Proposal to ban private cars from public roads
- Thread starter teuchter
- Start date
So, that's um, at least one per household..............
Gosh - what an advance over private ownership - not.
Who's going to fund the investment in a fleet of, what, let's say 30 million new cars - even if they're the sort of anodyne gutless shitbox that car clubs usually buy, that's a lot of dosh.......
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Read posts 15, 65, and 74.
gavman
pj slumpy
i don't commute. all my journeys are different, with the exception of going to the supermarket. and that varies, depending on what i need
gavman
pj slumpy
fail
teuchter
je suis teuchter
...and?
gavman
pj slumpy
so i still require a car sitting on my driveway, for when i need it. i thought your triumphalism meant you actually had an answer.
my solution- charge electric car from my own hydro-electric source, keep the same car for life. infinitely better
But.....
If everyone is using a "shared" car to get to the station, then
(a) who's going to want to use all the cars that are now parked at the station?
and
(b) if that's the case, how are you going to guarantee that there'll be a car available for me when I get back to the station and want to drive home.
unless, of course - that's it - I have a car available for my exclusive use (just like now).
I quite like the idea. But then again, I quite like the 'idea' of Communism, and yet wouldn't want to live under it.
Two practical difficulties:
- "One way" anomalies. These will occur on certain routes. It's easier to use the cars in one direction, then some other form of transport in the other direction. Whilst these might be ironed out over time, by selective punitive / incentive pricing, in the meantime there'll be a wash-up of cars in certain places. Unpicking the causes of the wash-up may be very complex, and the bodge fix (driving cars away from the wash-up) time consuming and labour intensive.
- Parking when not hired. Some (typically new-build, provincial) residential is geared around private driveways. The only way around this, I can think of, would be to build car pounds. Which leads to the ten minute+ walks that - as far as I can tell - the scheme is trying to avoid.
On the upside, I quite like the idea that you could pick a vehicle suited to the individual journey. A big family trip? Take a people carrier. Going camping? Take a campervan. Doing the office commute on your own? Take a city-mini.
Two practical difficulties:
- "One way" anomalies. These will occur on certain routes. It's easier to use the cars in one direction, then some other form of transport in the other direction. Whilst these might be ironed out over time, by selective punitive / incentive pricing, in the meantime there'll be a wash-up of cars in certain places. Unpicking the causes of the wash-up may be very complex, and the bodge fix (driving cars away from the wash-up) time consuming and labour intensive.
- Parking when not hired. Some (typically new-build, provincial) residential is geared around private driveways. The only way around this, I can think of, would be to build car pounds. Which leads to the ten minute+ walks that - as far as I can tell - the scheme is trying to avoid.
On the upside, I quite like the idea that you could pick a vehicle suited to the individual journey. A big family trip? Take a people carrier. Going camping? Take a campervan. Doing the office commute on your own? Take a city-mini.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Some people live lifestyles that are always going to be car-dependent because it simply isn't feasible to service them by public transport. Under my scheme, for these people, not very much would change. If they wanted, they could simply hire the car 24 hrs a day 365 days a year. In fact, anyone could do that if they wanted. As I said already, there could be some allowances made in the form of reduced charges for people in certain circumstances.
However, lots and lots of people live lives where a car is necessary for certain journeys but not all. They also live in locations where it would be feasible to rely on a car being available within a few minutes' walk: ie. they would only have to hire the car for the duration of their journeys. The primary aim of the scheme would be to allow these people to make a higher proportion of their journeys by public transport, and foster conditions conducive to improvement of the existing public transport.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Yup, there would be some situations like this. For example, people driving to the pub and then getting home by other means. I think there would be ways round this, like the incentive pricing you mention. I'm sure it would involve some short term problems while the system settled in, but it would be worth it in the long term. Also, it might well be possible to introduce the scheme gradually, perhaps making it voluntary to start with, to make the transition gently and to give time for these things to be ironed out.
Yes, this has occurred to me too. Like I said earlier, there would be some people for whom the scheme wouldn't change much (other than the ownership of the vehicle). People with private driveways who are unwilling to walk ten minutes to a pooled parking location: perhaps they would just opt to hire overnight. It would be up to them. In the long term, there would be a discouragement of developments which didn't allow for shared cars. I don't think that would be a bad thing.
It's likely that in time we would see a lot more small cars on the roads, because a very large proportion of car journeys are made by just one person. Again, I don't think this would be a bad thing.
gavman
pj slumpy
fair enough, i can't argue with that
Lemon Eddy
Disliked by dwyer
You know you're looking at something impressively wrong when even Cobbles antithesis makes more sense than the thesis.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Your criticisms so far have been:
1) the thing about "how would people get to a transport hub" which was based on a misunderstanding of what I was proposing, and I've explained in quite a lot of detail about this
2) that simply increasing fuel duty would be more effective
I'm not entirely against increasing fuel duty - I would rather that happened than nothing at all, as long as the extra revenue gained did genuinely go into funding public transport alternatives. But it doesn't deal with one of the things that my scheme is designed to address which is the fact that the expense of owning a car creates a have/have-not situation where either you have a car and use it for pretty much everything, or you don't, and are forced to use a substandard public transport system and put at a significant disadvantage as a result. Increasing fuel duty would simply make driving more expensive - the only way it would address this disadvantage would be by forcing so many people to stop using their car, and raising so much revenue, that public transport could become massively better than it is now, to the extent that nearly all journeys could be made by PT.
I think you have to expand on how my proposal is "wrong" in terms with dealing with the issues that it's designed to deal with. I fully accept the criticism that it's unrealistic in terms of getting people to vote for it or expecting any government to be brave enough to try implementing it. But exactly the same criticisms seem to apply to the alternatives, such as raising fuel duty as you suggest. To provoke the kind of change I'm talking about would, I think, require a really massive increase in fuel duty. I'm thinking you'd probably have to increase the cost of petrol to something like twice what it costs at the moment, at the very least. It would involve a lot of short and medium-term pain, compared to my suggestion, and it would be less effective in achieving the stated goals.
