Government initiatives to block cars from London’s streets are facing new challenges in the courts.
Photographer: Richard Baker / In Pictures
Photographer: Richard Baker / In Pictures
Like London remodeling its streets to accommodate more cyclists and pedestrians during the coronavirus pandemic, it is facing a new type of obstacle: legal challenges.
A London court ruled on January 20 that barring taxis from a central London street was illegal. In a victory by several groups in the taxi trade that challenged the case, Justice Beverley Lang also found that city guidelines suggesting that local neighborhoods prohibit taxis on some streets have not sufficiently taken into account “the needs of people with protected characteristics, including the elderly or the disabled”.
Another legal challenge that could have even broader implications follows closely: in February, activist groups from five London districts will ask a court to consider reversing programs to create low-traffic neighborhoods. The groups will argue that the authorities did not consult with local communities before making decisions to block traffic, which negatively affected vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and their caregivers, or the poorest people living near the main arteries.
Together, these processes raise new issues of equity over the entire London pandemic era Streetspace program. This reform of the city’s road system temporarily remodeled more than 40 main streets to widen sidewalks and increase safe lanes for cyclists, and accelerated the introduction of Low Traffic Neighborhoods (LTNs): community centers where, in an attempt to reduce pollution and stimulate travel activity, access by car (including taxis) is blocked or restricted.
Concerns about the disproportionate impacts of these community centers have been growing for some time. London fresh air activist Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whose daughter Ella’s asthma death at age 9 was found caused in part by pollution, he argued that LTNs actually worsen conditions for the poorest Londoners. They did this, Kissi-Debrah said, by shifting more traffic from desirable village-like areas to more accessible areas around main roads, where people with lower incomes are more likely to live. Activists who challenge London’s LTNs in court are relying on similar arguments, claiming that the impacts of traffic and air pollution on vulnerable groups in these plans have not been sufficiently considered.
In the court’s recent decision, the groups that filed the lawsuit represented the drivers of London’s iconic black taxis. The United Trade Action Group and the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association said that in including taxis in their car restrictions, TfL did not take into account the legal status of taxis recognized as public transport.
The challenge focused on Bishopsgate Street, an important route leading to London’s financial district and the location of Liverpool Street Station, a transit hub.
The plans opened this summer limited access to the street to buses and bicycles between 7 am and 7 pm on weekdays, with expanded and improved sidewalks. Tweets from mayor’s walking and cycling commissioner taxis initially suggested would also be allowed access. But they were excluded from the final plan, with the TfL survey cited in the lawsuit suggesting that taxis constituted up to 43% of vehicles on the road during the morning rush hour – an estimate contested by taxi groups. TfL closings still allow some access to the street via side streets – including the Liverpool Street station yard – but this meant that taxis needed to take complicated, higher-cost routes and could not guarantee landing at the door.
The court’s verdict doesn’t make outrageous in its comments on the TfL. The street space changes, which Justice Lang called “radical”, were “symptomatic of a poorly thought out response that sought to take advantage of the pandemic to move forward, on an emergency basis, without consultation”, she wrote in her decision. The justification for the adaptations – “that after the blockade, because of the limited public transport capacity, there would be a large increase in pedestrians and cyclists” – was “mere conjecture”, said Minister Lang.
According to a statement by a A spokesman for TfL, the agency is “disappointed with the trial” and plans to appeal. “Streetspace’s temporary schemes are enabling safer essential travel during this exceptionally challenging period and are vital to ensuring that increased car traffic does not threaten London’s recovery from the coronavirus.
Simon Still with the London cycling campaign described the process as “the most recent in a long history of the taxi industry opposing any scheme that seeks to cut car use and increase walking and cycling” in a statement. Reducing car traffic is “in the best interest of Londoners, including the elderly and disabled,” he wrote.
London is one of several cities that face legal challenges because of the reconfiguration of its streets. In 2020, Berlin fought a legal battle over its Temporary bike lanes – with courts ruling, as they did in London, that street changes were illegal because an insufficient case had been made for their need. As in London, no real change was required from the city until the call is heard later this year. And in 2018, a French court ruled that closing Paris to cars on the Lower Docks of the Seine was illegal – partly because, again, the court said some pollution management claims made in the project’s impact assessment were inaccurate. Pedestrianization remained after the city argued in favor of it based on heritage (easier to maintain).
Similar concerns about the effectiveness of these street restrictions have been raised in political battles in London. In December 2020, the conservative neighborhood of Kensington and Chelsea, which encompasses Britain’s wealthiest communities, removed a temporary cycle path from Kensington High Street, a major shopping street in West London, after claims that it was causing congestion and damaging the trade. Since the removal of the lane, however, traffic has worsened as parked cars have replaced the bicycle space. Some councilors have also been accused of choreographing negative corporate statements, prompting the district to agree to reconsider the closure.
The recent London court decision and the forthcoming lawsuit raise new issues of equity in the fight against the road adaptation pandemic. While community activists challenge TfL in court in February, these arguments are likely to come back to the fore, as long as these policies target some streets and not others.
“Everyone wants cleaner air and safer streets, ”Ade Alabi, an activist who is part of the coalition that challenges London’s LTNs, told the local newspaper the Hackney Gazette. “What is needed to tackle the dangers of traffic is a comprehensive approach, in which all residents are consulted and all roads are considered.”