Traffic counters used to monitor the impact of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) are not accurately recording vehicles during heavy congestion, The Times reveals.
Residents of the boundary roads around Lee Green have long claimed that their Council's traffic statistics do not reflect their lived experience of increased polluting traffic since the introduction of the LTN.
Now we know that, according to the Times, monitoring systems used by councils have changed since the pandemic. The apparent reduction in traffic said to be the result of LTNs is in fact the result of monitors which now do not include any traffic moving at less than 10 or in some cases 6 mph. So residents of Burnt Ash Road, Lee High Road and the South Circular are not wrong when they say that traffic has increased since 2020 and that their health is suffering as a consequence. The traffic is simply moving imperceptibly slowly!
Article link: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/flaw-in-roadside-counters-for-low-traffic-schemes-j6wbwvzjn
When will Lewisham Council stop using misleading statistics?
KP
Almost all the Council's statistics are based on averages, and this masks the very serious peaks of polluting traffic at certain times of day in all those roads that have been sacrificed to the LTN.
On the anniversary of Ella’s death there is clear evidence that childhood asthma is increasing on our polluted main roads.
When Lewisham Council introduced its Lee Green LTN in July 2020 we were assured there would be a proper consultation exercise after the trial period. When we saw the consultation questions in August 2021 we realised that they were skewed towards one outcome: the retention of the LTN in one form or another (see my article www.lewishamlibdems.org.uk/leegreenltn_consultation). There was little scope for objecting to it overall or for reforming it radically, and it was clear that the use of monitoring data and statistics was unscientific to say the least.