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If we ignore the rampant virtue signal from the usual people, lets look at the underlying issues here.LBH announced the 'temporary' closure of TGT, with no consultation (or even telling Ealing) or modelling. Then strangely soon after, supposedly unrelated, TFL announced the 'temporary' CS9 that just happened to include the assumption that TGT would remain closed to through traffic.TFL clearly acknowledge that the current version of CS9 restricts traffic capacity on the central High Road, hence the need for these additional measures to hold traffic back. The new light phasing at the CHR and TGT junction lets very few vehicles through. WE also have the new bus gate before Acton Lane. This is even worse, because it actively diverts traffic including vans and lorries onto residential streets and the non-segregated route of CS9. It is a serious accident waiting to happen (there has already been one, conveniently ignored by the lobbyists).So we have queues at either end of the High Road and to the north along the SOuth Parade to Acton Lane route. This was inevitable. I posted this as soon as the proposals were public, and was called all sorts of names by the lobbyists for pointing out the obvious.These queues will only worsen as life returns to normal. Conveniently, the queues and congestion sit where there are no pollution monitors. As they are generally away from the route of CS9, TFL (and Tom Pike) can make the ludicrous claim that cycle lanes do not cause congestion.The geography of Chiswick, cut in half by both the A4 and tube lines, creates unique challenges. TFL and LBH ignore this to push the scheme through. A good question is why funding was found for the south circular stretch of CS9 by Kew Bridge, where the road across the bridge has been widened, but Chiswick is left to suffer with the cheap version????People like Arnold sadly suffer as a result, as do bus users. Public transport needs to come first.I would note that non of the lobbyists live on the impacted roads, seem to use buses or rely on vehicles for key aspects of their life. As they suffer neither the inconvenience or the resultant health issues, they do not care. At all.

Paul Green ● 2013d

I wonder which cycle lane or LTN or evil cycling lobbyist caused this.Be careful out there. Drivers are not coping well with the car-led recovery. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-56846688Walton-on-Thames murder probe after man killed in car park fightA man has died and another has been seriously hurt after a car was driven into them in a supermarket car park.Police were called to Church Street in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, at about 14:15 BST following reports of a fight between a group of men.One of the men got into his car and is reported to have driven at two people.A man in his 40s died at the scene and a second was flown to hospital. The owner of the car, a BMW 1 Series, has been arrested on suspicion of murder.He is also being held on suspicion of attempted murder.A cordon was put in place behind Marks and Spencer and the car park was closed.Police said the dead man's family had been informed and the man who was airlifted to hospital is expected to recover.Det Ch Insp Dave Springett said: "We understand that a serious incident like this has caused a lot of concern in the local community and we would like to reassure residents that we are doing everything we can to establish what has happened."From our initial inquiries, it appears that an altercation has taken place, leading to a physical confrontation, which then resulted in one of the group getting into his car and driving at two of the other men."Tragically, this has resulted in the death of one man and left another seriously injured and our thoughts are with their family and friends at this extremely difficult time."Anyone who saw the incident or has any mobile phone or dashcam footage has been asked to contact police.

Paul Campbell ● 2013d

I'm surprised a serious academic uses the rhetorical trick of equating deaths from Covid with deaths from pollution.Nobody in Chiswick has died from poor air quality over the last year. It may possibly have accelerated the death in some cases but it would have one of many factors that it is impossible to determine the relative importance. Poor diet, stress, too many glasses of wine etc. You could just as well say that as many people died of eating Mars bars as of coronavirus due to the deleterious effect of refined sugar on your health.How much emissions affect life expectancy is very difficult to say precisely but it doesn't appear to be a primary factor. A male living in Kensington and Chelsea currently has the highest life expectancy in western Europe and that is an area with well above average pollution. Being poor seems to be the thing that kills you early.Road transport pollution may not be the primary air quality issue for many. If you are not habitually spending time near to busy streets then you are likely to be getting far higher NOx exposure in your kitchen if you have a gas hob.The original point here is that there is clearly an increase in traffic queues along South Parade and Acton Lane. These are roads on which people live so if you really believe pollution kills then you must necessarily believe residents of these roads are going to die so perhaps it would be an idea to come up with a more practical response than 'there are too many cars'.

