According to the National Noise Attitude Survey 2012, 5 million people in the UK are extremely disturbed by traffic noise. That is 8% of the population. A total of 55% are disturbed to some degree (4).

Solutions:

Lower speeds

• Cutting the urban speed limit from 30mph to 20mph could reduce traffic noise by more than 50% (5).

• Cutting the motorway speed limit from 70mph to 60 mph could cut noise by more than 25%.  

Quieter Road Surfaces

• The use of quieter road surfaces could halve the noise from traffic. Quieter road surfaces like porous asphalt cost more than traditional road surfaces but are 3-10 times more cost-effective than mitigation measures such as home insulation or the construction of noise barriers (8).

Noise Barriers

• These can be expensive but are essential at noise hot spots. At their best, they can cut noise by 75%. However, it is much more cost-effective in the longer term to concentrate reducing vehicle noise at source (9). A Dutch study found that every decibel reduced at source would save 100 million euros in national expenditure on noise barriers and sound insulation (10).

Quieter Vehicles

• Greater use of electric and hybrid vehicles will cut noise. Governments and the motor industry are placing a lot of hope in these vehicles but they come with two important caveats as far as noise is concerned. Tyre noise will of course still be present; and it remains uncertain by how much noise will be deliberately added to these vehicles so people can hear them coming. In economic terms they do have an important advantage over measures like quieter road surfaces, insulation and noise barriers, in that the cost falls on the manufacturers and the users rather than on the public purse.

Traffic Reduction

• It is not anti-business to call for traffic reduction. London First, the voice of big business in London, backs road pricing. The annual cost of congestion to the London economy was put at $8.5bn in 2013 and rising (12). Equally, traffic reduction need not be anti-car. It is about getting a better balance than exists at present. Fewer vehicles on the roads would cut traffic noise as long as lower speed limits were introduced. It would also reduce air pollution, road danger and climate change emissions.

And traffic reduction is possible. Half the journeys we make are under two miles long; 75% are less than 5 miles (13); most are possible by walking, cycling or taking public transport. A mix of investment in these non-car modes, lower fares on public transport plus some form of road pricing could both improve the quality of life in our towns and cities and make them better places in which to do business.

"Even without significant traffic reduction, it is estimated noise from traffic could be cut by 70%" (11).  

John Stewart

References

(4). National Noise Attitude Survey 2012 http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&Completed=0&ProjectID=18288

(5). Speed and Road Traffic Noise, Paige Mitchell, UK Noise Association, (2009)

(6). Killing Speed: A Good Practice Guide to Speed Management, Adrian Davis, Slower Speeds Initiative (2001)

(7). Preventing Road Traffic Injury: A Public Health Perspective for Europe, F Racioppi et al, World Health Organisation, (2004)

(8). The Danish Road Noise Strategy, Danish Environmental Protection Agency, (2003)

(9). Why Noise Matters, Chapter 6, Stewart et al, Earthscan, (2011)

(10). Dutch Noise Innovation Programme, Dutch Ministry of Transport (2002)

(11). Traffic Noise Reduction in Europe, den Boer and Schroten, CE Delft, (2007)

(12). Financial Times (13/10/14)

(13). Road User Statistics Great Britain 2016, Department for Transport

Nothing in the local election results can alter the fact that low traffic neighbourhoods are deeply unjust. They create pleasant streets for people living on side roads by pushing a lot of the traffic on to boundary roads and the already heavily-trafficked adjacent main roads.

So long as this injustice of LTNs remains, the fight against them will continue.

I know what the defenders of LTNs will say at this point: LTNs are not the basic cause of all the traffic on our roads. I take that as self-evident. But it is the way they push traffic the around that is so insidious.

The election results will require greater analysis before we know the exact role LTNs played. There were some disappointments for some anti-LTN candidates but there were individual results which suggest a more nuanced picture. Even Peter Walker, the strongly pro-LTN Guardian journalist, acknowledged in a tweet: In Oxford, the single-issue anti-LTN candidate I spoke to didn’t unseat Labour as she hoped – but came a v clear second, which is a decent achievement for a first time independent. Similarly, in Southwark, anti-LTNers had high hopes of unseating one or both Labour councillors in Dulwich Village, and came nowhere near. But, the combined totals of Tories/LDs (both of whom opposed the local LTN) were similar to that for Labour, so could indicate a split. And in the London Borough of Enfield, where LTNs were an issue, the Conservatives bucked the national trend by gaining votes and seats from Labour. But more analysis is required. In Tower Hamlets, where Aspite firmly opposed LTN, they overturned a big Labour majority and took control of the council.

