Entirely unashamed anti car propaganda, and the more the better.

[maomao]

You realise motivated parents will just buy their way into locations where they can control the nearest school along with other motivated parents, while parents who can't afford or can't be arsed to do that will end up next to less attractive schools? Probably best to assign everyone to a suitable residence and then ban them from traveling elsewhere.

Well, when the gulf stream shuts down and much of our housing stock becomes uninhabitable in this country we'll probably need to build something like dormitories.

 

[maomao]

This current point of discussion reminds me that it’s not just about provision of transport, either. Once upon a time, villages had schools, post offices, bobbies, shops and so on. Now we just have a series of houses called, “The Old School House”, “The Old Post Office”, “The Old Police House” and something that isn’t called “The Old Shop” but nevertheless is the old shop.

It's not just villages. My mum lives in a part of Edinburgh where the nearest shop is over a mile away.

 

[teuchter]

This current point of discussion reminds me that it’s not just about provision of transport, either. Once upon a time, villages had schools, post offices, bobbies, shops and so on. Now we just have a series of houses called, “The Old School House”, “The Old Post Office”, “The Old Police House” and something that isn’t called “The Old Shop” but nevertheless is the old shop.

yes, I was going on about this early in the thread:

Let's talk about elderly people. They'll often have reduced mobility. You can provide them with a car and a shop 5 miles away. Then they become unable to drive, and there's no supermarket deliveries in their area. They become totally dependent on others (with cars) to bring them their basic needs. Or you try and build a system where there is a shop 5 minutes walk away. When they can no longer drive, it might well be that it's still possible for them to do at least some of their shopping on foot maybe with a trolley. Maybe that's not possible for them and they still need help. But they don't need an able bodied person to do a ten mile round trip - they just need someone who can walk 5 or 10 minutes, maybe even someone can do it with a cargo bike. It all helps to keep traffic off the roads and it helps people stay independent as long as possible. The reason local shops have disappeared in many places is that 90% of their former customers own cars and drive miles to a big supermarket. The other 10% make do with rubbish public transport or rely on help from others. And that's a direct result of us giving up and letting private car ownership drive what's offered not just to those who do own one, but a massive degradation in what's offered to those who don't.

There's lots of planning policy stuff to do as well. For example STOP BUILDING OUT OF TOWN SUPERMARKETS. These are entirely designed around convenience for car owners. They actively encourage car use in rural areas. There's no good using a token bus service to claim that they serve others. Have planning policy which encourages more local shops, just like good planning in urban areas encourages. Have shops co-located with public transport hubs and networks.

Also on planning policy - I would like to see a bit more emphasis on transport availability when deciding on planning permission for new housing. So discouraging scattered development, and encouraging new houses to be built close to transport routes or ideally within walking distance to a local centre.

A quite small village can sustain several shops/services if their customers aren't habitually driving miles away instead. Having active villages like this isn't just good from a transport point of view - it's good for community cohesion and all that stuff too.

As I mentioned the other post about country lanes, I think there should be a review of rural speed limits too. One reason is to increase safety for pedestrians (just like in urban areas) and encourage people to walk to local centres. It shouldn't be the case that it's often actually harder to walk somewhere in the countryside than it is in a city. If as a side effect this increases certain journey times, then that isn't necessarily a bad thing, and might also help tip the balance in favour of public transport alternatives. In most rural areas there's a cake-and-eat-it attitude to travel times where people want to live somewhere quiet and remote and at the same time want to be able to get to places as quickly as possible. If you want to get to town quickly, live closer to town. There's a constant pressure to make roads faster and faster and I find it nonsensical. A lot of old arguments about increasing the economic fortunes of rural areas don't apply any more - we mostly no longer have a "working" countryside in the way we used to. Increasing road connectivity is not letting poverty stricken rural basket makers and apple growers get their products to town - it's now about letting remote-working accountants get their amazon order delivered more quickly, or shortening the commute of people who work in town but want to live somewhere with a big garden and less air pollution. I exaggerate of course but some of these arguments need to be called out and we need to be realistic about what the countryside actually is now.

It's car use and dependency that leads to the local shops disappearing.

It's also car use and dependency that often makes facilities that actually are within walking or cycling distance, inaccessible without a car. Especially in rural areas.

