LTN Scrapped After Three-Mile Bus Journey Took Two Hours
A controversial low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) scheme is to be scrapped after it turned a three-mile bus journey into a two hour crawl. The Telegraph has more.
The scheme, at Streatham Wells, south London, has been suspended by Labour-run Lambeth council after it caused huge traffic congestion in the suburb.
The local authority, which announced the U-turn on Thursday, admitted the scheme had caused an 8% increase in traffic on boundary roads
One bus reportedly took 121 minutes to travel just 2.9 miles after the A23 arterial road, which runs along one side of the LTN, became heavily congested with traffic trying to avoid the scheme.
The about turn comes after Sadiq Khan described the LTN as a “huge problem” earlier this month. It is the first time he has criticised one of the schemes.
Speaking after the decision, a spokesman for the Mayor of London suggested it was “the right thing to do”.
Councillors implemented the LTN scheme last year as part of an 18-month trial intended to improve air quality by blocking vehicles from accessing certain residential streets.
But local campaigners, including the Streatham LTN Watch group, said the schemes merely displace traffic onto neighbouring roads and worsen congestion around the fringes.
The backlash, which led to protests from a 60-strong crowd outside the council’s HQ in Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton, has forced the authority to backtrack on the scheme.
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Sadiq the LTN – Little Terrible Nuisance
Can’t scrap the lot though, can he? That would upset his C40 minders.
Lousy…
Restricting traffic in one area increases it in surrounding areas – only a conspiracy theorist would have predicted that. It’s almost as if the people using the roads all have very good reasons for doing so and are determined to make their journeys.
They should call it an STN…a slow traffic neighbourhood.
Since they like attributing individual deaths to motor vehicle pollution which people died because of these jams?
CORRECTION: The only individual death ‘attributed to air pollution‘ in the entire world was based on unchallenged expert evidence: “Key witnesses to the Inquest, including Dr Claire Holman and Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, had expressed the need for setting health-based targets for air pollution reduction.” With unchallenged expert evidence the Coroner has no choice but to accept it. And the death was not “caused by” air pollution. According to the Coroner, the death was caused by asthma. The child had extreme asthma. So had the NHS investigated the causes of the child’s extreme asthma she and her family should have been rehoused away from the South Circular road in London: “Ella died of asthma contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution.” “Ella’s mother “was not given information about the health risks of air pollution and its potential to exacerbate asthma”. The lack of information also possibly contributed to her death.” So had the NHS investigated the causes of the child’s extreme asthma she and her family should have been rehoused away from the South Circular road in London. And this does not seem to be correct: “Ella died of asthma contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution.” A… Read more »
One step back for the little tyrants. But they will now be planning how to turn it into a NTN …. no traffic neighbourhood.
Soon to be a “no-people-neighbourhood”.