However, because there was no big anti-LTN breakthrough, the supporters of LTNs are rejoicing; some even gloating; some are seeing it as a green light to push for more of them. And many are jumping to a conclusion which indicates a continued refusal to face up to the injustice of LTNs. This tweet is pretty typical: "The conclusion is the more LTN‘s, planters, bollards and cycle lanes you put, the more communities get used to them and question why they put up with car-dominated streets for so long. No one will want to go back to the way things were except a few die-hard motorists."

I am not arguing that this is the position of all supporters of LTNs. And I’m certainly not denying that some of them are motivated by injustice in their wider outlook and work. But let’s be very clear. If you are backing LTNs, however worthy your motives, you are supporting schemes which move more traffic onto the main roads where poorer people and, in parts of our towns and cities, members of the BAME communities live and work in disproportionately large numbers. Those are the people who will get more congestion, noise and air pollution. These are the people who are most reliant on buses, which can get stuck in the LTN-induced traffic.

And these people are not going to disappear because of election results. If you are only a bit inconvenienced by LTNs, you may decide to accept the situation. But if your life has been changed by heavy lorries passing your front door in a way they didn’t before, if your business is threatened by the restrictions, if your child’s asthma is getting worse by the day, if you must endure constant noise and pollution, all so your neighbours have liveable streets where they can carry their children in their panniers and dance away the long summer evenings, you are going to fight back. You are going to fight on until you see justice done.

John Stewart (May 2022)

There is a strong case for road pricing, particularly on London’s roads. The question is: can it ever be fair?

Won’t it hit poorer drivers the most?

What about small businesses who rely on vehicles?

And wouldn’t it finish off the cab trade?

I’ll try and show why road pricing – or what I’ve called road-user charging – could make nearly all of us better off……if it is introduced in the right way.

There is certainly a need for it.

It goes beyond the current debate around the impact of low traffic neighbourhoods.

Take a look at this stat: The number of miles driven by motor vehicles on London’s roads has grown by 3.6 billion since 2009 – an 18.6% increase – to an all-time high of 22.6 billion miles in 2019.

And side roads suffered the most. Not only did they absorb the full 3.6 billion net increase, they’ve also abstracted a further 300 million miles off the main road network. Since 2006, the number of miles driven on London’s main roads annually fell by 800 million.

Nevertheless many main roads remained very slow going.

Transport for London figures show car journeys fell during the first lockdown when half of all journeys were made by bike or on foot but they are now back close to their 2019 levels.

In order to rescue London – its economy choking from congestion and its people battered by noise and air pollution – I believe road-user charging is essential.

But can it be fair?

The journalist Janice Turner wrote in her Times column (22/10/20): “Drivers will refuse to pay to collect tiles from B & Q or take their old mum to Tescos…businesses will revolt.”

Introduced tomorrow it would hit a lot of people very hard: low-income and disabled drivers, delivery vans and many small businesses, even a lot of families on average incomes, given the high cost of public transport.

But imagine this scenario. Public transport is dirt cheap or even free so the only real cost of travelling around would be the road user tax. In the round, this means most people would be spending less on transport than they do today. Car use would fall. Congestion on the roads would be eased saving people who need cars and vans to do business time and money.

Is this the impossible dream?

I don’t think so. What the evidence shows (1) is that road-user charging, together with viable alternatives, will persuade us to use our cars a lot less, maybe even allow some of us to give them up altogether.

What alternatives are needed?

1. Quality conditions for walking and cycling. There is significant scope for modal switch. About half the journeys we make are under two miles and 75% less than five miles.

2. Embrace new technology. London is beginning to buzz with exciting alternatives to the car: freight delivery cycles, e-scooters, e-bikes, shared bicycles and pedicabs. Freight cycles have real potential. Research by the consultancy WSP has found that up to 14 per cent of vans could be replaced by cycle freight in London by 2025 (2). Electric bikes, too, have a lot of potential. They make cycling over longer distances and up hills so much more viable for many more people. There are also increasing opportunities to make use of shared transport.

3. Convenient, accessible and affordable public transport. I’m not sure any of it will work while London has its sky-high public transport fares. Cheap fares don’t require massive public subsidy.

Cheap fares can be financed in a number of ways: by using some of the money raised from road-user charging; by imposing a transport tax on big employers (as places like Paris already do), on the basis that their employees benefit from cheap fares; by introducing a small annual transport levy on our rates.

