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Cyclist next to an LTN planter (image: Adwitiya Pal)Transport Secretary calls for LTN review, blames "controversial" schemes for setting "people against each other"
Transport Secretary Mark Harper has suggested local authorities review "controversial" or unpopular low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), and blamed the active travel schemes for "banning" cars, "making it difficult for motorists" and setting "people against each other".
Speaking to The Telegraph and expressing his belief in "giving people more choice on how to travel", Harper addressed his government's move to halt funding for new LTNs, adding that the government had to stop backing policies "that are about... banning cars or making it difficult for motorists".
As Transport Secretary, and a Conservative, I believe in giving people more choice on how to travel, not banning cars from places.
That’s why I’ve stopped funding for any new LTNs.
🗞 Read all about it - and more - in today’s Sunday @Telegraph 👇https://t.co/E0471zfatv
— Mark Harper (@Mark_J_Harper) July 9, 2023
Repeating the often heard criticism that some schemes were introduced without consultation and are not supported by locals, Harper suggested councils "ought to reflect" on their status.
"A number of them were implemented during the pandemic and there was, because of that, a lack of consultation," he said. "So I certainly think local authorities ought to reflect on whether the schemes that they implemented actually do have public support in their areas.
"Ultimately, it's not the government's job to micromanage every single local area — that's for local authorities to decide. For local authorities who have got schemes that weren't popular, were very controversial and aren't very well supported, then it would probably be wise for them to look at them again.
"The schemes that we have supported with money from the department are schemes that are about improving choices, not schemes that are about banning cars or making it difficult for motorists."
Harper also said he found it "unhelpful" that reaction to LTNs has helped "create people who don't like cycling and walking".
"One of the things that struck me with some of the ways those schemes were delivered, is that they then set up a group of people that were then opposed to cycling and walking," he continued.
"It seems to me that that's a slightly weird state of affairs, if you end up doing it in a way that you actually create people who don't like cycling and walking. Setting up different groups of people against each other is a very unhelpful thing to do."
Vocal, sometimes violent, opposition to the schemes has been seen across the United Kingdom, active travel campaigners in Oxford releasing footage of anti-LTN vandals setting bollards alight at the peak of a string of vandalism which had seen bollards being rammed and melted.
> Firefighters delayed by low-traffic neighbourhood... because vandalised bollard wouldn't unlock
Back in March, in Rochdale too, an LTN planter was set alight and overturned on the first day of a trial beginning, while last summer, in Sheffield, a councillor called for "tougher measures" after repeat vandalism.
In May, it was revealed that a petition started by a "keen cyclist" objecting to the Jesmond low-traffic neighbourhood trials in Newcastle had received almost 2,000 signatures, despite the council stating it is factually incorrect in claiming that there was no pre-consultation.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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49 comments
He's got to be trolling us!
Even though he's effectively "suggesting" things to the councils.
We are where we are because all many in our previous governments back over the decades have ulimately managed vigorously for motoring and the private car at the expense of a lot else.
He is trolling! There's a missing "unless you're doing it to keep your party afloat" on the end of the sentence at least.
I'm sure the next set of lizards - if that happens in a couple of years - will also not be slow to exploit divisions and express caution about "encouraging" cycling too.
Also - given where we are with driving and given the giant monies spent (and indeed effective subsidy for private driving from general taxation) there's no way you're "offering choice" by encouraging the status quo.
What works - for choice - involves a change of priorities. Because driving is a space-inefficient transport mode which suppresses the demand (or even willingness to use) other modes.
I suppose its one of those 'Tragedy of the Commons' type things, isn't it?
Once upon a time motor cars were very rare and only owned by the wealthy and made no great impact upon the wider world (you just had a handful of Mr Toads speeding around, but so long as you kept out of their way the world just carried on). As motor cars became cheaper and more accessible, and anyone could buy one, their impact upon the wider world became greater and greater.
Somewhere in the middle of that period, a decision was made to change the world to fit around the convenience of those people driving motor cars (and, in the USA, to actively change the law to keep pedestrians out of the way of said motor cars).
The whole civic infrastructure has been made favourable to motorists for so long that any attempt to curb their use now looks like The War on the Motorist (TM).
I think in this case it's less "tragedy of the commons" (it just happened because independent humans). More like the school governors conspiring to sell off the playing fields for motorways. And it just so happens their friends in the construction and motor industries were lobbying them hard and offering them political support and a nice consultancy at the end of it.
As you say humans are far more sensitive to "losing" things than "gaining" them. Changes to people's routines which they feel have been forced on them are seem as ruining their lives.
If only we could employ our current motor industry salesmen to do the same for active travel. Or even better those who first convinced the public it was their fault for not getting out of the way of the motor vehicles...
In the UK, it was probably defined by the reaction to the Buchanan Report aka Traffic in Towns, 1963. Its predictions of carmaggedon were pretty accurate, if somewhat underplayed.
The fact that the Transport Secretary has called for this calls into question his fitness for the role. He either doesn't under stand the UK Government's own policies with regard to improving sustainability or is lying. Either way, his comments show he shouldn't be in that job.
Why not both?
