I’ve been in to see the Naked Deli and they tell me they are fixing their fan so hopefully that will fix the smell you mention. It is extremely unlikely that this will have made any difference to levels of Nitrogen Dioxide on the High Street.

Hi David,

The link I shared has all the monitors on it. Did you get that to work? The one north of Hollywood Avenue is pretty much right outside Gosforth Academy according to the map.

Just reading back through your comment I think I owe you an apology as I misread it as suggesting people driving south went past salters road then turned right on one of the following roads. That journey would still be counted at the Gosforth Academy counter, as would someone turning right at the Regent Centre, but as you say if someone were to turn right at Broadway and go down Jubilee Road that would no longer be counted by Gosforth Academy so could appear as if it had disappeared.

The only other nearby counter is at Jubilee Road which also shows a reduction from 2016 to 2017 so even if there is more traffic going Broadway West to Jubilee Road, some other traffic has moved / disappeared to compensate.

Possibly someone might have travelled via Broadway West then onto Kenton Road but you would still expect the biggest effects to be on the nearest roads i.e. The GNR and Benton Lane.

So I will ask my question again as you seem to be avoiding it – Where is the traffic counter, you said it’s north of Hollywood, but where north, that’s what I am asking. Is it near the speed camera, is it next to Asda. I did spot a flaw and I did point it out. How can you claim that the right turn at Salters Road makes no difference when the traffic count is north of Hollywood with many roads leading onto and off it before and after Salters Road. Please explain

Hi David,

The most important thing here is to understand what is going on so the right measures can be used to target air pollution. If you think you’ve spotted a flaw in the analysis please do say and we can investigate further. We do try to publish source data / evidence whenever we can specifically so people can check what we write, and if we’ve got something wrong we will correct it.

In answer to your other points, the traffic counter we used for disappearing traffic (question 3) was north of Hollywood so the no right turn at Salters Road that you mentioned would make no difference to this. The traffic counter for air quality (question 1) was by The Grove.

It’s not “our” disappearing traffic btw. The data is from the official council monitoring for all to see.

Thanks for your reply

Sorry if I seem to be missing something there, so if it’s north of Hollywood and I turned off much further north at Broadway West how does it not make any difference. I wouldn’t have driven past it and therefore in your eyes I would have disappeared and how can you correlate that traffic count with Salters Road when people can enter that section from further south at Regent Centre and Christon Road. Where exactly is the traffic counter.

In relation to Jubilee Road, I said I travelled that way, others may have taken different routes for Salters Road, I am sure my one traffic movement, once a week didn’t make a difference. I think your disappearing traffic in Gosforth is unfounded. You can also get to Salters Road via Regent Road and many people, including me also use that route down back streets to avoid the stop start traffic. As for disappearing traffic, well I was stuck in it on Friday at 3pm and nothing seems to be disappearing. I think you’re just massaging the stats a little to suit a purpose. It’s my interpretation of it.

David

Thanks for the comment.

All the data sources are listed in the notes section at the end of the blog. Traffic volumes are from the TADU website http://www2.gateshead.gov.uk/TADU/home.aspx

There’s plenty of evidence that substantial amounts of traffic disappear when roads are shut. What the traffic data for Gosforth shows is just one example, This is a good summary: http://rachelaldred.org/writing/thoughts/disappearing-traffic/

The GNR traffic count used in the blog in relation to disappearing traffic was from north of Hollywood Avenue so the right turn ban at Salters Road wouldn’t make any difference to this. I’m sure some vehicles did use other routes by the way. Even if half the 12000 vehicles had used another route that would still be a substantial reduction.

There’s a counter on Jubilee Road by the way, which you will see on the TADU website. That shows a slight reduction from 2016 to 2017 as well.

If you have any trouble with the TADU website, or find anything worth adding to the blog, please do let us know.

http://rachelaldred.org/writing/thoughts/disappearing-traffic/

Another point I wish to make about the “disappearing traffic”, During the roadworks at Salters Road and Church Road, the right turn was removed therefore cutting down the amount of traffic, it wasn’t really anything to do with it disappearing, people like me just took another route. I often have to visit the Ashburton Road area from Brunton Park and therefore since this right turn was banned I now take a right at Broadway West, then Wansbeck and Jubilee. It didn’t disappear, we just found alternative routes.

The removal of the right hand turn will be indicative of this change not necessarily temporary roadworks and traffic lights, people just found other ways. Even to this day when coming up past South Gosforth Metro, I will take a left onto the Grove, drive to the top and take a right at the High Street, left onto Hawthorn and right onto Linden and come home via Wansbeck Road and this is simply because Church Road is choked many times a day because those traffic lights only allow three vehicles at a time to turn right. This is right in the heart of where the pollution monitors are and therefore the pollution is caused by city council schemes designed to alleviate it. Once again, the traffic doesn’t disappear, we find more easily flowing routes.

If you consider that maybe 1 car turned right every minute or so in the past, then in a 12 hour period 7am to 7pm that’s a reduction of 720 traffic movements using alternative routes to avoid the banned right turn.

If you could publish where you obtained the data or point me in the right direction I would be most grateful

David

Dear Mr Aarvold,

Certainly our preference would have been for better support to public transport, walking and cycling in advance of measures to reduce pollution but for whatever reason successive governments have not made that commitment, or at least not to the extent required.

The Government’s position is that Clean Air Zones are the most effective way of reducing pollution. If you have time, the video about Stockholm is worth a watch and gives some data on the impact of charging and how people adjusted to that.

We can’t say what happened to the traffic that was on Salters Lane other than that it is isn’t there any more and it hasn’t caused there to be more traffic on The Great North Road or Benton Lane. Even if some of it has chosen other routes, that means quite a lot of it has disappeared. Based on what has happened elsewhere this is exactly what we should expect. See E.g. http://rachelaldred.org/writing/thoughts/disappearing-traffic/ or https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/disappearing_traffic_cairns.pdf