A number of European cities have introduced free public transport – places like Luxembourg, Tallinn and Dunkirk. Fare-free bus travel in Dunkirk has been a game-changer for a working class town that was culturally very attached to the car. One year on, bus trips are up 85%. Half of new bus users previously drove and one in ten new bus users have sold their second car.

Free or cheap, these sort of fare levels would mean that, even with a road-user charge in place, most of us would be forking out less to get about than we do today. Car use would fall. Congestion on the roads would be eased saving people who need cars and vans to do business time and money. If fare levels were sorted, London has the basic transport network in place to enable people to switch from car to bus, tram and train. It can lead the way in the UK. My belief is that a town or city would need a regulated bus network, such as we have in London, if road-user charging was to work. The road-user charge should be distance-based so that those who travel the most play the most.

There could be exemptions – disabled drivers, certainly. Maybe others as well – whatever it takes to make it fair.

One thing may make road-user charging inevitable. As electric vehicles become commonplace, fuel duty will begin to dry up. The Treasury will be looking for an alternative source of revenue. Good planning and housing policies would also help – so, for example, car-based new developments are avoided.

Now is the time to put together a scheme that works for everybody.

References: 1.https://www.transportforqualityoflife.com/u/files/6%20An%20Eco%20Levy%20for%20driving%20-%20cut%20carbon,%20clean%20up%20toxic%20air,%20and%20make%20our%20towns%20and%20cities%20liveable.pdf

2. https://independent.co.uk/independentpremium/business/covid-bike-delivery-cheese-b1770020.html

First written in 1995!

As relevant as ever 25 years on!

Parking policies are emerging as crucial to reducing the number of journeys made by car. The Transport Research Laboratory has come out with some significant findings: Doubling parking charges and halving the number of parking spaces, plus improving public transport, would cut traffic on London’s roads by 30% compared with a mere 3% reduction if public transport was improved but nothing was done about parking.

Acting on these findings, transport minister Steven Norris is pushing companies to shut down parking spaces as part of a campaign to deter car commuters. He cites the fact that 170,000 cars, most of them carrying only the driver, crawl into the capital each day at peak time, averaging speeds of 8mph and choking main roads.

So is a reduction in parking spaces a simple way to reduce traffic levels?

Inevitably it is not as easy as that.

Out-of-town development is the complicating factor. Part of the attraction of out-of-town retail complexes is the ample parking they provide. It is these developments that town centres are competing with.

Environment Secretary John Gummer is arguing that, for existing town centres to have any realistic chance of attracting back out-of-town shoppers, they will need to provide the car parking facilities that these shoppers have become accustomed to.

Perhaps the only way is for the Government to bring in a tax on private parking spaces. That could mean that out-of-town shopping became less of a bargain. A parking tax is also favoured by Keith Buchan in his report Urban Clearway. He argues that it could be fiscally neutral. The business rates, particularly for local town centre firms, could be reduced, with a tax being introduced on parking spaces above an agreed minimum. The tax could be variable, so that heavier rates were imposed on out-of-town developments. Such a tax would need to be applied on a regional basis.

John Stewart (first written for Metropolis in 1995)

It was my first protest. I think it was 1961. I was on the platform of Strathcarron Station, the stop for the beautiful village of Lochcarron in the Scottish Highlands, on the scenic Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh line. We were staying on holiday with my aunt in Lochcarron. A lot of the villagers had joined us on the small platform.

We were there because Dr Beeching was passing through that day. The chairman of British Rail was threatening to close down the line, along with countless others across the UK. We wholeheartedly booed the unmistakable portly figure as the engine in which he was travelling sped through the station.

Yesterday, Boris Johnson confirmed that as part of his plans to ‘build, build, build’ out of COVID, his Government was planning to put Beeching into reverse. It is hard for those who didn’t live through the period to image how famous Beeching was in the 1960s. He had name recognition that came close to matching the Beatles, Mary Quant and Carnaby Street. He was after all the man who took away the trains and stations from hundreds of thousands of people across the UK.

His 1963 Beeching report produced for the Government was officially called The Reshaping of British Railways but popularly known as the Beeching Axe. In it proposed the closure of ….wait for it…… 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles of line.

As a recent issue of the New Statesman - https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/02/ghost-dr-richard-beeching - put it like this: Beeching “concluded that many stopping services outside London cost too much in subsidies to justify. Fast intercity services on trunk routes connecting major cities and urban centres were prioritised instead. So began the isolation of towns and villages across Britain. Swathes of the country, including large industrial settlements such as Corby and Mansfield, were left without any passenger rail links at all”.

