Forum Topic

The suppressed report on LTNs

If even TfL's favourite academic can't come up with data that shows LTNs don't reduce car use, perhaps it is now time for everyone to admit what always seemed blindingly obvious from the start. This doesn't create the basis for scrapping all of them but it does mean that local authorities should be looking at where their schemes displace traffic to. There needs to be hard questions asked about whether or not some of these schemes have been manipulated to make nice roads nicer and roads were the less well off live, more polluted.

Francis Rowe ● 24d84 Comments

Thanks Tom,Happy to accept that the introduction of the SCLN restrictions is likely to be responsible for a 2.5-3% reduction in licensed private cars.Visualising the whole dataset makes it much clearer.

Andrew Jones ● 15d

Oh dear, Markie’s getting silly again but yes, eventually, but in the meantime let them camp in Kahn’s LTNs. They’re safe, secluded, quiet places for the privileged few aren’t they?

Steve Taylor ● 17d

Which are the roads where the less well-off live?

Dominik Klimowski ● 17d

Send them to Rwanda, eh Steve.

Mark Frost ● 17d

Here's the full dataset, all quarters, to identify when the difference in SCLN took place, with the London figures included.  The rest of Chiswick has continued to closely followed London as a whole since the beginning of 2020, while SCLN increasingly diverged in the second half of 2020, stabilising at around  3% less car ownership.

This divergence corresponds to the period over which the SCLN was introduced with the barriers on Staveley Road, Harvard Hill and Burlington Lane and the ANPR cameras at Hartington Road. Given the timing of this significant divergence, by far the largest in the fifteen years of data, it's reasonable to think that the restrictions were the cause of the reduction in car ownership.

That said, the pandemic clearly produced an even larger reduction in car-ownership trends across Chiswick and London as a whole, with a drop of 7 to 8% compared to the prepandemic trends. This is a larger drop than seen in GB as a whole, and has happened rather more slowly:
So overall, for the more than 10% drop in car ownership seen in SCLN since the beginning of 2020, the causes can be attributed to a sudden drop of 3% in the second half of 2020 coincident with the introduction of restrictions, with the rest divided between a slower drop seen in GB as a whole and an additional drop seen in London.

Tom Pike ● 17d

Reform love a good march and demo to get things done! The people have spoken and Reform have listened. The unwanted LTNs WILL go.

Steve Taylor ● 17d

IIRC  fewer than thirty 'marched' to save the LTN in question whereas over 2,500 marched to have them removed.The people have spoken.

N V Brooks ● 17d

>Reform still promising to get rid of all LTNs.Not even One Ealing went there, said the existing LTNs that have existed (looong) before covid weren't on the table, Ealing and Hounslow have many of those.And yeah, good luck with that anyway, an LTN in Ealing was looking like it could get the chop a few years back and people marched to the town hall to save it.

Paul James ● 17d

Reform still promising to get rid of all LTNs.

Steve Taylor ● 17d

Ah well, if it distracts you from being rude to all and sundry, I guess that is a winner. What a sad person you are.

Richard Greenhough ● 19d

Same old Dickie... hanging around this forum like an old man in a dirty raincoat. He hasn't got an original thought in his head so the only thing he can do is parrot back what others post.

Michael Robinson ● 19d

I thought you were the CW4 XL Bully, but if you self-identify as CW4's sad old man as well, then good for you.

Richard Greenhough ● 19d

I'm sure that correcting my spelling has made your day Richard. I'm pleased that I have been able to bring some joy to your sad existence.

Michael Robinson ● 19d

As I said in March - Fine, Michael, just carry on insulting those who disagree with you.And thanks for demonstrating that you cannot accept being corrected when you are wrong.

Richard Greenhough ● 19d

I support worthwhile stats if they could be useful but not if they are produced and manipulated for onanism.

Steve Taylor ● 19d

Few posters on this forum can match Richard Greenhough when it comes to irrelevant pedantry.

Michael Robinson ● 19d

"..rat-runned.." ?Interesting sentence construction. Lazy or incompetent or both ?

Richard Greenhough ● 19d

Lovely to see Boggy being as charming as ever.

N V Brooks ● 19d

Yeah who listens to statistics and facts ?

David Burke ● 19d

And it’s hilarious. Someone can drop the bait and private Robinson and Corporal Pike scuttle off like cockroaches to spend hours and hours on useless, manipulated graphs which nobody is interested in because it is bleeding obvious that the LTNs don’t serve the majority of citizens in any good way at all.  They are supported by a minority of people who are just exceptionally selfish!

Steve Taylor ● 19d

Lazy, incompetent or both Francis?A brief glance at UK census data shows your 'self-evident' claim about numbers of houses along the A316 vs. Grove Park is rubbish.There is actually higher housing density along some of the former rat-running routes in Grove Park than there is alongside the A316.  Maybe because it is so long since you rat-runned there, you have forgotten about the mansion blocks and social housing along the route.

