FOI request detail

impact of new development on traffic modelling

Request ID: FOI-2429-1617
Date published: 17 October 2017

You asked
At the call in meeting in Enfield this Wednesday 1st March, we discovered that Enfield has not factored in various strategic scale developments into its traffic modelling for the Hertford Road including the 63,000 seater stadium at White Hart Lane. I heckled the word "shocking" and everybody was silent including the chair, because there really is no come-back. This can only be described as gross malpractice that Enfield consider it appropriate to ignore known strategic scale developments on their traffic modelling. I suspect if they did take them into account that they would agree with Haringey and Hackney, that the bus priority measures that cyclists can use proposed for the LEZ's for Tottenham High Road and the A105 in Wood Green are the correct solution to these vital arterial corridors that were once graced by fast, frequent trams, alongside quiet cycle ways on parallel routes. At present we have projected delays of up to 1.5 minutes per mile, resulting in journey time increase for buses along a five mile stretch from just north of White Hart Lane to just south of Waltham Cross, for a five mile stretch of busy bus routes. This means that TFL will need to purchase a significant number of buses to maintain existing bus frequencies on existing projections for some sections of the route. The existing projection for the A1010 south is shown above. That such major developments as the 63,000 seat stadium at White Hart Lane, just 0.5 miles south of the scheme have been ignored suggest that the delays and resource implications for TFL could be far greater than previously stated. Furthermore, the modelling does not identify at which point each junction becomes saturated, resulting in grid-lock, that often already occurs. In light of the fact that if people cannot rely on buses and that those north of Edmonton Green get just two trains per hour at most stations, it is likely that those who cannot rely on buses anymore, who refuse to use a 2 trains per hour service and will not cycle, will likely get in their car and circuitous rat routes to reach their place of work, etc. You also seem to have failed to consider the impact of hundreds of drivers driving in circles to find a parking space when you remove more than 40% of the existing parking spaces on Hertford Road in one fell swoop. If we get grid lock, it seems that we have no idea what impact this will have on alternative routes like Galliard Road, Nightingale Road, Montague Road, Lincoln Road, A1055 and A10 and many other local residential streets. This Freedom of Information Request is directed at both TFL and Enfield. It asks for any documents or correspondence relating to any consideration that has been given to the impact of the following planned regeneration schemes on traffic modelling for Cycle Enfield: • The 4,000 plus new dwellings at Edmonton Heartlands Mayoral Housing Zone. • The 10,000 plus new dwellings plus employment space and other mixed uses proposed at the Meridian Water Mayoral Housing Zone. • The 10,000 plus new dwellings proposed for the Mayoral Housing Zones at White Hart Lane and Northumberland Park. • The up to 5,000 new dwellings proposed for the Tottenham Hale Mayoral Housing Zone. • The currently under construction Electric Quarter at Ponders End. • The currently under construction regeneration of Alma Road Estate, Ponders End. • The 63,000 seater stadium under construction at White Hart Lane. • The extreme sports centre and associated hotel and commercial uses proposed at White Hart Lane. • The impact between now and the 2030's of the 100,000 population increase projected for Enfield by the Office of National Statistics, much of which will be east of the A10 along the A1010 corridor. Junction saturation: Furthermore, I seek any documents or correspondance relating to assessments of the levels of traffic that will trigger junction saturation on the proposed highway interventions in relation to the above regeneration schemes, alongside assessments of the impact this would have on pollution and displacement of traffic onto alternative routes. Impact on bus resources: Furthermore, I seek any documents or correspondance relating the the assessment of the number of buses that will need to be purchased and drivers that will have to be hired to maintain existing bus frequencies on the A1010 corridor and affected streets in light of the admitted journey time increases of up to 1.5minutes per mile. I seek the same for the projected costs of additional bus resources and how they will be funded by whom, including associated need to invest in additional bus garage facilities. Furthermore, the same for the assessment of the lost revenue to TFL from reduced bus usage that will result from increased bus journey times. If additional resources are not being provided, please provide the same regarding the projected reduction of bus frequencies for all routes. If this work has not been carried out and incorporated, I request that it is carried out. Specifically for TFL, I request a list of all the cycle schemes that have been rejected for lesser increases in journey times due to harmful impact on bus resources and income. I know that there are at least two such schemes in the London Borough of Southwark, including at Camberwell. Clearly, the solution is to convert this scheme to an extension of the Low Emissions Zones proposed for Haringey, with bus lanes and other bus priority measures that cyclists can use, cycle friendly junctions on the main-roads alongside parallel cycle routes on quiet-ways including an extension of Cycle Superhighway to Edmonton Green via North Middlesex Hospital and Pymmes Park to replace the insane proposal of removing the bus lane on the A1010 south of the A406. I will add, that the Conservative Group in Enfield are being extremely generous to the Edmonton Labour Group in attempting to reverse this scheme. Politically, they would be much better off sitting back and not trying to resolve the scheme, not intervening to improve it for bus users and pedestrians, because I can tell you now that when Edmonton residents wake up to not being able to take the bus to work and not being able to park their cars, that they will in droves, vote Tory. The Borough will also be set back a few decades in terms of social equality due to material reduction in ease of access to employment. As a Town Planner myself, I can tell you that parking and public transport delays are some of the few things other than the cancellation of the Great British Bake Off that will get sleeping voters from their chairs. I will add, that I have studied the Dutch approach at University. When they removed parking spaces and introduced cycle lanes, they did it bit by bit, removing a parking space here and a parking space there, trialling and seeing the impact before removing more. Often they would remove just one parking space at a time. This was a great success which allowed people to adapt, with adequate time for mitigation to be put in place. Just because you say this is Dutch does not mean it is, and it is certainly not the Dutch way to remove over 40% of parking on a busy commercial road with countless businesses in one go. An approach that was not and will never be taken in Holland, so it is fraudulent to claim that such a cockeyed approach has anything in common with the far more sensible Dutch Planners.

