Cars are killing us. Within 10 years, we must phase them out

I realise there is a chicken and egg thing going on

Yep, this is the biggest issue. No demand means no public transport. No public transport means there are few options other than to drive. The same issue affects rural communities (even more so). Still, you have to wonder how many of those 500 could cycle or walk.

Working mostly days non car owners are my biggest customer group.

Do you ask every passenger?

There are alot of people on here that would make great dictators…

You mean like the people who insist that we must structure society around the motor car?

I’d say very few to be honest, we’re 2 miles from the nearest road and a couple of miles again from the nearest village. Most folk live at least 9 miles away and it’s a very exposed road along the coast even in summer. E-bikeable but still not idea when the wind and rain are pelting you.

We’re well and truly past the point of no return IMO so make Merry whilst we can…….(let those snowflake millennials sort it out😁)

Hypothetically like. Just say that our current transport choices might make our civilisation untenable in 50 years time. I know how completely unlikely this is: But would some on here still bleat how impossible it is to make do without a car?

Will this thread overtake the other car thread or will it be too slow and stuck behind Edukator?

Give yourself a warning for a cross-thread personal attack, Drac. (add sticking out tongue smiley here)

Oh and thanks for letting the other one run, I kept going till Molgrips suggested I stop which seemed wise.

Hypothetically like. Just say that our current transport choices might make our civilisation untenable in 50 years time. I know how completely unlikely this is: But would some on here still bleat how impossible it is to make do without a car?

Describe how this is going to happen. Otherwise it’s a stupid hypothetical.

Oh, and I assume that all of the anti-car types on here don’t own a car/never use a car and don’t rely on road transport to receive any of the things they buy. Otherwise you’re just sanctimonious hypocrites.

JP

Describe how this is going to happen. Otherwise it’s a stupid hypothetical.

I hesitate to mention climate change

Give yourself a warning for a cross-thread personal attack, Drac. (add sticking out tongue smiley here)

😬

Describe how this is going to happen. Otherwise it’s a stupid hypothetical.

I hesitate to mention climate change

Ah, the apocalyptic cult rears its head.

So, let’s say cars are electric in 50 years time and we have sufficient energy from renewable sources or otherwise, how exactly will climate change affect our ability to travel by personal methods of transport? Seems like a nonsense argument to me.

Oh, and I assume you don’t own a car, then?

JP

Oh, and I assume that all of the anti-car types on here don’t own a car/never use a car and don’t rely on road transport to receive any of the things they buy. Otherwise you’re just sanctimonious hypocrites.

Perhaps they’re forced into car ownership because society has been planned around it for so long? Perhaps if, over say ten years, we changed tack and favoured other means of transport they wouldn’t be forced into owning a car?

No problem with things being phased out as long as the cost burden is not conveniently and almost completely dumped on the individual. The moral high ground abused to hammer people with inequitable taxes, when only severely limited and astronomically expensive alternatives are available, little to no incentives offered. Blanket black and white solutions applied, ignoring any difficulties, due to it not affecting you, your mates and returning tidy profits for investors and stakeholders.

Where it is abused by public private sector partnerships as the thin end of reintroduction of society wide class segregation, coupled with excessive surveillance and authoritarian practices.

Oh, and I assume you don’t own a car, then?

Yes I do. But over the last 4 years I have cycled about 40,000 miles & driven about 4000. How about you? If everyone else had this kind of bike/car ratio perhaps we wouldn’t be having a problem

A car is an inanimate object explain how it is killing me because last time I checked all this shit is made by people

Whoosh.

Let’s legalized guns…

Here’s what would work here, in my fairly average north east England town:

1. Place bus services back into public ownership;
2. Blanket 20mph speed limit in urban areas;
3. Every hour of car parking costs the same as a day pass on the bus;
4. Remove 5% of town centre parking spaces each year;
5. Use filtered permeability to make walking, cycling, public transport the easiest options;
6. Bus lanes on all main roads;
7. High quality, physically separated cycling infrastructure on all main roads;
8. Road not wide enough for 6 and 7? Then it’s not wide enough for two way motor traffic, take away a lane to make space for 6 and 7.

My name is on a ballot paper for May.

miketually

Subscriber

Oh, and I assume that all of the anti-car types on here don’t own a car/never use a car and don’t rely on road transport to receive any of the things they buy. Otherwise you’re just sanctimonious hypocrites.

Perhaps they’re forced into car ownership because society has been planned around it for so long? Perhaps if, over say ten years, we changed tack and favoured other means of transport they wouldn’t be forced into owning a car?

So what? You have everyone in rural areas forcibly moved to cities? Or you have a massively inefficient bloated public transport system that actually caters for all needs, but still isn’t really any good?

You lot talk about the car as if it’s part of a global conspiracy, yet you don’t offer any clear and credible alternatives. Come on then, tell me how my life, for example, would work without a car?: I live in a rural area, 15 miles from the nearest city and have to drop and pick up my young daughter from the nearest school, which is several miles away. There are many people like me, so do enlighten us.

