Tag Archives: Children

London is Open, But Should It Be Closed?

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This article was originally conceived as one being about the latest increases in transport congestion in London. The last couple of weeks seem to have been much busier than normal with high traffic congestion. In addition public transport has been particularly bad, not helped by the recent strikes on the tube which of course Mayor Sadiq Khan promised to put a stop to in his election campaign. He promised “zero days of strikes”, but perhaps he is too busy trying to tackle rising crime levels in London.

But these transport issues are surely the result of too many people in London with no improvements in the road network to compensate for the rising population and “densification” of the capital. Likewise inadequate public transport capacity has arisen because building new capacity never catches up with the growth in demand and available funding. A substantial part of the population increase has arisen from immigration.

Last Friday the Mayor reiterated his “London is Open” campaign by inviting EU Ambassadors to a meeting at City Hall. The meeting focussed on “Brexit and the welfare of EU communities living in London”. How many people have come from the EU to live in London? About 1 million in fact. That’s not even counting the sons and daughters of immigrants.

The Mayor is then going to visit Berlin and Paris where he will reiterate that London is “open to talent”. I guess that means he is happy to encourage more immigration as he has said before. The “London is Open” campaign was launched with this headline: “Let’s say together – me, you, and thousands of other Londoners – that despite Brexit, London will always be open to the world, proud of our diversity and inclusive to everyone”.

If the Mayor wishes to solve London’s transport problems surely he should be encouraging people to move out of London and discouraging more immigration. London is overcrowded already. We don’t need more people here.

Perhaps Mrs May will welcome Sadiq Khan’s interference in the Brexit negotiations which he is also doing of late and in these meetings, but I suspect not. His policies on immigration are certainly not likely to be of positive benefit to most Londoners even if he thinks they might help him to get re-elected. Immigration might provide useful workers in some roles, but they also add to housing demand where there is gross shortage. They also contribute to congestion on the roads and on public transport while requiring more social services to support them. That includes more police when in fact their numbers have been falling which is a contributor to the rising crime rate in London.

It’s surely time for the Mayor to change his spots, or for us to get a new Mayor who can adopt more rational policies.

Roger Lawson

The views expressed in this article on solely those of the author as applies to all our blog posts.

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Speed Humps and Air Pollution

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Air pollution from motor vehicles, particularly in major conurbations such as London, has been a hot topic of late. The impact may be exaggerated but it has certainly become a matter of public concern with the increase in diesel vehicles allegedly making it worse.

It has been known for many years that speed humps actually result in more air pollution. For example this writer published an article back in 2002 which said the following: “Pollution Caused by Traffic Calming. As a contribution to the local debate on the merits of speed bumps, it is worth covering a report produced by the  TRL (Transport Research Lab.) last year. In the past, different studies in different countries seemed to produce very diverse results, but the latest methodology seems more likely to have produced accurate figures. TRL Report No. 482 studies the effect of a number of different traffic calming measures, including road humps, cushions, pinch points and mini-roundabouts. They also studied the impact on traffic flows and delays experienced by fire engines. To quote from the report “The results of the study clearly indicate that traffic calming measures increase the emissions of some pollutants from passenger cars. For petrol non-catalyst, petrol catalyst and diesel cars, mean emissions of CO per vehicle-km increased by 34%, 59% and 39% respectively. For all three vehicle categories the increase in mean HC emissions was close to 50%. Emissions of NOX from petrol vehicles increased only slightly, but such emissions from diesel vehicles increased by around 30%. Emissions of CO2 from each of the three vehicle categories increased by between 20% and 26%. Emissions of particulate matter from the diesel vehicles increased by 30%.”

The advocates of speed humps ignored this negative evidence in their commitment to road safety even though their impact on accidents is very marginal and may be a mirage.

As confirmation for the above a recent study from Imperial College, London also found high levels of pollution from road humps – indeed higher than from other forms of traffic calming (see the Daily Telegraph on the 11/6/2016 for a fuller report on this and some quotes from me).

For example they got 47% more particulates and 64% more NO2 from a petrol car when driven over humps, and even higher figures for diesel cars.

As I pointed out in my comments to the Daily Telegraph, accidents to school children are not particularly frequent outside schools so putting humps there is unnecessary. But the health impact on children of air pollution may be particularly severe. There are numerous reasons why the use of speed humps should be banned and this is yet another – see this page for lots more information written by the author on this topic some years ago (and the facts have not changed since): http://www.bromleytransport.org.uk/Humps.htm

Roger Lawson