Tom, others seem to fall for your 'politeness', but I am afraid it masks dangerous messages and disinformation. YOu say 'If we don’t see a fall in pollution from traffic on the High Road and a shift from motor vehicles to active transport, the scheme will have demonstrably failed'.So lets be specific. You have previously claimed that 'we all' benefited from cleaner air as a result of the closure of Hammersmith bridge, and that we have also all benefited from the reduction in air pollution on the High rd, which you strangely have attributed purely to the closure of TGT.So the issue, as I keep pointing out to a scientist who does know this but finds it easier to ignore, is around causality and the counterfactual. Pollution on the High Road has fallen for various reasons, fewer buses, more hybrids and electric, the pandemic, and related to that a big fall in pollution from the A4. There is also a large background pollution effect from other areas and indeed at times other countries, all of which has no doubt fallen due to the pandemic. You have claimed that a monitor on DR shows less pollution there. If we accept this is true, then a small local road that saw modest traffic seeing a drop in that traffic causes less localised pollution. So logically, all the roads seeing more displaced traffic are seeing more localised pollution, bad for the health of residents, pedestrians and others.So what do we make of that. The new measures will roughly halve the capacity of the High Rd, which even with the impact of more stationary traffic must in the immediate vicinity may well mean less pollution. Heathrow is empty so A4 pollution is also down hugely. So the first question is, with less queues, could the High Rd have seen pollution fall more.The second biger question is, all the other routes that see more traffic and queues, where there is no monitoring at all, why is the pollution not considered there? Because by the same irrefutable logic it has gone up due to these measures. But it seems if you dont measure it then it does not exist.Finally, how are we measuring a modal shift. We are seeing many choose to avoid the High Road. Many already walked there or took the bus. And most crucial of all, when are these results to be taken. In the midst of a pandemic when the traffic is gone. Or a wet winter evening with Brentford and Chelsea at home and most of Chiswick reduced to gridlock? Sadly I think I know the answer.
Paul Green ● 2176d