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LTNs as some kind of class war

Help me get my thoughts in order for a Twitter fight: 

so you are now declaring that traffic = pollution, I.e. a bad thing that you inflict on the world, and have done for a while. You’re now into equality, and are saying that the bad thing (that you create) has to shared equitably among residents of main routes and side roads?

What happens when all the side roads have been overrun - would it be “we must have bigger main routes” by any chance?

 

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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8 comments

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Sriracha | 3 years ago
2 likes

New housing developments are designed like lungs - you have to go out the same way you came in. Or, if there are alternative routes they are so convoluted that there is no gain in using them as a through route. I don't see people arguing that new roads should be pushed through these layouts in order to make it possible to rat-run through them from one end to the other.

Older urban residential streets were not laid out with the same thought in mind. Not because they were ever intended to carry through traffic, but because the problem was not an issue. LTNs are just an attempt to return residential streets to their original purpose by making them unsuitable for other purposes for which they were never conceived.

So whilst nobody argues that modern residential layouts should be altered to take through traffic, they do argue that traditional residential layouts, now with LTNs, should be altered (i.e. restored) to take through traffic.

Clearly there are some unintended consequences with LTNs, but in reality the underlying factor is traffic volume. One way of reducing traffic volume is to make car use less attractive whilst making alternatives more attractive, push and pull, until a new equilibrium is established. But inevitably people will squeal, because who wants to be pushed or pulled?

As to road pricing, is it possible whilst protecting privacy? How do you make an enforceable (or unavoidable) road pricing system completely anonymous? It seems a lot simpler just to tax the energy that goes into a vehicle.

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OldRidgeback | 3 years ago
2 likes

Living in a street with an LTN I can say for a fact that they don't make the road much safer. The same local idiots who used to drive too fast before still drive too fast now. Yes, traffic volumes have been reduced on my road. But the main roads nearby are now jammed. And the one junction I can use to get to the main road is now even more jammed than before. That junction is on a key route for kids going to school and is also the way I cycle when I'm commuting (admittedly not at the moment as I'm working from home). The introduction of the LTN has made the junction considerably less safe for pedestrians and cyclists at peak periods.

I'm not convinced that they've made a cut in vehicle journeys. From what I see, the same people still drive but spend more time stuck in jams and the pollution has just been moved.

I think there are better ways to make people reconsider their car use. 

The technology to deliver road pricing is now far cheaper and more accessible than before. And with growing use of EVs (whose users don't pay duty on fuel or VED), it's time drivers started to be charged for how much they drive, with costs slanted against those driving at peak periods and in busy urban areas. The weight of the vehicle could also be factored into the algorithm as this affects both energy consumption and road wear and rather than being banded, the specific unladen weight (as shown on the V5) would provide a direct correlation to the fee being paid. It's worth bearing in mind that those big and bulky Chelsea tractors (SUVs) have a very poor safety record, particularly with regard to knocking over pedestrians and cyclists. Charging them more, because they weigh so much more, would dissuade people from buying the things for use in urban areas and that'd make roads safer, and (because they're heavier and use more fuel) would also reduce road wear and pollution.

This would be a much fairer system for everyone. Better still, those people moaning about paying 'road tax' would get a charge they wouldn't be able to argue about.

Yes I own a car and two motorbikes as well. But the car spends most of its time parked in the street and the pandemic has me working at home, so I haven't been using the motorbikes for commuting. Even in normal times though, I don't drive that much and I do use my bicycles for short journeys.

As a motor vehicle owner, I do get fed up subsidising those motor vehicle owners that drive large vehicles and clock high mileages. If they paid for the access to the road network that they use (fairly), I'm pretty sure a lot of them would buy smaller and less polluting/damaging vehicles and quite possibly use them less as well.

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Mungecrundle | 3 years ago
3 likes

Try and put yourself in the shoes of a car owner. I have 3! They are brilliant, they go where I want, when I want in comfort, safety, often with my family or a load and invariably at far less cost than public transport alternatives. They give me easy access to lifestyle choices that would otherwise be shut to me without a great deal more effort. It therefore irritates me when I want to go somewhere in my car and too many other selfish gits also want to use theirs. Blocking my rat runs and alternative routes to avoid congestion (wasting my time) adds to my frustration and I really don't want to be forced out of using my car by means of pricing or outright ban.

You are unlikely to persuade many people with the means to run a car to give it up. Cars are the very definition of privileged elite.

If you are arguing from a what is good for society point of view, then pollution is just one reason to reduce car use. If the objective is to move as many people as efficiently as possible around urban environments with all the advantages of self determination about where and when they want to travel then walking, cycling and e-scooters are really a very practical solution and accesible to far more people with the right infrastructure. The logic you could put forward might be that the more people who use such travel alternatives the more space will be left on the major roads for those who really do need a car / van / ambulance with the added bonus of being more likely to find somewhere to park it when they get to where they are going. There would be far less desire for rat runs to avoid congestion which ultimately not only reduces overall resource usage but removes what pollution remains away from local residents.

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TheBillder replied to Mungecrundle | 3 years ago
1 like

Just 2 points here:

1. Car is cheaper than public transport at the margin. If you're happy paying £250 a month or whatever in fixed costs then yes, it might be cheaper for a specific journey if the car is full. But not a given.

2. The problem with this privileged elite is that it includes an awful lot of people who wouldn't consider themselves that at all. Car ownership / access is normal and assumed - you get your covid test in a car exactly as schools assume you have broadband and a spare device. This attitude is so hard to shift - many, perhaps most people are going to need to change their life in a way that will not seem positive at first.

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wycombewheeler | 3 years ago
3 likes

The problem is that the equality being argued for is not taking the traffic there is and dividing it more equally. It's a levelling up of traffic on residential roads to match that of through roads. Sort of misery loves company. But the people making this argument are more likely to be drivers wanting free reign to drive through residential areas than people currently living on main roads.

It should be clear that continued growth in vehicle use is not sustainable for either environmental, health or practical reasons.

LTNs are a means of keeping residential areas at the low traffic levels they should be at.

Providing road space for traffic is not like providing drainage capacity for rainfall, where the amount of rain is coming regardless what is done to allow for it. If more road provision is made (by road widening or surrendering residential roads to become rat runs) then motor vehicle use increases to take advantage of the increased convenience. This is a known effect evidenced by every major road building scheme over the past 50 years where the road reaches capacity far earlier than the intended design life.

Yes neighbourhood A should not benefit by shifting traffic into neighbourhood B, the solution is more LTNs except on designated main roads, which have always been main roads and people were aware of traffic levels when they moved there, and rents/property prices reflect that.

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Recoveryride | 3 years ago
2 likes

I'm not entirely clear what the OP is trying to argue...

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Compact Corned Beef | 3 years ago
1 like

"How are you going to decrease car use then?" Most people I've spoken to who aren't fans of LTNs are happy to grouse about them but don't have any idea about how to solve the cause of the pollution problem. You'll probably get some sort of 'but electric cars' response, but given that there are c. 40m *licensed* vehicles on UK roads it's difficult to imagine a sudden switch.

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TheBillder | 3 years ago
2 likes

I get the equality thing, that each road should carry its fair share. But the sat nav era has made small roads far busier and minor streets should carry less through traffic because lots of people live, work, play etc on them.

But also, bluntly, LTNs are about making car travel relatively less convenient as non LTNs take more load. Cost rises only do so much unless we can install road pricing systems - otherwise rural drivers get hit too hard. So congestion can be used as a natural barrier to further car use.

This sucks for people who live on main routes, but there's no perfect solution until single occupancy car travel us reduced by it being untenable.

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