A Low Traffic Neighbourhood being trialled in Ealing has been shut down by the council.
The council claim the closing of a nearby road for a period of two months means they were left with no option other than to shut down LTN21.
It also said however that ‘the implementation of low traffic neighbourhoods has caused significant division within local communities’.
Shortly after Ealing Council announced its decision, a local school posted a warning on its website urging children and parents to take ‘extra care’ while travelling.
The road due for closure, Swyncombe Avenue, links Hounslow and Ealing on the southern border of the LTN21 but is closing to eastbound traffic from Monday.
The council allege this closure would make LTN21 unworkable and therefore they have been forced to remove it this weekend
Social media users said that the removal of the LTN began on Friday ‘during the school run’.
This is how much @EalingCouncil care about kids safety.
They rip out the LTN during the school run and a kid on a bike has to dodge a crane.
It’s truly embarrassing to live in Ealing right now. @_petermason @SpacePootler @RailtonLTN @willnorman @jonburkeUK @AlanDyeNB pic.twitter.com/KyOUZ3FMcv
— Mark Eccleston (@MarkEccleston1) May 21, 2021
The council says ultimately it wants people living in LTNs to be the ones to have the final say on the trial schemes.
This will be done through a ‘Controlled Parking Zone’ style consultation on each LTN in the borough, ‘keeping schemes that work and are supported, and removing those that do not’.
Ealing Council Leader Peter Mason (Labour) said: “Ealing Council promised to listen to local people’s views on active travel initiatives like LTNs, and we have done just that.
“The decision on LTN 21 has been brought forward because of the closure of Swyncombe Avenue and we will be ending the trial this weekend.
“Remaining LTNs will be subject to a CPZ style consultation, with a vote for local people on whether they think the LTNs will work in their neighbourhoods.
“I’ve pledged that the council I lead will be open, transparent and inclusive. That means being honest about what works and what doesn’t.
“This decision is about giving local people control over change in their neighbourhoods. Our commitment to tackling the climate emergency and enabling active travel and cycling remains unchanged, but we know we must take people with us.”
Ealing Liberal Democrat leader Councillor Gary Malcom responded to the news by demanding all LTNs are removed.
My letter as @EalingLD Leader to the new Leader of #Ealing Council in response to the news of the removal of LTN21, to demand all of the LTNs are removed as well as a similar scheme to an LTN in Fishers Lane, Southfield #Chiswick. pic.twitter.com/tczOFLDaMB
— Cllr Gary Malcolm ?️? (@CllrGaryMalcolm) May 21, 2021
Following the announcement, a local school in the area, Fielding Primary urged children to take extra care when walking home.
Posting on its website, the school warned: “Pupils and parents are recommended to take extra care when travelling to and from school because traffic levels may change.
“Teachers are talking to classes this afternoon about taking extra care walking home from school today.”
Here comes Ealing’s future. Bravo @EalingCouncil https://t.co/XFybwJ0K5i
— Railton LTN (@RailtonLTN) May 21, 2021
-1024x680.jpg "“Clear anti-cyclist bias”: Lawsuit filed against Toronto police after cop doored cyclist… before ticketing rider over incident")
39 thoughts on “Low Traffic Neighbourhood in Ealing ripped out ‘during school run’”
Yay LTNs! Yay, send all the
Yay LTNs! Yay, send all the traffic down the povvos’ roads! Yay!
Is there a more egregious example of how LTNs can be really bad than the dreadful mess in Ealing? The actual reason the council’s taking them out is that it was about to lose a legal challenge against the unlawfully discriminatory effect of the ones it put in.
When equalities law says the effects of something are racist, perhaps reconsider your plans…
Dave Dave wrote:
You managed to crowbar in an accusation of racism into something that is not even vaguely related to race. Is there a racism equivalent to Godwin’s law? If there is you’ve just illustrated it.
