Author Archives: robbiegriffiths

Holmesdale Road residents live in hope

Report and videos by local road safety campaigner Lee Baker Local residents are waiting to see if their streets will stay as neighbourly, healthy streets or turned back into traffic-clogged cut-throughs. Community leader Angela said that removing rat-running from Holmesdale Road meant people wanted to spend time together on the street. 

Where is the need for ANPR, Councillor Ali?

So asks Open Our Roads when publishing this graph: One of their own supporters provides an answer: “Why are we playing theyre games? How does showing thousands of cars going through this road help us get rid of this?” We note the concern about unreasonable volumes. Having said that, we’ll look at a few moreContinue reading “Where is the need for ANPR, Councillor Ali?”

Our LTN will prevail

Why are we so confident that our Low Traffic Neighbourhood in Upper Norwood will win in the end? It’s simple. The tide of history has changed. The onslaught of car dominance over people started in the 1950s. In cities, trams and trolleybuses were removed. Buildings were bulldozed to make way for roads. In rural areasContinue reading “Our LTN will prevail”

LTNs and Equalities

Opponents of LTNs, in this area and elsewhere, frequently assert that they have adverse impacts on the groups in our society who are legally protected under equalities legislation.  This blog takes a dispassionate look at the evidence and finds these claims at best unsubstantiated, and in some cases completely unsupported, on the balance of evidence.

Telraam traffic counters coming to Crystal Palace

A local initiative is taking off to inform the debate around traffic management and policy in Crystal Palace. Volunteers are installing a number of stand-alone traffic counters using Raspberry Pi devices running Telraam software. This is an open source traffic-counting system that has been developed by a team in Belgium specifically to promote citizen science-ledContinue reading “Telraam traffic counters coming to Crystal Palace”

Open letter to Councillor Muhammad Ali

1 February 2021 Dear Muhammad CRYSTAL PALACE AND SOUTH NORWOOD LTN Residents and supporters of our campaign were dismayed to read your announcement that the current LTN measures will be taken out before the implementation of the planned new experimental layout, and, indeed, before there is any clarity about the timetable on which it willContinue reading “Open letter to Councillor Muhammad Ali”

Theory of relativity

For centuries, we were quite happy to think that time was constant until Einstein spoilt everything by advancing his theory that time was relative. But it has taken the advent of our local LTN for oppositionists to posit that a road that takes 5 minutes 10 seconds to cycle is causing 40 minute delays toContinue reading “Theory of relativity”

Planters into chicanes

Whatever might be in store for the LTN, one thing for sure is that the planters will become redundant. Here’s a proposal to make use of them that requires the least effort or transport costs. Some members of our community clearly like their planters, so this proposal offers continuity for them to care for andContinue reading “Planters into chicanes”

It wasn’t a vote

Some of our local representatives seem to have been caught up in the meme that the opponents of the LTN ‘won the vote’. If they had been paying attention, rather than getting caught up in OOR hysteria, they should have spotted that it was a consultation. So looking beyond the simplicity of the numbers let’sContinue reading “It wasn’t a vote”

Why restrictions need to be kept at the bus gate

Supporters of the LTN broadly support the proposals in the officers’ report to the Traffic Management Advisory Committee, though some would prefer that the LTN was preserved in its current format with planters. However, almost unanimously, we believe that permitting local residents to drive through the bus gate undermines some of the objectives of theContinue reading “Why restrictions need to be kept at the bus gate”