{"id":9862,"date":"2020-10-20T14:30:09","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T14:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.co.uk\/?p=9862"},"modified":"2021-03-11T11:23:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T11:23:18","slug":"answering-the-horrified-cyclist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/answering-the-horrified-cyclist\/","title":{"rendered":"Answering \u201cThe Horrified Cyclist\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Local cyclist, environmentalist and Labour member Matthew Snowling, (those are the words he uses to he describe himself, by the way) recently wrote a piece for One Lewisham, attacking the LTN\u2019s. I read it.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m so fed up of unsubstantiated, poorly evidenced attacks on any attempts to reduce car use and finally decided I just couldn\u2019t ignore this one. Especially as it\u2019s from a cyclist and someone who claims to care about those less privileged than himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if you want to read the original, it\u2019s here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I took it point by point and have quoted the sections I really took issue with and explained why. I wrote it as an answer, hence the use of the pronoun you throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you really are interested in improving the roads for everyone, carry on campaigning for all the stuff that\u2019s needed to improve Brownhill Rd. and other main roads in Lewisham. There\u2019s way too much polluting traffic on it, you\u2019re right. But, the fact you seem to be devoting so much energy to removing an intervention which is actually designed eventually to reduce polluting traffic, seems odd to me. And if you really believe it\u2019s prioritising the needs of some wealthier more advantaged groups over those of the less advantaged, campaign for more of the same for those more disadvantaged areas too. But, as you say elsewhere in the piece, the Lee LTN is a fairly large area. And there are plenty of less advantaged people living in it, who\u2019ll suffer if it\u2019s gone. Why punish them for our council failing to do as good a job of communicating, planning and implementing the scheme that they could have. Campaign for more schemes, more interventions, and better. And do it now. Stop wasting time getting stuff that can only do good, removed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Local cyclist, environmentalist and Labour member Matthew Snowling, (those are the words he uses to he describe himself, by the way) recently wrote a piece for One Lewisham, attacking the LTN\u2019s. I read it. I\u2019m so fed up of unsubstantiated, poorly evidenced attacks on any attempts to reduce car use and finally decided I just… Read More »Answering \u201cThe Horrified Cyclist\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9862"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9871,"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9862\/revisions\/9871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewishamcyclists.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This depends on which side roads you are talking about and which sections of the main roads. There are narrow roads in the LTN which suffered huge volumes of traffic throughout the day before implementation. The data is there to prove it, in traffic counts. So you don\u2019t live on one. Lucky you.<\/li>
You really think the Council have done all this because they are not the least interested in traffic reduction? For goodness sake, by all means criticise their communication, planning, implementation, probably a whole load of things they could have done better in this project, but that is frankly a ridiculous accusation without any foundation at all. I\u2019m not even going to discuss the \u201cvery weak evidence\u201d bit. There\u2019s loads of it out there. That\u2019s why loads of LA\u2019s are putting them in, that\u2019s why these particular interventions were suggested by the government <\/li>
I\u2019ve been riding around London all my life. I use all roads. Main roads have always held more pollution. And yes, we need interventions on main roads. But main road schemes and LTN\u2019s aren\u2019t mutually exclusive. They should work together. But just because half the interventions aren\u2019t there yet, no reason to stop the other half. An LTN isn\u2019t a cycling scheme per se. It\u2019s not for people like you and me. It\u2019s for the families, the disabled riders, the older riders, the less experienced riders, people who won\u2019t use the main roads to ride a bike. It\u2019s to persuade more people to leave cars at home more often, or, hope of hopes, even some people to get rid of their cars, and make more journeys walking and cycling, improving their health in the meantime. Including these comments about cyclists facing increased pollution and danger on main roads in your LTN piece and using the word \u201cnow\u201d to imply that this may be linked in some way to LTN\u2019s is a completely unsubstantiated extrapolation. <\/li>
Really? Why? Where is the evidence this will work any better? More to the point, where\u2019s the logic in that statement? The fundamental problem is too much motor traffic. Depending on the type, location of that traffic there are many interventions and changes we need. EV public transport. Smarter, rationalised delivery systems which reduce numbers of vehicles and need for larger vehicles to enter built up areas, transferring goods at delivery hubs to EV vehicles. Road pricing, restrictions on polluting vehicles. Restrictions on through traffic on roads not designed for them. These are just a few of the things we need to start doing. LTN\u2019s is one of them. To improve the overall situation it\u2019s totally illogical to start rolling back one measure you\u2019ve begun on, spent money, time, energy on, just because you haven\u2019t yet started on the others. Get started on it all. That\u2019s what you\u2019d be campaigning for if you really mean to reduce pollution in the worst affected areas. Not wasting your time and energy getting the first bit of a plan that will improve things for everyone, taken out.<\/li>