You report on a study that is said to show that low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) may prompt residents to drive less, and rebuts objections to them (Low-traffic neighbourhoods may lead people to drive less, data suggests, 12 June).
This, though, was not a study of road usage, but simply of the annual mileage of cars registered to LTN residents and to residents of the surrounding area. However, most of the traffic passing through the wider area originates and terminates further away, so the study is irrelevant to traffic levels and does nothing to deny the problem that every LTN exacerbates an adjacent high-traffic neighbourhood. While the residents of LTNs benefit, residents of adjacent roads suffer increased pollution. Also, LTNs divert traffic on to bus routes, making journey times longer – and so making public transport a less attractive alternative to the use of private cars.
