “silent majority”. “What I found inspiring, going round during the election, was the silent majority,” she said. “The silent majority is clear, because they re-elected me.”
Yet her support for LTNs has come at a price. She said she has experienced a campaign of “utterly misogynistic” online abuse, has been shouted at and even pushed over on the street. Others say local officials working on LTNs have been left “bruised” by the experience.
Many local residents struggle to see why LTNs have become such a toxic issue. “I’m not pro or anti LTNs. I don’t really care about LTNs,” King’s Heath resident Sush Kelly told i. “I care more about finding ways for people to walk, cycle and scoot in safety. And in this instance, having the LTN is something that has enabled that.”
**Get on your e-bike**
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are not the only scheme the government is relying on to get people cycling more. Last week the Government launched a new £8m scheme for people to rent an e-bike free of charge.
The “Cycling made e-asy” programme, run by Cycling UK, will start as a pilot in Greater Manchester this month. Residents will be able to claim free three-month loans of an e-bike in a bid to “dispel common myths and build awareness of e-cycles”, according to Cycling UK.
Studies have shown that people with e-bikes get just as much exercise as those using a normal push bike, because they use them more frequently and for longer trips.
“E-cycles are a great way for people with longer or hillier journeys to travel and the £8 million we have provided for this scheme will help make cycling the natural first choice for many journeys – a key Government commitment from the Prime Minister’s Cycling and Walking plan,” said Cycling Minister Trudy Harrison.
It’s a shame really. Things are often destroyed by an overly vocal minority.
Good. I live in London and cycle 10x as much as I drive and I hate LTNs. They increase traffic by forcing drivers to take longer routes.
These LTNs should be rolled out in the neighborhoods of Tory MPs first and around everywhere they go during the day. Then let’s discuss MPs cycling and walking.
I stopped cycling because it’s too dangerous because motorists will treat you like shit and put you in danger. When I moved to a city I thought I’d now be able to cycle but it’s even worse.
Cycling would be vastly safer if the attitudes of cycling changed.
I like how the article quotes Martin Mullaney as a vaccine coordinator and not as the former lib dem councillor who just lost in the locals in the area trying to leverage votes from labour supporters with an anti-LTN policies. Seems a little disingenuous.
Me in my final year of Part 1 Architecture degree:
Creates a cycling route and a travel hostel with bike rental and repair workshop (part of a travel hostel) for Lincoln City. Aimed at regeneration, celebration of history and …. Urban cycling reconnection because I got almost hit by a cyclist and saw them almost get hit by cars.
I am a central European and there are a lot of things the government does not do right.. well they are just not right to begin with but at least I’ve seen an explosion of new routes and their benefits. The amount of cyclists rose tremendously and it’s an absolute blast for even just a leisure biker. It’s really a shame, especially since so many streets were simply not created for this era… Just look at the tomorrow streets with parked cars on both sides, half of them half on pavement…
Obviously, tory government, scheme to improve things for the general public no-one can get rich from. Surprised it lasted this long.
Just been for a bike ride on mostly empty roads and hated every second of it. Fuck having to sit in more traffic when I’m actually trying to get places because all of the streets have been closed off so councillors can feel good about making people ride bikes.
I support LTNS in principle but some of them have been badly planned. In my old neighbourhood in SE London they benefited roads that were already pretty quiet, green and wealthy, and the traffic congestion increased hugely on the less wealthy perimeter roads. During peak commuting time it was bumper to bumper for hours, and these roads were also residential and I couldn’t imagine the poor residents who had to put up with the noise and stench for hours a day. I don’t have a car or a bike, I usually take the bus, but the buses were also stuck in traffic and it ended up being faster to walk most of the time.
The LTNS that were genuinely not working well should just be reconsidered, not necessarily entirely scrapped.
> Many local residents struggle to see why LTNs have become such a toxic issue. “I’m not pro or anti LTNs. I don’t really care about LTNs,” King’s Heath resident Sush Kelly told i. “I care more about finding ways for people to walk, cycle and scoot in safety. And in this instance, having the LTN is something that has enabled that.”
This kind of snobby bullshit attitude really doesn’t help the discussion.
If you want to change things, you really need to be prepared to talk about that, not just act as though the discussion is beneath you.
