‘We need more Hackneys’: Borough sees biggest drop in motor vehicle use of anywhere in London, according to new report

Low traffic neighbourhoods came in for praise. Photograph: Hackney Council

Hackney tops the charts in moving away from motor vehicles in London, with a 37 per cent drop in the decade from 2010, according to cycling campaigners.

London Cycling Campaign (LCC) praised the council’s work in creating “climate-safe streets”.

The borough is one of six in the capital considered most at risk of the worst impacts of the earth heating up, including extreme weather.

LCC said “we need more Hackneys” in London to cut emissions and combat the climate emergency.

The group’s new report, Climate Safe Streets – One Year On, One Year to Go, highlighted progress across the city.

It comes after the World Meteorological Organisation warned that the world’s global warming threshold of 1.5 degrees celsius is likely to be breached in the next four years.

Camden, Waltham Forest and Lambeth were also praised by LCC for taking the greatest strides to make streets greener.

Tower Hamlets was the only borough to see an increase in car use, with a four per cent rise.

Image: courtesy LCC

Simon Munk, head of LCC campaigns, said: “Action or inaction on climate also has a direct impact on every other crisis the city faces.”

LCC said inner London boroughs like Hackney have “surged ahead in delivering on active travel, emissions and road danger reduction – they were moving fast before the pandemic and delivery appears to have, if anything, accelerated”.

It called on councils to speed up their climate-friendly policies, including those outer London authorities challenging the ULEZ extension zones through the courts.

The group added: “It is clear that we need a lot more Hackneys, Camdens and Waltham Forests and that means Brent, Greenwich and Richmond really getting their skates on in the next three years.”

LCC warned that dangerous increases in global temperatures means “we have three years for every London council to really start delivering – the clock is ticking”.

Whilst praising Hackney as an “exemplar”, the campaigners urged Town Hall bosses to stay on track by “accelerating action on main roads and junctions for safety and decarbonisation and focus on children’s travel”.

They also want to see the council’s housing estates made more accessible for cyclists.

Plans to increase the number of School Streets from 49 to 60 by 2025 won praise, but LCC is calling for more progress on “wider routes to school”.

The controversial low traffic neighbourhoods and more places to park bikes securely also pleased campaigners.

Cllr Mete Coban, Hackney’s cabinet member for environment and transport, said: “We are delighted to be recognised for our climate-safe streets – and proud of our record of supporting people to walk and cycle through School Streets, new low traffic neighbourhoods and the rollout of thousands of secure cycle parking spaces.”

He pledged: “This work will continue over the coming years as we look to make more of Hackney low traffic, green grey areas on our streets and create a greener, healthier Hackney for everyone.”

Rob Whitehead, director of strategic development at think tank Centre for London, said leaders across the capital need to get on track to encourage more people to walk and cycle.

“If they don’t, more Londoners will die or get seriously harmed on the roads,” he said. “Fewer of us will get the health benefits of walking and cycling. More will suffer from the blights of congestion and pollution. And we will have missed a hiding-in-plain-sight opportunity to tackle the climate emergency.”

22 Comments

  1. Anon on Thursday 18 May 2023 at 17:15

    The ‘laptop classes’ move into inner London. Displace jobs, businesses and local people.

    They turn up with a 100k house deposit gifted by parents.

    Local people are forced to leave Hackney, as priced out of local housing.

    People move to Essex and Kent with few transport links. When they visit friends and family back in Hackney, they are scorned for coming by car.

    Social media is full of uncaring views. LTNs make it impossible for families to take granny to the doctors or taxis picking up disabled.

    They want to block vehicles travelling through Hackney as it if is a private fiefdom. The same residents expect that other London boroughs to put with their traffic to carry food and deliveries.

    The same cyclists are jetting off around the world. As if there is no climate emergency.

    The same cyclists who scorn their neighbours for car ownership, live in a leaky house with old sash windows and polluting log burners.



  2. Nick on Friday 19 May 2023 at 04:38

    300 additional residents parking permits in the London Fields LTN since it started. (FOI Verified)

    Hooray for middle-class privilege!



