Perhaps the defining battle in the UK’s culture wars in the past few years has been over LTNs, or “low-traffic neighbourhoods.” Depicted by some as a “war on cars” and by others as a simple plan to preserve residential neighbourhoods, the skirmishes over these ideas have even become national election issues. So I got a tour of one of these neighbourhoods and realized the things that make up an LTN might already be in your neck of the woods.
Thanks to Jakub Mamczak of the London Cycling Campaign for the tour of his neighbourhood.
0:00 Introduction
1:04 What exactly is an LTN?
2:49 Camera-enforced modal filters
3:42 Continuous footway
4:19 School streets
4:52 Controversy over a high street
5:44 Modal filters in other cities
7:36 Are they actually controversial?
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38 Comments
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As someone who has lived on busy streets much of my life, especially as a child, I find it kind of ironic that these people are happy to keep their own (often more upmarket and expensive) streets quiet and free of traffic whilst simultaneously barreling down my street at 20km/h over the speed limit.
What most places lack is a traffic circulation plan. If you block streets from through traffic, the road that is the remaining option has to be improved as well, so put-through gets higher and safer. Smart traffic lights that reduce waiting time, roundabouts, less side streets and driveways, good pedestrian and bicycle crossings.
Time: 5 minutes max to leave the LTN, 10 minutes max on the main disclosure road, highway reached.
It's thoughtful to entertain the drivers' perspectives, but at some point you look at the trucks and SUVs plowing through unconstrained and innocent pedestrians pinned onto fences to bleed to death (pedestrian vehicle deaths per year double that of 9/11) and you say, look I don't care how crippled or incapableyou are of walking or biking… You have no right to terrorize the streets in a machine built for warfare, so find a smart car, an ebike, whatever something smaller than the maximum federally allowed vehicle weight, and stop living for a lawless privilege that you wish you could call freedom
If they stopped the rain in the UK, more people would cycle 🙂
Isn’t funny that suburbs are build that way with filters and even cul-de-sac but when urban neighborhoods want to do the same, it becomes “the war on cars”?
An interesting case along these lines to look at would be the City of Sydney and the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore. So, Clover Moore is quite a polarising figure in Sydney. Some love and applaud her, some are… not fans… and label her initiatives as “leftist” and “wasteful”. Whatever your thoughts on her, she was just elected for a historic sixth term as Lord Mayor in the council elections in NSW in September. In the inner city, she has brought in a lot of cycleways, shared pathways, pedestrianised some of Sydney’s busiest streets (Sydney is one of Australia’s biggest cities in terms of population. I think Melbourne has recently eclipsed us, but still, at least one of the top two, if not the biggest). There is A LOT of criticism over this, but I think it’s great. The NSW Government has recently opened the Sydney Metro, a fast rail network to get across the city, which also has a lot of infrastructure incorporated to allow for cyclists, places for bikes on the metro trains, secure storage sheds and the like. Sydney is shaping up to be an amazing walkable city. It always was pretty well-connected, but it’s getting a lot better.
I'd really like to see Calgary add this kind of traffic calming and filtering to the city, but I'm not optimistic that this is on the radar.
It was so distressing that city hall was 100% onboard with allowing the destruction of an entire block of Stephen Ave and restoring full-flow traffic to build another office tower. They were blinded by jobs and revenue and oblivious to quality of life issues and the destruction of one of the very few walkable streets in the city.
It was only public outcry and ultimately the dropping rental need that killed the project. I mention that case specifically to highlight how much of an uphill battle it is to convince the current city hall group to not pull a Rishi Sunak here.
The guide fellow doesn't sound like an Englishman at all. Meaning not English at all. He sounds like an American actually. That's weird. Aa for the driving and dropping off kids business, that's really a societal problem related to parents being obnoxiously over-protective/over-controlling more than anything else. It's a defect and a nuisance with parents more than whatever the conditions are with traffic. Kids ought to be riding bikes or getting bused, not being chauferred to school. This was the case way before any of these kinds of changes happened. In white western countries, there are either buses or bikes around always. Realistically for the street that the non-Englishman was talking about and the businesses, I think one could surmise that a significant portion of the people who did patronize the businesses there, would of been driving from five miles off and would of ceased to do so after the changes. They would of gone somewhere else, right there in their localities. If that was offset from others being on bikes then that is supposition as well.
If you would ask if people want less polution and less noice and less lorry traffic and safer streets for sure they would say yes.
I really like the highstreet solution that allows bikes.
Most city centers commonly only allow pedestrians.
Still get quite the amount of delivery vans and but no space for cyclists.
In Germany it is pretty common that city centers have pedestrian zones stretching over most of it's city center.
LTN's are fantastic
what a dreeeam <3
Oh I go through some of those cycle lanes every day 😀
Not to beat a dead horse, but I can't think of a single neighborhood in the Netherlands that isn't an LTN. This shouldn't be a controversial thing, this is just good urban planning. And just to hit this home: it's better for cars, too. You actually get around faster if the modal routes are planned properly.
LTNs here in Oxford UK have been a definite ‘media-stoked controversy’. The local newspaper has basically been saved from oblivion by running anti-LTN click bait. However, as you rightly say, the actual data shows the vast majority of residents do like them. We also have a school street here which has made a significant difference to my kids. There is still a long way to go, but it feels like the Overton window is shifting. Thanks for covering this issue, and for noticing that Sunak’s attempt to capitalise on ‘the war on motorists’ was an abject failure…!
It's definitely not a bu-row
Enough witk the Otto centric cities.