It’s a real problem for progressive issues – they are swamped by people who think they can kill the conversation with kindness, when they obviously aren’t very kind people and are just trying to bully their way out of having to discuss issues.
But we don’t need “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods” to have a cycling and walking ‘revolution’.
28% isn’t too bad. There were still a massive amount put in and more are going in now. I read the other day about a few in Oxford are going in soon. The number of new ones going in keeps going up and almost all of the ones that will be scrapped are already scraped. A load of areas have had them for many decades too.
Thats the annoying part actually. There have been 1,000s around the country for decades and nobody really complained until 2 years ago when they got given a name and started going in because of covid. If people have said nothing about all the LTNs around them for decades then why are they complaining about the much fewer amounts going in today? They’ve effectively been told they’re bad by their party, news outlets, and Facebook groups of choice, so they now think for sure they’re bad. Hate using the word sheep but thats how they seem.
Good, they are a nightmare with commuting ever increasing with the back to the office drive.
72% retention is… better than I expected.
One of the LTNs around here has been genuinely transformative for the neighbourhood, it’s made it so much nicer for the people around it who can actually use the space for stuff. The cycle lanes have been a mixed bag, but that’s mainly due to the council half-arsing them
Which will help both our climate goals and obesity strategy…
We need to move on from cars being the main form of transport in this country and encourage cycling and walking for local journeys. I can understand why people might not like LTNs but they are going to be a part of the solution for reducing our dependency on cars. They are here to stay and it would be better to engage with them than scrap them. They are there for people’s safety and to encourage a healthy activity. Is there anything wrong with those aims?
It’s because they’re poorly planned, with little consultation and lack of funds. There is never the question of “what would work best here?”, it’s always someone from out of town who “thinks” they know what the solution is because their book said so, then gets angry when the locals don’t like it then the plan gets cancelled all together because of “lack of interest”…
Of course they are. For fucks sake the majority of the workforce CAN NOT WORK FROM HOME now that lockdowns and furlough are over people need to get to work.
Here are some of the jobs that can’t be done remotely:
* Hospital staff
* Paramedics
* Care workers
* Fire service
* Police service
* Farm workers
* Food factory workers
* Shop workers
* Warehouse workers
* Delivery drivers
* Refuse collection
* Factory production line workers
* Utility (gas, water, electricity, telecoms) workers
* Building trades (builders, plumbers, electricians…)
* Bus drivers
* Train/tram drivers
* etc…
An election winning strategy for the GE for the Tories could well be a tax cut for everyone who has to work from work rather than from home.
It’s pretty simple. Build sufficient, segregated infrastructure for cyclists and people will use it because it will be fast and safe. Look at the Netherlands, Denmark, some parts of Germany etc.
Painted areas at the side of the road aren’t safe. Cycle paths shared with pedestrians are constantly obstructed (by oblivious pedestrians) making them slow and unsafe.
Putting restrictions on motor traffic is not a solution to get people to cycle – it just funnels traffic into specific routes which in turn slows everybody down and pisses people off.
These initiatives are so bad for the local communities.
Kills small business in that area. Causes major traffic and disruption in the areas near by. Terrible for the environment as more cars have less routes to go and have greater journey times.
The worst bit is they still don’t massively increase the number of cyclists on the road.
Brighton removed dual lanes on their busiest roads for cycle lanes, when there were already cycle lanes there. I’m not even joking. Two cycle lanes next to each other.
Completely dead. Made little no difference to people cycling and caused major traffic issues and greatly increasing emissions with longer journey times and nowhere to park any where in the city centre.
I’ve stopped cycling as much due to a car slamming into my bike (didn’t get hurt, ended up on the bastards bonnet) and some fellow sixth formers throwing full bottles of water from their car while I was cycling.
Old, fat Boomers who haven’t touched exercise in 30 years are sadly the majority of voters in the UK, and will always get their way when screaming abuse at any allowances made for cyclists.
“They don’t pay their road tax”
/r/fuckcars
/r/notjustbikes
The road over from me is one of these. The result is it’s moved all the traffic onto my road and my road is now much more dangerous. Thanks Sadiq.
I have never felt safe cycling on the roads in the UK, which is why at 30 years old I still cycle on the pavement, and just dismount for congested pedestrian areas.
I’m poor and disabled. Giving a shit about cycling, the environment or LTN is *not* on my to do list. The classism and ableism in environmental campaigning is fucking horrendous.