We answered

Our Ref: FOI-2429-1617/IRV-002-1718

I am writing to you regarding the long outstanding request you submitted on 3 March 2017. You have requested an Internal Review of the handling of this request, and specifically our decision that the request was complex and required an extension to the normal time limit. This response comes significantly after that time limit and I apologise for the excessive delays you have experienced.

The extension to the deadline was because your request was both complex and voluminous. Following a significant number of internal enquiries, we have concluded that the searches required to determine what information is held, and to locate, retrieve and extract the requested information would be ‘manifestly unreasonable’, and therefore this request is refused under Regulation 12(4)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations. Requests for ‘all correspondence and documents’ tend to be particularly time consuming as we hold emails from approximately 98,000 TfL accounts for up to seven years. We consider that in this instance the public interest in supplying the requested information is outweighed by the burden of identifying, retrieving and extracting all information falling under your request.

The Environmental Information regulations and the Freedom of Information Act provide a right to access recorded information. The parts of your email of 3 March that constitute requests for recorded information are repeated as bullet points below:

• any documents or correspondence relating to any consideration that has been given to the impact of the following planned regeneration schemes on traffic modelling for Cycle Enfield:
o The 4,000 plus new dwellings at Edmonton Heartlands Mayoral Housing Zone.
o The 10,000 plus new dwellings plus employment space and other mixed uses proposed at the Meridian Water Mayoral Housing Zone.
o The 10,000 plus new dwellings proposed for the Mayoral Housing Zones at White Hart Lane and Northumberland Park.
o The up to 5,000 new dwellings proposed for the Tottenham Hale Mayoral Housing Zone.
o The currently under construction Electric Quarter at Ponders End.
o The currently under construction regeneration of Alma Road Estate, Ponders End.
o The 63,000 seater stadium under construction at White Hart Lane.
o The extreme sports centre and associated hotel and commercial uses proposed at White Hart Lane.
o The impact between now and the 2030's of the 100,000 population increase projected for Enfield by the Office of National Statistics, much of which will be east of the A10 along the A1010 corridor.
• any documents or correspondence relating to assessments of the levels of traffic that will trigger junction saturation on the proposed highway interventions in relation to the above regeneration schemes
• assessments of the impact this would have on pollution and displacement of traffic onto alternative routes.
• any documents or correspondence relating the assessment of the number of buses that will need to be purchased and drivers that will have to be hired to maintain existing bus frequencies on the A1010 corridor and affected streets in light of the admitted journey time increases of up to 1.5minutes per mile.
• any documents or correspondence relating to the projected costs of additional bus resources and how they will be funded by whom, including associated need to invest in additional bus garage facilities.
• any documents or correspondence relating to the assessment of the lost revenue to TFL from reduced bus usage that will result from increased bus journey times.
• If additional resources are not being provided, please provide the same regarding the projected reduction of bus frequencies for all routes.
• I request a list of all the cycle schemes that have been rejected for lesser increases in journey times due to harmful impact on bus resources and income.

You also requested ‘If this work has not been carried out and incorporated, I request that it is carried out’. This is not a request for recorded information under either the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental Information Regulations therefore it falls outside the scope of this response.

You have submitted eight information requests in 2017. Seven of the requests have now been answered, and your request about Overground and National Rail turn up and go standards will be answered shortly. You have also submitted three requests for internal review, and the first part of this email comprises the response to one of those. Regarding the two others, there is some overlap between the request received on 19 May and your most recent one (which also includes some new requests for information), received on 16 July – so we will be providing a single response and expect to send this to you by 5 August 2017.

The focus of your requests is transport planning, and because transport planning will usually have an environmental impact your requests should generally be considered under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), rather than the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Both the EIR and FOIA contain provision to mitigate the impact of burdensome requests on public authorities. The EIR allow the refusal of manifestly unreasonable requests whilst the FOIA places a limit on the cost of responding to requests which may be aggregated across requests which relate to any extent to the same or similar information received within 60 consecutive days.

We recognise that there is substantial public interest in the disclosure of information about transport planning. However, we are operating in a challenging financial environment and in future we may refuse requests for information if it would take more than 18 hours to locate, retrieve and extract the information required to answer any single request, or any series of similar requests received within a 60 working day period.

Since the FOIA and the EIR give a right to access recorded information, requests to undertake analysis, create new information or validate data fall outside this legislation. The Freedom of Information team will not consider such requests when providing responses to your FOI or EIR requests.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob
Information Access Advisor
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

[email protected]

 

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