| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Connollys bus gate | |
| Posted by: | Mark Evans | |
| Date/Time: | 23/06/21 10:51:00 |
| I'd love if there was a link between Cycleway 9 and Acton but recent changes have made it more difficult to join Chiswick High Road from the north. I won't labour the point about Fishers Lane but I'd be surprised if Ealing Council tried to fall back on such an arcane point of definition to try and avoid consulting residents on the matter. The notion of these issues being a binary decision between the rights of drivers and the rights of residents is a false one. Any attempt to make this a good guy/bad guy matter is going to prove both facile and ham-fisted. The most vociferous opponents of the traffic measures that have been implemented across the two boroughs have been those residents of roads to where traffic has been displaced. Fishers Lane is unusual in that the restriction diverts traffic past far more residential properties than benefit from quieter roads i.e. it is Fishers Lane against not just Acton Lane and South Parade but roads like Cunnington Street and Fairlawn Grove. The residents of these roads are not objecting because they are having longer car journeys, it is because there is currently much more traffic and pollution outside their homes. It is absolutely right to say that active travel should be encouraged but it should be viewed as something that can mitigate not solve the problems we face. Particularly here in Chiswick with a huge amount of new housing going up in the area we are going to have to try and protect residential streets from increased traffic levels. The main issue I have with Ealing's LTN programme so far that it seemed mainly designed to protect relatively wealthy areas at the expense of roads with cheaper properties. The assumption seemed to be it was fine to direct more traffic down distributor roads as they had some already. But homes on busier roads tend to be cheaper and often not owner occupied so it was if poorer people's quality of life offered less. Ultimately it will have to be technology that protects residential streets from traffic. There are some relatively simple and low cost measures that could be implemented nationwide to enable this but at the moment we seem to have lost any sense of an overarching practical policy objective. |