Our local Tory controlled council has a leader and transport portfolio holder who has described cyclists as dinosaurs.... not only this but they refuse to stop our few cycle lanes being used as carparks. I have suggested that the local walking/cycling czar deal with it, he has ignored me and conveniently won't be at a cycle related event in town tomorrow where I am a guest , along with a very famous cycling celeb as well as the mayor... ducking out last minute ffs ..
Why does he think cyclists are dinosaurs?
Surely we're the speedy little mammals that adapted and survived when the big honking dinosaurs all died out?
Because they are roarsome. Especially the the Spinosaurous.
Pretty much guaranteed to be out of government at the next election.
So 10 months where they can mess up infrastructure funding massively leaving a huge mess for the next government (an opposition party) to have to try and fix;
Something they will completely blaim on said government...
The one that concerns me is ticket offices.
Directly discriminating against people with a disability.
I have so many concerns about this government I wouldn't know where to start.
I'd start with them ignoring all the tangible Brexit benefits that they fought so hard for
"giving people more choice on how to travel"
Yes: car, car, SUV, car, car, car or car. Most LTN's are incredibly popular with the people who live there, so the tories are just saying that they believe in local democracy, unless it's something they don't like.
He's my MP and he's a complete waste of oxygen. Still hasn't replied to my email despite meeting him two weeks ago and he looked me in the eyes and guaranteed that every constituent's email got a reply. Still, I might as well send him another, if only because it'll feel like I've done something.
As tory buffoons go, he's not in the Boris bracket, but in a packed field, I think he's in the top ten. When I met him, he was opening a new walk/cycle path, built by volunteers who he praised lavishly. Good to see he's keeping his hypocrisy rating up.
EDIT: Getting old, only just remembered that this pro-choice Transport Secretary cut funding for the alternatives of cycling and walking by 67% a few months ago!
"Giving people a choice...." by taking it away.
There has to be a better word than hypocrite.
As tory buffoons go, he's not in the Boris bracket, but in a packed field, I think he's in the top ten
It's only to be expected of opportunistic Tories 'with an eye to the main chance'. The race is on now to line up in cringeworthy supplication to business interests who might give an unemployed ex-minister some anti-social job in the near (or as near as possible) future, as long as he or she adheres to True Tory principles with hypocrisy- a policy Harper is clearly committed to
What exactly is "conservative'' about undoing programs that get people walking and cycling and as a result save the treasury billions of pounds in healthcare costs? Not to mention saving lives? Has no one learned anything from the pandemic of the old and unfit?
The creation of LTNs doesn't "create" people who don't cycling and walking - it merely threatens their dependence on driving everywhere, and they rail against the "enemy" that narrow minded folk like Mark Harper bring forward (in a way that is completely hypocritical to his own "opinion" of everybody having a choice)
It's not just the cream that rises to the top...
Another Tory cock; they know they are losing the next election so they will **** up as much as they can in the next 18 months to make the next Government's job impossible. It is the classic scorched earth policy.
Tory writes Tory-appealing piece about popular Tory obsession and key Tory front of the Tory-instigated culture war in Tory rag for an audience of Tories. News at 11.
This government want to portray themselves as moderate in order to keep their core vote onside. They are not. This is just more government gaslighting.
Trying to find workable solutions to the climate crisis, polution, obesity is NOT controversial. To quote Johnson "People want the radical change we are committing to in this strategy (Gear Change), and we politicians shouldn't be afraid to give it to them".
Continuing to do nothing to avert climate disaster IS a controversial policy just ask the UN or any climate scientist. Continuing to have pollution levels above the minimum legal level is Controversial. Not addressing the health issues that arise from a sedate population - not just obesity but dementia etc etc - is controversial.
Zelu pots
The simple answer is that the Govt is now in possession of another ignorant f*ckwit as Transport Minister - the new Grant Shapps.
Or alternatively, a total cynic.
This is about how much more damage/placating the right wing headbangers this govt can do before they are shown the door on election night. Then, the finger of blame can be pointed at a new govt who will have even more to fix due to their predecessors conscious incompetence.
I'd say Grant "Four Names" Shapps is the cynical, slimy one, whereas for true f*ckwittery you have to go back to Chris "Hires a Ferry Company With No Ferries" Grayling.
Yes, it's like there is a competition to see who can be the worst transport minister, a bit like the competition to see who could be the worst, most unbelievably bad prime minister.
It seems to me that if that's what they really believe, then the Govt does seem to get involved in an awful lot of stuff happening at local area level. "Micromanaging" it, one might say...
The problem with this "I believe in freedom to choose how to travel so won't restrict cars" is that every time you facilitate cars, you restrict other forms of transport. So you, and the motorists, are not giving other people the freedom to choose how to travel.
The problem is that due to the size of cars, drivers are wanting virtually all of the available public space to be made available to them and any re-allocation of it is seen as a restriction. As you state, it's the cars that are restricting other forms of transport.
And the only way that most people can even be 'encouraged' to try modes of transport other than just getting in the car, is to make it "difficult" for motorists. If you don't make it difficult or less convenient, why would they bother?
Quick show of hands: who thinks that Mr Harper has ridden a bike anywhere other than a Center Parcs since the age of twelve?
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