News from Elsewhere

A group of sixth formers are talking about street play, hide-and-seek and football – and about how cars impact the way they use local spaces.

“I have good memories of playing out,” says 17-year-old Sajidul Islam. “Big games of football with all my friends.” He thinks young people should be asked more often what they like about their neighbourhoods. “But I think they prefer to ask people with degrees.”
His classmate Ahona Zaman describes her journey to school, walking through a dark underpass beneath a dual carriageway. “I love cycling but it’s too dangerous.”
These teenagers in Poplar, east London, are growing up in an intensely urban neighbourhood. Low-rise houses, brightly painted shops and cramped parks push up against the constant hum of the A12. The streets are boxed in by major roads, and cranes and towers fill the skyline.

Laura Laker

Fri 20 Nov 2020

How do I get started?
For all the attention low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) are getting, they are very simple things. Strategic “point closures” allow vehicle access to all addresses in a neighbourhood, but reduce through traffic. They can be done with planters, or lockable bollards, or a combination of both.
In London, impressive maps of potential emergency LTNs (funded by the government’s emergency active travel fund) were swiftly drawn up using existing data on housing density, indices of deprivation, access to green space and potential trips that could be converted to cycling and walking. This helped to show where LTNs would best help residents stay healthy and avoid public transport during the pandemic.
Across the rest of the country, Sustrans, the walking and cycling charity, and the London Cycling Campaign and Living Streets have documents to help. But if there aren’t already LTNs in your area, you may have to do some of the legwork yourself.

Peter WalkerMon 16 Nov 2020

There is no evidence schemes that try to limit “rat-running” traffic along residential streets disproportionately benefit better-off households, research has concluded, contradicting a common view cited by objectors.
A study of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which have mushroomed as part of efforts to boost walking and cycling amid coronavirus, found that the vast majority of people lived on streets that could be part of such schemes.

Richard Partington Tue 17 Nov 2020

The government is exploring options for dealing with a £40bn black hole in the public finances, which would result from a proposed ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars within a decade.
Boris Johnson is expected to announce this week the cut-off date for the ban will be brought forward by five years to 2030, in a step designed to underscore the government’s commitment to a green economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the Treasury is understood to be concerned that a faster transition to net zero will require fundamental changes to the tax system to ensure it keeps pace with the economy of the future.
Taxes on motoring raise about £40bn a year for the exchequer from people buying cars and paying fuel duties, accounting for about 5% of total government revenue, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The Walking and Cycling Alliance, comprising Bicycle Association, British Cycling, Cycling UK, Living Streets, Sustrans and the Ramblers, has published a paper setting out the urgent case for Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.

The alliance also uses evidence and case studies from across the country to tackle the urban myths that have emerged around them.

More than half (57%) of drivers say having access to a car is more important than it was before the coronavirus pandemic, according to the RAC. Two-thirds of young drivers, those with fewer than 10 years’ driving experience and drivers living in London, are all significantly more likely to say they need a car more now than they did before March. Research for the RAC’s annual Report on Motoring also found that, for the first time since 2002, fewer than half of drivers (43%) say they would use their cars less, even if public transport was improved.The RAC Report on Motoring is an in-depth view of driver opinion and behaviour and has been running every year since 1989. It is conducted among a sample of the driving public who are representative of UK motorists. The 2020 survey was completed by 3,068 drivers.

Traffic Management

The Prime Minister and transport secretary Grant Shapps this week took on the critics of the Government’s active travel programme as £175m was announced for more measures such as segregated cycle lanes and residential street closures.
The grant represents the heavily delayed second tranche of the DfT’s Emergency Active Travel Fund (EATF), launched as a response to Covid-19. The EATF name has been dropped, however, with a DfT spokeswoman telling LTT: “The world has moved…

Online conference and exhibtion takes place on 2 December

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has seen towns and cities across the UK implement an impressive range of emergency traffic and street-scene measures, including pop-up cycleways and wider pavements to make cycling and walking safer. Traffic + Parking 2020 will explore the design of road space reallocation schemes, and discuss how to: promote active travel; measure success; and react to an emotive, and sometimes destructive, backlash against measures such as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Lockdown has offered the public a glimpse of what it would be like to experience lower traffic levels and the resultant improved air quality. Traffic + Parking will feature sessions offering insights to policy measures that local authorities can take to combat vehicle-based pollution, including: Clean Air Zones; Low Emissions Neighbourhoods; School Streets; anti-idling schemes; Road User Charging; and Workplace Parking Levy schemes.