Michael Robinson ● 19d

"it is just that Francis is too lazy or doesn’t have the competence to research it."I have to confess this is true.

Francis Rowe ● 19d

“ it seems to me self-evident”That’s the problem with a Francis Rowe “self evident” that it isn’t “self evident” at all and Francis just plucks these opinions from his posterior with no justification.There is plenty of data available on local residential numbers, whether this is from ONS census data, or Royal Mail postcode data, it is just that Francis is too lazy or doesn’t have the competence to research it.

Michael Robinson ● 20d

why does he make the charts so misleading? looks like a massive drop in the graphics but it's only a modest %

Davy Jones ● 20d

Thanks for correcting the graph - it wasn't obvious to me why the vast majority of private licensed cars appeared twice in the data, but the similarity in the numbers made me realise that this had to be happening.I'm prepared to accept that "something" was a factor in car ownership starting to fall off at a greater rate, and earlier than it fell off in the three LSOAs you mentioned previously that were outside of the GP LTN.But from what I could see "something" was also a factor in car ownership starting to fall off at an accelerated rate in those other three LSOAs, when you looked at just the Q1 figures, a year later.I've no time to do it today, but I might have a shot at normalising my Q1 figures and overlaying them onto your graph below.

Andrew Jones ● 20d

I didn’t expect anyone quibble that the population living along Burlington Lane was larger than the roads benefiting from lower traffic than the SCLN and I don’t have any data to prove it. However, it seems to me self-evident that the large detached properties on roads such as Hartington and Staveley have fewer occupants than the social housing blocks and numerous HMOs not to mention the primary school and nursing home on the A316. What hopefully everyone can agree on is that the concept of a residential street is a nebulous one and just because an area is primarily residential doesn’t mean it should automatically be the one chosen to benefit from an LTN.Someone off forum pointed out a flaw in my suggestion that there was a reduced opportunity cost of putting more traffic on an already blighted road. The main harm caused by traffic is its effect on air quality. However, levels under normal conditions, even by a busy road like the A316 pollution levels are not necessarily that harmful. However, they will spike to dangerous levels if there is consistent queueing which there will be if you direct traffic to already busy roads. These exceedances are the ones that really impact those with breathing problems.Tom is always very reluctant to take as evidence observations of people living in an area about the area in which they live. They are consistently saying that queueing on the A316 back from Hogarth Roundabout has got much worse in recent years especially since the SCLN was put in place. He will draw attention to the failure of the number of crossings of Chiswick Bridge to soar after the closure of Hammersmith Bridge as proof that people are deluding themselves. However, he ignores much more convincing data from TfL which suggests people in the area are right about increased queueing.  The average speed on the 1.37 mile stretch from Chiswick Bridge to Hogarth Roundabout fell to 13.9mph in 2024 having been 14.1mph the previous year and 17.9mph in 2019 before the pandemic. This increased the average delay by 24 seconds which will be time spent with engines running outside people’s homes and a local primary school. This of course may not be entirely down to the SCLN and TfL clearly think there is a developing problem at Hogarth Roundabout given their abortive road widening scheme. However, the council needs to acknowledge there is a potential danger and at least start investigating its impact.

Francis Rowe ● 20d

Thanks, Andrew. DVLA listed both the individual body types and the total, which makes very little difference to the plot of relative change only the overall numbers:
As I said, I included all the LSOAs that fell completely in the SCLN. Here's the map of those in red plus the border of all the LSOAs in Hounslow W4:

Tom Pike ● 20d

https://stats.hounslow.gov.uk/overview/?feature=E05013610#/view-report/7eb5828a293f4f9db44dcf451e97b8f5/E05013611/G7

Andrew Jones ● 21d

Good people of Chiswick if you want to see the next 10 episodes of Paul 'The fantasist' James's diatribe on cars, simply please refer to posts passim on the Ealing version of this forum. Let us see how long it takes before he both contradicts himself denies saying "anything of the sort" and fantasises about squadrons of Kamikaze skip lorries chasing him across pavements. I would waste time ridiculing his posts if his obsession was not so sad.

N V Brooks ● 21d

Oh don't get me wrong, london is amazing in many ways including how busy it gets.However, the amount of motor traffic we have has many many negative consequences, including road safety and pollution both of which are killing and damaging so many people.Not to say cars should be banned, but their use needs to be much reduced, then people that REALLY need to use them can all get about better.

Paul James ● 21d

They are nice graphs Tom ( apart from the fact that 27% appears next to two of the horizontal grid lines, a bit like 26% but I know that you mean 27.5% and 26.5%) but how confident are you about those numbers?Are you sure there are just under 6,600 privately owned cars in the Grove Park LTN?At least one of us is definitely wrong, as I make the number of privately owned cars in the 4 LSOAs that you mentioned as less than half of 6,600.Would you care to tell me which rows in df_VEH0125.csv you have looked at to get your values?