I need a car. I *need* this mode of transport to make my life that tiny bit much easier. Because I don’t have the priviliege of walking 20 minutes each way (nearest actual ‘regular’ bus stop technically a ‘5 minute’ walk from me, like hell i could do it in 5)
I don’t have the energy to piss about on/waiting for public transport for 2 hours of my day (and I live in a big *city* that’s *meant* to have busses every 15 minutes HAHA) try every 30 or 45 and good luck getting a seat! – oh and this is meant to be a well travelled route into city centre.
Your minimum wage worker or even middle class, do not have the *time* to piss about waiting for public transport to take, minumum 1 hour + an average 10 minute walk each way when a *door to door* car journey can take 20-30 minutes in bad traffic.
People have lives, families, are struggling to live and work 40 godamn hour weeks. They don’t need 15-20 hours plus pissing around waiting for unsafe buses that depending on your area, may have a shit ton of anti social behaviour going on
If this ‘revolution’ is going to be worth a damn. Londoners should piss off out of london and come see the state of transport *everywhere else* in the country. Activists need to get their heads out of their arses and stop demonising poor and disabled people.
26 comments
The Government’s promise to make towns and cities safer for cycling and walking is wobbling, with more than a quarter of low-traffic neighbourhoods installed across Britain during the pandemic now scrapped, i can reveal.
Since March 2020, hundreds of experimental Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) have been rolled out in cities around the country in an attempt to encourage more people to walk and cycle rather than risk infections on public transport, or clog up the roads in private cars.
“Modal filters” in the form of bollards and giant planters blocked motor vehicle access to make networks of streets safer and quieter. They were part of what ministers promised would be a “walking and cycling revolution”.
But councils installing LTNs faced a fierce backlash from local residents, businesses and disgruntled motorists, with complaints of more traffic being pushed to perimeter roads and difficulties for the elderly and disabled.
The opposition is taking its toll – 28 per cent of the schemes installed since March 2020 have subsequently been ditched, i analysis shows.
Back in 2020 ministers hastily assembled £250m of emergency funding announced to fund immediate, “experimental” changes to road layouts, as part of a wider £2bn investment in walking and cycling across England.
Many local authorities also used other sources of funding to roll out schemes. But while the action was rapid, the “lasting transformative change in how we make short journeys in our towns and cities” that the Government wanted has often not materialised, due to some swift U-turns.
A Salisbury city centre LTN was abandoned in November 2020 after resistance from local businesses, even though it had only been in operation for a month, during a national lockdown.
Disputes over LTNs have often been bitter, with planters repeatedly moved, tipped over and covered in angry graffiti, drivers mounting pavements to dodge the obstacles and councillors supporting LTNs subjected to torrents of personal abuse.
Hackney Council in East London had to plead with the police for help to stop an LTN-induced “crime wave”.
i asked regional transport authorities and local councils in Britain’s main urban areas to provide information on the number of experimental LTNs installed since March 2020, and how many had been scrapped.
The responses received covered 105 local authorities and showed that in these areas 189 LTNs had been installed since March 2020 and 52 (28 per cent) have since been removed.
In London, the removal rate climbs to 30 per cent. Some authorities – such as Wandsworth, south London which scrapped all seven LTNs after negative feedback from residents – didn’t even wait for consultation periods to end before dropping them.
In Ealing, west London, seven of the nine LTNs installed in 2020 have been removed after a consultation revealed strong opposition among residents.
LTNs were an issue in this month’s local elections in the capital – with some arguing a backlash against the measures helped the Conservatives take Harrow, west London and halve Labour’s majority in Enfield, north London.
More LTNs are likely to go in London, with the newly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets council Lutfur Raman pledging to scrap them, saying they were leading to poorer air quality.
But Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK, said some councils removed schemes without even waiting for data to show whether they were encouraging more active travel or improving air quality.
“Too often, people wanted to remove things because they thought it would cause more congestion, that it would cause increased air pollution,” he told i. “They didn’t wait for an evaluation.”
“Not every scheme that was put in place was therefore fully consulted on, or perfect,” he added. “The problem we then had was that too many councils ripped out schemes that weren’t perfect, instead of saying ‘how do we tweak it?’”
