Close the rat runs!

Traffic taking a shortcut through neighbourhood streets, or “rat running”, has many negative effects on residents. It creates noise, danger and pollution, and puts people off walking, cycling or socialising on the street. A low traffic neighbourhood is a whole residential area that is access-only by car. Point closures (like the bollards in the picture above) prevent rat running, but allow people to walk and cycle through. Every street can still be accessed by car.
In low traffic neighbourhoods:

• Children can play and neighbours socialise
• People of any age can walk or cycle through the area
• Driving very short journeys is less convenient
• Traffic within the area reduces by 50% or more, and overall by 15% or more
• Air pollution, noise and danger drop dramatically.

Our ask

We want to see low traffic neighbourhoods benefitting every neighbourhood, especially the most polluted and/or deprived areas. We ask the council to trial ‘no through traffic', to remove through traffic and create a truly quiet, low traffic neighbourhood. If successful this could be a model for other areas.