Why has Camden’s traffic got worse?
Here’s some recent information covered by both the Guardian and the Daily Mail (!)
Why might this be?
Come and hear about how the council is going to tackle this on zoom at 6pm this evening. Click here for access.
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Sadly I can’t make the call today but I do still have concerns about the number of parking spaces for a LTN. I have read somewhere that the number might be reduced to allow for planters etc. Can someone confirm please?
If anything the number of opportunities to increase residents’ car-parking spaces in Camden could increase as there will be so much less traffic to cope with.
Of course it’s the Satnavs. One only has to witness the vehicles constantly congesting not just Camden Road but St Saviours Road. Camden Road links these two communities. Larkhall has suffered enough. It will be destroyed if we can’t access it freely. I’m afraid I fully reject the idea of any bus gate that restricts residents’ access to and from either Larkhall or Lansdown Road. This is counter-productive and draconian. I have made my feelings clear to the Council and will do so when this matter is, necessarily, put to the long term residents of Camden, Fairfield Park and Larkhall. This utopian idyll is not what Camden Road is about.
Hi Nicky, did the webinar last night change your views at all?
Thanks Jeremy, on the actual survey itself, there is a suggestion that some residents’ parking spaces might be lost. Residents might use their cars less, but I can’t see them getting rid of them.
In our case, were we successful to be considered as a trial LTN we would be pushing for more, not less residents’ parking space. Where there are currently double yellow lines for example in two way sections we might need less length as there will be far less traffic travelling, and what there is should be doing so at respectful speeds. We would also be looking to extend the hours of operation as parking requirements from the evening economy probably do extend as far as here. The worst example of peak parking was last night ironically since I’ve been here. I arrived home at 19:30 on zone 15 – no places anywhere, and none even outside zone 15 on Fairfield Road, Croft Road, Eastbourne Ave, Tyning Lane, Frankley Buildings. I suppose it could dissuade me from getting back a bit late in the evenings or from ever using my car!
I think inner city neighbourhoods have a different but related problem with visitors able to use dual purpose residents’ parking spaces for short term parking, paid for at the meter in the evening. They then have to dump their car somewhere else and move it by 8am the next morning.
For those with no off street parking, we all have that haunting question from time to time – where did I leave my car? My phone does often remember but only if I had my phone with me, and often someone else has parked it last.
As for some additional facilities on the street, I’d welcome that too. Somewhere to park a bike safely rather than drag it up and down steps. Fast forward possibly to much quieter streets then some seating and planting would be nice to see both in people’s front gardens but also in the street.
From David Kernek…
Re your recent CRA post about increased urban traffic … One explanation might be a ) the government advising people to avoid public transport and b) physical distancing on buses. Local buses in Bath have had more than half of the seats on them blocked … When the other half of the seats are taken, the driver declares the bus full, and you wait another 30 minutes for the next one …and next time you drive.
Yes, both recent factors, as well as counteracting that more working from home. However this trend pre-dates Covid-19 and has been going on for 10 years now and is still rising according to the graphs above. As the man said in the quote on slide 2 about smartphone satnavs, “You can drive like a local with shortcuts’ now.
Wow thanks for sharing this awesome info with us enjoyed every bit of it.
if you dig into the data and lived or worked in London, what was happening in london at that time was changes to the congestion charge zone its was expanded then contracted as well as most importantly the growth of delivery services specifically Amazon Prime, and supermarket deliveries that have doubled between 2009 and 2019 with now nearly 40% of consumers having supermarket deliveries, Home deliveries from other retailers has expanded even faster with internet shopping having more than doubled between 2016 and q1 2020 data shows little correlation to Waze** usage or Google maps turn by turn that was only Beta’d in the USA in late 2009 and though it also Beta released traffic , it did not reroute based on this. finally if you look at personal car use in the capital, don’t forget thats all that this data related to is falling during that time it dropped by nearly 10%.
This article was flawed as it was based on one view and totally ignored changes that had happened to the retail economy. It was based on a Twitter thread that the author picked up on and ran with ignoring what ever didn’t fit in with his view.
**Note Waze supply traffic data to TFL as they are in partnership https://www.waze.com/ccp
How did I miss the launches of JustEat and Deliveroo in the captial at the times this graph started its upwards trajectory.!!
I did live in London up to 2016 and I do recall all that you are saying. Back to Camden, we have 3800 vehicle movements per day (say 20,000 per week) on this street and about 300 residences. If you assume that every residence has two internet ordered delivery per week which equals two vehicle movements each (to and from) = 4, that comes to 1200 out of 20,000 = 6% which is a long way from the 72% in London.
I fear the debate is getting a long way from the base data now and probably loads of dubious assumptions and linkages could be being made. But here goes…
Back in 2016, 1100 cars were recorded entering the tricky NE Bath cut through, most of which continue their journey along Camden Road. It is tempting to say they all return along roughly the same route, so we could double that number to 2200. That would account for 58% of the traffic. Add in the 6% from internet ordered deliveries and we rather conveniently arrive near the magic 72%, at 64%. It could suggest that we’re both not that far out.