Forum topic: Fox Lane low-traffic neighbourhood

How are you defining the 'community'? The 5000 or so people signing the petition are from various parts of Enfield. The population of Enfield is 338,000 - even excluding children, 5000 is a tiny percentage of the total.

Hi Adrian. Can I ask where you got your statistics and graph in post #5684 ? Only I have downloaded below from the relevant gov.uk site, which you can check, some differing statistics. I haven't presented them in graphic form but as you can see they would show very little in the way of an upward curve.

Download from https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/tra89-traffic-by-local-authority

Measure Million Vehicle Kilometres

Traffic Flow- Cars
Local Authority 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Barnet 1,368 1,339 1,375 1,303 1,325 1,325 1,327 1,316 1,271 1,307 1,305
Enfield 1,181 1,207 1,262 1,158 1,213 1,159 1,204 1,237 1,216 1,212 1,219

Traffic Flow-All Vehicles
Local Authority 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Barnet 1,688 1,639 1,673 1,587 1,630 1,648 1,666 1,657 1,629 1,679 1,681
Enfield 1,543 1,553 1,582 1,479 1,561 1,512 1,577 1,640 1,639 1,644 1,665

These are in million kilometres rather than miles but obviously that's not going to affect the curve. I'm not necessarily suggesting yours are wrong as different websites do suggest different things.
Not wishing to trade statistics on Child deaths on the road, as a father of two I cannot comprehend what it would be like to be on the end of such a statistic, but in your post relating to child deaths on the road #5565 the figures you quoted were for the whole of the UK and included children involved in accidents as passengers in cars and coaches. For London, in the last year figures were confirmed 2018, there was not a single child death in Greater London as a result of a motor accident. (http://content.tfl.gov.uk/casualties-in-greater-london-2018.pdf) and fatalities and serious injuries were down 37% on the 2005-2009 baseline.
This relative success, (the road casualty figures have been falling for many years now) was originally down to the social stigmatising of drink driving but more recently is largely down to safer vehicles and a successful general reduction in speed. I would argue that of the issues around the Fox Lane LTN, (Noise, Pollution and Speed), speed is the only one of consequence.
If you choose to live in London, one of the biggest cities in the world, I'm afraid you should expect some traffic noise. If night time noise is a real issue then I personally would not be against night time closure.
I live on Bourne Hill. I'm sure I suffer more noise than anyone on the Lakes Estate along with vibration from larger vehicles which don't enter the estate. But I chose to live here.
Pollution is not going to be solved by closing these roads only moving it to the outskirting roads where it will be more of a problem as idling and slower speeds creates more and it is not dispersed by the moving traffic. Long term, if there is a real reduction in traffic as a result of these schemes you might argue that this will lead to a reduction overall of pollution, however there is no evidence that this happens. Your assertion that after a period of time things settle down and traffic magically disappears around LTNs is totally contradicted by your graph showing traffic miles are increasing (unless this increase is due to less cars travelling further to get round the LTNs).
Speed and the danger associated with it is an issue so we should be looking at ways of affecting this, not simply closing the roads to all traffic because a few idiots wont slow down.

Apologies, my nice neat table got got somewhat adjusted in proportions as it got sent but I think you can work the figures out to get the gist of it.

Hi Tom Smith
Thanks for your posts. You mentioned in #5702 a petition. Despite living on Bourne Hill I haven't heard of this petition. Perhaps you could post details on this forum of how or where I could sign it ? Is it on-line ?

https://www.change.org/p/london-borough-of-enfield-objection-to-low-traffic-neighbourhood-and-immediate-opening-of-roads-to-traffic

Peter Payne - You make some excellent and very well measured points for good community debate, but I think it might be wasted on here.

The data is from Cllr John Burke, Environment Lead in Hackney who accessed TfL data for every Borough. This is not just about the Fox Lane LTN though - there's traffic jams all over London (and in many places in the UK) , 25,000 road deaths/serious injuries nationwide, rising obesity, visible climate change and an increase in asthma-related diseases. No one in the country should have to live in a high traffic neighbourhood and we need to reduce the amount of vehicle movements dramatically . There is evidence from Walthamstow that overall pollution and traffic movements dropped following the LTN installed there which is why it's Tory central government and Labour regional and local government policy to introduce more LTNs and as well as make the infrastructure changes needed to encourage people who can to walk and cycle short distances.

I am struck by the fact that young children get barely a mention in this discussion, yet their lives have been changed enormously by the arrival of the the Car Age. When I was a five year old starting school only one car - it was war time - ever passed us by as we walked to school under the eyes of the 'big girls' who were probably about seven years old. "So what!" you might say, but I think that a half mile walk was a healthier experience - in terms of air quality and exercise - than the common situation now of parents dropping their children off after a journey to school in a parental car which has been dragging in London's poor air quality. Just take a look at Adrian Day's contribution above this one about road deaths, obesity, climate change, and asthma -related diseases. And notice that Government at every level is beginning to watch the situation very seriously with all that means for the growth of walking and cycling by youngsters, and more control of the behaviour of vehicle drivers.

LTN's are the best things since sliced bread.