Forum topic: Residents come together to support the Fox Lane low-traffic neighbourhood concept

Take a trip to Tower Hamlets to see the ineffectiveness of 20mph limits. In Tower Hamlets the council rolled out 20 mph limits all over the borough to improve safety. Whilst a proportion of people stick to the 20 mph limits, you see huge numbers of people who just ignore it. More worryingly, in my experience it has driven lots of people to start doing stupid things like overtaking people on residential roads who are sticking to the limit because they’re too impatient to follow a 20 mph limit.

Given the speeds I see down our road (which has humps already) I struggle to see how implementing 20mph limits will drive any actual change in behaviour.

All this whining from Old Park Road residents is a bit of as joke.Walked down their road today and saw more keep our roads open signs than the close our roads signs.

Seems like a minority just hijacking the roads on an undemocratic mandate.

No one is ‘whining’ - we are fed up with the noise, fumes and danger bought by rat runners. 3000 rat runners a day isnt a joke. I also walked along the road today and saw hardly any posters of either hue - but having lived in the street for many years, knocked on every door on this issue, seen our street Whatsapp posts and joined in street party conversations most people in the road feel stongly for a LTN.

Could I suggest that everyone who has contributed to this thread, and those have contributed to the thread 'Plans for Fox Lane low-traffic neighbourhood published, take a few moments to think who might have lost most as a result of the traffic currently dominating The Lakes Estate: i.e. the number of vehicles, or their speed? Has it, for example, been elderly people or people with mobility problems who have lost most, or perhaps everyone who has found the constant flow of traffic irksome in any way, including from dangerously bad air quality?

Well, as I read the academic investigation of this sort of problem, it must be kids because traffic on most residential street on the Lakes Estate, and indeed on residential streets everywhere, has limited children's unsupervised and supervised freedoms to a point unknown when I was a child during and after the war. For example I walked to school several hundred metres aged five supervised only by 'big girls' aged about 8 to 10. Children these days would either be supervised by a parent or, more likely, driven to school by Mum, Dad or a neighbour. And that is leading to all sorts of problems including obesity.

I've mention this sort of problem more than once before on this website, and probably will do so again because it matters. When did you last see youngish children playing on the streets; maybe in an odd cul-de-sac? I guess very, very rarely on purely residential streets, but I think we ought to try to find ways of making them as much places of human contact as carriageway for cars; it has been done. Traffic has been feather-bedded and spoilt for too long.

There has been comment about the planters the Council installed on the ends of streets on the Lakes Estate. That was a trial, and it didn't work because drivers didn't take hint and slow down. Personally I'm pleased because the current proposals are a much better option.

David ,I wish you were right about kids playing in the streets.Things are different now since 1945.They have social media,PS4,Sky TV,power league,Netflix etc,etc . Safety is also more of a concern with parents.
It will never be like the old days again.They can play in their back gardens or parks anyway but they don't as much as they have other things to do.
It is a shame .

In response To Dave Eden's post on 13/12:-

1/ Some years ago The Broomfield Avenue junction was blocked off because an Enfield Council member did not want through traffic on his road(Broomfield Avenue.)There had been no public demand for such a move. I gather that some present Council members live on roads due to be endblocked, which is probably not a coincidence.
Incidentally, just imagine thirteen roads in the area similarly endblocked, which is what will happen if the Council get their way, and the subsequent mayhem is not difficult to visualise.

2/There will always be drivers that exceed the speed limit, but the majority do observe it, so a reduction to 20 mph would most certainly have a calming effect.

As Ashley has pointed out and I stated earlier. There are probably ulterior motives at play here.
It wouldn't be the first time that Council members have abused their position

There’s a level of unpleasantness, often based on inaccuracy, brewing here so let’s cap it before things go badly awol.

Broomfield Avenue: over two decades ago this street was suffering over 6500 vehicle trips per day. That dwarfs even Fox Lane and is more A Road representative than residential. A three street (Broomfield Avenue, Old Park Road, Caversham Avenue) campaign sought to bring a respite to this combined rat run route. And then a child resident of B Avenue was hit by a vehicle, fortunately not badly, but nonetheless sufficient to energise his mother to really campaign hard. That resulted in the temporary and then permanent closure of the street. Traffic evaporated. The urban myth that this was the action of a self-serving councillor still persists. Ask who was / is this councillor, or talk to street residents, and then just like the traffic, the myth evaporates.

"Old Park Road whines for no reason": 96% of residents, including two care homes and a GP surgery petitioned the council for a respite based on a range of intolerable impacts from rat running traffic speed and volume, including actual damage and sleep deprivation. The position was accepted.

"20mph limit, job done": About 15 years ago, initially through the residents association, a team of residents worked with the council at the request of councillors and secured not far short of £1m in external funding to develop a 20mph zone. The then local councillors rejected it and there was less than unanimous residents support to press it through. The money was forfeited. Views on the effectiveness of 20mph zones, and their oft associated speed humps, appears to have hardened with traffic and community specialists who now focus on a holistic healthy street approach.

"30mph is respected now, so 20mph would be too": Covert Met Police data reveals 13% of passing vehicles operate at or below 20mph. 24% exceed the 30mph limit, 7% exceed the ACPO guideline. In the case of Old Park Road, 1 in 10 exceed 40mph, with 2600 annually exceeding 50mph, at which level death is statistically guaranteed if hit. Many streets suffer the same risk, blighting community.

And so it goes on.

Increasingly we now have the very real threat from air pollution, and the soon to be acknowledged noise impacts, to all our health as a result of non-moderated traffic use where the cost of its externalities is passed to other parties, to add in to the pot. Then comes climate change. None of this is free, even if it currently is to drivers.

By all means input views to the Council, add opinion to this site based on personal views and experiences, but ideally avoid making up facts in an effort to bolster a personal narrative, for me it simply belittles the author.