Active Travel Neighbourhoods, or Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, are residential streets where all, or virtually all, through motorised traffic has been removed in order to improve conditions for other modes of travel such as walking, cycling, scooting, and using mobility aids such as wheel chairs and mobility adapted cycles. The removal of motorised through traffic is essentially achieved through the use of modal filters that prevent through journeys being made by large vehicles but allow smaller modes of travel to pass though. The filtering out of larger traffic can be achieved by placing planters, bollards, or other street furniture in the road to create gaps that are too narrow for cars to go through. In some cases, access for emergency services can be maintained by the use of lockable bollards, or camera enforced “gates” which have no physical restrictions but impose fines for use by unauthorised traffic.
An important principle of Active Travel Neighbourhoods is that they still allow access to all of the properties on the street by cars or delivery vehicles, although they do make short local journeys by car less convenient. However, the reduced convenience of local car journeys does mean that switching those journeys to other ones is made much easier, and often people find that they are more likely to walk, cycle, use mobility scooters and other mobility aids because they can use the roads to do so. Residents also benefit from reduced traffic noise and an improved public space for people to meet or where children can play. Longer car journeys are much less affected by the changes because any additional extra distance involved in negotiating the closures is only a very small part of the total journey.
A common concern expressed about implementing Active Travel neighbourhoods is that they will increase traffic levels on the surrounding network of main roads. As with many of the concerns raised about measures that limit the domination of public spaces by motorised traffic, there is little credible evidence to support those claims. There is, however, evidence that reducing the amount of road space that is available to through traffic reduces the overall amount of traffic, as people choose to use other modes of travel like walking, cycling, and public transport for short local journeys. This effect was seen when the Greyhound Bridge in Lancaster was closed to traffic due to damage during Storm Desmond in December 2015. There is also some initial recent evidence from Hackney that introducing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods has not resulted in increased traffic levels on nearby main roads.
The approach of developing Active Travel Neighbourhoods was actively promoted by the government under the Emergency Active Travel Funding as the quickest and most cost-effective way of reallocating road space to walking and cycling to promote more sustainable and active modes of travel. The same approach was also permitted to be applied on main roads, with suitable exceptions for buses, access and disabled people, and with other main roads kept free for through motor traffic, in order to create sustainable travel corridors. Although the approach of introducing point closures on main roads was promoted as the best option for promoting active travel by the government we are not currently aware of any having been implemented.
There has been some very vocal opposition to these kinds of schemes being introduced, and a variety of claims made about them being both unpopular and causing problems. Some of the opposition to them has been funded by motoring lobby groups masquerading as concerned residents, although surveys generally show good levels of public support for the schemes once they have been in place for a while and people had had an opportunity to adapt to some of the changes.
Lancaster Dynamo Cycle Campaign 