  3. Nick on Friday 19 May 2023 at 04:40

    Exactly, this is purely driven by a change in the demographic. Nothing to do with LTNs or ‘Climate safe streets'(Chortle)



  4. John Flood on Friday 19 May 2023 at 05:08

    LTNs are a boon to us all–less pollution, fewer accidents, and reduced congestion. I applaud Hackney’s commitment to reducing cars and increasing walking and cycling. I say this as someone who has lived in Hackney since 1991. I have always cycled, even when I had a car. I was so glad when I got rid of my car 20 years ago. We now have great public transport and cycleways. Let’s see if we can remove the rest of the cars cluttering up the borough! Power to the LCC



  5. Simon M on Friday 19 May 2023 at 07:52

    This is a post full of myths and rubbish, basically.
    – Gentrification and changes in the housing market are happening all over London all the time – but that has less than sod all to do with folks who end up in Essex or Kent or Reading or wherever getting in the car and driving to Hackney. Firstly, most folks moving out rarely come back – your monthly visit to Hackney isn’t important. The folks who live in Hackney driving in Hackney down narrow residential streets is the issue here largely. As is the issue of folks who live in Haringey or north of there driving down residential streets in Hackney to cut 30 seconds off sticking on the A roads.
    – No one is blocking vehicles travelling through Hackney – they’re just designing which roads through traffic goes on – the ones with traffic lights and crossings and other ways to manage speed and volume. Want to drive in from Kent? You still can.
    – Or you could… take the sodding train and if you must drive to the nearest station. Your convenience is not the issue here – the planet, our lungs, our kids’ health is.
    – LTNs do, factually, not “make it impossible for families to take granny to the doctors or taxis picking up disabled”. That’s a bare-faced lie.
    – Other people’s theoretical, anecdotal hypocrisy does not excuse you putting your car driving above planet. By all means go find those made-up “cyclists” and call them out – doesn’t make you right here.



  6. Simon M on Friday 19 May 2023 at 07:52

    Or maybe, just maybe, 300 folks moved in over years who owned cars?



  7. Nick on Friday 19 May 2023 at 09:07

    So. ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhood’ really working then!



  8. Nick on Friday 19 May 2023 at 09:09

    ‘ Your convenience is not the issue here – the planet, our lungs, our kids’ health is.’

    and the kids who live on the roads that take the displaced traffic?



  9. Nick on Friday 19 May 2023 at 09:14

    Ah, the LCC “Cyclists are 89% white males” (Read their website)
    The LCC that refused to sack a racist employee (Look up Simon Still)
    The LCC that is made up almost exclusively of white people (with one exception from about 35 staff)

    Screw the LCC



  10. Simon M on Friday 19 May 2023 at 10:47

    While the LCC actively works to increase cycling rates among women and people of colour, and did publicly deal with one person over a racist tweet made not while at LCC, what’s interesting is you and every other anti-LTN troll tries to continue to dig dirt on the org while ignoring all the other anti-LTN trolls are out there doxxing folks, making threats (to Hackney Cllrs), smashing cameras, setting fire to planters, cosying up to far right conspiracists etc. etc. You don’t come across as a very nice, or healthy, person at all.

    You want women and people of colour to have better outcomes – then we need to cut motor traffic-derived climate emissions, road danger, inactivity, pollution – which the evidence shows LTNs do help with, but being toxic on social media doesn’t.



  11. Simon M on Friday 19 May 2023 at 10:49

    Gonna block you now – you’re a bit odd and obsessive IMO. More, as I’ve pointed out already, the idea of “displaced traffic” really doesn’t work when it turns out on average LTNs don’t result in increases on boundary roads. More still, that’d be main roads that were already horrific and where anti-LTN trolls have done nothing to campaign for traffic reduction for the many decades preceding – indeed, where most anti-LTN trolls also turn out not to want any schemes for. Your arguments are threadbare and all it leaves you is bitter and abusive. Bye.



  12. Nick on Saturday 20 May 2023 at 15:11

    Simon (Munk?)- I can still see your comments…..

    Devastated, truly devastated about the block though

    Always a pleasure to see the invective and ad-hominem language used by the ‘pros’.

    A sure sign you’re winning the debate… 😉



  13. Nick on Saturday 20 May 2023 at 15:22

    Here’s the lates from Lambeth whose social cleansing schemes seem to have run onto stormy waters…..

    “Blue badge holders and disabled motorists were not due to be exempted, prompting an outcry among local disabled groups.

    Now, the council has been forced to U-turn and scrap the entire idea after the official consultation with residents was bombarded with angry responses.

    It is thought to be the first time that a Labour authority has had to scrap a new LTN, an apparently green scheme which has snowballed in boroughs across London since the Covid pandemic, in which roads are closed off to traffic make way for cyclists and pedestrians – but existing traffic is then displaced to fewer roads elsewhere.

