Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in Ealing - last chance to have your say about them

Motorcycling
1

The “One Ealing Group” has shared this information.
Whatever you think about LTNs this is you chance to contribute to the decision about whether to keep them. The deadline is 23.7.21. Sorry about the long links - I’m just pasting in the info as it was provided.

"Ealing Council are holding a final consultation on the LTNs. PLEASE make sure you have your say. This has to be done by 23rd July!

After this consultation, the LTNs will either be scrapped if the majority want them removed or made permanent if the majority want them to stay in place.

This is your LAST CHANCE to have your say on ALL of these schemes, everyone is eligible and all can express their views on each scheme. Make sure you fill in the reason why you do not want each LTN, those living within/surrounding the LTNs will have more weighting but those who run businesses and work in the area will also be considered.

Below are the all links and the SurveyMonkey link is the actual voting part. It takes less than a minute to complete each survey.

Please share this amongst everyone you know locally, friends, neighbours, colleagues, etc.

LTN30: Loveday

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/lovedayroadltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/lovedayltn

LTN35: Mattock Lane

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/mattocklaneltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/mattockltn

LTN32: Junction Road

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/junctionroadltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/junctionltn

LTN20: West Ealing North (Waitrose)

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/westealingnorthltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/westealingnorthltn

LTN08: Olive Road (Popes Lane)

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/oliveroadltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/oliveltn

LTN48: Adrienne Ave (Greenford)

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/adrienneavenueltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/adrienneltn

LTN25 Acton Central

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/actoncentralltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/actoncentralltn

Deans Road/Montague Rd Consultation for LTN to be reinstated:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/deanmontagueltn

https://www.ealing.gov.uk/…/deans_road_and_montague…/1

Thank you for your continued support.

The OneEaling Team"

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Do they really scrap the scheme if a load of motorists complain that they are inconvenient? Surely the whole point of the LTNs is to inconvenience motorists for the benefit of pedestrians, residents etc.

I don’t have any vested interest as I don’t live in London and have only ever driven through Ealing on a couple of occasions but glancing at the last one it looks like narrow streets with parked cars on both sides that makes a handy shortcut for motorists to hopefully shave a few seconds off their journey.

Is there another argument against LTNs other than a bit of inconvenience for rat running motorists? I’m genuinely interested as the only people I seem to see commenting on them always make claims about the LTN causing traffic ‘chaos’, which I’m guessing exists with or without the LTN due to the sheer weight of traffic.

Incidentally, the link for LTN25 appears to direct you to facebook rather than the Ealing.gov website

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Probably not, but if local residents say it has just caused more issues on other local roads and they have not noticed any benefits on the specific road that might swing it.

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In the last 10 years the number of miles driven on London’s residential roads has increased by 3.9 BILLION miles. That is mostly as a result of smartphones, before that only locals and cabbies knew the secret traffic-busting routes.

We’ve all done it. I took my bike for a service by Hyside in Romford and with the clever help of Waze I did the entire journey on someone else’s residential side streets.

I happen to live in an experimental LTN brought in last year under the emergency powers given to councils. It had become very bad around my way, I have photos of a continuous line of mostly Ubers filling our streets, to the point it was difficult to cross our road.

The LTN has completely removed that traffic, which is nice. Obviously pollution is reduced but what I wasn’t expecting was the added quiet; for the first time since we lived here we’ve not been disturbed by boy-racers with their farty car exhausts blatting around the streets at night. Previously I thought that was the price one pays for city living but it turns out that’s the price you pay if your streets are a handy cut-through, city living can be quiet.

The real added bonus I wasn’t expecting has been getting to know neighbours. In the last year I’ve met more neighbours in the surrounding streets than in the nearly thirty years previously. It turns out Londoners aren’t unfriendly, it’s just not nice to stop and chat on the street when endless Transit vans are racing past. Remove the vans and people come together.

Those against LTNs claim it pushes traffic elsewhere. This is not the case. Every study now in shows it reduces traffic on boundary roads as well. I have a collection of photos I’ve taken on our boundary road at 5pm on Fridays which show it clear, normally it was an angry car park.

Some claim it delays emergency services. Also not true. They are a statutory consultee and the scheme would not be put in if they objected. They support LTNs. Every study shows response times are either not affected, or improved.

Some claim it makes the street unsafe for loan females at night. Again this is untrue, crime figures for the Waltham Forest LTN, which has been installed for five years now, show all crime is significantly reduced. Cars don’t prevent crime, eyes on the street do, and LTNs encourage people out of their cars and onto their streets.

I own and use a car, motorbike and scooter. The deviation needed for me to get out of and back into my street is minimal, I don’t even think about it now; I need to make a couple more turns, big deal.

To answer your first question: will they really scrap the scheme if a load of motorists complain? Yes, sadly they will, and have done so in several boroughs. Meanwhile Siberia is burning, California is burning, China is drowning and people keep driving.

