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Sabotage, trolling and threats as Hackney rat run row turns nasty

Pollution, house prices, and traffic access prove toxic brew as tempers flare over scheme that will boost walking and cycling

Tempers are flaring in one East London neighbourhood about a trial ‘filtering’ scheme that will see 13 junctions closed to through motor traffic for three months, in a bid to increase walking and cycling and cut illegal levels of air pollution in the borough.

The debate over Hackney Council's London Fields filtering scheme has spread nationally thanks, in part, to being home to top journalists and editors from the Times, Telegraph and Guardian, as well as local MP and Shadow International Development Secretary, Diane Abbott - almost inevitably the subject of house prices has been raised too. London Fields is an area of London that has seen rapid gentrification over recent years. 

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Residents in favour of the scheme have reportedly had used motor oil poured on their doorsteps, and their homes photographed and addresses shared online by opponents, road.cc has learned.

However, despite “constant trolling” on Twitter, members of the local campaign group, Fume Free Streets, a coalition of walking and cycling groups and local residents, with a petition in favour of the scheme say they remain committed to the junction closures, including on a street where a cyclist was killed in collision with a lorry in 2008, because they believe less traffic will improve life for everyone in the neighbourhood.

Brenda Puech, of Fume Free Streets and Hackney Cycling Campaign, which support the filtering scheme, told road.cc the group remains undeterred.

She said: “A woman had motor oil, thick grease, smeared on her front door and her landing and her steps. There could have been a nasty accident there. Other things have happened, too." 

"We set up a stall and the antis turned up and whenever we started talking to someone they would talk to them too and say we were lying or they would engage us and not let us talk to anyone else. It’s quite heated, the whole thing.”

Puech and her co-campaigners support the scheme because they believe restricting motor traffic will make the neighbourhood safer, and increase quality of life for everyone, while reducing  illegal levels of air pollution that affects 20,100 children in the borough.  

She says “children will be able to walk to school more easily and it will be a huge improvement for the area.”

“It’s just like any filtered area - where you reduce rat running you get a much better sense of neighbourhood,” she said.

Middleton Road, currently with 6,000 vehicles passing through each day, is among those that will be closed to through motor traffic as part of the trial (see below diagram), and is home to Abbott, who has faced a series of what are widely considered below-the-belt attacks from national newspapers over her support for the scheme.

Resident Ben Alden-Falconer, whose front door was photographed and shared on Twitter after he became involved in the pro-filtering campaign, has lived on Middleton Road his whole life.

He said: “I have had constant trolling on Twitter. My mum has asked me to stay away from it. She doesn’t think the level of abuse I live with is worth it, but I don’t believe that people being abusive should win the argument.”

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Some local residents are concerned the junction closures will have a knock-on effect on neighbouring roads, while others have taken issue with the fact the scheme is being trialled before consultation begins, a method nearby Waltham Forest also used in its Mini Holland scheme, where feelings also ran high.

However, Senior Transport Lecturer at the University of Westminster, and Hackney resident, Dr Rachel Aldred, told road.cc evidence tends to support Hackney Council's approach to the rat-running problem.

She said: “Residential streets are often unappealing rat-runs, discouraging people from walking and cycling, and making the area less pleasant and safe for residents. My recent study on children and cycling found that removing through motor traffic is seen as an intervention that can transform a street from a scary rat-run to somewhere that welcomes cycling by all ages and abilities.”

“Following academic and policy research, it's now well established that building more motor traffic capacity attracts more motor traffic (called 'induced demand'). This is why we've repeatedly failed to build our way out of congestion. The reverse process is called traffic evaporation - if you cut motor traffic capacity, you get a reduction in car trips.”

She adds trialling schemes of this nature is important.

“You don't know exactly what will happen to traffic until you try it, because there's so many factors involved. Trialling will often show up problems such as the need for more filters in neighbouring roads, or the need to move existing filters,” she said.

public meeting on the scheme was postponed last month because too many people turned up. A new venue with a capacity of 400 will hold the meeting on 14 December.

Hackney Council was contacted but will not comment until after the next public meeting. 

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9 comments

Avatar
teaboy | 8 years ago
1 like

Maybe *somebody* could make some 'diversion' signs for 'water main works' or something similar. If they happen to be on the same roads that were being filtered it would be a coincidence, surely...  3  

Avatar
ironmancole | 8 years ago
0 likes

Isnt it interesting how the motorist die hards so quickly resort to violence and intimidation?

Look at the Top Gear fiasco with viewers sending death threats all over the place for yet another recent example.

Seriously, getting motorists to ackowledge their daily violence is like working with an alcoholic who refuses to accept reality.

Avatar
thereverent | 8 years ago
2 likes

I would like to know the breakdown of where the supports and the opponents live.

