Councillor was sent death threats over support for low traffic neighbourhoodsTwo of Hackney’s main shopping areas could be closed to through-traffic as the council seeks to deliver a greener borough. The announcement comes in the week that the councillor pushing the plans revealed he had received death threats over his support for low traffic neighbourhoods.Hackney is committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2040. With just 30 per cent of Hackney households owning a car, low traffic neighbourhoods have become a major focus of attempts to deliver this.Newly proposed measures would, subject to funding bids, see traffic filters introduced on Amhurst Road in Hackney Central and on Stoke Newington Church Street.
‘Rat-running’ increases on residential UK streets as experts blame satnav apps | The Guardian
Motoring on minor roads doubled between 2009 and 2019, regional figures reveal
The DfT blames the rise in traffic on rising population and other factors. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA
“Rat-running” on residential streets has increased dramatically in the past decade, according to statistics from the Department for Transport.
London has experienced a doubling in motor traffic on quiet C roads since 2008, while in most other parts of the UK polluting motor traffic has increased more greatly on residential streets than on A or B roads.
Motoring organisations and anti-traffic campaigners blame the internet. The AA president Edmund King has highlighted the rise of online deliveries, while urban liveability experts point the finger at smartphones and satnav apps including shortcutting app Waze.
Another reason is bloat. In 2007, there were 27m registered motor vehicles in the UK. There are now 38.3m, with experts predicting numbers will rise above 40m within the next two years. Even if all new cars and vans were powered by batteries rather than fossil fuel, that would not solve congestion or reduce road danger, say campaigners.
Electric cars won’t solve our pollution problems – Britain needs a total transport rethink | George Monbiot | The Guardian
George MonbiotWed 23 Sep 2020All vehicles create carbon emissions and cause congestion. The coronavirus crisis should help us break our dependence on…. A switch to electric cars will reduce pollution. It won’t eliminate it, as a high proportion of the microscopic particles thrown nto the air by cars, which are highly damaging to our health, arise from tyres grating on the surface of the road. Tyre wear is also by far the biggest source of microplastics pouring into our rivers and the sea. And when tyres, regardless of the engine that moves them, come to the end of their lives, we still have no means of properly recycling them.
Council extends weekend pedestrianisation of Northcote Road | Wandsworth Times
Frankie Adkins1st September
Following almost two months of weekend road closures, Wandsworth Council has agreed to continue pedestrianising the Northcote Road until October.On July 11, a trial period of closing the road to cars on Saturdays and Sundays was introduced, to support local businesses by helping them reopen safely.In light of positive feedback, the Council has said it will extend the closures until the clocks go back (October 25), using Coronavirus traffic regulations.
NHS Doctors Ditch Cars For E-Bikes To Hasten Home Visits – Forbes
Carlton Reid 24/9/20
Doctors were among the earliest adopters of the newfangled motorcar. An early-1900s medical man in a motor car (and, yes, most were men) extended his reach, allowing him to arrive at destinations in some comfort, and, compared to traveling by horse-and-cart, enabled many more house calls per day—with each call-out attracting a fat fee.
The creation of the NHS in 1948 did away with such fees, but still, doctors preferred to dot around in their motor cars—for the first half of the Twentieth Century, the person most Britons associated with car ownership was the local doctor.
The Fourth Power Rule – cyclelicio.us
Discussion about fees and taxes for bicycles so that we cyclists “pay our fair share” often turn to mentions of the “Fourth Power Rule.” What is this mysterious Fourth Power Rule?
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, highway engineers researched damage done to road beds and road surfaces for the purposes of allocating who should pay how much into the various road maintenance funds. The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO; they added Transportation to their organization name during the 1973 OPEC oil embargo) collated this research and published their findings as a “Special Report” for a highway engineering conference in 1962.
What these researchers found is that damage to the roadbed is proportional to the 4th power of the axle load of the vehicle, and they called this “the Generalized Fourth Power Law.” This means that if you double the weight on an axle, your vehicle does sixteen times the damage to the road. The result is those signs you see on the backs of truck trailers that say “This truck paid $4,182 in highway taxes last year.”
Let’s take an example. A Toyota Prius weighs about 3,000 lbs, which is 1,500 lbs per axle. A Lincoln Navigator weighs in with a curb weight of 6,000 lbs, or 3,000 lbs per axle.
(3000 / 1500)4 = 24 = 16
Town Hall tweaks low traffic neighbourhood in Hoxton West – Hackney Citizen
Hackney Council made changes to one of its three recently introduced low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) over the weekend in response to feedback from locals and its own monitoring.
The introduction of LTNs has seen heated debate across London, with some welcoming the positive results to air quality and road safety they bring to residential streets being used as rat runs, while others complain of congestion being displaced to other areas.
The Hoxton West LTN’s traffic filter on Nile Street will now move further west, past its junction with Provost Street, to help prevent non-local traffic from using both Nile and Provost as rat runs, with transport chief Cllr Jon Burke speaking out over the weekend to warn vandals who had destroyed bollards in the area: “Cameras coming soon. When we catch you, we’ll prosecute.”
BBC Crime Show Argues For Helmet Compulsion For Cyclists – Forbes
Carlton Reid
The new road rage: bitter rows break out over UK’s low-traffic neighbourhoods | The Guardian
As barriers and signs go up to stop rat runs and promote cycling and walking, communities are deeply divided over the benefit
Sun 20 Sep 2020
Jaquelin Gutierrez, 45, is walking beside her seven-year-old daughter, Lauren, who is riding her bike in the sunshine. They feel far safer than they used to on their 10-minute journey home without so many cars. “I used to be super scared because cars go really fast and might run over me,” says Lauren.
Cycling In Town Centres Is a Network Issue – The Ranty Highwayman
Every so often there’s a flurry of complaints about people cycling through pedestrianised areas. Sometimes there might be a media item in which a talking head holds the cycling community at blame for the behaviour of a few and in some cases, the local authority will ban cycling, yet wonder why people are still there.