Talk:Low Traffic Neighbourhood

UK perspective

This article is flagged as The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United Kingdom and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. - but does this concept exist outside of the UK? Perhaps by a different name? Searching or sources, and using the US spelling of neighborhood, I'm only able to find find US coverage of the project in London. (Pinging User:Ita140188 as the editor who added the template.) Belbury (talk) 14:04, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

LTNs and bus issues

The article might want to cover this new research too:

The bus took 11 minutes before LTNs — now it takes 45

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3bd51122-06d1-4899-97cf-8b1e44397f8e?shareToken=225b26243c85ca70fa6b0b3fc682eede 2A00:23C7:8F0B:6D01:75C8:28DC:789B:A147 (talk) 21:30, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Not a reliable source for 'research'. TfL itself might be more suitable. Bon courage (talk) 00:09, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Google docs and campaign groups

Are not reliable sources for knowledge on Wikipedia.[1] And edit warring them in is disruptive. Bon courage (talk) 14:28, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

The publication of an established expert on the topic of the article, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications, is acceptable.[2] Professor Rachel Aldred is such an expert. I hope that you will self-revert your deletions. Richard Keatinge (talk) 14:37, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Google docs are never usable. There is a load of proper published research on LTNs so no need to scrape the barrel. Bon courage (talk) 14:45, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, formal academic publication would be better. To substantiate one of the points, I have substituted what appears to be a preprint, by the same authors, see Changes in motor traffic in London’s Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and boundary roads. Case Studies on Transport Policy. Volume 15, March 2024. Asa Thomas, Rachel Aldred. I hope that you find this more acceptable?

WP:PREPRINTS aren't considered reliable sources, although it looks like they could be quoted in context (attributed to specific people rather than stated as fact) under WP:SPS if any of the authors are recognised experts. --Belbury (talk) 09:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Actually I'm not sure that this is a preprint, it looks like a normal publication but I just notice that it's dated to March 2024. That may be something to do with imperfect mirroring between print and electronic publication. But indeed, the authors are recognized experts. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

This is a published journal article; a good one. Bon courage (talk) 11:32, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Acceptable use of SPS?

For the other point, the (lack of) effects on voting numbers for or against candidates tweeting either for or against LTNs, quick searches on Google Scholar don't turn up anything. That may well change of course, but meanwhile we have a publication making an important point, published in a form acceptable to policy, by a multiply-published expert on the subject, see [3] and [4]. I feel that we should include it, as follows:

In 2022 local elections were held across London. Many candidates had tweeted about LTNs, Labour candidates generally positively, Conservatives generally against; these tweets seemed to make very little difference to the number of votes cast for these candidates. If anything, tweeting positively about LTNs may have increased the number of votes for Labour councillors.)

I'd be happy to take this discussion further, perhaps to WP:3O or WP:RSN, if you'd like. Richard Keatinge (talk) 18:23, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

School streets

I think this topic has crossover with school streets initiatives like this in Paris and the UK. As part of urban planning and traffic restrictions aimed at reducing pollution and reducing exposure to traffic and pollution to more vulnerable groups, though I presume there'd be no need to move the article to a new name. Battleofalma (talk) 11:27, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Published health benefit estimates

We are discussing the reference Rachel Aldred, Anna Goodman, James Woodcock. Impacts of active travel interventions on travel behaviour and health: Results from a five-year longitudinal travel survey in Outer London, Journal of Transport & Health, Volume 35, 2024, 101771, ISSN 2214-1405, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2024.101771. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140524000173), used to justify the text:

Increased physical activity followed the introduction of LTNs and other lesser measures in areas within greater London. The resulting benefits to employers from reduced sickness absence of employees, and the financial benefits from reduced premature mortality, were estimated by the methodology of the Department for Transport. These benefits were equivalent to some £4800 per person over twenty years, compared to a per-person cost of £28–35 (for LTNs implemented during 2020 as Covid-19 emergency interventions) or £112 per person (for higher-cost LTNs with, for example, crossing improvements and greening measures).

Areas that were not given the full LTN treatment showed much lesser benefits; nevertheless, the health economic benefits of the overall programme were some £1,056m, more than ten times greater than the cost which totaled c. £100m.

The above text has been removed with the comment "Would need WP:MEDRS; these are simply not reliable sources".

I note that the Journal of Transport & Health is a well-established academic journal and describes its own rigorous peer-review process; the paper describes its process of extensive fact-gathering and its use of recommended estimation methods from the Department for Transport. It's difficult to think of a more reliable source for the points made. Richard Keatinge (talk) 17:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

@Richard Keatinge we really need WP:MEDRS for health impacts of LTNS. It would be good if there were some - is there? Bon courage (talk) 17:18, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

The connection between physical activity and health is well established, are you suggesting that we need e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1402378/ as well?

For the relevant estimates the source seems entirely reliable, as do its methods, given at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63a32b698fa8f53911cfcd36/TAG_Unit_A5.1_-_Active_Mode_Appraisal_Nov_2022_Accessible_v1.0.pdf.pdf In what way do you feel that it is incompatible with WP:MEDRS?

References

The work of Aldred et al is certainly very interesting and relevant, but it's a primary source and so I would think that's where it's problematic in terms of WP:MEDRS? Is there something like a secondary source analysis of the Aldred work that could be included instead? There are some helpful suggestions in the "Basic advice" section of WP:MEDRS. 45154james (talk) 08:19, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Just continuing the above: One approach you can use is to go to Google Scholar and search for "low traffic neighbourhoods". Browse through the papers that come up. Find some interesting ones and see what those are cited by - and those secondary sources may then qualify as WP:MEDRS and be usable here.

If I do it, the first paper that comes up is a paper by Aldred et al in BMJ 2021

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n443

That's probably another primary source. However, for each "hit" paper, Google Scholar also identifies the secondary sources that cite it. So for the Aldred BMJ 2021 paper, we would get these:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=2397024376055478478

Browsing through those, we can see at least one, "Shifting towards healthier transport: carrots or sticks?

Systematic review and meta-analysis of population-level interventions"

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanplh/PIIS2542-5196(22)00220-0.pdf that looks like a promising WP:MEDRS, because it's a systematic review, published in The Lancet, and so on. I don't know if it contains any of the kind of info that you would like to include, but it does at least look like it would meet WP:MEDRS That's just one very quick example. There may be many.

I hope that is helpful. 45154james (talk) 14:55, 24 February 2024 (UTC) -- Edited shortly after to correct typo in PDF link 45154james (talk) 14:57, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

The Lancet paper is a golden source. Bon courage (talk) 14:57, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

The Aldred health work mentioned in a secondary source (The Guardian, 8 March 2024): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/health-gains-of-low-traffic-schemes-up-to-100-times-greater-than-costs-study-finds. 45154james (talk) 19:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

But I think that still fails WP:MEDRS! 45154james (talk) 19:58, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Bon courage (talk) 20:49, 8 March 2024 (UTC)