I would bet the supporter mostly live on the streets being filtered and the opponents live further away but these streets provide a handy rat run.

The Loughborough Junction experiment was opposed by people who benefitted from the rat run, but didn't have to live with the cost of their streets being clogged with stationary traffic. Just total NIMBYism. They argued that Emergency vehicles would be held up, when this scheme would help reduce the traffic on the road the Ambulance station is on.

Avatar
brooksby | 8 years ago
3 likes

Interesting how these people aren't interested in actually arguing the point in a grown-up discussion, just in intimidating their opponents into silence.

I wonder if that's because "I'm f-ing lazy and I don't want to have to drive round the block" is a stupid argument and they know it...?

(Mind you, how many of us have seen motorists doing a twenty-point turn in a side street or holding up other traffic while they do a u-turn on a main road, rather than drive around the block...?).

Avatar
BigManLittleHair | 8 years ago
8 likes

There has just been an early termination of an interesting experimental road closures in the Loughborough Junction area. The pro-car lobby played a blindingly good hand, their endless pressure heaped upon the local councillors meant the promising scheme was cancelled 3 months early.

Those lazy, short sighted, selfish, polluting pro-car mofos are gonna fight every single step of the way. I wish you good luck, sadly in my neighbourhood the feckers out played those of us envisioning a healthier future.

So my usual cycle to and from school with my boys is back to pre-closure unreasonable danger levels. It's pathetic and sad that these folk care not for the health and well being of citizens, only a daily 3-5 minute time saving.

Avatar
ironmancole replied to BigManLittleHair | 8 years ago
1 like

BigManLittleHair wrote:

There has just been an early termination of an interesting experimental road closures in the Loughborough Junction area. The pro-car lobby played a blindingly good hand, their endless pressure heaped upon the local councillors meant the promising scheme was cancelled 3 months early.

Those lazy, short sighted, selfish, polluting pro-car mofos are gonna fight every single step of the way. I wish you good luck, sadly in my neighbourhood the feckers out played those of us envisioning a healthier future.

So my usual cycle to and from school with my boys is back to pre-closure unreasonable danger levels. It's pathetic and sad that these folk care not for the health and well being of citizens, only a daily 3-5 minute time saving.

This is terrible. Perhaps worth explaining this to local authorities in this case to let them know what opponents will resort to in efforts to sabotage efforts like these.

Forewarned and forearmed and all that.

Avatar
RPK | 8 years ago
9 likes

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

 

Almost there smiley

Avatar
jasecd | 8 years ago
10 likes

The fuckwits are getting more vocal - the writing is on the wall.

Avatar
emishi55 | 8 years ago
15 likes

It is outrageous that criminal activity to prevent measures that will benefit the whole community, with children getting to school more easily and safely, improved air quality, health & resultant economic benefits etc etc (strewth - how many times does this have to be said!??) - and of course the ever present…ever lumbering…elephant in the room…(whisper it...in the face of 'hurricane desmond’!)....C l i m a t e  C h a n g e…., remain an ongoing obstruction to those trying to hasten what has to be the inevitable decline of fossil-fuelled, carcinogenic, rat-running traffic violence and violation of people’s environment.

There needs to be police, governmental and mayoral support for measures like those in these schemes to be rolled out across communities in London and beyond.

How is it that the trolls, shills and corporate lobbied oiks  get to exert such a hold over the public, whether it's tobacco, sugar or salt in food, lead in petrol, etc etc? - to  such an extent that campaigners face such outrageous levels of hostility and abuse? 

The mini-Hollands schemes, the E- W CS routes and the recently unveiled Tavistock improvements in Camden, have all been (and are currently) subject to vitriol, distortion, lies  and a perverse view of what constitutes an environment that most people would want to reside in or visit. 

How long is it going to take before a someone decides to take on the vested interests of the oil lobbies as they cling ever more desperately and despicably to their carcinogenic self-interest?  (Although the ‘Keep It In The Ground’ movement is one that is gaining momentum).

Where are the mayoral, TfL and government sponsored public information and eduction films, posters and flyers? The London mayoral candidates need to be on the case.

Local campaign groups have their work cut out dealing with these same issues time and again - the supreme idiocy of the LTDA (they just haven't got it have they, that less cars would mean more business for them? - even if they haven't yet converted to greener fuels). Mouthing-off with - "JUDICIAL REVIEW" at the remotest possible improvement for people walking or cycling, before giving any thought to the foulled-up mess that current levels of car-use exact on everyone.

  'Don't Let her Breathe Your Exhaust' - 'Most car journeys in  the traffic London are under two miles / is your car journey really  necessary?'  - 'I don't cycle/walk because of all the cars, vans lorries and taxis, so I go by....er….!!'

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