Andrew Jones ● 21d

Well Paul, I've never said LTNs don't work, and the O.P. refers to the placement of them, most who live in London love everything about it, hustle bustle and traffic, love it.

Janice Evans ● 21d

It would be interesting to see the bridge vehicle count for particular days. I wonder if the fall in weekday counts is the same or different to a Saturday. Presumably the drop from 2022 reflects an increase in work from home after Covid. Some of the earlier falls in counts  seem to correspond to local changes eg falls in Wandsworth bridge counts follow restrictions in north Wandsworth. I have a personal interest in this: on Saturday mornings I travel (drive) to Wandsworth/merton borders a distance of just under 7 miles. I have been doing this for at least thirty years. Over this period my journey time has steadily increased from around 25 to 30 minutes to pushing an hour. More recently it has taken over an hour due to significant road changes around Putney Bridge. It’s never been a pleasant journey but is now very frustrating especially on return as irritated drivers become aggressive. These vehicle count figures support my sense that it’s not the increase in cars but the road changes that have led to the time increase. Most of these changes are not LTN related but are reductions in space or signal changes on main roads. The Exception would be the restrictions north of Wandsworth  Bridge. Before these restrictions, I would quite often go via Wandsworth but now, never,  so some traffic, including me, is using either Putney or Chiswick bridges instead. I have looked at and sometimes used alternatives to my journey for those times when I don’t need a car but these are not great either. Eg involving a change of tubes at Earl’s Court and at least one bus it’s even slower than driving (and more expensive). And not helped by a pretty poor district line service with frequent signal failures. Clearly there is an attempt to get people out of cars but it does seem like there is more ‘stick’ than ‘carrot’. And of course many journeys have to be done by car/van simply because there is no viable alternative. Not every London journey is people travelling into the centre, for which there is ample alternative provision.

David Turner ● 21d

Hardly a "suggestion" that LTNs don't reduce traffic merely a statement of fact hence the suppression of the report. Anyway, Tom has evidenced the reduction in private car ownership, irrelevant as that was. So they are just now simply using fewer cars more often. It's called living in a city, get over it or move to a gated enclave. Many in Hanwell and Ealing will probably contribute toward your removal expenses.

N V Brooks ● 21d

>It's always best to move to a no through road or Crescent if you don't liketraffic.Who does like motor traffic?Also, many many people don't really have a choice where they live.And if LTN's don't work to reduce traffic levels as some people are suggesting then I see they are silent about what should be done about it instead (shhh, it's road user pricing)

Paul James ● 21d

It's always best to move to a no through road or Crescent if you don't liketraffic.

Janice Evans ● 21d

I am sure that I read that has bought a crumb of comfort to the velophiles however that is not the germane point surely. LTNs were claimed to have REDUCED CAR USE, it is now patently obvious that, overall, they did not given that TFL have now admitted that the buried report was skewed/ incorrect / based on falsehoods.

N V Brooks ● 21d

Or even more clearly, here's the drop in ownership in the SCLN compared to the trend in the proportion of ownership in Hounslow W4 from 2010 to 2020:That's now a 6.7 sigma drop in 2020, or a 1 in 100 billion that would be seen by chance. Looking at the actual car ownership in the LTN, it has dropped by nearly 600, or 8%. It really is very difficult to imagine that anything other than the introduction of the LTN in 2020 caused this fall in ownership given divergence in the trend from the rest of Chiswick also occurred in 2020. 

Tom Pike ● 21d

Love my LTN Street. it went from nose to tail traffic every morning and evening to very reduced traffic, much reduced noise and pollution. Big benefit for us in my road. It’s great. I don’t have a car, and am sick of cars being king of London.

Petey Rosebar ● 21d

I realised my figures included car dealerships, not just private ownership. That certainly skews the figures outside of Grove Park. Here is a comparison of all the LSOA in the Hounslow part W4, divided between the five that are completely in the SCLN and the rest. The drop in 2020 is statistically very significant (2.7 sigma).

Tom Pike ● 21d

Firstly, sorry that I got your name wrong Claire.The other thing I would say is that Zita was in part replying to a question that I was posing about whether LTNs really have resulted in car ownership within the LTN being significantly reduced, which is obviously connected with car use. The money saving was a consequence of her decision to get rid of her own car, whether it was the driver for it I don't know.You can see if you've read my debate with Tom that I'm not convinced LTNs do necessarily lead to a significant reduction in car ownership within LTNs.Of course some people might feel that the lower traffic levels within an LTN mean they can utilise certain other modes of travel that they might have been apprehensive of using beforehand, but the majority of car owners within an LTN? They aren't inconvenienced by restrictions on entering the LTN they are resident in, which is why I don't see the automatic causal link that Tom suggests there is between intorducing LTNs and a subsequent significant reduction of cars 'resident' within the 'LTN' solely because of the introduction of the LTN.And my apologies for being a bit snappy in my previous post.