Francis Rowe ● 2012d

I think David makes a good point — it should be based on vehicle miles. I looked up cycle miles (400m), car vehicle miles (17.5bn) and total motor vehicle miles (22.6bn) in London for 2019. Deaths of pedestrians due to collision with pedal cycles: Date London 2013 0 2014 1 2015 0 2016 0 2017 0 2018 3 2019 0 I should make clear that these 4 deaths were classified as traffic accidents and were likely on the road — I don't have any data on whether they were on pavements.  
Calculating deaths per distance travelled over the 7 year period:4 pedestrians killed by pedal bikes or 1 per 702million miles.72 pedestrians killed by cars, vans and LGVs or 1 per 1.58bn miles.58 pedestrians killed by buses and HGVs or 1 per 97million miles204 pedestrians killed by all motor vehicles, 29.14 p.a. or 1 per 666million miles(I excluded miles travelled on motorways as no bikes or pedestrians use them. I haven't adjusted for increases in pedestrian miles.)You could argue — and David would I'm sure — that cyclists are killing pedestrians at the same rate as all motor vehicles, so they're not any safer, and that cars and vans kill at half the rate.Therefore if you swap car journeys for bike journeys the number of pedestrian fatalities will go up for the same distance travelled.The interesting thing about cycle journeys is that they've stayed relatively static — around 400million miles every year since 2013. In 2019 there were fewer miles travelled than in 2016 and in other reports I've seen that the number of trips was declining while the distance was increasing.  The experiment that is happening at the moment is trying to get people to swap cars for bikes on short journeys within their local areas — by removing traffic from minor roads and implementing cycle lanes on major roads.The question is whether this will make it safer not just for cyclists, but pedestrians as well.  You could argue that cycle lanes segregate pedestrians and cyclists and that other cities that have official mixed mode areas don't seen many accidents, so the rate should drop.  One unintended consequence of encouraging cycling with some (but not much) infrastructure is that it might increase the number of bikes on pavements — if a mum is swapping the car for bikes and doing a multi-drop of 2 kids at school and then cycling to work, she's potentially going to be on the pavement on any road that doesn't have a bike lane.  The other stand out thing from the stats is just how deadly heavy vehicles are to pedestrians. Apart from the problem seeing pedestrians and bikes, they're really heavy, so if you're in a collision with one, it is very easy to be killed.  I realise that's obvious physics, but it is worth pointing out that a collision between a pedestrian and a cyclist, even one going at 15 mph is rarely fatal because they don't weigh much, whereas a collision between a car / van and a pedestrian is much more likely to be.

Ed Saper ● 2011d

I think one concern that those who come at this from a different perspective is that the democratic demands to end "an experimental traffic scheme" immediately is because certain elements don't want it to succeed, don't want the worst predictions not to happen, don't want data to be collected that contradicts preconceived assumptions or anecdotal evidence, don't want any issues fixed and don't want support for it to build.
I note the dismissive term of "wonk consultants" — that immediately reminds me of how populists dismissed the opinion of "experts" in 2016 and I think it is worrying that in a mature democracy we are more minded to listen to those who offer simple "common sense" solutions to complex problems and just shout the loudest. Cllr Sam will know the famous Churchill quote (which I hoped hasn't been debunked!): "When the eagles are silent, the parrots jabber." We have a professor who posts on here fairly regularly about traffic related matters with reasoned arguments and data.  On almost every occasion he is aggressively trolled and called a "liar" — there is no discourse or polite disagreement, just personal attacks intended to discredit and dissuade him from voicing his opinion. I'll respectively disagree and say I don't want decisions on what happens in our streets made by those who aren't prepared to consider other points of view or expert analysis and I do think some decisions need be made on a city wide basis because certain areas such as air quality and transport networks can't be made at street level.

Ed Saper ● 2010d