But other councils have pressed ahead, making schemes permanent despite local opposition (see box).
Adam Tranter, cycling and walking commissioner for the West Midlands said some of the scrapped LTNs were poorly planned projects, drawn up in a hurry by councils working to the Government’s tight funding deadline.
“We have across the country many local authorities who have not been prioritising active travel for decades,” he said. “So the councils that I think did a particularly good job of Emergency Active Travel Fund [schemes] were the ones that had already decided that they were prioritizing cycling and walking and they already had plans ready to go.”
Some schemes failed simply because of a “lack of political will”, he argued, with councils conceding too readily to LTN opponents.
“Changes is really hard, and you have to bring people with you. But the important thing here is not to mistake bringing people with you as some sort of veto for making the bold decisions we need to in the face of a climate crisis and inactivity crisis.”
The government is doubling down on its ‘active travel’ agenda, seeing it as a cheap way to tackle obesity, cut air pollution and reduce carbon emissions.
And campaigners say the experience of being instructed to act on an emergency footing has prompted a shift in thinking inside many councils. “We’ve had a slow but positive mindset change,” said Mr Dollimore. “There is definitely a culture change within local authorities towards considering walking and cycling infrastructure.”
In London, which has played host to the bulk of the LTNs, walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman has vowed to continue with further change. “Walking and cycling have been hugely popular and vital ways to get around London since the pandemic started and we are continuing to work closely with boroughs across the capital to sustain this success by transforming streets and ensuring there is enough space for people to walk and cycle safely,” he told i.
**‘It’s neighbour fighting neighbour’**
In King’s Heath, a suburb of Birmingham, residents have been getting to grips with new road rules since autumn 2020 when a new LTN was installed. Planters have been installed on nine different streets to cars, and one of the main shopping streets has been pedestrianised.
The measures have divided the community, with some praising the quieter streets and “cafe culture” it has created, while others bemoan an increase in traffic on boundary roads.
Martin Mullaney, a vaccine co-ordinator for the NHS, lives just half a mile from Kings Heath and has campaigned for the LTN’s removal. “I know all the shopkeepers, and they keep telling me how their trade has just crashed because of it,” he told i, adding that the roads around the LTN are now “one big logjam”.
“This LTN has split the community, big time,” he said. “It’s neighbour fighting neighbour”.
But Labour councillor Lisa Trickett believes there is a “silent majority” of residents who disagree with Martin and want to see the LTN stay.
“Some people have harnessed the LTN as a wedge issue, and have sought to divide communities,” she told i. “It’s a very small and loud group who break down the overall harmony of the community.”
Birmingham’s Labour council said the Kings Heath LTN would become permanent in March 2022. Ms Trickett said her re-election to the council just weeks later proves the LTN has the support of the “silent majority”. “What I found inspiring, going round during the election, was the silent majority,” she said. “The silent majority is clear, because they re-elected me.”
Yet her support for LTNs has come at a price. She said she has experienced a campaign of “utterly misogynistic” online abuse, has been shouted at and even pushed over on the street. Others say local officials working on LTNs have been left “bruised” by the experience.
Many local residents struggle to see why LTNs have become such a toxic issue. “I’m not pro or anti LTNs. I don’t really care about LTNs,” King’s Heath resident Sush Kelly told i. “I care more about finding ways for people to walk, cycle and scoot in safety. And in this instance, having the LTN is something that has enabled that.”
**Get on your e-bike**
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are not the only scheme the government is relying on to get people cycling more. Last week the Government launched a new £8m scheme for people to rent an e-bike free of charge.
The “Cycling made e-asy” programme, run by Cycling UK, will start as a pilot in Greater Manchester this month. Residents will be able to claim free three-month loans of an e-bike in a bid to “dispel common myths and build awareness of e-cycles”, according to Cycling UK.
Studies have shown that people with e-bikes get just as much exercise as those using a normal push bike, because they use them more frequently and for longer trips.
“E-cycles are a great way for people with longer or hillier journeys to travel and the £8 million we have provided for this scheme will help make cycling the natural first choice for many journeys – a key Government commitment from the Prime Minister’s Cycling and Walking plan,” said Cycling Minister Trudy Harrison.
It’s a shame really. Things are often destroyed by an overly vocal minority.
Good. I live in London and cycle 10x as much as I drive and I hate LTNs. They increase traffic by forcing drivers to take longer routes.