Otto's are so noisy and dangerous.
a war on cars breeding zone in the uk? looks around. i see plenty of breeding zones but i don't see no war on cars. its full on car lovin' peace in the breeding zone i dwell in anyway lol. maybe theres a war on holidays and buying as much crap as possible too, but i dont see it. its business as usual here on earth, baby
I live in Waltham Forest and the LTNs are great for cycling, the roads in LTNs are much quieter. The local council are spending quite a lot on cycling infrastructure. Hopefully, this will encourage more local people to cycle to work, school, shopping or for pleasure. The neighbouring borough of Hackney has done the same and air quality has also improved.
My town would greatly benefit from banning cars from its high street; however, the fact remains that because of poor planning in decades past, my town's high street is the only route available for all heavy truck traffic and through traffic through this area.
In order to re-route that traffic, we would need to invest probably at least $100 million USD in creating new bypasses through the area that do not currently exist, and while it's not necessarily impossible for that to happen, it's extremely unlikely, because the public simply doesn't understand why this needs to be done and is extremely skeptical of the idea whenever I attempt to raise it.
To make matters worse, a new $60 million USD replacement bridge is being built in our town over which we ironically have no control, because it crosses a state line, and the project (and the funding) actually belongs almost entirely to the government of the neighboring state. I was unsuccessful in raising public consciousness as to why this project should have been halted before it was ever started, and how detrimental it is going to be for the quality of life in our town. All people can see is that the existing bridge is failing and needs to be replaced, without any forethought as to the current and future needs of our community.
The traffic patterns of this town were laid down over a century ago, and longer meet the demands of the current age, much less the needs we are going to see in our immediate future. I suppose the only consolation is that before long, possibly even before my life is over, we are going to see a massive decline in the use of motor vehicles, because most people will simply no longer be able to afford to own and operate them, due to the rising tides of chaos that the human-induced climate catastrophe is causing and will continue to cause, all becuase people jealously guard their privilege to pollute with motor vehicles.
A great idea but bicycles can also be very dangerous. I had several near misses when a pedestrian in Amsterdam because most bicycles feel entitled to drive on pavements as well as roads and shoot red lights.
Interesting video.
That mug is a bit too large for an Italian-like coffee though 😁
I live in the Netherlands, but this has been normal here for 30 years or more.
This report has fallen into the trap of the British "democratic" system. It mistakenly reports the majority gained by the Labour party as support for their policies, the Labour party received 20% of the support electors could give. The system is so decrepit that nearly half people do not vote and that 20% support resulted in a large majority of mp's in parliament for Labour. While I cycle and would hope for better infrastructure and support for cycling, I know there is nothing green about any of the established political parties, they all encourage mass immigration onto an already densely populated Island where house prices are high. Without the transportation of massive quantities of food and goods using oil powered ships and a petrol driven transportation network, Britain's farmland could support only a tenth of it's current population. The current government's green policy will mean electric blackouts within 4 years.
I live in London and regularly cycle with my 4 year old on board. I have mixed feelings about LTNs or at least the haphazard way they have been implemented in some cases. I’ve cycled recently in the Waltham Forest area featured here and was really impressed by how well designed and integrated the cycling infrastructure is. By contrast in the south London borough where I live, they have often been clumsily and cynically implemented by our cash-strapped council. A school street near us for example has had the effect of rerouting through traffic along or previously quiet residential street with drivers often speeding to make up for having to go the long way round and with numerous choke points. Doing our school run by bike has now become significantly more hazardous than it would have been otherwise.
"nice day" there's not even the sun out. Glad to live in Italy
Falls Church and Vienna, Virginia, USA (near DC suburbs) have had restricted cut-through streets for decades, but only during "rush hour".
The Stretham Vale LTN, here in South London became a National scandal in the months before the General Election, (I live next to it). It is a large urban area bounded by three connector roads, and had a number of cut throughs. Once it was imposed in October 2023, the traffic increased on the connector roads to such an extent that it was taking an hour for Buses to traverse the 1.5 miles of Streatham High Street. The situation was so dire that TFL and the London Mayor intervened and caused so much hostility from locals and businesses that it was abandoned In March 2024.
I personally support LTNs. My take on what happened is that the council imposed a far too big a scheme in one go without giving people the time to change their behaviours. There are a lot of schools in the area and people still tried to drive their children to school as usual instead of walking for instance, which was now safer because of the LTN. Also, I don't believe the council did a proper impact study. I think if the scheme was introduced incrementally it would have little push back and people would adapt. Some roads in the zone had already had filters introduced in the years before the LTN and this has not caused any reaction. So I expect it will be re instated, albeit in a more measured way.
Just look at the Netherlands, my new home, and even the tiniest village has raised intersections, narrow roads, speed bumps etc everywhere. Entire city centers are pedestianized and even people who like driving would be pissed if the city center had cars driving through it constantly. The same extends to school streets, many of them are entirely pedestrianized especially near elementary schools. Its such a no brainer to make your streets safer, quieter, and more pleasant.
The whole uk has a war on cars !! Innit
I see you got a typical dose of UK weather on your visit
I'm 62, All my life cars have dominated our cities and towns and being a cyclist, pedestrian, kid has always felt like a battle for survival against the traffic. Things are slowly getting better now. My parents played in the streets. I hope one day soon future generations will be able to enjoy that simple "luxury" again.
Walthamstow and nearby Hackney which also has LTN's are relatively poor neighbourhoods for London and have lower car ownership rates. Some of the traffic is from people just driving through the area from outer areas further into London. It's quite popular to try to restrict that, no-one wants someone else's noise and pollution in their area. An improved quality of life for the majority means putting in an LTN often causes house prices to rise faster than other areas.
Most people Bitching about this are people that don't even live in major cities.
That was a moka pot ^_^
How dare they make it safe to walk! 😅