Andrew Jones ● 22d

"So even if Rachel Aldred's report had been completed, and passed peer review, it would hardly have overturned the weight of existing evidence, but only added to it, that some LTNs do lead to increased active travel, but not all."Yes, it was a particularly poorly compiled report as I maintained OVER A YEAR AGO.

N V Brooks ● 22d

It is, so much personal freedom!

N V Brooks ● 22d

Oh dear, oh dear Paul. Your blatant fabrications get worse with each post. No one is opposing school streets. The opposition to main road cycyle lanes (notably Boston Road) is predominantly based on the design being incredibly poor with the proposed lane simply stopping in many areas.  If I recall correctly one of the loudest voices 'screaming. at polution in schools was you own outside your son's school (St. Mark's on Boston Road). What did you do practically when it was found that the pollution monitoring stations were out of action? Nothing except scream louder and blame motorists despite  a local councillor being in denial about broken equipment and called out over it.Sad to see that you have had to take to fabricating facts on this forum as your fantasies are simply shot down on the Ealing fora.  Never mind, I am sure it will not be long before the good people of Chiswick expose you for the sad fantasist that you are.  Where next Paul? Acton? Ulaanbaatar

N V Brooks ● 22d

Not true, of course, Paul. But do keep making things up if it makes you happy.What next? Car drivers force lollipop ladies to quit?

Simon Hayes ● 22d

Tom,I understand that you aggregate the four LSOAs with a hope of identifying a trend. The ratio of licensed cars in the 4 GP LTN LSOAs to the licensed cars in the 3 non LTN LSOAs was the following:2017 Q1: 1.600  ( 2756 v 1722)2018 Q1: 1.613  ( 2701 v 1675) 2019 Q1: 1.634  ( 2704 v 1655)2020 Q1: 1.606  ( 2680 v 1669)2021 Q1: 1.534  ( 2548 v 1661)2022 Q1: 1.607  ( 2535 v 1577)2023 Q1: 1.615  ( 2474 v 1532)2024 Q1: 1.591  ( 2459 v 1546)2025 Q1: 1.570  ( 2424 v 1544)Now ok, you'll presumably point to the 4.93% fall from 2680 to 2548 and compare it to the 0.48% fall from 1669 to 1661 between 2020 Q1 and 2021 Q1 as evidence to support your assertion that it's th LTN that's responsible.Fair enough, but what then do you suggest might be behind the 5.06% fall from 1661 to 1577 in the non LTN zone over the following 12 months? The fall in the GP LTN over this period was 0.51% from 2548 to 2535.I'd say this 5.06% drop in the non GP LTN area a year after the 4.93% drop in the GP LTN area is comparible, wouldn't you?It can't be because they introduced an LTN outside of Grove Park because we know that didn't happen.

Andrew Jones ● 22d

Opposition to LTNS in Ealing (at the new ones that were put in during covid at least) frequently screamed at the top of its lungs about schools on main roads being polluted. LEave the back street alone they said, focus on main roads first.The LTNS got taken out, nothing after that, oh, hold on, opposition groups are now opposing school streets and cycle lanes on main roads..It is almost as if they only thing they cared about were their own driving convenience.

Paul James ● 22d

You need to aggregate LSOAs within an LTN to have a hope of identifying the trend due to the LTN. Obviously, changes in car ownership between LSOAs within the same LTN cannot be down to the LTN itself! The unrelated random effects will be reduced by averaging. I've aggregated four LSOAs in the SCLN and looked at Q1 figures, so the exact date is not important. What is clear is that the largest drop in ownership occurred in the year the LTN was introduced, and that subsequently car ownership has been steadily dropping. Nothing comparable was seen in other years, or in other areas.

Tom Pike ● 22d

"It may be that LTNs haven't reduced the number of car journeys undertaken - depends who you ask and what figures you are inclined to believe."Helpfully, Rishi Sunak ordered a government review of the evidence:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65f400adfa18510011011787/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-research-report.pdf"The available evidence from the UK indicates that LTNs are effective in achieving outcomes of reducingtraffic volumes within their zones while impacts (positive or negative) on boundary roads appear to beminimal.""We found that LTNs have not adversely affected response times for emergency vehicles.""Directly, there is evidence that there has been less street crime and improved road safety within LTNs, but ongoing research is needed to draw more conclusive findings.""Evidence from UK LTNs indicate that schemes’ impacts have been mixed with some positive evidence ofincreased time spent travelling actively - walking and cycling - and others showing little to no change.The evidence does not indicate whether increases are a result of a higher number of people engaging inactive travel or increased time among those already engaged."So even if Rachel Aldred's report had been completed, and passed peer review, it would hardly have overturned the weight of existing evidence, but only added to it, that some LTNs do lead to increased active travel, but not all.