Perhaps you’ve personally been adversely affected by traffic being diverted down your street due to an LTN and if so I get that you’d be annoyed by that but there has to be a better solution than ripping out the LTN that makes life so much safer and more pleasant for non-motorised traffic. The solution is more LTNs to get more people to leave the car behind when they don’t need it, not fewer LTNs.
Best to read more into the
Those who were most affected are predominantly operating within certain service oriented job functions. Those functions are overwhelmingly staffed by non white ethnicities. But yeh. I’m sure it’s Goodwin’s law, Or brexit or something right. Sounds definitely more feasible…
portec wrote:
When equalities law says the effects of something are racist, perhaps reconsider your plans…
— portec You managed to crowbar in an accusation of racism into something that is not even vaguely related to race. Is there a racism equivalent to Godwin’s law? If there is you’ve just illustrated it.— Dave Dave
Godwin’s law isn’t a criticism, it’s an observation: any discussion long enough will eventually come round to discussing the Nazis, often because of something someone’s said or done _which is comparable_.
In this case, we’re discussing racism. Going ‘oo-err, you said racism’ is just daft.
We are talking about how unbelievably racist LTNs tend to be, and how this particular one is literally being dropped because it was about to lose a court challenge based on equalities law. But you’d rather that wasn’t discussed, because…?
Dave Dave; is that like New
Dave Dave; is that like New York? So bad they named you twice?
Dave Dave wrote:
Just to be clear, this is not the case. Ealing has suspended LTN21 – the many other temporary LTNs remain.
The council has suspended LTN21 because of road works.
AndyEaling]
So why didn’t they just say that instead of indulging in all that rabid anti-LTN rhetoric?
AndyEaling wrote:
Yay LTNs! Yay, send all the traffic down the povvos’ roads! Yay!
Is there a more egregious example of how LTNs can be really bad than the dreadful mess in Ealing? The actual reason the council’s taking them out is that it was about to lose a legal challenge against the unlawfully discriminatory effect of the ones it put in.
When equalities law says the effects of something are racist, perhaps reconsider your plans…
— AndyEaling Just to be clear, this is not the case. Ealing has suspended LTN21 – the many other temporary LTNs remain. The council has suspended LTN21 because of road works.— Dave Dave
Not true. The council rapidly arranged some roadworks to save face. LTN21 was about to face (and obviously lose) a court challenge under equalities law. Obviously most, if not all, LTNs are deeply discriminatory, but this one is particularly egregious.
Have you actually looked at the map of it, or are you just knee-jerking? It moves traffic away from one school (full of rich white kids) and some allotments, onto a road with three schools (which just happen to be full of poor BAME kids). It’s absolutely blatant. Absolutely disgusting, too.
Dave Dave wrote:
Did you used to advise Trump on his alternative facts? Now you’re jobless, maybe you could sexual intercourse* off back to where you came from.
*I couldn’t use the common term for fear of being prosecuted.
I think it means it is racist
I think it means it is racist against white people as they can no longer drop off didums in their wankpanzer and diddums has to walk.
Dave Dave wrote:
I mean, really, I can say just about anything on social media – the moon is made of cheese, the Royal family are lizards, the moon landings are fake. Doesn’t make any of it true.
Folks claim all the time that LTNs are racist. But there’s actually been some fairly good research on the data available for LTNs delivered in the last year, including the Ealing ones, that points out that you’re actually slightly more likely to live inside an LTN if you’re a person of colour than white. And that across London, LTNs have been broadly delivered socially equitably – although some, it’s true, more than others.
Folks also claim that roadworks have been put in to dodge court cases, or that every LTN is full of white rich people while every boundary road is full of poor black people. Again, this is not based in reality. This is just making stuff up on social media because you’re angry. Maybe, maybe, Ealing’s LTN21 did displace away from a rich white people’s primary and allotments to three schools full of “poor BAME kids”. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know. I do know the general research contradicts that across London LTNs in general delivered over the last year. And more, I know, that the very last people I’d trust for information are frothing anti-LTN types on social media called “Dave Dave” who present such stuff without any apparent evidence or data. ‘What I say goes’ isn’t a good starting point for any debate IMO.
