Rachel Aldred

1. New York, London, Paris, and Berlin are important economic, cultural, political, and media centers, often setting trends that spread to other cities and countries. In recent decades, all four ci...

Background: Reducing private car use and increasing active travel is essential for transport decarbonisation and addressing public health crises of road traffic injuries, physical inactivity and air pollution. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods have emerged as a key intervention, particularly in London, United Kingdom, to create better environments for walking, wheeling and cycling by restricting through traffic on residential streets. While evidence suggests that Low Traffic Neighbourhoods reduce car use, increase walking and cycling, and improve road safety, their implementation has been politically contentious and has elicited a wide range of public reactions. Methods: This paper presents findings from the qualitative strand of a wider 3.5-year mixed-methods study of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in London. Qualitative data were collected to explore the lived experiences of Low Traffic Neighbourhood residents, with a focus on how residents – including disabled residents – perceive and navigate the schemes. Participants were selected from among those living in or on the road adjacent to four selected Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, to ensure a diversity of views on the schemes, and diverse demographic characteristics were represented. Using 61 go-along interviews and 7 focus groups, we explore how Low Traffic Neighbourhoods influence residents’ experiences and perceptions of travel. Results: Our findings show that residents’ attitudes towards Low Traffic Neighbourhoods often shape their reported experiences: those who are initially supportive tend to notice and highlight positive impacts, while opponents are more likely to report no change or negative impacts. Overall, participants observed increased walking and cycling, improved perceptions of road safety, and reduced noise and air pollution within Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. However, concerns were raised by some disabled residents about longer journey times and accessibility problems. Notably, many residents living on boundary roads perceived an increase in traffic and pollution, although quantitative data on the impacts of Low Traffic Neighborhoods on boundary roads remain mixed. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the importance of considering residents’ lived experiences in scheme evaluations. While Low Traffic Neighbourhoods contribute to climate and health objectives, their implementation should be guided by a just transition framework to ensure benefits are equitably distributed. Limitations and future work: Our study’s main limitation is that it contributes to an evidence body of research on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods being predominantly from London. Future research should extend beyond London, explore a wider range of schemes and attend to experiences of further marginalised population groups. Funding: This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Public Health Research programme as award number NIHR135020.

This is an exploratory analysis of 100 ‘family cycling’ images sourced from Google UK’s Image search. No depicted riders presented clearly visible disabilities, and images of larger bodies were rare. Most riders were white. The cycling family was usually portrayed as ‘nuclear’, comprising one man, one woman, and one to three children. Motor vehicles or pedestrians were rarely shown sharing space with people cycling; however, no images showed separated cycling infrastructure. These findings suggest a need to diversify images of ‘family cycling’ in relation to disability, body size, family structure and ethnicity, and including images of newer, separated cycling infrastructure.

We tested the hypothesis that road safety improves at junctions between minor roads and major roads if the minor roads are modally filtered to remove through traffic. We did this by using police-reported casualty data (2012–2024) to examine the effects of 113 Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) implemented in London between 2015 and 2024. Our findings supported our hypothesis: LTN implementation was associated with a 14% reduction in total numbers of casualties at junctions between newly filtered minor roads and surrounding major roads (95% CI: -21% to -8%). This effect was generally consistent across casualty injury severity, casualty travel mode, and the presence of traffic-light controlled signals.

Background Between 2015 and 2024, 113 Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) were implemented across Greater London, with 27 subsequently removed. We investigated their impacts on road traffic injuries inside LTNs and on ‘boundary roads’ immediately surrounding the LTNs. Methods We matched police-recorded injuries from STATS19 data to Ordnance Survey road links that were spatially intersected with LTNs/boundary roads. Conditional fixed-effects Poisson regression models used the number of injuries per road link per quarter of each year (January 2012 to June 2024) to test whether LTN implementation was associated with changes in injury rates. Results LTN implementation was associated with a 35% (95% CI 29% to 40%; pConclusion LTNs in London reduced road traffic injuries among all road users inside the LTN areas, with no evidence of overall impact (and for cyclists and motorcyclists a benefit) on boundary roads.