Tom Pike ● 22d

Why did you ask the question then Clare - do you really think that Zita didn't know that an Uber was a car? Of course she did and of course you knew she did.This thread started about the report that TfL (?) commisioned and then abandoned because it didn't look like its conclusions were heading the way that TfL wanted them to.It's true that LTNs do increase the distance of some journeys undertaken. It may be that LTNs haven't reduced the number of car journeys undertaken - depends who you ask and what figures you are inclined to believe.I would say I think you are better than a lot of people if you only used your car when it was necessary. I used to use my car sometimes because it was more convenient than taking the bus/walking/because it was raining. The fact that it costs to park/may not be possible to park etc. has changed my behaviour.

Andrew Jones ● 22d

Thanks Tom, Having had a look at more granular data I'm still not convinced. Just looking at Q1 for the years from 2019 onwards I can see that the numbers of licensed cars in all the LSOAs E01002573-E01002579 were lower in Q1 2025 compared to Q1 2019.And it's true that the only LSOA out of these where the licensed car numbers have reduced year on year is E01002576(619/611/576/562/547/530/516) so a massive decrease of 16.2%, but E01002574 (outside the LTN) went down 9.5% in the same period (496 to 449) so a similar % fall to E01002578 and more of a % fall than E01002579.Within the Grove Park LTN itself there is quite a wide range of changes in numbers of cars, and sometimes (both within the LTN and outside it) you'll find that sometimes adjacent areas go in opposite directions in terms of numbers of licensed cars e.g. E01002577 fell by 3.1% from 2023 Q1 to 2024 Q1 (547 to 530) while E01002579 rose by 1.0% (796 to 804) over the same period.I can't say that you're incorrect (of course) but equally I can't be convinced just on this data that you are correct - you might be, you might not be. What further complicates matters is that the LTN wasn't introduced on a particular date ... there were initial restrictions, then changes and modifications before we ended up with the final scheme there is now.

Andrew Jones ● 22d

Francis, your post definitely highlights selfishness - your own.  Your faux concern for people who live alongside the A316 as a smoke screen for your own driving habits is very obvious.Traffic counts on the A316 were higher in the 2000s than they are now but for some strange reason, concern about traffic levels on the A316 only came up after there were measures to reduce the number of drivers cutting through Grove Park.  As if the drivers who want to cut through Grove Park were doing this as a favour to the people on the A316 and the emissions from their vehicles would be like the air of freshly mown alpine meadows if only they could avoid the A316.The A316 and A4 are part of London's strategic road network and that means they are intended to carry high volumes of traffic.  Just Google TLRN and you can see the overall map.If you and the Conservative councillors think that roads like Harvard Hill and Burnaby Gardens are exactly the same as multi-lane roads with 40mph speed limits, then you should campaign to get them redesignated as part of London's strategic road network.If you think there is too much traffic on London's strategic road network, then then this will need a London-wide approach.  However for some reason, measures that would do this, like ULEZ or road pricing schemes, or making parking more difficult and more expensive, are also opposed by the same people who oppose LTNs.It is almost as if they only thing they care about is their own driving convenience.

Michael Robinson ● 22d

Thank you for pointing out the blindingly obvious, Andrew. This thread isn't about saving money by not having a car.  It's about car use. Zita is still using cars, whether owned or not.  They still add to the pollution.  When I had a car, like most people,  I only used it when necessary - just as Zita uses hire cars or taxis when necessary.  Whether owned or hired, they have not been stopped by LTNs but do have to drive further and longer to avoid them.

Claire Moran ● 22d

Oh course Zita does. All she is saying is that she doesn't need to own a car - she saves a lot of money by not having one and when she needs the use of a car she'll hire one or use an Uber.

Andrew Jones ● 22d

Francis, there has been precisely no confirmation from this incomplete study that "necessary journeys would be made longer and other journeys displaced". The study was based on a questionnaire about car use by people living in LTNs, not traffic patterns induced by them.In any case, whatever might be the results of more general studies, we have local data that shows that car ownership has dropped in Grove Park after the introdution of the SCLN. Your suggestion that those who give up their own vehicles in favour of car clubs and Ubers have no effect on pollution and congestion is quite odd. Such a shift produces a clear incentive to take alternative modes rather than just hopping in a car, and with all the associated health benefits, as Zita make clear.Similarly, while you like to repeat your claim that reduced traffic crossing the Thames somehow means more congestion, you provide no evidence to back it up. In fact traffic numbers are down in both Hammersmith and Richmond since the bridge closure, more than the London average. So where is this displaced traffic you claim? And I'm intrigued as to how you have estimated that more people live along the A316 than on the roads in Grove Park which were subject to rat running, Hartington Road, Thames Road, Staveley Road, Burlington Lane, Park Road and Sutton Court Road. In any case, since the SCLN was introduced the number of cars crossing Chiswick bridge, whether they travel along the A316 or through Grove Park, has dropped considerably, from over 40k a day in 2018 to 32k last year, reducing the overall pollution which affects all the schools and residents in the area.You should really be paying more attention to the data we already have rather than continuing to ignore it in favour of your unsupported claims.

