As Clausy said it is a commonly used phrase to describe notorious cut-throughs on smaller residential roads.
Think of it a bit like ‘the rat race’ - used to describe the fiercely competitive struggle (often a self-defeating one) in corporate life where people act in self-interest. It’s a common term, and it’s figurative rather than literal. We’re not literally calling people rats.
On the term rat race and rat-running, I think they reflect a similar philosophy. I think of individuals battling it out in their cars, trying to find the quickest way in the race from ‘A to B’ with disregard for the impact their traffic has on residential roads as symbolic of the rat race. Everyone acting as an individual (rather than sharing space on more efficient communal transport), causing blockages that in the end impede everyone (ie are self-defeating).
The broader message is to get out of your car if you can travel by other means. If you need to travel by car, stick to arterial roads (which should be clearer, if people collectively start moving to other forms of transport).
The Lee Green Healthy Neighbourhood is a response to the Mayor’s Transport Strategy to reduce car dependency. Council’s are provided with funds (through their Local Implementation Plans + and possibly a few other sources of funds) to develop and implement local schemes to achieve the Mayor’s overall goal. Lee Green was the first Healthy Neighbourhood in Lewisham. These are long-term plans which involve (in my opinion) fairly comprehensive consultation.
The smaller schemes we’re now seeing in Blackheath, Sydenham, Telegraph Hill etc are temporary (for now. Further consultation will be necessary if they are to remain beyond 18 months) measures to respond to Covid-19. Some have said we should have acted sooner, while others have said it we should have had a wider and more comprehensive consultation period - it is hard to find the balance.
I’d request that people try and be patient with us. Due to the emergency, we needed to plan and deliver these schemes rapidly. Not all schemes are going to work perfectly first time and might need to be amended (for example, additional bollards to prevent drivers going over the footway to avoid planters!).
Is this support for the consultations or support for the closures from people who live in the favoured streets to be closed to thru traffic? (who wouldn’t support that?!)
There is no info I can find anywhere about how the assessments and decisions were made about which streets should benefit from the schemes.
Look, I don’t know about yours, but I have difficulty getting my cat to stop snoozing in my office chair, let alone letting me ride him to the shops and back.
Perhaps I could encourage him by telling him about all the rats running about.
Well I’ve actually changed my position since this post and now I DO think all journeys should be by cat. They’re cheap, mostly quiet and run on environmentally friendly biomass fuel. Regardless of views, I think we can all agree the consultation process has woefully covered this as an option. Probably due to the ideologues in the council who have been targeted by the pro dog lobby.
Unfortunately I feel Lewisham Council has neither acted promptly in an emergency fashion, or had comprehensive consultation.
Note lock down started almost 15 weeks ago. The process for planning permission is nominally 8 weeks, extended to 13 in complex cases. It should have therefore been possible to run proper consultation in this time frame, if immediate and emergency changes could not have been made much sooner after the Covid-19 crisis started.
As it stands now, it looks to me that the Council is muddling on without proper remit or process, cheered largely by those benefiting from the schemes while other issues are overlooked without comment or justification.
I understand the benefits of reducing car use, but this is not the right way to go about bringing change that affects everyone in the borough and beyond.
It’s not up to you who use the phrase “rat runners” to describe motorists to decide whether it’s offensive. I am a motorist. I find it offensive. If I were young I might find it offensive to be described as a “snowflake”. If I were black I might find terms like “blacklist” offensive. If I were an elderly patient in hospital I might find it offensive to be described as a “bed blocker”. These are all offensive and hurtful terms. I don’t use them and if anyone told me a generalized phrase I had used to describe them was dehumanizing and hurtful, I hope I would stop using it, apologise and try to be more thoughtful in future.
I went for a walk yesterday and joined Dacres Road at the German Bridge. I noticed 4 signs warning people of the road changes at Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe. The barriers now consist of a bollard in addition to the planter so cars can’t get past them. They were being obeyed though I did see people not heeding the signs and waiting till they past all 4 signs before being forced to a do a u turn.
You can’t really help people who can’t help themselves by reading signs. There were 2 signs from Sydenham Road that I could see.
Overall, it seems to have got over the initial teething problems and if it is put in locally again, the lessons learned from this can make the implementation smoother. The consultation is probably another matter.
Let’s not forget that like any organisation the council is going through seismic change as a result of covid, with a huge shift to officers working from home, whilst also doing all the normal business as usual in these difficult times. That presumably includes figuring out how to keep essential services going during the pandemic, including social care. I for one am not surprised that traffic calming measures weren’t the first thing out of the gate, nor subject to fully fledged consultation, but I would have been dissappointed if they weren’t attempted.
The same applies to councillors many of whom will have full time jobs to hold down and families to care for, whilst also trying to engage in fora like this. Let’s try and keep a sense of perspective here.
To be fair you’re the only person who has used that phrase in this whole thread (aside from Chris, and me when I quoted you). Somehow you’ve ended up offending yourself but I assure you there is no offence intended by the use of the phrase ‘rat run’. Its simply a term to describe a residential road used as a cut through.
Anyway I think the whole rat run storyline is a distraction from the whole issue of cleaner safer streets and changing encouraging healthier behaviour.
Hi Leo, thanks for joining the discussion, listening to people’s concerns, and explaining issues. I’ll make it very clear that I support the schemes in principle however as you can see there’s a perceived lack of clarity and transparency around the process of deciding where the closures are happening and also implementation and signage.
I’ve been out and about to have a 1st hand look at things and they definitely seem to be improving. Please do continue to stay involved in these topics.
Public interest journalism site 853.london has an informative write-up about the Upwood Road debacle, previously bought to prominence by Tom Edwards Tweeting to show drivers mounting the pavement in order to circumnavigate the modal filter installed at the boundary to Lewisham:
In our defence, the legal changes that meant emergency Traffic Orders covered Covid-19 response measures only came into force on 23rd May. About 6/7 weeks go.
Covid-19 has not gone away and social distancing remains necessary. We can’t have our tubes and buses getting ram-packed again, therefore we still need to create more space for cyclists and pedestrians. The remit and need remains.
I do not intend to brusque but I’d say it’s not up to you to police my language. If someone is offended by the term blacklist, I’d probably inform them that it comes from the list of judges who signed Charles I’s death warrant (his son, Charles II, later described it as ‘this blacklist’), and that its subsequent uses mean it has little if nothing to do with race.
Not to be flippant but if someone was offended by the term snowflake, I might call them a snowflake! (I jest)
But in honesty, words are deemed offensive when decided upon the collective. Not when an individual arbitrarily assigns it so. I am quite forthright on this principle and believe nobody has a right ‘not to be offended’. If rat-running was deemed a slur against all people who drive by a broad cross-section of the population, I’d likely change my tune. However, I have a hunch that the phrase is seen, very broadly, as an acceptable and pretty harmless term to describe cut-through traffic on residential roads.
Anyway, I think this issue stands to one side of the main thread here and I don’t want to get into a tit-for-tat back and forth.
I do feel that’s plenty of time for things to have moved faster, or the time used for clear and transparent consultation. But I won’t labour that point further.
Anyway, it’s good to see final phase 1 funding has been allocated with £5m going to London Boroughs and TfL to help make improvements. I look forward to more details on this in the near future: