Greenwich Transport Policy – Have Your Say
The London Borough of Greenwich is conducting a public consultation on future transport policies using the Commonplace platform. To quote: “The council has ambitious plans to make the borough greener, healthier and more connected, with a particular focus on how walking, cycling and public transport can be improved”.
They say this in the published Transport Strategy document: “Having declared a climate emergency in June of 2019, this strategy supports the Royal Borough’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and supporting a green post-pandemic recovery. Transport is the second biggest source of emissions in the borough. The Royal Borough has recognised that to become carbon neutral it is necessary to work to: a) reduce the number of journeys made by polluting motor vehicles, and b) enable people to walk, cycle and use public transport wherever possible”.
In other words, the use of vehicles will be attacked in the name of addressing the climate emergency. Is there a climate emergency and will reducing vehicles make any difference to the climate? The simple answer to both those questions is NO.
Just because we have had a slightly hotter and dryer period of weather this summer does not mean there is a climate emergency and emissions by vehicles in Greenwich cannot have any significant impact on the climate even if you accept that carbon emissions might be influencing the climate.
The whole of the UK produces less than 1% of worldwide emissions so any reduction in Greenwich alone will have a negligible impact.
In reality this is just another unnecessary and unwelcome attack on the use of cars.
How do they propose to discourage vehicles? By introducing more Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs), more Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and more School Streets.
Reading the detailed report shows how Greenwich is failing to meet the Mayor’s targets for active travel, improving road safety and reducing emissions – see page 26. A particularly telling statistic is that the percentage of people killed and seriously injured (KSI) in collisions in Greenwich is on average lower compared to adjacent boroughs but a high proportion of such collisions are made up of people who are cycling (17%). Given that people cycling in the borough makes up less than 2% of the mode share, this demonstrates how dangerous cycling is in reality.
Make sure you respond to this consultation by going here: https://royalgreenwichtransport.commonplace.is/
Meanwhile Mayor Sadiq Khan has committed to spend £4million on making London a greener and more climate resilient city despite him being desperately short of money to keep TfL afloat. This includes funding more LTNs in Hackney and Enfield but it will also include rain gardens and tree pits (rain gardens might replace parking spaces and help to absorb excess rainfall which we are not exactly overwhelmed with this year).
Planting more trees and generally greening the environment may be welcomed but spending more money on non-essential projects at this time of economic difficulty is surely unwise.
More details on the Mayor’s expenditure here: https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/4m-announced-to-aid-future-climate-resilience
Roger Lawson
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London
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