Forum topic: New chance to comment on Fox Lane LTN

Fox Lane, Green Lanes and Aldermans Hill may have originally been bucolic (and muddy) country lanes, but I would contend that most of the streets within the Fox Lane LTN *were* designed and built to accommodate motor traffic.

Indeed the streets, houses and the utilities below them were actually constructed by workers who used motor lorries and the homes were expected to be serviced by trades which were in the process of moving from horse-drawn to motorised vehicles - including battery-powered electric delivery trucks.

Growing up the area during the 1960s, the only horse-drawn service vehicle to be seen on our street was the Rag And Bone man. By then already an anachronism, even if we kids thought his horse was lovely.

Peter, you have presented much detailed work and clearly have invested much time and thought. That must be acknowledged. I have previously given a view on your snapshot based on its chosen assumptions of (what will be generic) LTN pollution impacts and then the logical implications of your conclusion. I’m not familiar with the many reports you mention and don’t plan to dig them out and read but instead I’ll raise two themes: firstly that your direction indicates satisfaction with the present level of traffic. To the contrary I would say that traffic related congestion is and has been endemic for years. There are basically too many cars / miles driven for the supporting infrastructure (include parking) and controlling that is London’s agreed target. If the DoT/TfL conflict you outline does reveal a slow decline of late then perhaps the actions of the past few years are on track. The second is what looks like an acceptance that whatever the levels of traffic on residential streets then it’s fine, provided it’s better for the driver. Again London’s clear intent doesn’t support you in this.
For about a decade there were very regular and repeated exchanges in the local papers (Musey / Hughes) which essentially boiled down to one believing that all traffic constraints should be removed to offer maximum utility to drivers; the other that driving had become too easy and its externalities were significant adverse factors for society. Numbers – or as time and countless letters proved - absolutely nothing will resolve that but be it at national (probably international), city and local level, the balance is now firmly with the latter view. You are evidently in the former camp.
If I take an example of what I’m sure are many equivalents, both shorter and longer: a friend who lived in Hadley Wood chose to drive daily to Canary Wharf. The large car was private, warm, a space to listen to whatever, and do whatever, in privileged isolation. It was first choice for the individual, even if not being a choice at all for a large minority. It would barrel down Fox Lane (the return journey went a different route I believe). The impact on Fox Lane residents? Mere collateral damage. There’s a perfectly adequate train journey as an alternate, or while taking a tad longer, a cycle ride which my near neighbour here would make to Canary Wharf in about 45 minutes. In both cases there is no equivalent collateral damage. Is that driver so important that we must protect their favoured (shortest) route when perfectly viable alternatives exist? I think not; a lifestyle choice where others pick up their waste; they should preferably get the train but if choosing not to and their journey is now either altered or takes a little longer then I merely shrug.
There is older research which draws a correlation between traffic levels and depth and breadth of community (more traffic is bad) as well as a piece drawing a link between the level of residents’ objections to the level of traffic their street carries (more traffic, more pushback). At 3000 trips per day (below the historic level of many streets in the Fox Lane area) you hit big problems from residents. With Google Maps and Wayz perhaps more previously quieter streets now find themselves in this most-angry category. And it is not something I would wish on anyone. Moving away from our car dominated city is right where London’s transport strategy sits, and car dominated is its terminology.
Freeing our residential streets from others’ externalities brings its raft of more intangible benefits. In the last few weeks I’ve had cause to walk through the City; from Highbury station via Islington to the St Pancreas area; and also from the Holborn area up to Highbury. I have no idea where all the previous traffic has gone, evaporated I suppose, but other than being evidently channelled into a small number of main routes, these areas, once pretty grim, appeared calm and pleasant. No signs of deterioration, closed businesses, angry residents or such, but a peacefulness I realised we don’t get here because things are frequently on edge with its weight of traffic and all that brings. That world is increasingly moving from the city centre, to the inner suburbs and now the outer suburbs – here. I welcome it.
As the recent “Gear Change” report highlighted, it’s not all roses and there is bad as well as good. I would certainly expect residents of the Fox Lane area’s historic low volume / low velocity streets, who until now most likely never saw or experienced a traffic issue, rather upset while keeping through traffic on the boundary roads will inevitable mean more pressure on junctions at peak times, hence tail backs, hence pollution, hence anger and so forth. I have to add that it’s the first time in 30+ years that I’ve heard the call to share the traffic and wonder why it wasn’t being said long since, as if.
It’s taken me five years since realising the direction of things to deliberately move from car to no car and in truth I’m still not feeling fully secure, but the behavioural change as it developed over time has been fascinating. I suspect what we are seeing now is a lot of individual inconvenience – past life has just got a bit trickier as it’s being moved, unchanged, into a new framework. That’s understandable but doesn’t need to be permanent. As the top air pollution expert I’ve mentioned previously said, Brits and their cars are like Americans and their guns. Both societies would be a lot better with a lot less of them.
Disagreeing with the intent of the anti-Fox Lane LTN demonstration as I do, nonetheless I want to add support for the right to demonstrate, a feature of our democracy under real threat from the Governments Police Bill. There are threats and there are threats: LTN’s might be seen as an issue but potentially being jailed for 51 weeks for distributing leaflets to promote a demo against them is not where I think we should be headed. As a society and nation we have much bigger fish that need frying with the energy being expended on LTN’s.