 

[kabbes]

So it isn’t obvious to me how that is fixed this side of a capitalist breakdown. People are dependent on their car and that doesn’t go away just by telling them they are bad people for being so. Meanwhile, to get them off that dependency, they need local services. But local services are massively “inefficient” (because if you centralise, you externalise a lot of those costs, passing them to general society. But that still leaves the centralised service as “cheaper” to operate). So no local services will be provided and parole will remain dependent on their car.

 

[teuchter]

It's fixed using a combination of planning policy and transport policy. Very easily in urban areas, I'd say. Less easily in rural areas.

If you don't allow the construction of supermarkets with large car parks, for example, then the supermarkets can't "externalise" part of their transport costs (effectively getting customers to pay for transport from distribution hub to front door).

 

[Saul Goodman]

It's car use and dependency that leads to the local shops disappearing.

No it isn't. Its income and supermarkets and Amazon that lead to local shops disappearing.
My mother used to walk 2 miles to the supermarket when I was a kid, and she'd walk home loaded with 2 or 3 shopping bags in each hand. She didn't have a car to do the shopping, as was the case for most people, but local shops were still closing down because Tesco had opened within walking or bussing distance.
An inability to compete with supermarket and online prices is what leads to small local shops disappearing.

 

[teuchter]

Supermarkets exist because of the car, you numpty. Try again.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Supermarkets exist because of the car, you numpty. Try again.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Supermarkets exist because of the car, you numpty. Try again.

Woolworth's was founded in 1909. The Co-op has been around since 1844, when every family had 3 cars... You numpty

 

[edcraw]

Too right - when I were a lad I used to get up 2hrs before I went to bed to walk the 15miles to the nearest Tesco Extra.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Hintons supermarkets, founded in 1871. They must have done a back to the future and discovered that Benz was about to invent the car in 15 years.

 

[teuchter]

Woolworth's was founded in 1909. The Co-op has been around since 1844, when every family had 3 cars... You numpty

Try again.

 

[platinumsage]

Although you think you have nailed this with a reductio ad absurdum, you just highlight the basic issue which is that yes you can't just allow an infinite amount of transport use because it's not possible.

That's why we should get as much travel onto efficient public transport modes rather than inefficient private transport modes. That way, for the same amount of land use/pollution/carbon emissions, more people can move around and do stuff that enhances their quality of life.

Allowing unrestricted private car use means that most of our transport capacity gets used up by a relatively small number of people, and in most cases relatively privileged people who can afford to sort out their own private means rather than relying on what's communally provided.

It's in response to your OP, but perhaps you were using reductio ad absurdum yourself when you said "eliminating the private car from the planet forever"?

Because eliminating the private car won't be achieved by reopening the village shop or using general taxation to discount bus tickets. It will require the sort of measures I've outlined, even though they may seem absurd.

 

[maomao]

Hintons supermarkets, founded in 1871. They must have done a back to the future and discovered that Benz was about to invent the car in 15 years.

Pretty impressive inventing supermarkets 62 years before the first recorded use of the word.

 

[maomao]

Maybe everyone drove to Hinton's supermarkets in their Peugeot automobiles, Peugeot having been around since 1810.

 

[edcraw]

Really poor showing from the “big boys” lately. Come up your game fellas!

 

[Orang Utan]

Really poor showing from the “big boys” lately. Come up your game fellas!

Let’s not

 

[teuchter]

It's in response to your OP, but perhaps you were using reductio ad absurdum yourself when you said "eliminating the private car from the planet forever"?

Because eliminating the private car won't be achieved by reopening the village shop or using general taxation to discount bus tickets. It will require the sort of measures I've outlined, even though they may seem absurd.

It wasn't in response to my OP - you're trying to claim that now, but it wasn't. You specifically said it was what was needed to "cut transport use". Anyone can go back and check what you said. You've made a mess of this.

And eliminating the private car wouldn't require the kid of measures you describe. This was explained ages ago. Keep up.

 

[platinumsage]

It wasn't in response to my OP - you're trying to claim that now, but it wasn't. You specifically said it was what was needed to "cut transport use". Anyone can go back and check what you said. You've made a mess of this.

And eliminating the private car wouldn't require the kid of measures you describe. This was explained ages ago. Keep up.

