We recently wrote a blogpost addressing those who oppose low traffic neighbourhoods from the perspective of wanting to ‘open our roads’ to prioritise the convenience and freedom to drive.  But another group of opponents are more likely to say they support lower traffic in principle ‘...but just not like this’.  Evidence should matter to this group, because if you genuinely believe in reducing traffic harms, then presumably you support means that work over those that don’t.

Of course there is a reason Councils are putting in LTNs to reduce traffic and pollution, rather than opening up roads:  The evidence of significant benefits is now clear and getting clearer with every passing year.  So why does this topic still seem so contentious? 

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Accepting evidence is tied to beliefs and values

One reason is people struggle to feel normal behaviour (like driving to get around) is a problem, and it is difficult to accept any evidence that contradicts our values and preconceptions. 

It is understandable to want lower traffic in theory without downsides in practice, and if you believe LTNs are unfair, cause more pollution, or just move traffic around, then you are much less likely to accept evidence which shows these claims are untrue, no matter how much effort and expertise has gone into producing it.

​Denial and misinformation 

Another problem is the industry of active denial and misinformation that has developed around different anti-LTN movements.  
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This commonly includes:

• Cherry picking data out of context 
• Using limitations to attack legitimacy (the idea that every positive study is ‘flawed’) 
• Saying evidence is 'discredited' simply because of who produced it (called ‘Ad hominem attacks’)
• Misleading claims (such as misrepresenting studies or outcomes or presenting opinions and concerns as facts)

Keep an eye out for anti-LTN individuals, journalists and groups using these tactics, and you will soon start to see them everywhere.

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What is weak evidence?

So how can you tell what is valid from what isn’t? It helps to start by thinking about what evidence is, and how to judge its worth. Not all evidence is equal!

At the lowest end of value are anecdotes, or people’s stories as to how they have been affected by a change.  

Anecdotal evidence can be very useful to understand possible effects, or how some people feel, but the fact some people may be really angry or happy about something is not an indicator of the strength of an argument.  

Sometimes politicians call anecdocal evidence 'lived experience'.  It is common to hear that decision makers only need listen better to people's lived experience, and act accordingly, and better decisions would be made.  But this ignores complex realities.

Whose lived experience? Are these experiences representative? Do selected perceptions match reality?  Unfortunately this anecdotal evidence, no matter how strongly expressed, tells us very little about true vs perceived impacts, how extensive a problem or benefit is, how to balance competing priorities, or how a policy impacts at a population level.

This is not about disbelieving people, everyone's experience and perception has validity, but about finding ways of objectively weighing up competing and often contradictory perceptions, views and stories. 

Related weak evidence sources are articles in the press and self-published campaigns and websites (…yes even ours! Don’t just take our word for it, always read the original sources). 

Press articles and campaign groups often like to tell an engaging story, or quote opinions as facts with little regard for scientific accuracy. 


How the press monetises misinformation and anger
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The unspoken aim of many commercial press stories is to act as ‘rage-bait’ which intentionally sows division and enrages both sides of a debate to increase clicks, social media shares, engagement and advertising revenues. 

​Anecdotes and press articles can be highly persuasive, and can seem very convincing, but these are not valid sources of evidence!
 

Real evidence

Above these in the hierarchy of value are data and evaluation reports from institutions like Councils or Transport Authorities. Their data will have been collected and compiled by people with expertise and is more likely to accurately represent impacts. However, it may be snapshots in time, limited in scope or analysis, and is not ‘peer-reviewed’ by other experts.
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To weigh up population level impacts to decide whether a policy is a good one, ideally you need more rigorous analysis and scientific studies which look at a lot of data across wider areas to be able to judge impacts. This type of evidence is the top of the hierarchy of value and helps to support policy decisions. 

It is increasingly strong evidence from these types of scientific studies that have encouraged Councils to install LTNs.  

