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London voters back LTNs and cycle lanes, analysis of mayoral election results reveals

Conservative opposition to Kensington and Chiswick cycleways results in share of vote plummeting in those wards

London voters living in areas where active travel initiatives have been introduced in the past year, often in the face of vocal opposition, backed parties in favour of schemes such as low traffic neighbourhoods and cycle lanes in last month’s Mayoral elections, according to new analysis.

The analysis was based on first-preference votes in the election, where Labour’s Sadiq Khan secured a second term, comfortably beating Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey.

Ward-by-ward analysis of voters showed that parties such as Labour and the Green Party, which are pro-active travel interventions, did better than those including the Conservatives that were opposed to such initiatives, reports The Guardian.

The analysis was carried out by Julian Bell, until last month leader of Labour-run Ealing Council, which last year introduced a number of LTNs across the borough despite vocal opposition and, including from local Labour MP Dr Rupa Huq, with planters and bollards used to block residential areas to rat-running drivers vandalised and at times moved or overturned.

> Labour MP says low-traffic neighbourhoods “have left women feeling unsafe”

His analysis showed that while the overall Conservative vote rose by 0.64 per cent across the borough, in the five wards where LTNs were introduced the Tory share of the vote fell, as did that of the Liberal Democrats, who also campaigned against the measures.

And while Labour’s vote likewise well in those five wards, it did so by less than the borough average, with the party securing most first preference votes in each, and with more than half of voters there backing it or the Greens.

Bell also looked at voting in other boroughs, which revealed big swings away from the Tories  towards Labour in areas where protected cycleways were introduced last year – namely, the Chiswick Wards of Ealing’s neighbouring borough to the south, Labour-run Hounslow, and in wards along Kensington High Street in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

Compared to the 2016 Mayoral election, the Conservative share of the vote was up by 1.2 percentage points, while Labour’s fell by 4 per cent.

However, in the three Tory-held wards in Chiswick in the west of the borough, where Cycleway 9 opened before Christmas and now runs from Kew Bridge along Chiswick High Road towards the boundary with Hammersmith & Fulham, the Conservative share of votes plummeted by between 10 and 12 percentage points, while Labour made a gain of 4.4 points.

The contrast was even starker in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, where the borough-wide Tory vote fell 11 percentage points, with Labour’s share increasing by 2.2 percentage points.

However, within the four wards covering Kensington High Street – where, last December, the Conservative-controlled council ripped out protected cycle lanes less than two months after they had been installed – the Tory share fell by almost 17 percentage points, while Labour’s increased by 6.7 points.

In a column for the Guardian published alongside the findings of his research, Bell asked: “Are measures to make streets safe for walking and cycling unpopular? Are they vote-losers? Have we failed to take communities with us – and will we, as local politicians, pay the price?”

After explaining why, “as a former Labour leader of Ealing council … I was at the heart of this debate,” and how the LTNs in Ealing had “caused a row noisy even by the standards of cycling scheme rows,” he said that we have now had “the biggest imaginable consultation on these LTNs: we’ve had an election.”

He said that Conservative campaigns outside London based on opposition to active travel measures introduced by local councils had similarly failed to translate into winning votes.

“In contested cycle scheme wards of Manchester, Oxford, West Sussex, and Cambridgeshire, similar patterns of Tory underperformance were seen,” he explained.

“Clearly, bike schemes were not the only factor in any of these results. There were also a few exceptions to the rule – a pro-LTN councillor lost in Newcastle, for instance.”

One paradox of the supposed ‘debate’ surrounding LTNs and cycle lanes is that in the majority of cases, it is Conservative councillors leading opposition at local level – even though encouraging such active travel interventions is a key policy of central government.

> Backers of London LTNs outnumber opponents by three to one

Indeed, as transport journalist and author Carlton Reid points out in this article for Forbes.com, one of the conditions of the latest £1.08 billion funding package from the government to Transport for London (TfL) is that £100 million of that money must be set aside for the capital’s Healthy Streets initiative, including LTNs.

Nevertheless, opposition to such interventions is continuing, and in some cases continues to take extreme forms.

In London this week, cables used to take traffic counts in LTNs have been severed in Chiswick – by coincidence, just days after a local group opposed to them published their locations online – and in Southwark, planters used to prevent drivers seeking a rat run through Dulwich Village have also been vandalised.

Meanwhile, the Essex county town, Chelmsford, seems set to be one of the latest battlegrounds in opposition to LTNs outside the capital, going by the not-so-subtle headline of this article in the Braintree & Witham Times, Concern over plans to transform Chelmsford to boost walking and cycling.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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18 comments

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massive4x4 | 3 years ago
5 likes

The Guardian article is bogus:

It equates mayoral votes which are normally cast for cultural and allegiance reasons with a specific policy that frankly most voters don't care about.

I think a more broad point would be that LTNs are generally favourably recieved in the abstract and opposed in the specific application.