PsiMonk wrote:
Apart from the Royal Family thing, that’s true.
“Our commitment to tackling
“Our commitment to tackling the climate emergency and enabling active travel and cycling remains unchanged, but we know we must take people with us” is as close to an admission that LTNs are deeply unpopular as I’ve seen.
With cross-party opposition further underscoring their unpopularity, it’s astonishing to continue to see otherwise-intelligent people on these pages continue to claim that LTNs are wildly popular, against all logic and evidence.
Integrated active travel has to bring people along with the ideas – there are so many improvements that could be done in my local area that wouldn’t involve division or discriminatory policies. It’s amazing that politicians have managed to score this gigantic own goal.
Or is it just an admission
Or is it just an admission that those who oppose LTNs shout the loudest?
No. You should have learned
No. You should have learned what the silent majority wanted by looking at the results of the latest elections (of which councillors and candidates had direct doorstep experience).
The polls have closed. The results are in. The Tories know it. Labour know it. The Lib Dems know it. Hence the direction of travel and the volte-face – you have to bring the people with you, LTNs have been a gigantic, divisive failure.
Nigel Garrage wrote:
I don’t think there’s much point speculating about what the “silent majority” want. How do we know what a silent person wants unless they cease to be silent?
According to this article, a YouGov poll last year found that 26% strongly supported LTNs and less than a third of that number (8%) were strongly opposed to them. That makes me think that silent people are more likely to be supporters of LTNs, not opponents. LTNs were somewhat supported by 31% and a similar number somewhat opposed them:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2020/oct/22/despite-a-loud-opposing-minority-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-are-increasingly-popular
portec wrote:
https://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA – don’t trust badly motivated polling. As Judge Judy says, “If something doesn’t make sense (I.e. why are politicians and community groups all against LTNs when The Guardian says they are popular?), it’s usually because it isn’t true”.
Nigel Garrage wrote:
I’m not sure what you mean by “badly motivated polling” in the context of my post or this article. It’s not the Guardian saying LTN’s are popular, it’s a YouGov survey where they asked over 2000 members of the general public. The Guardian is merely reporting the results and commenting on them.
And I quite like Yes, Prime Minister so thanks for the link. I see what you’re trying to imply but Yes, Prime Minister is satire and not meant to be taken literally. Satire must have at least a small element of truth to be funny but if it’s exactly the same as the truth then it’s no longer funny.
To be clear, the poll was
To be clear, the poll was commissioned by Greenpeace – I suspect even the most pro-LTN commentator would concede a conflict of interest, just as the opposite would be true if it had been commissioned by “fair fuel UK” or whatever they are called.
Nigel Garrage wrote:
You might want to check what a conflict of interest actually is. We all know that Greenpeace want to save the planet. A conflict of interest would be if they had shares in the world’s biggest manufacturer of planters.
Fair Fuel UK don’t have a conflict of interest either, unless they are in league with the Vogons who’ll find it easier to demolish the earth once it has mysteriously gone on fire.
And YouGov are in business so that there is at least a degree of independence and rigour. It’s not perfect, but they would soon fail if perceived just to tell the customer what they think they want to hear. So they are open about who commissioned the poll, as is the Guardian article that portec linked.
TheBillder wrote:
Thanks for that – to spell it out for you, YouGov have a conflict of interest. They are taking money from an organisation with vested interests in one side of the argument to produce “research”. This is a financial conflict of interest, no different to the moral hazard scientists might have when producing research for particular industries with the funding from within that industry.
It speaks volumes that there is no record of the questions asked, the cross section polled, or the method of collation for this particular “research”.
