The City of London has announced a pilot scheme that would see a road next to Barbican flats restricted to ultra-low emission vehicles to see what impact it has on improving air quality.
The trial, which is out for public consultation today, will create the City of London’s first low emission street. The pilot is part of the City Corporation’s Low Emission Neighbourhood project, which it jointly funds with the Mayor of London.
The short stretch of road near Moorgate could be either barred to non-compliant vehicles all day, or just during the working hours – the consultation is to work out which is best.
Following the consultation, the City Corporation aims to deliver the trial by April 2019.
The timing of the trial is due to a deadline imposed by the Greater London Authority, which provided funding for a number of trials, and the money needs to be spent by April 2019.
The tight timeline is also partly due to a decision not to proceed with a similar trial which had been planned for Beech Street, the covered road that runs under the Barbican.
As a covered road it suffers more from poor air quality than most, but turning it into a ‘ULEV Only’ street would have taken around two years — hence the trial along nearby Moor Lane instead.
Both the GLA and TfL have accepted that Moor Lane would be an acceptable alternative scheme to meet the requirements of the funding grant for air quality improvements.
The consultation on the Moor Lane plans is here.
Pointless to do a trial on a rarely used back street. You may as well just close Moor Lane off completely. If one heavily polluted vehicle used it per day – who cares in the grand scheme. They should have targeted Beech Street as originally planned.
I agree . In fact one wonders if a Street like this is chosen in order to discredit ULEZ by saying our trial made little difference when nobody will realise it was done on a street that’s little used !
Use a street like Beech Street which is a proper street with through traffic with nearby London Wall or Old Street as alternative routes .
Pollution results for ridelondon
https://cyclingindustry.news/sixth-consecutive-ridelondon-cements-link-between-car-free-days-and-clean-air/