| Topic: | LTNs and the definition of a residential road | Forum Home |
| Posted by: | Jeremy Parkinson | |
| Date/Time: | 27/12/22 11:39:00 |
| The concept of a Low Traffic Neighbourhood is a good one. The places where people live need to be protected against traffic flows being redirected through them particularly with Sat Navs tending to push it through areas which don't normally receive a lot of traffic. On the face of it this shouldn't be contentious but the developing problem with the schemes that have been implemented is - how are residential roads being defined. The LTN concept seems to assume that the definition of a residential road is not a road on which people live but a road where the primary purpose is housing and, if there is already a lot of traffic on the road, it is not being classed as residential. This means effectively that traffic is being concentrated to protect the majority of people to the detriment of a minority who are unlucky enough to live on the roads to which the flow is being diverted. The benefits of doing this for the people who live in the protected areas are clear and make a significant difference to their quality of life and, you could argue that the change for a person living on an already busy road will not be noticeable to them. So we have seen roads such as Staveley Road and Fishers Lane made even more pleasant while roads such as Burlington Lane, Acton Lane, Sutton Court Road and the A4 are busier. We wouldn't normally consider the A4 as a residential road but lots of people do live next to it so, by the broadest definition it is. What I'd like to have confirmed is - have the health implications of these policies been properly considered? By concentrating traffic, you also concentrate the harmful effects of the pollution it generates. Is it the case that these road restrictions would benefit health overall if they succeed in reducing pollution overall or does this concentration create acute conditions for people with respiratory illnesses? As air quality policies have tended to target exceedences at hotspots, the implication is that these are seen as the main risk for health. Busier roads tend to be less expensive and have more social housing on them, so we really need to consider carefully if the net effect of these policies is just to improve the quality of life of a group of people who are already quite privileged at the cost of a serious deterioration of health for those who are already disadvantaged. As far as I can see, some quite impactful policies are being implemented without proper analysis being done on these considerations. |