The rail map of the UK changed forever….until now. As part of its plans to invest in infrastructure, the Government is inviting bids to reopen stations and lines. At this stage it is difficult to estimate how much will happen but it certainly needs to if people are to be given real choices. What is depressing is that for over half a century key UK towns have been without a rail service.

Transport Minister Grant Shapps told the House of Commons in 2019, “I curse Richard Beeching every day in this job.” In my view, that is an excellent starting point! Without putting back together at least some of what Beeching destroyed we cannot hope to even start about having a seriously good public transport system. The fact that sixty years on his name is still remembered and quoted by Government ministers is an indication of the seismic change he brought about.

Many places worst hit were the ‘red wall’ areas that voted for Boris at the last election. There are votes in it for the Prime Minister to put Beeching into reverse.

It is a bit ironic that Beeching – and Ernest Marples, the pro-roads transport minister who appointed him – thought rail lines would become redundant because of increasing car use. Now those very same rail lines are urgently needed in order to cut car use; to reduce congestion, noise, air pollution and climate emissions.

Beeching actually recommended the closure of the Kyle of Lochalsh rail line through Strathcarron Station. But it never shut. As for me.....and my subsequent protests on a variety of issues down through the years. I blame the parents!

John Stewart

by Mike Hakata

The article, reprinted with permission, first appeared in medium.com (13/5/20)

Until a few months ago I had cars in my head, driving around, pumping out fumes, parking in my already limited head space, colliding with my good thoughts and I never questioned the idea things could be any different. Cars are meant to be here. Streets are for cars, towns and cities are full of streets, cities and towns are for cars. What would we do if we didn’t make sure they had all the available space? Life would be hell, right? And even if it wouldn’t be hell it just wouldn’t function.

It took some reading, research, discussion, educating and I began to feel the cars disappearing from my head. When the cars start disappearing your head space becomes quieter, your worldview more peaceful, less hectic, less dangerous. The cars were disappearing not simply because I was learning how to disappear them in my own head but because this is the way the world is going, this is the direction of travel.

When the cars start disappearing your head space becomes quieter, your worldview more peaceful, less hectic, less dangerous

In five to ten years the internal combustion engine will have disappeared from our streets. In that same time-frame active travel will be standard in urban design. This is the way the world is going and no amount of kicking and screaming is going to stop it.

I live in a ten-story block comprising fifty flats, fifty families in a block on a housing estate of several hundred more. Our block has a parking lot strictly for residents or their visitors. It has eight spaces. Free parking for residents.

During a normal week it is always half empty. It only fills up at the weekend when people come from out of the area to visit friends and family. Let that sink in.

Fifty families and more than enough space in a car park of eight spaces. You can always find a place to park in the streets of the wider estate too. When I had cars in my head I never noticed this, never saw it as an anomaly. Now I see it every day. Car ownership increases along with income.

Millions can’t afford to run a car but those people are also statistically more likely to experience the negative effects of cars though living in or near busy and congested roads and traffic arteries, poor air quality, noise and road accidents. Most probably those people have cars in the head too and believe they have a right to pollute their air and clog up their roads.

Let’s roll out a few stats and figures. 1/3rd of car journeys in London are for less than 2km. 4.3million daily trips by Londoners could be done by either walking or cycling. 60,000 additional years of healthy life could be enjoyed by Londoners if they walked or cycled 20 minutes a day delivering an estimated economic health benefit of almost £2bn per year. Congestion costs London’s economy an estimated £9.5bn annually. Cycling and walking infrastructure can increase retail sales by up to 30%. So London and Londoners will see life-expectancy, productivity and sales rise dramatically as this shift to active travel builds.

If we look at the darker side of national statistics then looking at government figures for 2018 there were 160, 597 casualties of all severities from road accidents on British roads (the lowest on record as it happens) with 25,511 classed as serious injuries and 1784 deaths. That reads like military casualties during a war except the reality in terms of numbers is quite different. As of July 2015 a total of 454 British forces personnel had died in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001 and a total of 7,436 hospital admissions for all types of admission were recorded in the field. It was safer to serve in Afghanistan over fourteen years than it was to use Britain’s roads in one, statistically speaking.

