| Topic: | Reply | |
| Posted by: | Richard Carter | |
| Date/Time: | 14/06/19 18:23:00 |
As yet it is clearly too early for there to be specific data on the effects of the closure of Hammersmith Bridge, but the phenomenon of traffic evaporation is thoroughly established. For example: (1) evidence from over 200 transport professionals and about 150 published documents was collated to provide information on about 100 case studies from across the world. About 60 provided sufficiently detailed evidence for in-depth analytical review. The key findings were as follows. (a) When road space for cars is reallocated, traffic problems are usually far less serious than predicted. (b) Overall traffic levels can reduce by significant amounts. (c) Traffic reduction is partly explained by recognising that people react to a change in road conditions in much more complex ways than has traditionally been assumed in traffic models. ('Disappearing traffic? The story so far,' Cairns, Atkins and Goodman, Municipal Engineer, 2001: https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/disappearing_traffic_cairns.pdf) and (2) A report for the European Commission found that "The experience in a number of European cities is that: • traffic problems following the implementation of a scheme are usually far less serious than predicted; • after an initial period of adjustment, some of the traffic that was previously found in the vicinity of the scheme ‘disappears’ or ‘evaporates’, due to drivers changing their travel behaviour; • as a result the urban environment becomes more liveable in many respects." (Reclaiming city streets for people: Chaos or quality of life? European Commission, ND, http://ec.europa.eu/environment/pubs/pdf/streets_people.pdf) These are only two of the many studies that attest to traffic evaporation against the myth that the level of traffic is always static. |