Lemon Eddy
Disliked by dwyer
You've missed my rather key objection that logistically this scheme is pure nonsense. How many millions of vehicles will it require to deploy. Where will they be located. How will they be maintained. What will be done with the existing x million vehicles. How do vans/trucks fit in. How do business vehicles fit in?
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Most of these have already been answered in the thread but:
By definition, less than exist at present. To start with, possibly not many less. As time progressed, the size of the pool would gradually decrease.
Generally, where they are at present - car parks and roads.
By mechanics, in garages, like at present.
They will effectively be nationalised. They will initially form the pool of shared cars. Over time, as they fall out of use, new cars will be bought in bulk.
You will also be able to hire vans etc. There would be exemptions for specialist vehicles and this would almost certainly include trucks and any heavy freight vehicles.
As above. Where it is infeasible for certain vehicle types to be used on a share basis, they will be exempted. The scheme is mainly aimed at cars used for private passenger transport, because it is aimed at shifting journeys onto public transport.
Lemon Eddy
Disliked by dwyer
Rather than pissing about with tiresomely vague handwaving, how about some actual numbers.
HOW MANY CARS? Excuse the caps, but it's a rather key point, so go on, give it a figure, 20 million say? cost approx 10k each, that's £200 billion.
Who will maintain them, and please do not be thick. Yes, mechanics will be required, but I take it that you think maintenance will be part of the running cost of this scheme. Well, let's say that the average annual maintenance cost is £500 per vehicle, just to be kind. Oops, that's £10 billion per annum.
Where will they be based? Some centralised storage & maintenance locations distributed across the nation? Say satellite branches with a mere 40 cars, and larger hubs with a garage? What do you reckon, guess you're looking at around 20,000 sites across the UK to have any sort of reasonable coverage. How much do you reckon that's going to cost in setup & maintenance.
Businesses. Every time they want to deliver something, pick up something...you reckon they need to pop down to their transit hub? Or are they being added to this rather worryingly open category of "people who will just hang on to a vehicle full time"?
Did I mention this proposal was absolute crap? Because truly and honestly, it really fucking is just awful.
HOW MANY CARS? Excuse the caps, but it's a rather key point, so go on, give it a figure, 20 million say? cost approx 10k each, that's £200 billion.
Who will maintain them, and please do not be thick. Yes, mechanics will be required, but I take it that you think maintenance will be part of the running cost of this scheme. Well, let's say that the average annual maintenance cost is £500 per vehicle, just to be kind. Oops, that's £10 billion per annum.
Where will they be based? Some centralised storage & maintenance locations distributed across the nation? Say satellite branches with a mere 40 cars, and larger hubs with a garage? What do you reckon, guess you're looking at around 20,000 sites across the UK to have any sort of reasonable coverage. How much do you reckon that's going to cost in setup & maintenance.
Businesses. Every time they want to deliver something, pick up something...you reckon they need to pop down to their transit hub? Or are they being added to this rather worryingly open category of "people who will just hang on to a vehicle full time"?
Did I mention this proposal was absolute crap? Because truly and honestly, it really fucking is just awful.
I dunno. The prospect of being able to pay to hold a car full time and yet have somebody else worry about its maintenance, depreciation and replacement is beginning to sound ever more appealing. The car can live in my drive and go to wherever I want it to go, just like my current car but without the hassle!
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
If current cars are to be nationalised and rented out, is there going to be a difference in cost to rent a battered old Lada compared to a Ferrari Enzo?
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Yes, of course.
You realise that I'm not suggesting these cars are hired out for free, right?
I don't know why you're overcomplicating it so much. The cars are owned by an entity (which could be state-owned but that's not crucial to the scheme). If something goes wrong with a car, that entity finds a garage near the car and pays them to fix the car. You don't need to build new garages. It's just the same as now - the same mechanics in the same garages maintain the same cars. All that changes is the ownership of the car.
Please, can you just read the thread before asking these questions that have already been answered? At any time, anyone has two options - either you continue paying for the hire of the car, in which case you can leave it where you like and you know it'll be there when you need it again. Or you can park it up, pretty much anywhere you like, and end the hire period. If you're in a town you would be likely to do the latter, because lots of other people would be doing the same, and the likelihood of there being no car within a short walk would be very remote. You simply walk out on to the street, and there would be cars parked there, just like now, and you use one, and that's it.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Yes. The cost would be related to the maintenance costs, and you could add on premiums for environmental unfriendliness if you wanted.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Exactly. You wouldn't worry about its maintenance, depreciation and replacement, but you would still pay for it via the hire charges. And you could reduce the amount you pay for it by de-hiring it when you were using other modes of transport.
The not having to worry about maintenance etc is one of the attractions of the existing streetcar type schemes.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
If you paid for the hire continuously, yes. But the pricing would probably be targetted to make the cost of doing so somewhat higher than the current cost owning a car, as an incentive not to do this.
Oh. Oh, in that case I don't think I'll bother. I'll stick with owning the car. But cheers anyway.
So you get to pay more than the cost of owning the car that you agonised over choosing to get the optimum blend of looks, performance, economy, roadholding etc. etc. etc., to be allocated some crappy rat-box chosen by a committee.
I can see folk signing up for that in their millions!
Ach. Demand-based pricing.
Now I know you'll say that where this becomes an issue, one will use public transport instead, but it is quite an added sting, over and above the loss of 'ownership'.
I presume your scheme will go along, hand-in-hand, with the abolition of demand-based pricing on public transport, save for peak/off peak distinction?
