The astronomic rise of car trips over the past few decades, together with the innovations of Satellite Navigation technology, has led to a situation whereby our neighbourhoods are being flooded with car drivers seeking to trim a few seconds from their travel time (aka ‘rat running’).
There is a solution to this: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. They may not have been known as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods for very long in the grand scheme of things, but physical measures such as bollards and planters that are designed to prevent rat running are nothing new. So members and friends of Walk Ride GM have been investigating where in Greater Manchester these interventions exist already – and there are hundreds of them, whether purpose-built or retrofitted, all playing their part in making our streets healthier, safer, quieter, and cleaner. Here are the findings so far:
Bolton (by Bolton Active Travel Forum): link
Trafford (by Trafford Cycle Forum): link
Hazel Grove, Stockport (by Walk Ride Hazel Grove): link
In the below presentation, members of the Bolton Active Travel Forum describe how they researched the borough’s existing Low Traffic Neighbourhood filters and report back on what they discovered.