Essentially the local authorities need to push past the opposition and in the long term a well consulted scheme should pay off. By consultation it needs to assertain needs and requirements not personal preferences which may be poorly informed.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to massive4x4 | 3 years ago
3 likes

You are correct on your first line that one vote could be for multiple reasons. However we have had at least one vocal poster on here claim multiple times that the Anti-LTN vote was THE reason the Tory candidate supposedly did well. (even though percentage wise they pretty much had the same breakdown of results as 2016.)

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markieteeee replied to Lance ꜱtrongarm | 3 years ago
3 likes

Shaun Bailey did about the same as the previous Tory mayoral candidate, so it's difficult to see how his opposition to LTNs was one of the reasons he 'did well'.  He didn't do well.  Maybe you imagine that he would have lost even more badly had he not opposed LTNs? It's a bit far-fetched. Bailey did worse in the wards with LTNs, even in tory areas. One of the reasons is that LTNs are overwhemingly popular with the residents of the areas they are installed in. 

You're also muddled about Brexit: the only pro-remain boroughs in London were right on the fringes of the capital - Hillingdon, Sutton, Havering, Bexley and Barking - most of which, people unfamiliar with London are surprised to see count as London boroughs. London voted remain. It's hilarious that you characterise the affluent areas of Kensington as being pro-remain and anti-statue - you're ascribing the things that you hate about groups you hate, to the tory areas.  Again, it shows your lack of knowledge of the capital and undermines many of your previous comments. 

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markieteeee replied to Lance ꜱtrongarm | 3 years ago
3 likes

Actually, I'm pleasantly surprised that you don't hate any group. Usually when people use your mode of misinformation and lies it is fuelled by hate, so this is genuinely nice to know. I hope it's true. 

You say that everything that I'd written fails the most basic fact check. Yet what you followed this statement with didn't even dispute what I said, nor did it contain any facts (maybe you're unsure what a fact check is?). You did however give some of your opinions about declining tory support which seem general (although I'm sure they have lost some votes for these reasons) but, again, betray your lack of knowledge of the area that you are talking about. 

The 'ultra-elistest' areas of Kensington are the ones that are still safely tory, despite it not fitting your narrative.  K&C is made up of 18 wards. Like all London boroughs, it's a mixed borough, although much wealthier overall - if you have time, you could look up the voting in each ward and maybe furnish yourself with some facts. They won't dispute anything I wrote and the analysis won't really be appropriate for a forum about LTNs but they might make you look like you know what you're talking about occasionally.

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eburtthebike | 3 years ago
6 likes

And yet the media, with the notable exception of the Guardian, ignores the fact that most people support measures to improve things for active travel, but since they have pretty much ignored active travel for at least forty years, this will come as a surprise to no-one.

The BBC in particular, supposedly a bastion of independent, unbiased reporting, simply refuses to mention the incredible benefits of an increase in cycling, but endlessly advertise electric cars.  On Monday morning on the Today programme, they had an article, yet another article, about electric cars, so I emailed them very briefly suggesting that they should feature active travel, and the results were immediate; on Tuesday there was a much longer item about electric cars.  This website recently featured the environment correspondent of the BBC attacking LTNs, not pointing out the massive benefits and the public support, but stirring up division and hate.

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Dave Dave replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
0 likes

Active travel is a dream, for most people. It isn't a realistic option, and it isn't possible for it to be one within, say, a decade, even if we prioritised it and funded it like the Manhattan Project.

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nikkispoke replied to Dave Dave | 3 years ago
15 likes

It seems to be a dream that has come true (at least in part) in many european countries such as Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, even parts of France and Spain. The nightmare is a largely obese and mentally unwell nation such as GB whose child obesity rate is used in many university courses as an example of how soceity goes astray. For the vast majority of people it is a realistic, healthy and totally acheivable prospect. Where it struggles is more complex from a lazy false perception of how it is easier to take the car along with being scared of change and creation of a mental barrier that persuades people that the task is harder than it actually is, as a nation many have now become very conditioned to not being active which is the opposite to how the human body has evolved and is creating multitudes of real problems. The other real problem is the hostile environment to active travel be it pavement parking or non-existent cycle infrastructure, largely by a vocal minority whose sense of self entitlement and selfishness in wishing to be able to continue as they please regardless of the cost to others is considerable.  

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massive4x4 replied to Dave Dave | 3 years ago
3 likes
Dave Dave wrote:

Active travel is a dream, for most people. It isn't a realistic option, and it isn't possible for it to be one within, say, a decade, even if we prioritised it and funded it like the Manhattan Project.

True, for those who disagree Google

"energy technologies institute" modal shift transport

ETI are a government research centre tasked with getting the UK to net zero.

TLDR the volume of passenger miles and tonne miles of freight moved by road is well beyond the capacity of other transport modes.

Active travel and LTNs are great but don't expect a massive change in the amount of passenger miles. The UK has fewer cars and drives them less distance than the Dutch for example.

