Questions to the Mayor of London – answered at on 13 September 2019.
Campaigners have raised concerns with me that trials to support walking, cycling and reducing through traffic have been curtailed at short notice by councils, such as Tower Hamlets and Newham. Your Transport Strategy calls on boroughs to reduce traffic. How are you supporting boroughs to enable them to conduct and complete trials of schemes that will reduce London’s traffic?
Transport for London (TfL) recognises the importance of innovative, proactive and collaborative approaches to delivering traffic reduction schemes through its borough funding programmes - and has reflected this in core guidance documents, including the Liveable Neighbourhoods borough guidance.
This guidance clearly encourages boroughs to use more innovative techniques, such as trials and open street events, to engage with communities to promote less traffic dominance on local streets - and to encourage people-centric use, such as markets or social events.
Over the past 18 months, TfL has worked with a number of local authorities, including Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Haringey and Ealing, to deliver trials as a means of promoting traffic-free routes and increasing the uptake of active travel. However, given that TfL is not the traffic authority for 95 per cent of London’s streets, it is for the local authorities to decide which specific traffic-reduction schemes they take forward on their roads.