Tom Pike ● 22d

Zita, an Uber is a car, or didn't you realise?

Claire Moran ● 22d

Many of us have said on here and elsewhere that traffic simply gets displaced but were shouted down each time by the pro cycling mafia.  Like much else today what minorities would like to be true has been pushed at the expense of reality.  On that subject, what has happened to serial ranter Paul Campbell on here?

Claire Moran ● 22d

As ever, a fairly impressive array of data has been presented to make various points but the key fact we need to bear in mind is that Professor Rachel Aldred’s research has shown that road access restrictions don’t reduce car use.This has confirmed what many people thought likely when these measures were widely introduced – that necessary journeys would be made longer and other journeys would be displaced – so you end up with as many vehicles on the road as you started with.As has been explained on this forum many times before, fewer bridge crossings are more likely to indicate increased congestion and looking at these numbers in isolation does not take into account displacement i.e. deliveries that now may be taking longer to make but are not crossing the Thames. Similarly falling car ownership tells us nothing if the alternative is car clubs and Uber, which judging by this thread it may well be.If you accept the conclusions of what I presume to be the most detailed research done on this subject, it has to be acknowledged that LTNs can’t be justified through any benefit they might deliver to modal shift. There are however other potential benefits they offer, including as has been pointed out, the redirection of traffic away from residential streets. There can be no doubt that the SCLN has diverted a significant amount of vehicles away from Staveley Road making that lovely cherry tree lined avenue an even more desirable location. We can’t pretend anymore that these vehicles have simply disappeared – many of them are now on Burlington Lane which was already blighted by traffic. This is not a straightforward win however. Although most people and TfL wouldn’t count the A316 as a residential road, more people actually live on it than in the Grove Park roads that are benefiting from these changes. You could argue that the changes haven’t really had much impact on the lives of those living where the displaced traffic has landed as their road was already badly affected by traffic. That may be true, but the concern must be that the increased length and regularity of queueing vehicles back from Hogarth Roundabout to Chiswick Bridge which we have seen over the last few years, must be having an effect on air quality. The residents of Alexandra Gardens or the children of Cavendish School may not be as effective as the householders of Staveley Road in lobbying for their interest but that doesn’t mean that the council shouldn’t be looking out for them. The first step in doing this would be a proper investigation of the effects of the LTN into the air that they breath.

Francis Rowe ● 22d

To consider whether we're looking at a fair comparison, it's important to take in account that we're looking at changes, not absolute numbers. Hence while of course we can expect patterns of car ownership to vary across Hounslow, they will in general respond in similar ways, for example when CPZ permit fees increase, fuel costs change or shifts from WFH. The fact that Grove Park saw a change in car ownership which was significantly different from the borough as a whole when you compare the period up to 2020 with the period from 2021 onwards therefore cannot simply be explained away by Grove Park being different from the rest of Hounslow. It rather suggests that the cause was something that took place in Grove Park in that period.The vehicle registration by LSOA is df_VEH0125.

Tom Pike ● 22d

Few would dispute that most living in LTN’s wake up every day having a wet dream knowing how their selfish joy is causing pollution, traffic chaos and misery for thousands of others. And they love to gloat don’t they? It’s great to be so content in smugness.

Steve Taylor ● 22d

Hi Tom,Thanks for expanding. I welcome the discussion.LBH does indeed surround the GP LTN, however I did also write that ( in my view) comparison with the whole borough doesn't compare like (LTN aside) with like as Hounslow is hardly a particularly homogenous borough. Are you able to provide a link for the spreadsheet you got your car registration figures from? I had a look, but there are so many spreadsheets out there that I haven't found the relevant one!Thanks!

Andrew Jones ● 22d

Yes we do.

Zita Pease ● 22d

Quiet, child and family friendly residential streets. Brilliant.

Simon Pedley ● 22d

Well I am Grove Park resident . I sold my car. Did not make sense having a car. £20,000 now in the bank getting interest. I am 60 so free transport. No Rego, insurance or garage costs. I worked out I could  take 100s of uber rides for what I save. I do and it is great , my own private car service cheaper than owning a car. I have a global car hire insurance policy which is less than insuring my own car so I can hire a car if I really need to go somewhere where no public transport or holiday. I cycle around Chiswick through the cars in the congestion.  I am much fitter as I walk or cycle everywhere so save money on gym fees. I think the LTNs are great. Our streets are safer over here. The streets over here are narrow and you had big SUVs massive cars driving through fast to save 40 seconds off their time. I honestly think someone was going to die. I am richer and fitter . I use to travel to Brent to work as a teacher . Over the last 8 years my travel time doubled. Coming home from 30 minutes to between 50-1hr 15 . You cannot blame that on LTNs . It more more and bigger cars on the road. I left that job as to depressing each day and sold my car. I feel better and freer .