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5

Much of what you say I would not argue with Michael748. My personal experience is that some LTNs make my car and motorcycle journeys longer and route me onto congested main roads. I am not allowed to go through a barrier from which I can see my home. Hammersmith & Fulham have a similar zone to an LTN where those who live in the zone are allowed to go through the barriers to take the shorter route to their home - which makes sense. Also - residents can register tradesperson that are coming to visit them and local cab companies and delivery drivers can also register to get into the zone.
It’s not ideal being forced to take a route where you can’t filter and you are at more risk. I’m aware from other fora that this is causing issues for people.
Admittedly I was posting the info from “One Ealing” - who are against the LTNs - I admit it, I was being lazy (not writing my own rubric to go with this) and of course everyone is at liberty to follow the links and support the schemes.

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I can’t see those who live in an LTN objecting. When I used to live in the western congestion charging zone extension before it was scrapped I enjoyed the benefits.

As noted smart phones are definitely part of the problem. Garmin and TomTom generally stick to fairly main roads but when I’ve used Waze (I hired a van and thought I’d save some hassle by using the phone rather than taking the mount out of the car) it took me down roads I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking.

Ubers also stop in the middle of the road and put their hazards on when it suits them. I expect the residents are well rid.

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7

Possibly not - however, if views are mixed and/or they get useful feedback they might refine some schemes. The success of these LTNs has really differed from borough to borough. I totally agree that something has to be done about residential streets being used as rat runs, but I don’t think the way the LTNs have been put into some boroughs is the answer.
Having said that - I think that using ANPR to let the residents and their visitors into the zone is a real win - and perhaps that is what people should ask for when responding.

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I’m not in favour of this approach. Firstly ANPR installations cost the council-tax payer heavily in installation, maintenance and administration. Once drivers learn where the cameras are, and Sat Nav systems are updated, the revenue from fines drops away but the maintenance and admin costs remain.

One of the reasons for LTNs is to induce modal shift. I’ve seen that in my own neighbours. There is a retired woman in the council block opposite me. She owns a car for the sole purpose of driving her dog to the local park, a trip of less than 500m. This is the only journey she uses her car for. When the LTN was introduced she was furious, her twice daily drive to the park was now made more inconvenient - honestly not a big deal, a few more turns to take, hardly something to be furious about when one is in an air-conditioned car. Bit by bit she discovered the journey is actually quite pleasant to walk, now there are fewer vehicles on the way, and she has started walking her dog to the park.

If she had a residents’ exemption, she would still be driving that journey.

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9

I strongly suspect that a contributor to people rat running through residential areas is the ongoing reduction in speed limits to 20mph on main roads across the capital. If you remove the speed differential, people are more likely to consider alternatives, particularly when there’s less chance of happening across a speed camera in the back streets.

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10

In the residential bits of south/west london that I ride through every day, the 20mph speed limit makes no difference to the drivers who are sitting in traffic and probably averaging less than 10mph anyway.

I’m amazed by the journeys that people use cars for in London - I sold my car the week that I moved to South London in my early twenties and didn’t buy another one until I moved out in my mid thirties. I had a friend who lived maybe a 15 minute walk across the common from our house and she would always offer to drive us home - it probably took longer to drive than to walk by the time you’d parked up at each end.

If people could use a bit of common sense and walk/cycle short journeys then the congestion would be reduced but it seems like the only way to get people out of their cars is to make them much less convenient than the alternatives

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11

The pandemic response has proved how uncommon common sense is.

Sadly no amount of asking, promoting, educational initiatives, nor campaigns work. We’ve tried them all. The only thing which works is a physical barrier.

LTNs are not a magic bullet, they won’t solve all transport and neighbourhood issues but they are one tool in the council’s toolbox and most importantly for cash-strapped councils, they are cheap: a few planters are much much cheaper than a new tramway or Tube line.

Another point to remember: our town planners have known since the post war period that allowing motors to drive through neighbourhoods is not nice, that’s why most post-war edge-of-town and new developments are planned around cul-de-sacs. Introducing point closures on our Victorian and Edwardian roads is just a bit of rebalancing to give their residents the benefit of that post-war knowledge; the Victorian planners could never have foreseen the motor carriage.

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12

I’m not directly affected by this sort of scheme but I do have anecdotal evidence from two friends who live within the Bounds Green scheme, both keen cyclists, both keen to go back to the previous state. They complain of a concentration of traffic and of difficult access.

Personally I think the prospect of more cameras would be enough to put me off if they were required to make a scheme work. I think we have enough surveillance and control over our lives.

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My complaint against LTNs is that I’m not in one so my road is used as a cut through. With boy racers ++ zooming up the road.

In the 20 years I’ve lived here. There have been two overturned cars as a result of bad driving. What does it actually take?

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Interesting points being made by a number of you - thanks, it is useful to get different points of view - and as for having a car to drive 500 metres - I’m flabberghasted! What sort of traffic calming (if any) would help with preventing the racing without making your road better banman?

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Thanks for the reply! It’s helpful to get different opinions.

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Won’t affect me at all, since I’m now a sticks dweller. However I had the same opinion when I lived in Harringay. If you want to live in a city with a population of 9 million that expanded to 15 million Monday to Friday, you’re going to have to deal with the inconveniences that brings.

I have inconveniences of tractors and escaped cows now. Oh and when it snows, I’m not going anywhere! however that’s part and parcel of living here.

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