Low Traffic Neighbourhoods: the controversy

You may have heard that Dulwich is now a Low Traffic Neighbourhood. What does this mean, and will it reduce traffic, improve air quality and make walking and cycling safer?

The background

In recent years, TfL (under Boris and then Sadiq) has introduced a number of initiatives, including Our Healthy Streets, Liveable Neighbourhoods and now Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (“LTNs”). All of them focus on the problem of traffic congestion in London, and how to turn a negative (too many cars) into a positive (fewer cars, cleaner air, more sociable streets, and safer walking and cycling). According to Simon Munk of the London Cycling Campaign, the concept of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods has been around a long time – the Dutch had low-traffic schemes as far back as the 1960s. But the term was re-popularised relatively recently, probably by the London Cycling Campaign and another national campaign called Living Streets, who together produced two explanatory guides in the spring of last year.

So what is a Low Traffic Neighbourhood?

Ideally, it’s a small and compact residential area, about one square kilometre in size (you should be able to walk from one side to the other in about fifteen minutes). Traffic isn’t banned, but can’t easily drive through because streets are closed by bollards or gates, or one-way systems. Because through traffic stays outside on the boundary or peripheral roads, the neighbourhood itself becomes a more pleasant place to live. Traffic that needs to come in (residents’ cars, for example) still can, but the number of routes is reduced, and journeys may take longer.

How do we know they work?

The Low Traffic Neighbourhood that everyone always holds up as a success is Waltham Forest. In 2014, Waltham Forest Council was given £27 million by TfL to introduce what were then called mini-Holland schemes across the borough to encourage walking and cycling. A 12-month review of the scheme in Walthamstow Village found a number of benefits. The other piece of research that is constantly referred to in support of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods was published in 2002. (As far as we know, no comprehensive overview has been produced since then.) Called ‘Disappearing traffic? The story so far’, it examined 70 case studies from eleven countries. One of the conclusions was that reducing space for cars on roads can cause overall traffic levels to reduce by 11%, possibly because people change their behaviour (switching to other modes of transport, making fewer journeys, etc). This has become known as ‘traffic evaporation’.

So will a Low Traffic Neighbourhood work in Dulwich? Possibly. Or possibly not.

1. The Waltham Forest Effect

If we go back to the mini-Holland scheme in Walthamstow Village, it’s not easy to draw direct comparisons with Dulwich.

a) Firstly, Southwark doesn’t have £27 million to spend on LTNs in the borough – the total Streetspace funding for Southwark (to pay for all the post-lockdown emergency measures, including Experimental Traffic Orders and LTNs) is £1.3 million, with Dulwich getting about £150,000. This low-budget approach means that there is unlikely to be money for cycleways, street lighting, attractive landscaping or even comprehensive monitoring of traffic and pollution.

b) Secondly, Walthamstow Village has an underground station, as well as mainline stations and a bus network, so its transport infrastructure is very different.

c) The 12-month review found that cycle trips went up 28% after the introduction of the mini-Holland scheme. This, however, was not based on monitoring or evidence but on the perceptions of 402 local households: 71 thought their cycling had increased a little, and 41 thought their cycling had increased a lot. Bus journey times increased slightly. Community groups also raised concerns about the increased level of traffic on four roads within the scheme. Outside the scheme, that is on three boundary roads, traffic went up, by 2.6%, 11.1% and 28.3%.

d) In 2019, there was a further academic review of the three boroughs awarded money by TfL for mini-Holland schemes. This found that people living with most exposure to mini-Hollands were likely to do an extra 32 minutes of walking and 9 minutes of cycling per week. But the study itself made clear that the sample group interviewed wasn’t ideal: the response rate was low, and it didn’t represent the demographics of either the mini-Holland areas or the control areas outside them.

e) Finally, with regard to Waltham Forest, it’s interesting to note that, six years after the scheme went in, there is still disagreement and controversy among residents. Waltham Forest Streets 4 All is a coalition of local groups who believe that closing roads has only increased congestion and pollution.

What works/doesn’t work in Waltham Forest increases our understanding of LTNs. But we can’t be sure that the results will be exactly the same in Dulwich. As the original 2002 study by Sally Cairns, Stephen Atkins and Phil Goodwin says (on page 14), “…every scheme to reallocate roadspace is different, and so the effects of any plan will be highly dependent on individual circumstances.”

2. Who benefits?

Key to all this is the central question of who benefits from a Low Traffic Neighbourhood.

The biggest criticism to emerge in recent weeks, as boroughs all over the country put in Experimental Traffic Orders, is that the advantages to those living on closed roads may come at a high price – that is, increased congestion and pollution for those living on the so-called boundary roads.

So if, for example, Southwark decided that the Dulwich LTN had the borders of the old Areas A, B and C from the recent OHSD (Our Healthy Streets Dulwich) consultation – too big an area, really, at 2.3 square kilometres – those living on roads like East Dulwich Grove, Lordship Lane and the South Circular could all see raised levels of traffic and pollution. (The closure of Dulwich Village junction in June showed a significant impact on all three of these roads.)

The general response to any concerns raised about LTNs and road closures is that we need to be patient – that road changes take a while to “bed in”. But is that a fair argument when we’re talking about pollution and children’s lungs? Even six months of increased exposure could have serious long-term effects. And will they “bed in” anyway, in relation to Dulwich’s individual circumstances?

If you’re on Twitter, you might want to have a look at tweets by @LIttleNinjaUK (or take a look at his website www.littleninja.co.uk), who campaigns to reduce children’s exposure to pollution. He believes that LTNs increase air pollution on boundary or residential main roads (“RMR”s) – often affecting low-income and BAME communities who are least responsible for vehicular traffic and most at risk – and that this is social injustice.

He says, “It’s not ok for people to experiment with other people’s lives and children’s lungs. Where it’s obvious that traffic will be increased on an already congested road, action must first take place to reduce traffic and public air pollution exposure on that road.”

Phil Goodwin, co-author of the original 2002 study, has been tweeting recently, too. He said on 4 August, “I support those who complain that sometimes schemes provide improvements for leafy areas where rich people live, but divert traffic on to ‘traffic roads’ where poorer people live, and this is not fair. Reallocation of capacity should be done in a way that supports the most needy.”

Next steps

The current and future road interventions across Dulwich are being put in place under Experimental Traffic Orders. This means that changes can be made, and the experiments started again, or that the experiments can be scrapped altogether.

If the Dulwich Low Traffic Neighbourhood doesn’t work – because it doesn’t reduce traffic or improve active travel or, even more importantly, because it benefits the affluent at the expense of less affluent communities – One Dulwich believes that Southwark Council must either modify the ETOs or be prepared to rip it up and start again.