These LTNs should be rolled out in the neighborhoods of Tory MPs first and around everywhere they go during the day. Then let’s discuss MPs cycling and walking.
I stopped cycling because it’s too dangerous because motorists will treat you like shit and put you in danger. When I moved to a city I thought I’d now be able to cycle but it’s even worse.
Cycling would be vastly safer if the attitudes of cycling changed.
I like how the article quotes Martin Mullaney as a vaccine coordinator and not as the former lib dem councillor who just lost in the locals in the area trying to leverage votes from labour supporters with an anti-LTN policies. Seems a little disingenuous.
Me in my final year of Part 1 Architecture degree:
Creates a cycling route and a travel hostel with bike rental and repair workshop (part of a travel hostel) for Lincoln City. Aimed at regeneration, celebration of history and …. Urban cycling reconnection because I got almost hit by a cyclist and saw them almost get hit by cars.
I am a central European and there are a lot of things the government does not do right.. well they are just not right to begin with but at least I’ve seen an explosion of new routes and their benefits. The amount of cyclists rose tremendously and it’s an absolute blast for even just a leisure biker. It’s really a shame, especially since so many streets were simply not created for this era… Just look at the tomorrow streets with parked cars on both sides, half of them half on pavement…
Obviously, tory government, scheme to improve things for the general public no-one can get rich from. Surprised it lasted this long.
Just been for a bike ride on mostly empty roads and hated every second of it. Fuck having to sit in more traffic when I’m actually trying to get places because all of the streets have been closed off so councillors can feel good about making people ride bikes.
I support LTNS in principle but some of them have been badly planned. In my old neighbourhood in SE London they benefited roads that were already pretty quiet, green and wealthy, and the traffic congestion increased hugely on the less wealthy perimeter roads. During peak commuting time it was bumper to bumper for hours, and these roads were also residential and I couldn’t imagine the poor residents who had to put up with the noise and stench for hours a day. I don’t have a car or a bike, I usually take the bus, but the buses were also stuck in traffic and it ended up being faster to walk most of the time.
The LTNS that were genuinely not working well should just be reconsidered, not necessarily entirely scrapped.
> Many local residents struggle to see why LTNs have become such a toxic issue. “I’m not pro or anti LTNs. I don’t really care about LTNs,” King’s Heath resident Sush Kelly told i. “I care more about finding ways for people to walk, cycle and scoot in safety. And in this instance, having the LTN is something that has enabled that.”
This kind of snobby bullshit attitude really doesn’t help the discussion.
If you want to change things, you really need to be prepared to talk about that, not just act as though the discussion is beneath you.
It’s a real problem for progressive issues – they are swamped by people who think they can kill the conversation with kindness, when they obviously aren’t very kind people and are just trying to bully their way out of having to discuss issues.
But we don’t need “Low Traffic Neighbourhoods” to have a cycling and walking ‘revolution’.
28% isn’t too bad. There were still a massive amount put in and more are going in now. I read the other day about a few in Oxford are going in soon. The number of new ones going in keeps going up and almost all of the ones that will be scrapped are already scraped. A load of areas have had them for many decades too.
Thats the annoying part actually. There have been 1,000s around the country for decades and nobody really complained until 2 years ago when they got given a name and started going in because of covid. If people have said nothing about all the LTNs around them for decades then why are they complaining about the much fewer amounts going in today? They’ve effectively been told they’re bad by their party, news outlets, and Facebook groups of choice, so they now think for sure they’re bad. Hate using the word sheep but thats how they seem.
Good, they are a nightmare with commuting ever increasing with the back to the office drive.
72% retention is… better than I expected.
One of the LTNs around here has been genuinely transformative for the neighbourhood, it’s made it so much nicer for the people around it who can actually use the space for stuff. The cycle lanes have been a mixed bag, but that’s mainly due to the council half-arsing them
Which will help both our climate goals and obesity strategy…
We need to move on from cars being the main form of transport in this country and encourage cycling and walking for local journeys. I can understand why people might not like LTNs but they are going to be a part of the solution for reducing our dependency on cars. They are here to stay and it would be better to engage with them than scrap them. They are there for people’s safety and to encourage a healthy activity. Is there anything wrong with those aims?
