Government initiatives to block London streets from cars are facing new challenges in court.
Photographer: Richard Baker / In Pictures
Photographer: Richard Baker / In Pictures
Like London improves its streets to accommodate more cyclists and pedestrians during the coronavirus pandemic, and it faces a new obstacle: legal challenges.
A court in London ruled on January 20 that banning taxis from a central street in London was illegal. In a victory for several taxi trade groups that submitted the challenge, Justice Beverley Lang also found that urban guidance, which suggests that local neighborhoods ban taxis in some streets, does not adequately take into account ‘the needs of people with protected characteristics, including the elderly or disabled’.
Another legal challenge that could have even broader consequences follows on its heels: in February, activist groups from five London boroughs asks a court to consider reversing programs to create low-traffic neighborhoods. The groups would argue that officials did not consult communities before making decisions to block traffic, which negatively affected vulnerable groups such as the elderly and their caregivers, or poorer people living near the big veins.
Together, these lawsuits raise new stock questions across the London-era Pandemic-era Streetspace program. This overhaul of the city’s road system has temporarily overhauled more than 40 main streets to widen sidewalks and increase safe roads for cycling, accelerating the introduction of low-traffic neighborhoods (LTNs): community hubs where pollution is reduced and active travel is encouraged, access to cars (taxis included) are blocked or restricted.
Concerns about the excessive impact of these community hubs have been building for some time. London-based clean-air activist Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whose daughter Ella appears to be 9 years old due to asthma partly caused by pollution, argued that the LTNs were deteriorating conditions for poorer Londoners. They did so, Kissi-Debrah said, by shifting more traffic from desired township-like areas to the more affordable areas around major highways where people with lower incomes are more likely to live. The activists who are contesting London LTNs in court rely on similar arguments, claiming that the impact on traffic and air pollution on vulnerable groups of these plans has not been adequately considered.
In the recent court ruling, the groups that filed the lawsuit represented drivers of the iconic black taxis in London. The United Trade Action Group and the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association said that TfL did not take into account taxis’ legally recognized status as public transport by including taxis in its restrictions on cars.
The challenge was the center of Bishopsgate Street, a major route leading to the London Financial District and the location of Liverpool Street Station, a transit center.
Plans inaugurated this summer restricted access to the street to buses and bicycles only on weekdays between 07:00 and 19:00, widening and improving sidewalks. Tweets from the mayor’s walking and cycling commissioner proposed taxis would initially also gain access. But they were excluded from the final plan, with TfL research cited in the court case suggesting that during the morning peak, taxis make up 43% of the vehicles on the road – an estimate disputed by taxi groups. The closure of TfL still provides access to the street via side streets – including the forecourt of Liverpool Street Station – but that meant taxis had to take complicated, higher-cost routes and could not guarantee the threshold.
The court’s ruling does not take a beating in its comments on TfL. The street space changes, which Justice Lang called ‘radical’ was “symptomatic of an ill-considered response that sought to take advantage of the pandemic to penetrate, to an emergency without consultation,” she wrote in her verdict. The justification for the adjustments – “that, due to the limited public transport capacity, there would be a large increase in pedestrians and cyclists,” was ‘mere suspicion’, Judge Lang said.
According to a statement from a TfL spokesperson, the agency is “disappointed with the verdict” and plans to appeal. “Temporary street space schemes enable safe essential journeys during this extremely challenging time, and are essential to ensure that increased car traffic does not threaten the recovery of the coronavirus in London.”
Simon Still with the London cycling campaign In a statement, the case is described as’ the latest in a long history of the taxi industry pushing against a scheme that seeks to reduce car use and boost walking and cycling. The reduction in car traffic is ‘in the best interests of Londoners, including the elderly and disabled’, he wrote.
London is one of a number of cities facing the court due to their reconfigurations in the street. In 2020, Berlin underwent a court battle over it temporary cycle lanes – with courts that, as in London, ruled that the street changes were illegal because not enough was done for their necessity. As in London, no real changes were required to the city before the appeal was heard later this year. And in 2018, a French court ruled that locking cars in the Seine’s Lower Quays in Paris was illegal – in part because the court once again said some pollution management claims made in the project’s impact assessment were inaccurate. The pedestrian work continued after the city made an argument for it on (easier to maintain) heritage sites.
Similar concerns questioning the effectiveness of these street restrictions have been raised in political battles in London. In December 2020, the conservative borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which covers the richest communities in Britain, removed a temporary cycle path from Kensington High Street, a major shopping street in West London, after allegations that it was causing congestion and hindering trade. However, since the removal of the track, traffic has worsened as parked cars replaced the bike space. Some councilors are also accused of choreographing negative statements from businesses, which led the congregation to agree to reconsider the closure.
The recent London court ruling and the forthcoming lawsuit raise new concerns about equity in the fight over pandemic adjustments along the way. Since community activists challenged TfL in court in February, these arguments are likely to re-emerge, as long as these policies are directed at some streets and not at others.
‘“Everyone wants cleaner air and safer streets,” said Ade Alabi, a campaigner who is part of the coalition challenging London LTNs. told the local newspaper Hackney Gazette. “What is needed to deal with traffic hazards is a comprehensive approach in which all residents are consulted and all roads are taken into account.”