Everything I post on this thread is in response to your OP where you said you want to eliminate the private car from the planet forever. I suggested a few of the sorts of measures that would be needed to "cut transport use" with the aim of eventually achieving your aim. Inevitably they are draconian and would require an unprecedented wielding of state power on a global level.

I know you've backed away from your OP and tried to focus on things that everyone can agree are nice, such as more buses for frail elderly people living in poverty in isolated hamlets, or suggesting that people might like to live within walking distance of their place of employment, but that doesn't mean your original and as yet unretracted aim shouldn't continue to be shown up for the imperious fantasy that it is.

Personally-directed enclosed powered transport devices provide enormous net benefit to human beings and are here to stay.

 

[teuchter]

Personally-directed enclosed powered transport devices provide enormous net benefit to human beings and are here to stay.

And this is not incompatible with the aim of eliminating privately owned cars. So I wonder why you are investing so much time and emotion in this thread.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Pretty impressive inventing supermarkets 62 years before the first recorded use of the word.

So by your logic, bicycles weren't invented until 1868?
Try harder.

 

[maomao]

So by your logic, bicycles weren't invented until 1868?
Try harder.

'grocer' is the word you're looking for

 

[platinumsage]

And this is not incompatible with the aim of eliminating privately owned cars.

Yes it is, but I'm sure you have some cunning plan up your sleeve

So I wonder why you are investing so much time and emotion in this thread.

Because the only country that has virtually eliminated private car use is North Korea.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Good to see citizens once again using reasonable force to clear the roads.

 

[klang]

Good to see citizens once again using reasonable force to highlight the problem of traffic pollution.

ffy

 

[teuchter]

Some cogs turning in some car-people brains.

 

[platinumsage]

Some cogs turning in some car-people brains.

View attachment 292570

Perhaps they should lobby the local uni to adopt a similar rule to Cambridge:

"Members of the University in statu pupillari who are in residence in term or in the Long Vacation period of residence are required to have a University Motor Licence if they wish to keep motor vehicles (other than mopeds) within 10 miles of Great St Mary's Church. Students who have MA status or who are members of the Senate do not currently require a licence. The former office of Special Pro-Proctor for Motor Vehicles no longer exists and licences are now issued under the authority of the Senior Proctor, who has the power to impose a fine of up to £175 for breaching the regulations on the keeping and using of motor vehicles and to suspend or revoke licences. The issue of a licence is conditional upon meeting certain requirements relating to insurance and the availability of authorised parking for the vehicle. A motor licence is not a parking permit and does not entitle the holder to park on University premises without separate authority. Licences will only be issued upon recommendation from a College Tutor and they are only available to undergraduates who have not already kept 9 terms if they meet particular conditions."

 

[teuchter]

Perhaps they should lobby the local uni to adopt a similar rule to Cambridge:

"Members of the University in statu pupillari who are in residence in term or in the Long Vacation period of residence are required to have a University Motor Licence if they wish to keep motor vehicles (other than mopeds) within 10 miles of Great St Mary's Church. Students who have MA status or who are members of the Senate do not currently require a licence. The former office of Special Pro-Proctor for Motor Vehicles no longer exists and licences are now issued under the authority of the Senior Proctor, who has the power to impose a fine of up to £175 for breaching the regulations on the keeping and using of motor vehicles and to suspend or revoke licences. The issue of a licence is conditional upon meeting certain requirements relating to insurance and the availability of authorised parking for the vehicle. A motor licence is not a parking permit and does not entitle the holder to park on University premises without separate authority. Licences will only be issued upon recommendation from a College Tutor and they are only available to undergraduates who have not already kept 9 terms if they meet particular conditions."

What have these boring parking rules got to do with preventing the UK turning into North Korea? Why are you posting stuff about student parking in Cambridge?

 

[platinumsage]

What have these boring parking rules got to do with preventing the UK turning into North Korea? Why are you posting stuff about student parking in Cambridge?

Even Kim Il-sung wannabes such as you have to start somewhere. Extending some simple and restrictions on those pesky students might be a good such place.

 

[teuchter]

Even Kim Il-sung wannabes such as you have to start somewhere. Extending some simple and restrictions on those pesky students might be a good such place.

To be clear though, your position is that we must not place any restrictions whatsoever on private motor use, because doing so is the thin end of the wedge that leads to totalitarianism.