Also one of the parts of the Dutch model that is missed is that they have a greater density of trunk roads than the UK and far more bypasses and ting roads to avoid cars driving through city centres.

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massive4x4 replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
1 like

I suggest that you Google

"energy technologies institute" transport modal shift

And read the report from the centre set up to work out how to reach net zero.

TLDR road transport is what we will be using for the foreseeable future. Have a look at the volumes of freight shifted by road, we aren't doing that by cargo bikes (or by train as the report investigates).

Likewise active transport is great but it's really tinkering around the edges. See Dutch as an example they drive as much as we do, they just cycle more as well.

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TheBillder replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
5 likes

The BBC website also had a recent news article claiming that electric car sales were about to rocket, based mostly on puff from the "University of Singularity", a California based bastion of mathematical ignorance. The narrative seems to forget pollution from car and road construction and battery charging, congestion and tyre particles in its delight over no tail pipe emissions.

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massive4x4 replied to TheBillder | 3 years ago
0 likes
TheBillder wrote:

The BBC website also had a recent news article claiming that electric car sales were about to rocket, based mostly on puff from the "University of Singularity", a California based bastion of mathematical ignorance. The narrative seems to forget pollution from car and road construction and battery charging, congestion and tyre particles in its delight over no tail pipe emissions.

Electric car sales are doubling every two years which would result in all new cars being electric before 2030.

This will happen simply because Tesla will do it on their own if the legacy manufacturers don't. As the world's most valuable industrial company they now have the finances to do it as well.

Regarding pollution due to the manufacturing of vehicles. EVs are no more energy intensive to make per kg than an ICE car and are mostly the same stuff anyway. Studies that suggested otherwise normally had an agenda.

One of the properties of 0 is that if you multiply anything by it the result is the same. We need to get the emissions of base materials production down to zero, once we do it doesn't matter how much of it we use (within reason). Fortunately there are several options or substitutions for all the major commodities.

Sorting out base commodity emissions is something beyond the pay grade of automotive, it will need global agreements and probably a schedule of tarrifs.

The grid is already 55% low carbon and well on track to net zero by 2050.

EVs don't solve everything but they are a concrete example of climate action being successful and actually being better than the ICE vehicles they replaced.

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lonpfrb replied to TheBillder | 3 years ago
0 likes
TheBillder wrote:

The BBC website also had a recent news article claiming that electric car sales were about to rocket...

That from an organisation that actively promotes cycle to work and has won the competition for cycle milage amongst other major London employers.

Perhaps that report came from the Salford office...

Perhaps one part doesn't know what another part thinks, like most large organisations.

Disappointing all the same.

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wycombewheeler | 3 years ago
7 likes

so the conservative government is in favour of cycle schemes while conservative councils are opposed, meanwhile labour councils are implementing the schemes in the face of opposition from local labour MPs.

(local conservative MPs also oppose the measures)

Maybe this shows the the councils need to run the consultations, to prove to the MPs of both sides and other councillors that the schemes are backed by residents, despite what few frothing combustion engine fanatics are screaming at anyone who will listen.

But the consultations need to be managed to ensure they get the opnion of all residents, not only the most vocal, and also exclude the views of outsiders wanting to use neighbourhood streets as rat runs.

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eburtthebike replied to wycombewheeler | 3 years ago
4 likes
wycombewheeler wrote:

But the consultations need to be managed to ensure they get the opnion of all residents, not only the most vocal, and also exclude the views of outsiders wanting to use neighbourhood streets as rat runs.

And make sure that the vote isn't influenced by biased media and biased organisations like Cambridge Analytica.

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Dave Dave replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
1 like

That never actually happened. CA claimed to try, although were basically ripping off their 'clients'; it's never been done successfully. And 'biased media' is a classic blame-the-voters spin.

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Awavey replied to wycombewheeler | 3 years ago
2 likes

But that's not true in every case, both Suffolk & Essex are Tory run councils, Essex received the highest allocation of active travel fund money for any local authority. Both have or are implementing new cycling infra whilst Suffolk certainly implemented many changes in opposition to Labour councillors & Tory MPs, whilst Essex are now actively implementing big changes in Colchester & Chelmsford where opposition councillors are at best lukewarm to it. Yes Essex still managed to waste 10million on a bunch of car centric roundabouts, so theyve still got a lot to learn, but they dont all fit this general stereotype of party politics.

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Hirsute replied to Awavey | 3 years ago
1 like

Colchester has just turned blue following a new pact with independents, so it will be interesting to see about the new cycle infrastructure proposed aka 'war on motorists'. Proposing a dutch roundabout near the station which sounds a bit hairy !

Only 10M on the roundabouts? I reckon it will come in higher than that. Still not finished anyway !

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joules1975 | 3 years ago
0 likes

May I suggest a further proof read may be advisable. 

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