There was hardly any motorised traffic in the early 1900s, when most streets in the Fox Lane area were built. Look how traffic has grown in London since the 1950s.

Just to set the record straight, Better Streets for Enfield is not the 'main architect' of local LTNS - these were designed by Council Officers, but we do campaign in favour of well-designed LTNs and want to end high traffic neighbourhoods throughout Enfield (and indeed the country). Many people have fed back their thoughts and supportive ideas to Council officers on LTNs over the past ten years of trials, consultations and initial designs - some of these people are 'members' of the BSfE facebook group - many, many more are not. Members of the BSfE facebook group live in the real world and will regularly see counter-arguments on many other platforms - indeed many who are 'members' of the BSfE group engage daily on twitter, other Enfield community facebook groups, Enfield Dispatch and at public/Zoom meetings. The people who help co-ordinate BSfE's campaigns don't hide their identity - unlike some of those against LTNs.

As Peter Payne has mentioned my name and made an accusation that I have somehow omitted data as it was inconvenient - here a clarification and answers:

No, I did not do the original analysis of the air pollution. I did the write-up and added an additional Enfield monitoring site (although urban, not roadside) - not for a detailed comparison of Bowes but to show that the spike in November was across the whole of London. I don't think I needed to add anything to part 2 as the piece was primarily about how some people wanted to cherry-pick data (if you look at the "One Community" twitter feed they still are). The second part, a like for like month comparison, found a nearly 29% reduction at the Bowes site. I got a lot of criticism saying how I hadn't taken into account the NO2 reduction over the last decade (which is around 2% a year) showing how that they hadn't bothered to read the article. Some people then showed me graphs including the 2020 figures showing they still want to cherry-pick data. Some peoples idea of averaging was interesting, to say the least - my opinion of a few people fell as a result. As part of the research, I did look at other monitoring sites. I chose the same months and used the same formula to calculate the reduction in NO2 I found the following:

Enfield Prince of Wales 16.45% (this isn't a roadside monitor)
Enfield Derby Road 24.35%
Camden Swiss Cottage 17.12%
Hackey Old Street 24.7%
Haringey Town Hall 5.5%
Kingston Cromwell Rd 15.09%
Southwark A2 Old Kent Road 18.53%
Maidenhead Clarence Rd 27.66% (obviously not in London)

WIth the proviso that I entered all these numbers and haven't triple checked them as I did for the website (TfL did make a mistake with their air pollution table!). I got bored because there are very few monitoring sites and plenty don't have data for all the months I needed. It is very time-consuming finding and entering the data. In any case, somebody would come along and say I am comparing apples with pears! But you can see that a 29% reduction is well above the average. You are welcome to find more sites with the relevant data but I think that stacks up pretty well as it is.

Yes, but that's not the point I was making.

I was specifically replying to - and refuting - the statement that "Our streets were never designed and built for motor traffic...".

Clearly, categorically, they were. I cannot understand how anyone could imagine otherwise.

Built for very little motor traffic - not the thousands of cars seeking to cut through today

I'll try again. Is the statement "Our streets were never designed and built for motor traffic..." true, or false?