JP

A car is an inanimate object explain how it is killing me because last time I checked all this shit is made by people

Okay, cars can stay but we’ll ban driving them. Problem solved.

So what? You have everyone in rural areas forcibly moved to cities? Or you have a massively inefficient bloated public transport system that actually caters for all needs, but still isn’t really any good?

You lot talk about the car as if it’s part of a global conspiracy, yet you don’t offer any clear and credible alternatives. Come on then, tell me how my life, for example, would work without a car?: I live in a rural area, 15 miles from the nearest city and have to drop and pick up my young daughter from the nearest school, which is several miles away. There are many people like me, so do enlighten us.

You didn’t read the article did you?

If you live in a rural area a ban on cars in cities is unlikely to be much of a problem to you.

The article gives clear and credible alternatives, and even gives examples of paces they already exist.

Oh, and I assume you don’t own a car, then?

Yes I do. But over the last 4 years I have cycled about 40,000 miles & driven about 4000. How about you? If everyone else had this kind of bike/car ratio perhaps we wouldn’t be having a problem

It’s just like a religion isn’t it? – ‘look how virtuous I am!’

Have a medal.

JP

So what? You have everyone in rural areas forcibly moved to cities? Or you have a massively inefficient bloated public transport system that actually caters for all needs, but still isn’t really any good?

You lot talk about the car as if it’s part of a global conspiracy, yet you don’t offer any clear and credible alternatives. Come on then, tell me how my life, for example, would work without a car?: I live in a rural area, 15 miles from the nearest city and have to drop and pick up my young daughter from the nearest school, which is several miles away. There are many people like me, so do enlighten us.

You didn’t read the article did you?

If you live in a rural area a ban on cars in cities is unlikely to be much of a problem to you.

The article gives clear and credible alternatives, and even gives examples of paces they already exist.

I’m not referring specifically to the article, but the general anti-car rhetoric on here.

JP

Rural school runs: school bus.

Next issue?

I’m not referring specifically to the article, but the general anti-car rhetoric on here.

I’m seeing far more pro-car posts?

It’s just like a religion isn’t it? – ‘look how virtuous I am!’

So…. you accuse people of being hypocrites for using a car & so when I point out that I don’t use mine that much you suggest I’m being sanctimonious. Enlighten me how I can win this particular argument?

But for the great majority of journeys they can easily be substituted, as you can see in Amsterdam

There are a great many cars in Amsterdam still. It’s good, but it’s not utopia.

Enlighten me how I can win this particular argument?

Buy a hybrid and become the Messiah himself.

miketually

Subscriber

Rural school runs: school bus.

Next issue?

There isn’t one. And that would only address a small part of the issue.

By the way, I lived in Amsterdam for many years, which Monbiot and many other loons see as some sort of public transport utopia. The reality is that it works better than the UK but it’s still a massive pain in the arse to get anywhere that isn’t on a direct tram route. I used my bike more than anything there, but you don’t always want to arrive everywhere covered in sweat/soaked to the skin/freezing cold (delete where appropriate).

JP

It’s just like a religion isn’t it? – ‘look how virtuous I am!’

So…. you accuse people of being hypocrites for using a car & so when I point out that I don’t use mine that much you suggest I’m being sanctimonious. Enlighten me how I can win this particular argument?

Lol!

JP

There isn’t one.

There isn’t one yet.

I get that you just want to drive. In anti-car utopia you will probably still be able to drive, it’ll just be more expensive and less convenient than not driving.

Buy a hybrid and become the Messiah himself.

Oh don’t be such a hypocrite Drac. I bet none of you ambulances are electric

I’m always impressed how a cycling forum could be so almost universally opposed to the idea of…

Nah. It’s a forum for car-centric driving gods with a hobby.

So phasing out car travel?

First look at it as 2 problems – city stuff start now, we need drastic action to improve the lives of people in cities, hours are lost each day to congestion, it is preventing public transport working efficiently and hampering business. We are still dedicating huge amounts of space to parking cars that sit idle for 20+hrs a day, worse still most have 2 spaces allowed for them, one at home and one at work. We can and should be doing everything we can within urban areas to keep private vehicles out or at least restrict them. You can do this through taxation and regulation.
And for our libertarian JP that may be restricting what people can do, but the over population of the private car removes my right to clean air, removed my right to cycle safely, removes open spaces and restricts housing development all over cities.

For rural areas we need to look at seriously improving public transport, as the chart up there shows we didn’t use to have this level of car ownership? In the time it has increased we have closed rail lines, cut bus services and things like that, we need to reverse these things. There is a rail line cutting through my parents farm that used to run through all the small villages into town, it used to connect Alnwick with the mainline at Alnmouth, restore that and you have a great number of journeys that could be taken off the road. Sort out the pricing and give reductions and free travel to those who cannot afford it.