Zita Pease ● 22d

They are the Covid years when there were changes, more people working from home and also more people using cars rather than transport.

Janice Evans ● 22d

If I'm not mistaken, Michael's "logic" fails. Shocking, I know. In none of the other mentioned LTNs does anyone incur a penalty should they enter. Nor are businesses located there which suffer from a lack of access and/or get penalized in one way or another.A plumber, let's say, could easily get in and out of Beverly Road without risk. At any time. Gran could visit the grandkids on Thornton Avenue as and when she wishes without risk. At any time. And the fact that someone makes an appeal for accurate information re access to Grove Park that doesn't come easily with complete agreement tells you all you need to know about the failure of a scheme based on lies. It's about extortion.As for Tom's bar graph, I notice both these gents are focusing on fewer cars within the LTNs. It seemed to me the supressed information had to do with car evaporation in general. Tom neglects (shocking, I know) the surrounding traffic increase and the fact that the same trip yesterday is now more difficult and time consuming and circuitous today. In business terms, that is a loss no matter how you sugar coat it.  Entertaining though, to watch them ignore Kathleen Dunne's ineptitude with e-bikes (hey, let's let Lime pass through which would benefit everyone except her own constituents - this from an elected representative) to Michael and Tom contorting themselves in defense of lies.

David Lesniak ● 22d

" Tom, you haven’t (to my knowledge at least) provided any data showing that car ownership has increased outside of the Grove Park LTN.LBH surrounds the GP LTN! It obviously saw similar effects from increases in CPZ permit charges, WFH and cost of living increases. In fact, GP, being more prosperous than the borough as a whole might be expected to be less affected in terms of the financial consequences of car ownership. Nevertheless, car ownership fell in GP while it rose in the borough as a whole after the introduction of the LTN.Comparing to the nearest areas in Chiswick which were not affected by other LTNs just confirms that Grove Park saw a significantly different effect between 2020 and 2021. The adjacent areas (LSOAs 1002573-5) saw a 0.4% increase in cars registered, while Grove Park  (LSOAs 1002576-9) saw a 4.4% drop, much larger than any previous year on record.

Tom Pike ● 22d

Yuo write all that as if it's a good thing?

Paul James ● 23d

Tom, you haven’t (to my knowledge at least) provided any data showing that car ownership has increased outside of the Grove Park LTN.For all I know, areas in the vicinity may have experienced a similar fall in registered vehicles. Comparison with the whole borough doesn’t really compare like (LTN aside) with like.Now if you were able to show data for multiple LTNs and contrast with similar non-LTN areas, and show a strong correlation then I’d be far more willing to accept your suggestion that your admittedly plausible hypothesis is the leading cause of the reduction in car registrations in the Grove Park LTN.

Andrew Jones ● 23d

Neither of those possibilities explains why car ownership has fallen in Grove Park while it has risen in the rest of the borough. Any explanation also has to explain why a slowly rising trend in car registration in Grove Park up to 2020 was followed by a drop in 2021 and a subsequent further falling trend. And asking people does not provide the clarity you suggest. Choices are driven by many effects that we might not necessarily admit -take advertising, for example. In that case, success is measured  by an increase in sales, not by asking people if they were persuaded by the advertising.In fact that was always going to be a limitation of asking people people if their driving habits had changed as a result of an LTN, rather than actually looking at objective data, such as the numbers of cars registered in an LTN. On that score, there is no doubt that the introduction of an LTN in specifically Grove Park was associated with a drop in the number of cars registered.Similarly the closures of Hammersmith Bridge, both in 1998 and 2019, were associated with a step reduction in the number of motor vehicles driving over the neighbouring bridges on both sides.  In both cases, there is a simple explanation - road restrictions on motor vehicles cause an overall drop in their usage. 

Tom Pike ● 23d

Poor old Robbo, shouldn’t believe everything he hears. Makes him look gullible. And given his hatred of all things car related he perhaps needs a good long look in the mirror, if he has any unbroken ones in his house.As for opening all roads? Why not? Complaints from residents on many things are routinely ignored, so why listen to certain people and not just a tiny minority. There are still a lot of cars in Grove Park and what must really upset the cycling loons is that many are those ‘wankpanzers’ they so despise.Still he can console himself that majority political change is on its way and his views will be outdated. Just a matter of time…

Simon Hayes ● 23d

Clearly that's not the case in Grove Park!

Andrew Jones ● 23d

As you well know correlation does not imply causation!There could be many things that have caused the number of cars registered in Grove Park to have fallen.Couple of possibilities ... greater uptake of working from home means people might have less need for a car. Increases in charges for a 2nd permit for a car might mean that some households choose to get rid of a second vehicle. Cost of living increases might mean that households choose to get rid of their vehicle or dispense with the luxury of a second vehicle.Of course some vehicles might have been disposed of because alternative modes of transport are more attractive after the LTN was brought in, but unless you ask the people who got rid of their cars why they did so, you can't draw the conclusion that the introduction of the South Chiswick LTN was responsible for the number of cars registered in Grove Park dropping.

