Low Traffic Neighbourhood

A pre-COVID-19 modal filter on Finsbury Park Road in Hackney. The barrier arrangement allows cyclists and emergency vehicles to pass through but excludes general motor traffic.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were already at least 25,000 modal filters across the UK. Low-traffic neighbourhoods have been a common policy in designing new towns and communities in the UK since the 1960s.[5][6]

In Primrose Hill, London, the death of two children on the roads in the 1960s led to the railway bridge on Regent's Park Road being closed to vehicles, using bollards. This made Primrose Hill an area without through traffic.[7][8]

In Newtown, Exeter, Sandford Street and East John Street were closed to vehicles in 1970, using bollards and ramps, as part of a programme of urban renewal.[9]

One of the best known LTNs was implemented in De Beauvoir Town, Hackney, London, by the Greater London Council, designed by architect and local resident Graham Parsey. The modal filters were introduced as experimental measures on 8 April 1974 and made permanent in April 1975.[10]

During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–21, 72 low-traffic neighbourhoods with modal filters were rolled out under emergency legislation in London, covering a population of around 300,000. Waltham Forest had previously introduced a number of LTNs between 2015 and 2019.[11]

In London, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, traffic had risen on side roads by over 100% since 2008.[5]

LTNs were implemented in Waltham Forest in 2014. A study by climate charity Possible found that in 2016 on three LTN 'boundary roads' recorded increases of traffic between around 2.6% and 28.3%. Two of the three roads were within the 'normal' range for recent fluctuations in traffic flow. For Sherhall Street, the only road studied that registered an increase, it was found that the 2016 traffic count was around the same as the 2009 traffic count for this road.[12] A study for Transport for London on Walthamstow Village found that after implementation, roads in the Village saw an average 44.1% reduction in traffic. Surrounding roads saw an increase in traffic, most notably Sherhall Street. On Lea Bridge Road, the maximum hourly traffic reduced after the introduction of the scheme and traffic appears more spread out across the day. For buses, the majority of buses through the Village were running very close to normal times. Though bus routes on boundary roads recorded an increase, this was in line with control routes across the borough.[13]

A 2022 study studied three LTNs in Islington Borough between July 2019 and February 2021. It found a statistically significant decrease in traffic 58.2% compared with control sites in the same area. A smaller, statistically insignificiant decrease of 13.4% was found on boundary sites.[14]

A 2020 study of the impact of the Waltham Forest LTN in London found no evidence that fire brigade emergency response times were affected inside LTNs and some evidence that they improved slightly on boundary roads, despite a perception among fire crews that traffic calming was the cause of some delays.[19] A 2021 study in Findings journal examined the impact of 72 LTNs in London on fire brigade emergency response times. It found no evidence that response times were affected for both LTNs that use physical barriers and those that use camera enforcement.[11]

LTN implementation since 2020 in London has been broadly equitable at the city and micro levels. The most deprived quarter are more likely to live in a newly opened LTN than people in the least deprived quarter. Ethnic minorities are more likely to live in a newly opened LTN than White people. London Boroughs have, on average, implemented LTNs in their most deprived districts.[20]

Critics of LTNs also include green campaigners such as John Stewart and Rosamund Kissi-Debrah.[21][22] Stewart has argued that LTNs are "inherently unfair" because "in most cases they simply displace traffic and pollution to the adjacent main and boundary roads",[21] while Kissi-Debrah also frames the problem in terms of social justice: she argues that affluent neighborhoods are more likely to benefit from traffic reduction and more-deprived areas more likely to suffer from the traffic displacement and added pollution.[23]

Protest against LTNs in Ealing

Modal filters and low-traffic neighbourhoods have sometimes been criticised for a number of reasons. The British motoring magazine Auto Express criticised the schemes for their levels of cost, calling them a "waste of money". Other criticisms include high fines and a lack of consultation in implementing the scheme.[24]

In the UK, the implementation of low-traffic neighbourhoods in 2020 was compared to Brexit in its divisiveness.[25][26][27] Opposition to the schemes has been linked to the "15-minute city" conspiracy theory, with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue describing the LTNs being used as a "lightning rod" for wider culture war issues.[28] The schemes have led to protests in Oxford and Croydon from anti-LTN activists.[29][30]

The former actor Laurence Fox, when running for Greater London Mayor in 2021, pledged to remove all modal filtering (even those in place before 2020) in London.[5] On this platform, Fox received just 1.9% of first round votes.[31] In Hackney, a candidate standing on an anti-LTN platform in a by-election in Hoxton East and Shoreditch in May 2021 received fewer than 8% of votes, while in a by-election in St Peter's Ward in Islington an anti-LTN candidate received only 318 out of 4,395 of votes (7.2%).[32][33][34][35] In May 2022 Lutfur Rahman was re-elected in Tower Hamlets having campaigned against the borough's LTN plans.[36]

• Permeability (spatial and transport planning) – Freedom of movement of traffic
• School Streets – Motor traffic restriction at start and end of school day
• Rat running – Motor traffic short-cutting thru residential areas
• 15-minute city – Urban accessibility concept
• Urban vitality – Use intensity of a city space