Personally I love the concept of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods - creating more spaces for pedestrians and bikes and funnelling cars onto fewer roads should just make life more pleasant for everyone.
Writing in The Times Emma Duncan reports that the evidence now shows these schemes actually work. Research shows London LTNs cut neighbourhood traffic by almost half, without making surrounding roads any worse. Other studies tie LTNs to better road safety, less pollution, and stronger communities.
But in spite of this LTNs have become one of the most polarising issues of late in UK politics!
The opposition to LTNs isn’t just about roads or traffic: it's also about issues around trust, class, lifestyle, and local politics in modern Britain.
Why the opposition to LTNs..?
Meanwhile, outside of leafy Dulwich where the average family can't afford a £6K cargo bike to take their brats to school, driving means independence, they rely on their one vehicle, their petrol car, to get the kids to school, help them care for their family, and get them to work. So when you mess with people’s routes, this annoys them.
At least it annoys those people who can't afford to have multiple vehicles and only use the car for jaunts OUT of London, using their expensive E-bikes IN London.
These people FEEL as if more traffic has shifted onto the main routes they use, even if the data doesn't back this up.
There's also resentment about top-down social engineering. Telling people to cycle instead of drive can come across as middle-class virtue signalling, landing awkwardly on communities where daily routines don’t fit the planners’ vision.
Final Thoughts...
So there's more to LTNs than simply creating safer and more pleasant spaces, possibly they're a class-war against working class drivers, possibly a symbol of state-over-reach into personal choice.
Either way, they please some and annoy others!