We presented the three candidates with a set of five elections "asks" and asked if they supported them, or not. Here are the five asks and the responses from the mayoral candidates:
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1. Enable all children to safely walk and cycle to every primary and secondary school in Hackney There should be school streets (which 20,000 students currently benefit from, a little over half), filters, protected cycle lanes on main roads, or safe junctions for every primary and secondary school in Hackney by 2030. School streets already delivered without enforcement measures should be upgraded.

Result: all candidates put their hands up to support this.

2. Continue to roll out low-traffic neighbourhoods, and connect gateways between them to maximise their potential for safe cycling, walking and wheeling We wish to see the council accelerate rollout of area-wide traffic reduction schemes, so the benefits can be shared across the whole of the borough. Existing schemes with time-based restrictions (e.g. Lansdowne Drive, and Chatsworth Road) should be made operational 24/7. Safety measures cannot only be operational just some of the time. To maximise the benefits of these low traffic areas, gateways should be installed across boundary roads to allow safe cycling, walking and wheeling between them.

Result: Labour and Green candidates support this. The Conservative candidate does not

3. Reduce use of kerbside space for private car parking by 10% by 2030, and convert to more sustainable uses The council should adopt a formal strategy for reducing the use of kerbside space for private car parking, and instead use this valuable and limited resource for more sustainable and beneficial uses. This should include (on every residential street) parking for dockless micromobility vehicles, cycle hangars, and also traditional bike parking. It would also free up space for greening, car club spaces, and could speed up bus services.

Result: Labour and Green candidates support this. The Conservative candidate does not
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4. Connect Hackney’s town centres by tackling dangerous roads and junctions Many of Hackney's town centres are not currently connected to their neighbouring town centres, either in Hackney or in adjacent boroughs. We ask that the council work towards filling these gaps by 2030, creating new cycleways formed of streets made suitable for cycling through traffic filtering, or the installation of new protected cycle tracks.

TfL regularly produce a strategic analysis of London, identifying missing links in the cycle network. Building the missing Hackney routes shown in their 2023 analysis would achieve much of this ask.

Result: all candidates put their hands up to support this.

5. Reduce overall motor traffic volumes, and explore piloting a road pricing scheme in Hackney Too often roads and junctions in Hackney are optimised for maximum throughput of motor vehicles, leaving pedestrians and cyclists marginalised. There seems to be a reluctance to rebalance this, with impacts to essential services (such as buses) from congestion often cited as a justification for avoiding change. As such, we want the council to commit to a target for reducing overall motor traffic in the borough, to address the real root cause of congestion.

We also wish for the council to actively explore potential methods for distance-based charging of road users, particularly at times and locations when congestion is at its worst, to target this problem directly.

Result: Labour and Green candidates support this. The Conservative candidate does not

 
​One interesting point raised by Zoe Garbett during the evening was that she said there has to be a bigger emphasis on road safety when the council communicates plans for LTNs and traffic reduction.

For info, the Labour manifesto for the May elections which barely mentions transport is here and the Green manifesto which contains significant detail on transport is here. In the interests of fairness, Labour can point to their record in office in terms of delivering traffic reduction and active travel improvements, so perhaps not surprising. Also, Labour have promised detail will come in their new transport strategy and you can see progress on this here .

There are local elections in May this year which will determine who runs Hackney Council for the next four years, and so who is in charge of local roads.

Please come and join us in holding the Mayoral candidates to account on Thursday 16th April, in conjunction with Hackney Cycling Campiagn and Hackney Living Streets.

The hustings are at Pembury Community Centre on Dalston Lane, starting at 7.30pm. No booking required! 

Car parking might seem like a pretty dry and boring topic, but it has surprisingly wide-ranging impacts. 

This blogpost runs though why we should all care about car parking, and how Hackney Council can use it to better manage local traffic.

Why Care?

​Let’s start with the obvious question: If (like 65% of households here) you don’t own a car, why should you care about car parking at all?

Firstly, parked cars take a huge amount of public space from our streets, space which should be there for everyone and not just those who drive.  In London on-street car parking amounts to well over 1,400 hectares of space (equivalent to 10 Hyde Parks in size).  Yet in Hackney only 35% of households own a car, and the travel mode share for private driving is just 8.5%.

​The ‘opportunity cost’ of parking
 
So it is a fair question whether allowing all that public space to go to storage of private cars is the best or most equitable thing we could do with it.  
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Could it be put to better use, for example as bus lanes, outdoor dining to support businesses, sustainable drainage (‘raingardens’), cycle lanes, better/safer sight lines, safe crossings, parklets, street trees, bike hire bays, bike storage, or any number of other alternative uses?

The Council has already started to recognise this with its Parking and Enforcement Plan. But we think they need to go further and faster.  Have a look at some specific examples below.
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Some Examples:

​Repurposing parking spaces to provide sufficient space for hire bikes can keep them off the pavement, which improves accessibility of our streets and encourages use. Hackney Council has done well with this, but many more hire bike bays are needed.

​​An example of a Hackney street where parking directly compromises the conditions of other road users. A one-way street with a contraflow cycle lane filled with parking, which pushes cyclists into the ‘door zone’, or into oncoming traffic, and so provides poor conditions which discourage inclusive active travel. Imagine how much safer and more comfortable it would be if that side of parking were removed and dedicated to making a safe cycle lane.

​Hackney Council has recognised that lack of cycle storage blocks uptake of cycling and is doubling on-street cycle hangar storage from 2023-26. But there is still a chronic shortage with over 6000 people on the waiting list in 2024. Street car parking permits, on the other hand, are issued immediately and have no waiting lists or limits.  A cycle hangar that fits into one car parking space holds 6 bikes.

​Reclaiming the space taken by parking offers the opportunity to truly transform many public spaces from car-dominated streets into pleasant places where people want to relax and spend time, like this street in Camden (Alfred Place). The streetviews show the same street before and after parking removal and transformation.  Such radical transformations help build support for change.
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​Parking encourages driving
 
The second reason we should care, is that the overwhelming majority of homes in Hackney have no private space to store vehicles, so providing so much public space for the purpose of private car-storage is directly enabling higher levels of car ownership and use. We know this leads to harms; busy congested streets, slower buses, road danger and pollution.

Thirdly, the availability of home and destination car parking influences people’s decision whether to use a car.  You are less likely to drive a journey if you can’t be sure you can park close to your destination, or if your ‘home’ space will be gone when you get back.  Available and convenient parking induces demand to drive and directly contributes to the level of traffic on our streets.

56% of motor traffic on Hackney’s streets is local (i.e. starting or finishing the journey in the Borough), meaning reducing local traffic is a very important element of improving conditions on all our roads, including our main roads which suffer the worst effects of car dominance.

​How to better manage parking to control local traffic
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Whilst car parking can undoubtedly cause harms, a level of parking is essential.  Some residents need cars and sufficient visitor parking is important for accessibility, for some businesses, and for many services.  So how can this be managed better? 
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Hackney is already covered with Controlled Parking Zones; this is the basic first step to having any control. But where should we go from here?

1. ​Devise a ‘kerbside strategy’: Stop the default assumption that kerbsides get filled with parking. Have a coherent strategy as to what mix of kerbside uses to prioritise, and then work towards it. Lambeth are a good example of strategic thinking on this.  

2. Use permit pricing as a tool to control harms: Permits in inner London are far too cheap!  Parking spaces here typically have a market value up to 10 times higher than the annual cost of a resident’s permit.  Permit costs should better reflect the market rate.  Anything less is a subsidy to harm (and mostly going to richer people).  Increasing the price also helps to compensate cash-strapped councils for lost revenue that may come from reducing the total amount of parking.  Price must also reflect vehicle pollution, vehicle size and weight as these factors contribute to road damage and danger.

​3. Embrace (a little) ‘parking stress’ (i.e. when a parking zone has high occupancy rates making it more difficult to find parking spaces very close to home): Parking Departments tend to view parking stress as a problem to be fixed and so provide too much space.  For example in a recent consultation on Zone F parking in Hoxton, which created new parking spaces, the Parking Team said: ‘Due to the level of stress highlighted in the profile report, a decision was made to identify locations where parking bays could be added’.  

​But there is no legal obligation for the Council to provide public space for most residents to park private vehicles, only a power to do so if they wish. 
 
Take a leaf from the Mayor of Pontevedra’s book:

The problem with this approach of course is practical and political.  As long as Councils are selling people permits, they (not unreasonably) feel they should be given a convenient space to park… But this can be fixed by our next point; controlling the number of permits issued.
 
​4. Cap the number of permits: The single biggest way the Council can use parking policy as a tool to reduce traffic is to stop issuing unlimited numbers of permits for controlled parking zones. 

We have mentioned that there is no legal obligation to provide people with public space to park their private cars, so don’t treat this as if it is a basic right.  Almost all new homes in Hackney are already built as ‘car-free’ meaning they have no parking and no right to on-street permits.  This is not a new concept, it is just a case of starting to apply it to new residents who move in to existing homes.  

How a Permit Cap could work

• A kerbside strategy would work out how best to use the kerbside, and how much car parking we want it to provide. 
• A permit cap can stop more permits being issued than the available space can accommodate. Parking stress is managed at optimal levels.
• The cap would initially be set to allow all existing permitholders a permit.  Nobody would lose an existing parking right. The cap would improve parking conditions for those with permits, without giving over more space.
• Over time, the level of cap can be reduced by natural wastage from people who move away or don’t renew. 
• If the number of permits issued reaches the cap, any new residents applying must go on a waiting list until a space comes available from a resident moving out or not renewing (just as they currently do for cycle hangar spaces). 
• A waiting list could also allow the Council to better prioritise permits to those more in need of them by using prioritisation criteria if they wish.  Blue badge holders would of course be exempt.

 
Are parking permit caps legal and possible?

Yes! There are already English Councils which do this (including Bristol, Manchester, West Sussex and others).  The most extensive is Brighton and Hove Council who currently cap permits in 5 zones and operate waiting lists when the cap is reached.
 
The magic of this policy is that nobody loses their existing permit right, and yet it still allows Councils to control the number of vehicles in an area over time. 
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A more activist Parking Policy

Whilst some councils, including Hackney, have started to recognise the role of parking in reducing car use, it is still an underutilised traffic reduction tool.  We have declared a ‘climate emergency' here and this powerful control is entirely within the power of the Council.

In order to solve the crisis of too many cars on local streets, and congested main roads, the Council needs to use every tool available. This means prioritising kerbside uses that benefit sustainable active travel and climate adaptation, and it means consciously using parking as a control to prevent ever-increasing numbers of vehicles.

Low Traffic Hackney would like the Council to use parking more forcefully to reduce local car use and to prioritise alternatives.

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Groups opposed to LTNs sometimes like to claim they benefit rich people on side streets whilst poor people on main roads suffer.  It’s a snappy soundbite, but is there any truth to it? We run through the arguments, and the reality, below:

​Myth 1: Poor and working class residents are more likely to use cars so they are more affected by road restrictions

Not True! Car ownership is heavily weighted towards richer groups.  

Data from the 2021 census shows of all regions across England and Wales, London has the highest proportion of households with no cars or vans (42%).  However, when you look at the poorest households, even fewer own cars.

​Household car ownership rises with household income, with around a quarter of households with an income under £15,000 having access to a car, compared to almost three quarters (73%) of households with an income over £75,000.  London residents with access to a car are disproportionately aged between 45 and 64, in full-time employment or retired, and living in high income households.   

Of course these figures are London-wide and include the impact of greater car dependency in Outer London.  In all areas of Hackney, car ownership across all income groups is much lower, with 65% of Hackney households having no access to a car.  In some areas of the Borough such as Shoreditch, under 20% of all households have a car, meaning car ownership amongst the poorest people here amounts to a very tiny proportion of the population.

