Francis, first of all you are exaggerating the effect of the Hartington Road restrictions on traffic through Strand on the Green. If you look at the main traffic routes to access Thames Road, from the A4 to the east, the fastest route is down Sutton Court Road where there are no restrictions at any time. Thames Road gives unrestricted access at all times to all traffic coming over Kew Bridge, from Brentford, or down from the Chiswick roundabout from the A4, M4 or North Circular or High Road. Only traffic coming over Chiswick Bridge is affected, and that's less than 10% of all the other traffic flows.
The evidence for this analysis can be seen in the map below, from the Steer report, of traffic changes based on INRIX trip data from January 2020 and May 2021, after the Hartington Road restriction was enforced. You can that the significant reduction in traffic on Hartington Road had little discernible effect on the traffic on Thames Road. There was a slight drop at the entrance, but traffic levels if anything became rather higher by the pubs.
The traffic counts, comparing 2019 with May 2021, show a drop from 3600 vehicles a day to 2550. 60% of traffic prior to the restrictions was driving through the area in less than four minutes, so if the signage was entirely effective in deterring through traffic we might have expected to see a fall to around 1400 vehicles, even before accounting for the reduced overall traffic due to the pandemic.
The fact that Thames Road saw nearly double that number of vehicles after the restrictions were applied hardly suggests that the measures deterred very many of the 1400 vehicles that previously were accessing the area, including its pubs and restaurants. Rather the measures can be much more justifiably criticised for being only partially effective in deterring through traffic, which is hardly surprising given the level of enforcement.
A convoluted argument can be made that pub and restaurant patrons are especially risk adverse and unwilling to take any chances when they see an Access Only sign, even if it doesn't apply to them, while through drivers are much more willing to chance a PCN. But it's rather more likely that both sets of drivers behave in a similar fashion, judging the risks of a PCN as low in the first instance and zero if they understand and comply with the restrictions.
That's not to say there won't be a few ultracautious drivers who will avoid driving past any Access Only signs. But the data shows they are a rather small minority compared to the much larger number of drivers willing to flout the restrictions, or understand and comply with them. Their absence is hardly likely to have caused the drop in turnover cited in the article.
Tom Pike ● 1349d