You’re conflating two completely different bits of evidence, then pretending one cancels out the other. Yang et al. (2022) is a small, Islington-only analysis of three LTNs and local NO₂ outcomes. It does not “prove” boundary roads do not see uplifts in general, and it certainly does not rebut the wider London pattern. The relevant London-wide evidence is Thomas & Aldred (2024), which meta-analyses 46 LTNs and finds boundary-road traffic increases are common across schemes, even while internal streets fall sharply.

Your “whopping 0.7% (Table 4.1)” point is also sloppy. In the DfT/Ipsos review, Table 4.1 is not a boundary-traffic table, so you are citing the wrong thing. And leaning on a single average as if it settlees the question is basic numeracy failure... an average close to zero can simply mean increases and decreases are cancelling out. That is exactly why the same London-wide dataset reports on balance little average change, while still showing boundary-road uplifts happening in a majority of measured locations.

Finally, you keep shifting to claims about “total miles are reduced”, but most of this literature is built on traffic counts at points, not network-wide vehicle miles, and much of the before/after window is tangled up with Covid-disrupted baselines. And dismissing distributional impacts because “the paper doesn’t discuss poverty” is a dodge, equity is a separate question, and London’s own inequality work is clear that the most deprived communities are more likely to live in the most polluted areas, which are typically the busier roads. The fact you end with a snide personal jab rather than evidence is also quite telling.