The truth is cars are expensive! It is estimated that it costs about £3500 per year to run a car in Hackney. Poorer people are less likely to use cars, not more likely. 

People in lowest income groups are far more likely to be on the night bus to work, earning a living on a bicycle, or walking to get around.  

However as with all groups in society, some poorer residents do still own and use cars for a variety of reasons.  Policies which prioritise alternatives to car use are difficult and do involve compromises and adjustment. But existing conditions are incredibly harmful, and more deprived groups are disproportionately affected by these road harms. 

The Council should be concentrating on reducing harms and inequalities, and helping behaviour change by opening up viable alternatives such as safe car-free routes to school which save families money and time.
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All groups benefit from and deserve safe, pollution-free and healthy streets.  It just suits some campaign groups and better off people who use cars to pretend LTNs ‘punish the poor’ in order to present more socially acceptable ways to oppose the policy.
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Myth 2: LTNs only cover the rich areas

Not True! In Hackney LTNs cover and strongly benefit more deprived areas. 

The first point here is that where LTNs are implemented is a matter of policy that is largely separate from whether or not they work.  If LTNs are only implemented in rich areas, they will be unfair.  This is an argument for ensuring fairly implemented LTNs, not no LTNs. 

But this is absolutely not what has happened in Hackney anyway, where the Council has put LTNs across many of the most deprived parts of the Borough. In fact research has shown Hackney’s LTNs are the most socially equal in London, covering areas which are less affluent and more ethnically diverse.

It is also important to understand the majority of Hackney’s social housing estates were originally designed, or have long since been converted into LTNs to prevent through-traffic. This is not a social injustice, it is just a sensible design to minimise harms. Evidence shows extending this has massive benefits for everyone.

Myth 3: LTNs only benefit middle class people. Poorer people live on main roads. They push pollution to main roads.

Not True! There is minimal difference in the population on main roads and minor roads in inner London. Pollution on main roads has fallen. Road harms such as air pollution and road danger disproportionately affect poorer people and those in deprivation. Reducing harms disproportionately benefits those groups.

Evidence shows around 90% of all groups in inner London live off main roads with around 10% of all groups on them.  There is minimal difference in the ethnic mix on or off main roads here. 
 
Pollution on main roads in Hackney has fallen rapidly since recent LTNs were introduced, and is continuing to fall.  Wider evidence shows LTNs reduce air pollution both within and on boundary roads.

Whilst we know well designed LTNs don’t have unequal impacts, existing road harms most certainly do.  Both road casualties and exposure to air pollution are strongly linked to deprivation and so targeting LTNs to more deprived areas can have huge public health benefits.
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​Hackney is blessed with amazing parks which are enjoyed by park visitors but also often used as routes to walk wheel or cycle in or through.  As supporters of safe and inclusive walking wheeling and cycling, here are our thoughts on cycling in Hackney's parks:

Designing cycle routes
Cycle routes through parks are not preferred, as they are unlikely to be socially safe at night, and will exclude some cyclists.  The alternative should be safe routes on roads, including protection from traffic where required
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Cyclist Behaviour
Away from cycle routes, some people will always choose to cycle in parks for travel and leisure.

• Cyclists should: Drop the pace, enjoy the space
• Pedestrians have priority on shared paths, and even where paths are split like in London Fields, pedestrians are often very close by. Cyclists need to slow down to avoid collisions. Enjoy the slow ride and the park.
• Paths crowded? Walk your bicycle or slow down to walking speed.
• In a hurry? Ideally use an alternative route for your journey.
• Avoid startling people: be visible, give an audible warning or ring your bell. 

