There are lots of bad faith arguments around providing for active travel, reducing air pollution and frankly, any initiative which seeks to challenge the car-brained status quo.
It is very easy to find those arguing in bad faith and in London, the expansion of the ULEZ to the edge of the capital is one such project attracting no end of criticism, misinformation and frankly, hate. Now I have a vested interest in ULEZ being an Outer Londoner living where the local council has done little to deal with air pollution and giving people travel choices, so I'm quite enthusiastic at the promise of some cleaner air.
On social media, my local neighbourhood groups are awash with comments from people who haven't read anything about the ULEZ because at the basic level, they don't like Sadiq Khan (yes there is often bigotry in there). Of course in some cases, the idea of charging them more for their lifestyle is pressing on some nerves because it's probably the first time they have had to confront the harm they are causing others, even in a small way.
But it's more dangerous than that. Aside from the rent-a-mob who turn up to oppose anything that threatens the status quo, there are darker things going round on social media. For example someone posted this on a local community page that I subscribe to;
Research c40 cities… this isn’t a conspiracy theory it’s conspiracy fact. Sadiq Khan is working for international unelected, unaccountable technocrats. Our rights and freedoms have been sold-out.
WEF, puppet Sadiq Khan, chair of the subgroup C40 cities with his puppet master Klaus Schwab, the unelected, unaccountable technocrat, steering the world.
They have infiltrated the British media, hence why it’s biased. Snap out of it people, we are being herded by technocrats who’ve bought-out our so called democratic representatives.
Time is crucial…
Now, I subscribed to the group to find out when the baker is back from holiday and suchlike, not to have cranks shove this nonsense down my throat. I robustly called the poster out for peddling conspiracies only to be told how that I was trying to distract people from information and this is what the Nazis did in the 1930s. Me posting a link to Godwin's Law didn't exactly go down well.
This poster also has a lot to say about vaccines, The Great Reset, the fact that The Authorities are coming for your energy inefficient homes next, plenty of Islamophobia and anti-semitism, and of course climate change denial - literally from a few minutes of scrolling. You'll never reason with a person like that and so it wasn't long before I wandered off. Perhaps this is an extreme example, but getting back to the ULEZ expansion it's not exactly helped by the discourse of some politicians in London in the way they attack the Mayor and while that's the rough and tumble of politics, you also see the cranks riffing off what they say because it supports their own tin-hatted position and there is never condemnation from the politicians as it serves their position.
On the bad faith arguments around ULEZ, I recently advanced a hypothesis that the boroughs opposing it would be the ones who had a poor track record on delivering change on the streets they control for walking, cycling and buses. I took the Healthy Streets Scorecard scores and borough rankings and came up with this table;
I added a CO2 column as an air pollution emissions proxy with data from Figure 18 of the Travel in London Report 15. I have included links to each borough's position at the end of this post.
For the outright objectors, 5 are Conservative and Havering (my borough) was also Conservative until May last year when the Residents Group took control, although they have an identical position as the Tories did. Overall and with the notable exception of Richmond wanting to delay, the rest of the objectors and delayers have a poor record of delivering local alternatives and in a few cases, these are boroughs who are also doing poorly on general transport emissions. It's actually hypocritical.
For me, their performative pearl-clutching around the poor of their boroughs needing cars is particularly unpalatable, especially as 31% of households in Outer London don't have access to cars. It's also interesting to view these positions against the new research by Dr Ian Walker and his colleagues around "motonormativity" where even non-drivers give driving a free pass because it is what everyone is used to - the status quo. This will also explain to some extent maybe why the conspiracy theorists feel so threatened with a challenge to how they see the world.
This brings me round to another subject which is always guaranteed to get the views polarised and that's floating bus stops. I realise that like a conspiracy theorist, I am shifting subjects a bit here, but I think to a greater or lesser extent, some of the same issues are at play. I wrote about floating bus stops in 2021 and if anything, in the last year or so my stance on them has hardened. This is mainly because there are groups out there who flat object to them and refuse to engage constructively on the subject and who won't offer any alternatives save to say people cycling should be back in the road with motor traffic.
I am not going to rerun the arguments of my 2021 post, but I can't call out ordinary folks for having this position because they do not have enough knowledge and they don't come from a position of authority. However, professionals and organised groups do have the knowledge and authority (to varying degrees) and so by refusing to properly engage or give their alternatives I say they act in bad faith. At worst, they will eventually be ignored and this potentially harms the people they say they represent and advocate for.
I can also bring the conversation round to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and the disingenuousness of the professionals and groups objecting to them. I railed against this in 2020 and again, my position has hardened against those who who seek to delay or water down schemes, or suggest there is some otherwise unachieved ways of reducing motor traffic on our streets. I am not even talking about the "onesie*" groups and assorted internet cranks (many of who have similar views to the person as the start of this post). No, I am talking about properly constituted or organised groups and professional campaigners and politicians who are acting in very bad faith using people's concerns and worries to advance their own positions and campaigns.
Of course, anyone could lay similar charges at my feet for my view of the world or the view that I'd like to see and that is entirely fair to a certain extent. However, what I continually object to is people who simply will not admit that they want the status quo because it suits their lifestyle. I'd have respect for that because it's honest, although that does then open a conversation around why they need an off road truck to take the kids to school when a hatchback would do the same job.
I think this is really the nub of where we get to. People are used to living their lives in a certain way and change frightens them and maybe they are experiencing loss. Someone not used to crossing a cycle track to a bus stop all of a sudden has that to cope with. Someone used to cutting through side streets in their car now has to stick to the main roads, and a tradesperson with a well-running but older diesel van is facing having to replace it or having to pay more operational costs.
I think it is fine for people to be anxious or upset because they are humans after all. In some cases, they have experienced trauma which has formed part of who they are now. What counts is how professionals, politicians, organisations and groups react to this because anyone who does know better engaging in bad faith arguments don't deserve to be listened to. Even if they think they are helping, they are just helping to maintain the status quo and we can't afford to indulge them any longer.
* Onesie - a term for the local groups who popped up on social media to protest at traffic management being used to get through traffic out of side streets and called themselves "One <insert your town>" because they wanted to drive everywhere, but who are now largely marginal cranks.
ULEZ Expansion - borough positions
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