| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Cars, Cherry Trees, Chiswick and Carbon | |
| Posted by: | Michael Robinson | |
| Date/Time: | 24/02/20 16:24:00 |
| Hi Mark, You make some interesting points but I think a number are contradicted by evidence. "The idea of traffic evaporation is a nonsense one " Do you have any evidence for this statement? There are a very large number of examples all over the world that show it does happen. This isn't anything new. This journal paper is from 2002 and cites dozens of examples. http://www.onestreet.org/images/stories/Disappearing_traffic.pdf Since Hammersmith Bridge closed to motor traffic there are about 9k-10k fewer cars on the road compared to before. Yes, there has been displacement with more traffic over the adjacent bridges but this increase is less than the previous traffic over Hammersmith bridge. The difference of about 9k or so has "disappeared". This is the same as happened with the bridge closure in the 1990s, in percentage terms. "you can't reduce road use by reducing road capacity." Again, this has been demonstrated time and time again. Just as building new roads induces people to travel more, reducing capacity of roads has the opposite effect. Chiswick High Road had over 20,000 vehicles per day on average in 2000. Now it is down to just over 14,000. There are lots of reasons for this decrease but one is the reduction of road capacity for general traffic because of bus lanes. "Edward posted an important stat earlier on which showed that 14% of vehicle journeys in London are under 1km. " To add to this, about a third of car journeys in London are under 2km. "a large proportion of them won't be substitutable for a variety of reasons" There is information on this. TfL analysis of motorised trips in London was that more than half of trips made by motorised modes could be cycled. Non-cyclable trips had a range of criteria including: carrying heavy load, longer than 8km, cycling would take more than 20% extra time, traveller is under five or over 64 or disabled and trip is made between 8pm and 6am. Some people may argue with thise criteria! "even if you managed to get all the rest to switch you would only be making a dent in the total overall journey miles" It doesn't take a big reduction to make a difference. You must have noticed the difference in traffic during school holidays. I think a key point will be to reduce through traffic rat-running along residential streets by putting in place road closures, banning turns and the like. This is likely to increase traffic marginally on arterial roads but that it what these roads are there for. Residential streets can't carry a great deal of traffic which is why they get jammed up so easily. A question is the role of Chiswick High Road. It is a through road, an alternative to the A4? Or should through traffic be discouraged? |