As it happens, it’s all incidental now as the people have spoken (local elections), the politicians have listened and the will of the people is being carried out. As I’ve mentioned before I’m not anti-LTN (and I don’t think people are generally – I suspect the questions were framed through the lens of active travel), but they have to be well planned and carry people along with them, or else they will be ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.
It’s not the same thing as
It’s not the same thing as undisclosed payment for research though. Greenpeace published a survey which they paid YouGov to execute. They’re being totally open about it and publishing it, including the questions and all the stats. 5 mins to find it – search “Greenpeace LTN” and you’ll find the Greenpeace page about it, with a link to a pdf on YouGov’s site.
Undisclosed research funding is a problem because it may be published in exactly the same place as independent research, not be editorially independent, and have inconvenient results suppressed. If you think the same has happened here, you are welcome to suggest it and present your evidence.
The key is “commissioned by”.
The key is “commissioned by”. Greenpeace did not undertake the work themselves. They commissioned YouGov to do it to nationally accepted standards of polling. The results will be accurate to within plus or minus 3% on a representative sample of 1000 people, so with a representative sample of 2000, it will be even more accurate.
Had ‘FFUK’ commissioned YouGov they would have found the same.
Nigel Garrage wrote:
In Ealing, where we are talking about the scheme having been recently ripped out, the share of vote for Labour and Greens – who both supported the schemes, went up in the London Assembly and Mayoral elections, ooh, less than a month ago. This pattern appears to have played out across London, where the lion’s share of the UK’s recent LTNs have been delivered over the last year. Anti LTN candidates got trounced. Pro LTN candidates did well.
Even if you analyse Sadiq Khan’s worse-than-expected vote, it’s not because Shaun Bailey or the other anti-LTN candidates triumphed. At all.
Then throw on top the opinion polls – including independent ones not commissioned by Greenpeace, that show a clear majority of Londoners and indeed folks across England like LTNs.
Isn’t it funny that folks who claim to be all for evidence “looking at the results of the latest elections” then dismiss evidence they don’t like, and just make massive whopper claims on top. Sigh.
It is not the first time he
It is not the first time he has shouted “look at how well Shaun Bailey did, it must mean Anti LTN’s are popular” when Bailey did pretty much exactly the same as Goldsmith at the previous election in terms of percentage share.
His main priority was
His main priority was reducing crime and he wanted to increase constables by 8000.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
I did say that I wasn’t going to respond again as I don’t have anything else to add, but I just wanted to point out that – according to opinion polling in April – Khan was on course to get 51% of the vote vs 29% for Bailey (source: https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-london-mayor-voting-intention-7-april-2021/). In fact, Khan scored 40% vs 35% for Bailey in round 1, and 55% vs 45% in round 2.
You might draw a different conclusion, but mine is that Bailey’s crude anti-LTN rhetoric clearly resonated, leading to a better-than-expected performance – although I’m sure some of the turnaround came from Boris Johnson’s vaccine success too and Bailey’s commitment to policing.
They are NOT unpopular in
They are NOT unpopular in Islington borough, where every bye-election in an LTN ward was won overwhelmingly by Islington Labour, who had introduced them and who had LTNs (aka ‘People Friendly Streets’) as an explicit policy.
0.6% of Ealing borough’s population attended a protest – and we don’t even know if they were all from Ealing – and the council has caved in to shouty loudmouth drivists.
Finally, every time there’s a proper representative sample taken and a controlled analysis, it finds that LTNs are overwhelmingly supported in London, even by drivers, as reported elsewhere on road.cc:
https://road.cc/content/news/backers-london-ltns-outnumber-opponents-three-one-281961
Bravo! Nearly up to
Bravo! Nearly up to Socrapicyclist’s standard.
Nigel Garrage wrote:
No, it doesn’t. I just has to compel people to travel actively. It would undoubtedly be more popular if it brought people with it but fundamentally it doesn’t have to.
