Greenwich LTNs could return as expanded plans unveiled
An expanded Greenwich Low Traffic Neighbourhood could be installed either side of Greenwich Park under newly released plans.
Consultation has begun on plans which would see roads closed except for emergency services, public transport, blue badge holders and taxis.
Under option A east of Greenwich Park there would be bus-only access on Vanbrugh Hill and near Westcombe Park station.
Vanbrugh Hill is notorious for poor levels of driving with vehicles heading the wrong way down the street.
Click here to see option B which also has bus-only sections in certain directions at two locations.
In West Greenwich many of the restrictions installed then removed in the recent past would be reinstated.
West Greenwich has long had plans for LTNs which predated covid traffic measures.
Royal Hill would again see restrictions near James Wolfe school. The above image shows option A, with B and C visible here.
A number of options for improving streets have also been drawn up, with public realm improvements and new trees and parklets.
New pedestrian crossings can be seen in a number of areas on draft plans.
Comments can be made online with two in-person events and others online set to be held.
The “East Greenwich engagement report” states that “respondents were asked if they agreed with the principle of reducing through-traffic. The majority of respondents strongly disagreed (55%) and 9% disagreed. 29% either strongly agreed or agreed, and 7% were neutral in their response”.
Whereas the “Greenwich E&W Baseline + Traffic Study – East” report states that “Given the key issues outlined on the previous page, a key objective of the neighbourhood management scheme will be to reduce through-traffic within East Greenwich”.
So most residents don’t want through traffic to be reduced but the key objective is still to reduce through traffic.
Regards
I hope they do the same everywhere. Time to realise cars are not a necessity for most.
City planning needs to be less car and more pedestrian oriented.
More white, middle class enclaves. They will keep their cars to drive down my road of course.
Hopefully these schemes are killed by central government’s review before they have a chance to be implemented.
They are not about reducing traffic, they are simply NIMBY schemes whereby those within the area get to enjoy reduced traffic on their roads whilst taking their own vehicles on everyone else’s; or to put it another way, proponents aren’t interested in reducing traffic or vehicle ownership, they simply want it reduced on their own road.
One only needed to take a casual stroll down these LTN streets when they were in place to see all the residents’ parked vehicles (parked for minimal cost due to the tiny annual parking fees the borough charges for vehicles littering our streets) which were parked during business hours – suggesting their vehicles are for pleasure only, not an essential – to see that it’s all one big NIMBY scheme presented misleadingly as ‘healthy’ streets.
And to add to my earlier comment, Crooms Hill videos when LTNs were removed show congested conditions, but this is entirely caused by residents’ parking bays on a narrow road (again, for which they pay peanuts to park) as opposed to large volumes of traffic that the road cannot handle. Remove those residents’ parking bays and the problem is completely eliminated – there’s plenty of other spaces in which their cars can be parked.
Or frankly to those residents: if you don’t have off-street parking, perhaps you should forgo a car? That would also reduce vehicular use and ownership.
Emergency vehicles not allowed to use the bridge on old rover road to and from QE hospital? Really?
Does the council think that keeping ambulances stuck in Shooters’ Hill traffic jams will save life’s?
Bilbo – It’s hardly a middle class thing if for decades most LTNs (long before that’s what they were called) in the borough have been on estates and less prosperous areas of the borough. That argument simply falls away with cursory knowledge of the borough.
It seems like they’ve considered objections before with physical blocks and will now permit emergency services and blue badge holders through so I’m sure those who opposed on those grounds will now be ok with it or will they keep coming up with different reasons?
I used to live in Hackney and seen the borough change gradually. They have the largest number of LTNs and where they have been implemented have become much nicer to walk and cycle around. Sitting outside in front of a cafe or a restaurant or simply walking around without the constant noise and fumes was so much more pleasurable.
This surely benefits everyone.
But I do understand that it also means pushing more traffic onto the main roads and therefore unfair for those (like myself) living on one.
The solution lies in changing the mentality of the public by discouraging unnecssary car use.
@Levi but this doesn’t discourage car use because many of these journeys are necessary – they are going to work or dropping off children at school (where public transport isn’t practically feasible, as it isn’t in much of Greenwich borough as the strip malls in Charlton and beyond will attest). This is what this misses; it assumes people want to be driving in congested conditions and are actively choosing to forgo public transport, when in reality they are forgoing such transport because it really doesn’t exist or if it does it’s 3x longer. Their vehicles are therefore a necessity, unlike many (including me) that live within these LTN zones that have cars as a non-essential or pleasure purpose only (which is why they are all sat parked during working hours), and this therefore simply makes essential or necessary journeys more arduous, for little benefit except to those within the LTN zones as it doesn’t eliminate these unnecessary journeys nor does it reduce pollution.
Greenwich is not Hackney – there aren’t cafes on these West Greenwich streets that are inundated with pollution or parked vehicles. If you sit in a café on Royal Hill, there’s no congestion. Similarly with Hyde Vale or Crooms Hill. This is because the roads can accommodate the traffic, assuming they aren’t perpetually blocked by residents’ parked cars.
Ironically car ownership is much higher within these LTN zones than poorer parts of Greenwich, which should not be the case if the aim is to reduce car ownership and usage. What discourages car use and will help is removing (or significantly increasing the cost of) residents’ parking permits (if you don’t have off-street parking, you should pay a significant fee within such a zone to park on-street), taxing vehicles within such zones more or restricting vehicles to EVs only – there’s no political will or desire to implement such schemes as although they would clearly be effective they are highly contentious, so instead we have tinkering in the form of LTNs solely for the benefit of those with the loudest voices or biggest connections.
If it’s a proper consultation, at least one option should be not to dump traffic on boundary roads, screw up public transport even more, and push ambulances into 40 minute tailbacks on the A2.
Doesn’t have to be the only option, but give people a fair choice.
See my Twitter poll at https://twitter.com/RichHunterGrwch/status/1695884331682615323?s=20