It’s because they’re poorly planned, with little consultation and lack of funds. There is never the question of “what would work best here?”, it’s always someone from out of town who “thinks” they know what the solution is because their book said so, then gets angry when the locals don’t like it then the plan gets cancelled all together because of “lack of interest”…
Of course they are. For fucks sake the majority of the workforce CAN NOT WORK FROM HOME now that lockdowns and furlough are over people need to get to work.
Here are some of the jobs that can’t be done remotely:
* Hospital staff
* Paramedics
* Care workers
* Fire service
* Police service
* Farm workers
* Food factory workers
* Shop workers
* Warehouse workers
* Delivery drivers
* Refuse collection
* Factory production line workers
* Utility (gas, water, electricity, telecoms) workers
* Building trades (builders, plumbers, electricians…)
* Bus drivers
* Train/tram drivers
* etc…
An election winning strategy for the GE for the Tories could well be a tax cut for everyone who has to work from work rather than from home.
It’s pretty simple. Build sufficient, segregated infrastructure for cyclists and people will use it because it will be fast and safe. Look at the Netherlands, Denmark, some parts of Germany etc.
Painted areas at the side of the road aren’t safe. Cycle paths shared with pedestrians are constantly obstructed (by oblivious pedestrians) making them slow and unsafe.
Putting restrictions on motor traffic is not a solution to get people to cycle – it just funnels traffic into specific routes which in turn slows everybody down and pisses people off.
These initiatives are so bad for the local communities.
Kills small business in that area. Causes major traffic and disruption in the areas near by. Terrible for the environment as more cars have less routes to go and have greater journey times.
The worst bit is they still don’t massively increase the number of cyclists on the road.
Brighton removed dual lanes on their busiest roads for cycle lanes, when there were already cycle lanes there. I’m not even joking. Two cycle lanes next to each other.
Completely dead. Made little no difference to people cycling and caused major traffic issues and greatly increasing emissions with longer journey times and nowhere to park any where in the city centre.
I’ve stopped cycling as much due to a car slamming into my bike (didn’t get hurt, ended up on the bastards bonnet) and some fellow sixth formers throwing full bottles of water from their car while I was cycling.
Old, fat Boomers who haven’t touched exercise in 30 years are sadly the majority of voters in the UK, and will always get their way when screaming abuse at any allowances made for cyclists.
“They don’t pay their road tax”
/r/fuckcars
/r/notjustbikes
The road over from me is one of these. The result is it’s moved all the traffic onto my road and my road is now much more dangerous. Thanks Sadiq.
I have never felt safe cycling on the roads in the UK, which is why at 30 years old I still cycle on the pavement, and just dismount for congested pedestrian areas.
I’m poor and disabled. Giving a shit about cycling, the environment or LTN is *not* on my to do list. The classism and ableism in environmental campaigning is fucking horrendous.
I need a car. I *need* this mode of transport to make my life that tiny bit much easier. Because I don’t have the priviliege of walking 20 minutes each way (nearest actual ‘regular’ bus stop technically a ‘5 minute’ walk from me, like hell i could do it in 5)
I don’t have the energy to piss about on/waiting for public transport for 2 hours of my day (and I live in a big *city* that’s *meant* to have busses every 15 minutes HAHA) try every 30 or 45 and good luck getting a seat! – oh and this is meant to be a well travelled route into city centre.
Your minimum wage worker or even middle class, do not have the *time* to piss about waiting for public transport to take, minumum 1 hour + an average 10 minute walk each way when a *door to door* car journey can take 20-30 minutes in bad traffic.
People have lives, families, are struggling to live and work 40 godamn hour weeks. They don’t need 15-20 hours plus pissing around waiting for unsafe buses that depending on your area, may have a shit ton of anti social behaviour going on
If this ‘revolution’ is going to be worth a damn. Londoners should piss off out of london and come see the state of transport *everywhere else* in the country. Activists need to get their heads out of their arses and stop demonising poor and disabled people.
https://www.theunwritten.co.uk/2021/08/24/environmental-activism-is-ableist-heres-what-we-do-about-that/#comments
https://foe.scot/eco-ableism-and-the-climate-movement/
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/whp/ev/2017/00000026/00000004/art00007
https://impakter.com/what-is-eco-ableism-and-why-it-has-no-place-in-the-climate-movement/