Parent from United Kingdom
I live in London close to the South Circular which is a single lane A road. Since the implementation of LTNs, the health of myself and my children has been significantly impacted.
A year ago, the local authority created low traffic neighbourhoods which pushed traffic from 2 residential areas on to my road. There are 4 schools, a youth centre and a care home on this road alone. The air quality which was poor to begin with has dramatically worsened and the council provides no baseline data or meaningful monitoring to assess the impact. I can no longer work at home due to excess noise which is not constant throughout the day and night (5am-10/11pm), I cannot open windows to allow air through my home and myself and my children have poor quality sleep, all of which impacts our family quality of life. Local councillors are not interested because they now live within these quiet enclaves and mums for lungs are disappointingly similar. There is a chronic lack of empathy towards those who now suffer worsening health as a result of these schemes which are supposed to deliver clean air and less traffic - it does neither of these things. They discriminate against the less well off, the most vulnerable and are creating a respiratory health crisis. I have gone from a relatively healthy person to someone who is having to have hospital appointments to ascertain why I struggle to breathe. Where I was active and would walk locally to visit family and friends, I will now drive as I have to walk through roads which are now eerily quiet and I dear for my safety, having been followed and taunted with ' no one will hear or see you'. It impacts on how often I visit my elderly parents and it adds to the isolation of the elderly as well as the additional traffic on their road. It's soul destroying. I fear for my children's health as a result and moving away is my only option. Thanks to these LTNs, the value of my home has been impacted which makes moving and staying close to family impossible. I'm stressed, angry and depressed that clean air is becoming something only the better off can have.