Andrew Jones ● 23d

“car ownership in the UK is increasing, with the total number of licensed vehicles, including cars, rising year-on-year since the end of World War II and reaching a new high in 2024, despite a temporary dip during the COVID-19 pandemic due to supply chain issues and reduced demand. The proportion of households with one or more cars has steadily risen over the last 50 years, though the trend of households with multiple cars saw a slight decrease between 2020 and 2022. Long-Term TrendsSteady Increase:The number of licensed vehicles in Great Britain has increased almost every year since World War II, with the exception of 1991 and 2020.”

Steve Taylor ● 23d

Interesting no denial from Simon Hayes.  Or should that be "Simon Hates" given his track record as a hater..He shouldn't worry, there was plenty of evidence of excessive traffic along residential streets, both complaints from residents and any number of traffic surveys using roadside tubes and cameras.I don't understand why he isn't campaigning to remove all the road closures that have been in place in Chiswick.  If he thinks people should be able to cut through from Chiswick High Rd to South Parade, then surely they also should be able to cut through from Chiswick High Rd to Acton Lane, Chiswick High Rd to Chiswick Lane, Stamford Brook Rd to Goldhawk Rd and any number of other rat-runs that have been closed off in Chiswick over the years.Surely Francis Rowe should also be campaigning for these ratruns to be opened up given his justification that they mean less traffic along nice streets and instead, the traffic uses main roads like Chiswick High Rd and Goldhawk Rd.

Michael Robinson ● 23d

After the South Chiswick LTN was introduced, the number of cars registered in Grove Park dropped and has continued to fall. Before, there was a slow increase in cars registered.

Tom Pike ● 23d

How very curious to see Michael and Tom back at it.Nothing from either about LBH's inane e-bike policy. And now we see them both, again, contorting themselves to manipulate flawed research. They promised evaporation. That didn't happen. And clearly everyone at TfL and the mayor's office knew it would not. To my way of thinking, Rachel Aldred should be sacked.

David Lesniak ● 23d

I can see that vein throbbing on your temple Michael Robinson. You need to watch your blood pressure chum.If the idea of LTNs is to reduce rat running then it has to be proven that there is an issue. Most of the restrictions aren’t based on any evidence and simply shove traffic elsewhere, such as happened with the Swyncombe Road closure.It’s the cyclist lobby wet dream to have car free roads, except when it comes to them using cars of course.

Simon Hayes ● 23d

Any truth that Simon Hayes got an injunction (or warning of an injunction) from Ealing council  because of persistent , aggressive, vexatious attacks on some councillors there?It would hardly be a surprise.Like Francis Rowe, he is missing the point the objective of LTNs is reducing traffic on streets afflicted  by rat runners. The objective isn’t to reduce all traffic everywhere.

Michael Robinson ● 23d

It’s always been abundantly clear that LTNs don’t reduce traffic; they simply displace it and make it far worse by radically in treading pollution and traffic congestion in arterial roads. LTNs throttle London and other cities. Kahn has tried to make a selfish political point and he has failed miserably. Hounslow Council has failed miserably. They make money by increasing pollution. It’s criminal.

Steve Taylor ● 23d

The usual twisted rhetoric from Robinson.The point is that people within the LTNs still use their cars just as much. A look at the Grove Park area would tell you that. All those SUVs pootling about must make the blood boil in Robbo’s brain.It was evident that Aldred’s research was flawed as the cycling minority stopped quoting her sometime ago.The LCC want everything closed down for the benefit of a few entities types ;many of whom own and use their cars whenever they like). Fishers Lane isn’t a residential road, it’s a link road between two areas and should be reopened.

Simon Hayes ● 23d

LTNs clearly do reduce traffic within them which is the whole point.There are dozens of LTNs in Chiswick where roads have been closed to prevent through traffic except they weren’t called LTNs when they were implemented. There are no calls to open up streets like Beverley Rd, Vaughan Ave, Riverview Rd and it will be exactly the same for streets like Harvard Hill, Staveley, Fishers Lane. People will forget that they were once open to traffic.Francis’s argument against LTNs appears to be that if he could ratrun along residential side streets, he is doing people who live on main roads a favour. Of course he only cares about his driving convenience but he can’t say that hence the faux concern.LTNs are simply highway authorities doing their job and managing the road network rather than leaving it up to google to direct drivers off main roads and into side streets if the algorithm thinks it may be able save 30 seconds,

Michael Robinson ● 23d

"it is now time for everyone to admit what always seemed blindingly obvious"

Tom Pike ● 23d

They may not reduce traffic, but they sure are a nice little (well quite big) revenue source for local councils!

Davey Harris ● 24d

Seems it did turn out that way.

Janice Evans ● 24d