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What is a Liveable Neighbourhood?
Liveable Neighbourhoods minimise traffic on residential streets from vehicles using the streets to get to another destination or ‘through-traffic’. Residents and their visitors still have easy access by car to all homes and businesses without driving directly through the neighbourhood, whilst opening up streets so people can safely travel on foot, cycle, by wheeling or by bus. Emergency vehicles can also be prioritised to reach their destinations quicker. Traffic is reduced by using temporary or permanent barriers called “modal filters”, these can be bollards or planters. London has many Liveable Neighbourhoods (also called Low Traffic Neighbourhoods or LTNs) with 55% of Hackney's suitable roads now covered and 47% of Waltham Forest's.
Around 80% of residents supported Liveable Neighbourhoods in the last B&NES consultation (see p19 here). However, now the areas have been chosen, a good response will again be needed.
Research into Liveable Neighbourhoods: Please note - these benefits depend on the scheme and design. Whilst in some cases, single road schemes can work, Liveable Neighbourhoods often work best if they part of a coherent strategy to support alternatives to single-occupancy cars, and if a whole area between main roads is allocated, so behaviours change rather than traffic simply being pushed onto the next road along. This can create a real transformation such as in Waltham Forest's "mini Holland". Your consultation responses will shape how we do it in Bath - do we "go large"?! Click here to go straight to the consultation page- to add your local knowledge.
1. Carbon Emissions: Carbon emissions from UK transport remain stubbornly high . This needs to change rapidly if we are to tackle the climate crisis. As shown below, LNs can reduce traffic and replace car use with other forms of travel, helping to reduce emissions.
2. Safety: Residential streets have increased traffic as a result of sat-navs directing drivers away from main roads. A comprehensive study in London showed that inside LTNs, total road injury numbers approximately halved and showed no change on boundary roads. Another study found a 10% reduction in street crime. Research into emergency service response time also found no significant impact inside the LNs or on boundary roads.
3. Air pollution: Research shows that air quality can improve in the LTNs and active travel can increase. Air quality causes the 36,000 early deaths in the UK and a great deal of suffering for families.
4. Health through active lifestyles: This large 3 years study showed an increase of 41–44 min of active travel in the LNs, mostly walking. Including walking and cycling to daily routines is the most effective way to increase physical activity. This helps to reduce levels of obesity, as well as prevent cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and improves mental health. Analysis from Transport for London estimates that if every Londoner walks or cycles for 20 minutes a day, the NHS would be saved £1.7 billion in treatment costs over the next 25 years. In addition, reducing traffic reduces traffic noise, which in itself has significant health impacts.
5. Traffic within the LNs: Car journeys can reduce radically within LNs, in this case by 75%.
6. Traffic overall: This paper and others have found that around 11% portion of the traffic could not be found on other roads, or 15% in this study, due to people making different transport choices as a result of the LN.
7. Traffic on periphery roads: Some LNs show an increase in traffic on boundary roads but not all do - in this review of 15 LNs, 8 showed an increase and 7 showed a decrease in traffic on periphery roads. This LN decreased traffic on periphery roads 21% as did this LN. This variance underlines the importance of scheme design and other measures to reduce traffic on the boundary roads.
8. Mobility issues: This extensive London survey of attitudes shows that while three in five reporting mobility issues supported roadspace reallocation and traffic reduction measures, they showed less support than people without (58% vs. 71% without mobility issues). The needs of people with mobility issues require careful consideration and consultation in scheme design. Whilst all residents can still access their homes by car, driving time to services may be increased. There are possible mitigations for this such as exemptions for Blue Badge holders and a range of options would need to be considered. Benefits could include greater road safety for mobility scooters and walking/wheeling, providing that the infrastructure is designed for this (e.g. drop kerbs). It is vital that people with disabilities and on lower incomes are properly consulted and consulted and their needs met through the design and implementation of Liveable Neighbourhoods. We suggest that people advocating for Liveable Neighbourhoods read around this issue for example the report "Pave the Way" by Transport for All, a a pan-impairment organisation that is guided by the belief that all disabled and older people have the right to travel with freedom and independence.
9. The effect of time: Schemes often "bed in" after a while as people adjust their travel behaviour. Schemes often achieve more support once they have been in place a while, for example in Waltham Forest, 41% of those surveyed in the first area where work was planned were opposed. Now just 1.7% in that same area want to go back to how things were before. There will inevitably be strong debate about LNs, which is why it is so vital you respond to the consultation with your views and contact your decision makers and the media if you can.