Islington LTNs Reduce Traffic and Air Pollution
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Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods in Islington are reducing traffic volumes and air pollution, research by Imperial College London shows.
The New Scientist reports that Dr Audrey de Nazelle of ICL and her team studied three LTNs in Islington which were installed in 2020. They used data provided by the local authority, Islington Council.
Traffic volumes dropped by:
- 58.2% within the LTNs and
- 13.4% on boundary roads
NO2 reduced by:
- 5.7% within the LTNs and by
- 8.9% in the boundary areas
‘What we are finding is not a surprise, we expect to find it elsewhere. We have sufficient evidence that LTNs are beneficial for community members, for members of society. There’s no evidence of harm in boundary areas.’
audrey de nazelle of imperial college london
A fuller report is available on Science Direct.
There, the researchers note that some traffic interventions can take up to 3 years to reach their full impacts, so ideally data would be collected over that length of time.
They conclude:
‘LTNs have the potential to reduce air pollution and traffic volumes within their boundaries and immediate surroundings…Our findings add to a growing and convincing body of literature making the case for cities to adopt traffic restriction strategies such as LTNs, with minimal risk of unintended and unequal consequences. Air pollution may thus be considered as one of the multiple benefits of traffic reduction strategies, alongside previously documented accounts of improvement in public realm making streets safer from traffic collisions, better-suited for social interactions and physical activity, and generally supportive of greater wellbeing.’
conclusions from the research noted in sciencedirect.com
Study co-author, PhD student Helen Yang, said:
‘This is the first study to use a robust statistical approach to show the impact of LTNs on surrounding areas, and the results are really encouraging. We worked with a relatively small data set and further research is now needed to confirm these findings at a larger scale.’
helen yang, study co-author