There is a certain amount of entitlement kicking around, though, isn't there? Particularly in cities, why do car owners get to fill the roads with their cars? Every day. I'd love to see car-free days in cities. Car-free weekends perhaps. You never know, if you get out of your car and cycle/walk/take a train into town instead, you might find you also prefer car-free streets to wander around. Why can't we have that, at least occasionally? Why should drivers have priority on the roads all the time?
In everywhere but areas of London its 50x harder not to have private transport and public is a joke thats often way more expensive in time and money. Mostly they don't get priority tho according to the highway code. They exist because the need is not fulfilled to eliminate them. Need a good replacement before many people are severely disadvantaged.
I'm not suggesting getting rid of cars all the time. But in city centres, in evenings or weekends, for the good of all, we need temporarily car-free zones. They've done it in Madrid city centre for decades. And yes of course public transport needs improving, but car-free public areas for people to socialise in are way too few and far between. Currently it is often the people without cars who are severely disadvantaged. They can't just jump in their cars and drive off somewhere in the countryside. Ironically, they're the ones stuck in the areas with all the cars.
Brilliant, just need the infrastructure. If it exists somewhere fantastic I'm all for it. I lived in a city centre and walked everywhere it was great. Pricey tho for most who need to get there or have more than a single person to deal with, kids or disabled etc.
Even for younger ones it kills town centres here, no transport home after club/pub? It's a very expensive taxi mostly. BIL is a taxi driver and the fees get bonkers. Daughter moved like 4 miles closer and bang everything was available to her. Clubs pubs etc. No driving issues.
it'd be nice to see you make a clever point
Unlike clowns and escape artists.
The Royal Commission of 1889 makes my point, not yours - an attempt to regulate specific aspects of road use deemed problematic for the period that began shortly after the motor car had been invented and well into the process of accelerated load at key junctions that had begun with industrialisation and the establishing of empire. Road use has been progressively cordoned off for pedestrians/cyclists/protesters/street sellers/flaneurs in stages depending on the priorities of Capital over the modern period, there's not some historical thread going back to ye olden days that justifies the supremacy of the motor vehicle in 2023. In fact from a class perspective I could see quite a good argument to be made that public roads have suffered from a modern form of functional enclosure for the sake of said supremacy.
Apologies, you're right I should have said traffic. I slightly conflated your initial argument that it's silly to say "why the fuck do car owners get to fill roads with their cars?" and your secondary argument that roads have always been tightly regulated to prioritise traffic. That said, this is a thread about cars rather than bicycles or walkers, neither of which are all that inconvenienced by eg. slow walking or the existence of a market.
it's all you deserve, it'd be foolish to waste too much effort on someone who doesn't think about why the roads, market places etc so heavily regulated - and remain so. it's because all the things you deny were happening were happening, and indeed happen, a lot. why else would so many regulations and restrictions be promulgated? lots of people - businesses on streets up and down this land - sequester bits of land that don't belong to them and for which they haven't the right. think about the street tables and planters outside so many pubs like the former three wheatsheaves on upper street, the duke on downham road, the highgate tavern on archway road and many many more.
All this is definitely going to help with the issues at hand. Crack on chaps, you’re doing brilliantly.
What it implies is that you tried to make a point about how roads have "always been tightly regulated" then offered an example showcasing that in fact said tight regulations reflected changing circumstances in the late 19th century and did not exist beforehand. And of course there will be historic arguments over the use of land, transport-related or not but that's not remotely the same thing as "tight regulation" of public roads as a whole.