“Ealing Council Leader Peter
“Ealing Council Leader Peter Mason (Labour) said: “Ealing Council promised to listen to local people’s views on active travel initiatives like LTNs, and we have done just that.”
Which they clearly didn’t do before ripping the LTN out. Rapidly followed by
““I’ve pledged that the council I lead will be open, transparent and inclusive. That means being honest about what works and what doesn’t.”
So how is ripping it out before people have been consulted being “open, transparent and inclusive.”? Is this being ripped out before the verdict in the CUK case against the council which did something similar?
The only positive thing you can say about this labour politician is that the Lib-Dem is worse. There is something fundamentally wrong with our politics when two parties can so viciously attack something supported by the majority, and they should look very closely at their motives and reasons for such an undemocratic attitude. Are they all car addicts? Is there no climate emergency in Ealing? How far above sea level is it?
Do I ask too many questions?
WHOA! An anti-LTN Lib-Dem??
WHOA! An anti-LTN Lib-Dem?? “Vulnerable users”??
David9694 wrote:
I did wonder how he was defining “vulnerable users”?
Duntshill Road: is the big
Duntshill Road: is the big problem there actually the parked cars? It’s odd that we allow people (including me) to occupy a space in public ownership to store a vehicle. If you were to use the same space to store an old sofa or some firewood, you’d be in trouble. Even a skip needs lighting and a permit (not often enforced).
I know that the Liberal Democrats are a broad church (Lembit Opik anyone?) but demanding that the consultation that the council suggests must not happen, don’t listen to anyone, just rip it all out… seems a bit short of liberalism and democracy.
Parked cars in roads are my
Parked cars in roads are my biggest bugbear – and it’s become a real issue in the last 10 years. PCP/ finance deals means more people can afford car/ cars, without thinking were they keep it when not in use – and it’s just accepted, so more and more do it. And nothing happens…..
In an ideal world, if you have no space to park your car – tough, you can’t have one; but that’s a vote loser, so it won’t happen.
I feel like drivers are so
I feel like drivers are so entrenched and rabid in their opposition to any changes to the car centric nature of cities perhaps the only way forward is for all new developments to be new towns developed from the start as low traffic areas.
When those who favour quality of life over ease of driving move out and the old urban spaces become exclusively populated by car junkies, dominated by cars and less livable maybe they will eventually have their epiphany. But if not at least others can have the urban plan they want.
These people are living in London, car usage is not essential there at all. Public transport is extensive and reasonably priced and the quickest way to get anyway is likely by bike but still they must drive their cars.
Yes, drivers are entrenched
Yes, drivers are entrenched in their view; they have their cars, and they will use them when they want; even if it’s driving 500 metres down the road for a pint of milk & a paper.
They don’t want to use public transport, walk or cycle, etc that’s too much trouble – it’s easier to hop in the car.
I really don’t know how we end this view……
“Ealing Council promised to
“Ealing Council promised to listen to local people’s views on active travel initiatives like LTNs”
The real problem is that, with where we are now, changing our roads to be less favourable to motor vehicles and more to active travel options is quite a radical departure from existing reality (and previous policy) and human beings, in the main, don’t like change, especially if they think it might affect them adversely.
All of which means that waiting for the mjority of the public to be in favour of something before being prepared to try it makes it extremely unlikely to ever happen with any consistency.
I absolutely understand the desire to try and win over the public before trying something but given the stated goals and aims of the country in terms of making active travel safer and more efficient, whilst also dealing with the climate and obesity crises, we cannot just sit and wait until the majority of the public decides they are on board with it.
And I speak as someone who lives on a street that had traffic calming measures, and a one way system, imposed on it, against the wishes of the majority of residents … and yet now (20 years) no one here at the time will admit to having opposed it because it has made such a positive difference.
Jetmans Dad wrote:
— Jetmans DadBut all the evidence shows that the majority are very much in favour of LTNs, and it is the politicians who support the status quo.