Here’s a positive fact: Car ownership decreases when other good options are available. In the UK the other options have historically been public transport. Also, car ownership increases as public transport becomes more scarce. And here’s a worrying prediction: as people in London return to work post-lockdown a 40% drop in public transport use is expected. If there isn’t the infrastructure to ensure walking and cycling is safe and desirable people will get in their cars. The Mayor’s walking and cycling commissioner, Will Norman, warns that if just a small percentage of the journeys in London switch to the car the capital will grind to a halt. Gridlock like never before. The prospect is a terrifying one.

The 2017 Green Lanes Area Transport Study which took a comprehensive look at traffic flows through my ward, St Ann’s, revealed that over half the traffic was through-traffic with some sections recording as much as 90% of vehicles breaking the speed limit. This is a ward with numerous primary schools and nurseries, a hospital, clinics and a park. Regardless of whether there is a collapse in public transport use do we really want the residents of Haringey who are major users of public transport to put their lives and the lives of TFL staff at risk by crowding onto buses and trains?

The stark reality is that when the lockdown eventually ends there will be thousands of Haringey residents attempting to get to work and the shops. Those with cars will opt to use the car and those without will cram into buses. Carbon emissions will literally be the least of our worries.

There is another way. It is in our power to design our way out of catastrophe and we must. Urban design which successfully prioritises walking and cycling achieves two goals simultaneously. Goal 1: build it and they will come. Goal 2: build it and they will leave. Goal 1 applies to people on foot and bike and goal 2 applies to people in cars.

We are facing an emergency. We don’t have time for long consultation periods and debate. We need to implement solutions now and assess them as they’re in use. We need to implement long-term solutions with temporary tools as we have been with pavement widening which is being rolled out across the Borough as I write. A network of protected cycling paths using weighted cones and barriers needs to follow along with further pavement widening on key routes to green spaces, clinics and schools.

Just as important is the creation of low traffic neighbourhoods with streets blocked to deter through traffic. This can be done with planters as in other boroughs and can be adapted through the assessment period as feedback and traffic flows are analysed by residents and council officers. Low traffic neighbourhoods are essential because of their effect on through-traffic. Evidence reveals that rather than push traffic onto other routes, closing off paths to rat runs leads to traffic evaporation. Having recognised that there are no short-cuts drivers are more likely to find other more sustainable means to travel. By ensuring most local traffic opts for the new pedestrian routes means that the local streets are freed up for those who must drive, public transport and emergency services.

The use of temporary materials for these interventions means that they can be changed but also that finance is no longer the biggest obstacle. It is actually critical that finance is not made an obstacle. Capital funds must be released regardless of whether the Borough receives the extra funding promised by the government and the Mayor. So what is the biggest obstacle? I think I know… The cars stuck in the gridlock of our collective mind.

I will  get straight to the point. There ought to be fewer cars on our roads.

It would cut noise, air pollution and climate emissions very significantly. And potentially reduce death and injury dramatically. Each year 1.35 million people are killed on roads around the world. That really does put the current coronavirus pandemic into perspective.

And, whilst the virus has tended to go for older people, road traffic injuries are estimated to be the eighth leading cause of death globally for all age groups and the leading cause of death for children and young people 5–29 years of age.

Isn’t it time to put the car into lockdown, only to allowed out for essential journeys and the odd bit of exercise?

Electric cars, hybrid cars, hydrogen cars – they are all likely to be cleaner and a bit quieter – but they will still kill our people and clog our streets. Each year, according to the latest available cost estimate (1998), road traffic injuries alone cost $518 billion worldwide and $65 billion in low- and middle-income countries, which exceeds the total amount that these countries receive in development assistance. And that’s without taking into account the billions lost each year through congestion and the cost of noise, pollution and emissions.

But I can’t live without my car? I’m not so sure. Although the majority of households in England own at least one car these days, 20% of households don’t have a car which rises to 44% in the lowest income bracket. The proportion of households without a car fell dramatically from the middle of the 20th Century, but has been fairly stable for the last couple of decades.

And catering for the cars and their owners has been the focus of most national and local governments for decades. Cities have been redesigned around the car. Business parks, leisure centres and shopping malls are all about car travel and often impossible to get to any other way. The cost of public transport has risen much faster than the cost of motoring.

But I love my car. People do. Back in 1952, less than 30% of distance travelled in Britain was by car, van or taxi. 42% was by bus or coach, and 17% by train. As people got richer and cars got cheaper, the picture changed rapidly. It is not realistic to put cars into lockdown for good. But, unless we see them in lockdown for much more of the time – and develop affordable convenient alternatives and start re-organising our towns and cities around these alternatives – we lose a huge chance to cut noise, air pollution, climate emissions and road danger on our roads.

by A Walker