In general, Amazon have shown us how disruptive they can be in the retail sector, that model means we can get things delivered – a single delivery van is way better than 50-60 cars. Supermarkets deliver etc. we can change how we live and we can change how we depend on the car. If we do it there is a chance that we could have a better place for all of us to live.

Oh, and I assume that all of the anti-car types on here don’t own a car/never use a car and don’t rely on road transport to receive any of the things they buy. Otherwise you’re just sanctimonious hypocrites.

Not at all. You can own a car and still realise that structuring society around driving, in the way we currently do, is not a great idea.

Not at all. You can own a car and still realise that structuring society around driving, in the way we currently do, is not a great idea.

Exactly. This:

Oh, and I assume that all of the anti-car types on here don’t own a car/never use a car and don’t rely on road transport to receive any of the things they buy. Otherwise you’re just sanctimonious hypocrites.

is a completely mad argument.

It’s like saying “Oh you’re opposed to childhood obesity and yet you give your children food, how hypocritical”.

I drive, sometimes I enjoy it, normally it’s boring, occasionally it’s really frustrating. I would like the option of getting to work by bus, train or tram. And the ability to cycle safely to the station to use that public transport, a la Amsterdam. That doesn’t make me a hypocrite. It also doesn’t really make me anti-car, I’d just like the alternatives to be better. But as said above, it’s all a bit chicken and egg, people will resist things that make driving harder because driving is currently the only option for a lot of people, because we’ve made driving easier and the alternatives hard, because most people drive, because driving is easier, because…..

Squirrelking:

Bails, why would anyone be against that? Why do you think they are? That’s like saying people who like Hugo Boss are for the Nazi party. Literally nobody has said that.

I don’t get the nazi reference.
But, the article literally said that one of the things we should do is build bike lanes and the majority of the posts on this thread have been saying how the article is wrong and we shouldn’t do it and it’s alright for those London folks but not for me in the countryside etc etc.

Maybe I’m wrong and this thread will be different. So squirrelking, JJPrestidge, are you in favour of a massive programme of building loads of bike lanes (at the expense of space for motor vehicles if need be) and closing rat runs (“filtered permeability”) to motor vehicles?

Oh, and I assume that all of the anti-car types on here don’t own a car/never use a car and don’t rely on road transport to receive any of the things they buy. Otherwise you’re just sanctimonious hypocrites.

Oh no, we own a big Merc and a LWB T5.1 camper. We’re looking to buy a Marco Polo.
But I cycle to work and herself either catches the train or cycles 15 miles each way to work.
I couldn’t believe at work today that one of my colleagues drives less than s mile to work and pays £200 a month to park her car. I cycle past her place every morning and evening. She also complains about not being paid enough.

A basic workies high vis jacket, the cheapest waterproof trousers and wellies combined with electric bike let me commute in storm condtions and I arrive drier than if I take the car and have to run across a car park. It’s actually warmer than waiting for a stupid diesel to heat up. It is Always quicker. No shower, no rapha kit. I could easily do an office based management job without offending anyone. Instead those types ruin their lunchtime with jogging, or get ill with sedentary and mental health diseases.

I have a stupid big diesel but it only goes journeys plus 50 miles, expensed miles for work, and often carries a bike for the last mile for maximum efficiency.

Yup, I’m completely in favour of decent cycle infrastructure and the notion that private vehicle use within a city is, for all but a diminishingly small amount of cases, completely unnecessary.

What I am against is the idea that the same rules apply outside of your general metro areas. As soon as you hit the suburbs (or cross the council boundary) in Glasgow, for example, you have private bus operators selling outrageously expensive and complicated services (if they haven’t cut them), heavy rail service that would be better as light rail or tram train, patchy coverage and no multimodal ticketing to speak of. And that’s before you hit the sticks.

The reason that people are tied to cars, and that some of you just don’t understand is simple mobility. Social and economic. The infrastructure doesn’t exist to replace cars and nor does the legislation to make it happen. It’s like my car park tax thing I was on about. Anyone with any foresight would think about it when thrashing it out and say, okay, instead of just hammering employers for the amount of car parking space they have why not award discounts based on the percentage of employees they can shift to a more sustainable transport alternative or something similar that doesn’t just hammer everyone financially whilst offering nothing in the way of alternatives.

But yeah, my point was that whilst people may be arguing about the ins and outs of monoblocks monologue nobody actually said anything against bike lanes!

The infrastructure doesn’t exist to replace cars and nor does the legislation to make it happen.

Is this not Monbiot’s point? We need to make this infrastructure and legislation exist.

No demand means no public transport. No public transport means there are few options other than to drive. The same issue affects rural communities

Very true. Although in the main towns around my area there are lots of bus routes, train stations etc,. Rural will never be solved so ignore that but at least get people using the good public transport where it does exist. How you do that I don’t know as I would like to experiment with free public transport for 6 months to see if even making it completely free drives up use – I would guess it wouldn’t make much difference.