Aug 2020) U.K.’s ‘Low Traffic Neighborhoods’ Nothing New: Ancient Romans Blocked City Roads To Carriages – forbes
Carlton Reid Aug 26, 2020
Three stone blocks enforcing the ban on carriage traffic travelling between the Forum, ahead, and … [+]
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“All across London a quiet, little-reported ‘war’ is raging,” claimed a writer for British political magazine Spiked Online, August 24. “Barricades and roadblocks have been erected,” continued Niall Crowley, “as council officials impose increasingly draconian measures to stop people using their cars.”
These “draconian measures” include the creation—with bollards and numberplate recognition cameras—of “Low Traffic Neighborhoods” (LTNs), where roads are closed to motorists but left open to cyclists and pedestrians.
Councils say these LTNs prevent the use of local roads as rat-runs but some die-hard motorists view such closures as attacks on driving. The co-founder of British motoring magazine Auto Express claimed on August 23 that “motorist-hating fundamentalists” were “stooping to a new low” by “temporarily banning or severely restricting cars on certain roads.”
Mike Rutherford continued that “under the cover of COVID they have struck, cynically seized their moment, tried to make the road network so bloody unbearable that car users will throw in the towel.”