What the Council can do

• Any space in parks shared between cyclists and pedestrians should be clearly marked with pedestrian priority made clear
• No barriers or humps should be used as these exclude some cyclists as well as wheelchair or mobility aid users
• Consideration should be given to use of speedometers like in London Fields, or gentle chicanes, for example, to encourage cyclists to slow their pace 
• Where entrances to parks are shared between pedestrians and cyclists, they should be designed to not put cyclists at risk from motor vehicles*
• Shared electric bikes should have their speeds limited while in parks through geofencing
• Where there is evidence of conflict between cyclists and pedestrians in parks, it may be appropriate for the council to perform quantitative and qualitative monitoring, with clear thresholds for mitigating action (e.g. average speeds exceed a limit, numbers of cyclists and pedestrians sharing a width of path per unit of time exceeds a limit, etc.) 

The role of Policing
Illegal e-bikes are as inappropriate in parks as they are on the roads, and should be subject to police control
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*The Road User Hierarchy deems that in circumstances where a road design puts cyclists at risk, a design should be found to ensure safety for both pedestrians and cyclists.

Hackney Council has recently consulted on new low traffic neighbourhoods in Hoxton and Dalston, so sure as night follows day, some residents have been protesting to ‘open our roads’ (or ‘open back our roads’).

When people say ‘open our roads’ or ‘stop the road closures’ the real question is to whom they are open or closed, both before and after an LTN is put in place.  

We know LTNs don’t ‘close’ roads to anyone, they merely restrict through motor traffic to keep it on main roads better adapted to that purpose.  We also know there is strong evidence of many benefits from LTNs.  However, it is true that they have implications for freedom of movement, although not just in the way some people claim.

It is tempting to see the current state of city streets as natural or inevitable, but it is something that has arisen over less than the timespan of a single lifetime, as traffic growth has rocketed. 

This has transformed our towns and cities in ways few people imagined before the motor age. 

Cars have now become so ubiquitous that we hardly acknowledge them anymore and most people just accept their presence without thinking. Without positive action to prevent it, every kerbside becomes filled with parked cars, and every road dominated by their movement. This should not be normal!

More than this, people tend to hold negative effects arising from cars and driving to a completely different standard to other sources of harms.  This issue has been coined ‘motonormativity’ by Professor Ian Walker of Swansea University.  
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Professor Walker’s research has shown people are much more accepting of the exact same impacts (such as polluting the air in a densely populated area) when it comes from drivers and cars than from, say, smokers or other factors causing the same harm. The video below explains this in more detail.

A car is a fantastically useful tool, it allows a person to travel in a comfy chair, warm and protected from the elements, listening to music, and directly to where they need to be, with no physical effort at all.  But the truth is this causes community-level harms; pollution, climate change-inducing CO2, bus-delaying congestion, noise, thousands of annual road casualties, and uses vast amounts of public space.

The impact of this is also to effectively close roads to many people and even whole sections of society; unaccompanied children, pedestrians, cyclists, disabled people, people who can’t afford cars, and anyone put off by the noise stress and danger motor traffic poses. Generally the more dominated a road becomes by motor traffic, the less it is ‘open’ to those outside cars. This has led to poor population health and wellbeing.

Motonormativity means people are less likely to accept that their freedom to drive directly harms other people’s freedom to make different choices. 

When people struggle to see or accept the unintentional harms their behaviour causes, they are more likely to treat measures aimed at reducing harms and improving equality of access on roads as attacks on personal freedom.

But failing to address the dominance of cars has stolen the freedom of people to move without them, and in many places left communities degraded, environments polluted and individuals locked into car-dependent lifestyles which damage disposable incomes, health and quality of life.
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So next time you hear someone say ‘open our roads’, ask them if they mean open to school kids on bikes, or disabled people using mobility aids, or people who can’t afford cars, or if they just mean open to the small minority in Hackney who choose to drive.

The message of Low Traffic Hackney is:

If you wish to 'Stop the road closures!' (to the majority without cars) and 'Open back our roads!' (to everyone), then you need to support LTNs!
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​The scheme involves:

• A bus gate on Hoxton Street
• Filters on Stanway Street and Fanshaw Street
• A New School Street outside St Monica’s Primary School​

All elements of the scheme gained majority support, with many people asking for additional filters to make it more comprehensive and effective.