    The council’s official survey of 1,242 residents found “limited support for all three objectives” behind the closure, with just 33 per cent backing it.”



  14. Nick on Sunday 21 May 2023 at 03:18

    I’m not nice?

    For pointing out that the organisation behind this is institutionally racist?

    The LCC didn’t deal with Still, they let him resign. As for digging dirt – your lot do exactly the same with the ‘far right conspiracy’ nonsense. There are the likes of Lawrence Fox who has tacked himself on to the anti-LTN cause. He was never courted nor wanted.

    The people I know who oppose these things do so because they benefit a small, affluent minority. They are socially unjust.



  15. John Flood on Tuesday 23 May 2023 at 02:58

    Unfortunately your comment doesn’t address the immediate problem in the article, namely pollution, congestion, our children’s health etc. I think they are more important by far



  16. Nick on Tuesday 23 May 2023 at 03:32

    LTNs don’t address the immediate problem in the article, namely pollution, congestion, our children’s health etc. They just relocate the problem. Which is becoming increasing accepted as the case. It’s like the old adage, having a no-smoking area in a restaurant is as effective as having a no p*ssing section in a swimming pool.



  17. John Flood on Tuesday 23 May 2023 at 22:44

    Yes, Nick they do address the problems in the article. Please don’t let your prejudice blind you here. The ability to walk or cycle in safety is paramount. There is no divine ordinance that dictates that motor vehicles should reign supreme. What was seen as a godsend in the 60s and 70s, we now realise to be harmful, eg particulates in diesel, potential death traps, eg anything moving at over 30mph will kill a child or older person, and that we need to move away from a false reliance on personal motor vehicles when many safer alternatives exist.



  18. Nick on Wednesday 24 May 2023 at 02:31

    Oh John, shoe-horn the word ‘prejudice’ in, and ignore what I said – hey presto – greenwashing!

    No one is denying the harm that cars cause either through pollution or the potential to kill or main. I would also agree on the ‘many safe alternative’ argument. But……

    …..these schemes do nothing except relocate that problem. In fact, they appear to be exacerbating it through the need to find longer routes to either avoid the congestion they cause on boundary roads…or just to get access to the LTN. They also present a ‘one size fits all’ (attempt at a) solution, which ignores the fact that not everyone is mobile and a lot of people rely on their car as their main source of income.

    I think what really sticks in my craw though, is that the person who is driving these initiatives posted on social media from his holiday in Turkey recently – do you think he cycled/took the train there?

    Rank hypocrisy



  19. John Flood on Wednesday 24 May 2023 at 02:38

    No greenwashing just trying to bring light here. The “relocation” argument is often used as a counterfoil to LTNs but it not really true. Here is a report by the Guardian on research on this topic (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/19/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-boundary-roads-london). And this is the actual research report used which says roads on boundaries little affected while traffic depletion inside LTNs is substantial (https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Nsm_GFdH6CpIpPpOZ7hbhLZScgqCAP7ZGI0xi4qDqA/edit)



  20. Nick on Wednesday 24 May 2023 at 12:05

    I cant open either of these. But if the name Rachel Aldred is anything to do with it, it’s pure fiction.

    The relocation argument is used because it’s what happens. No amount of flawed research by LCC trustees is going to persuade me otherwise.

    Increasing (even Sadiq Khan is in agreement) LTNs are being exposed for what they are. Traffic relocation schemes which seem to benefit the white middle-classes.



  21. John Flood on Thursday 25 May 2023 at 04:03

    Sorry about that and I can’t find them right now. However, Rachel (a former colleague of mine) is not the author. She is a brilliant researcher and I have the highest regard for her diligence and integrity. Here is a more easily found report from the Centre for London https://centreforlondon.org/publication/london-low-traffic-neighbourhoods/. It comes to the same conclusions and says they do not disproportionately benefit the middle classes. Traffic relocation is a myth. This is why we undertake research. It is to ensure best practice is followed and that people can see how the research is done, see the results and then enjoy the benefits. I have seen no counter research from you Nick, only your opinions.



  22. Blueberry Muffin on Friday 23 June 2023 at 15:37

    ????

    “We are delighted to be recognised for our climate-safe streets – and proud of our record of supporting people to walk and cycle through School Streets, new low traffic neighbourhoods and the rollout of thousands of secure cycle parking spaces.”

    WHO is really delighted? Is Gaia clapping?

    Voluntary walking and cycling? Sure.
    But feels like a slide to regressive.



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