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

Get rid of bloody Moto-X bikes first

It was a question.

You're assuming I didn't know that.

I’ve lived in places with great public transport systems (relatively speaking), but they were rubbish in reality – expensive, overcrowded, and rarely went exactly where you wanted them to. That’s not to say they don’t have their place, but to suggest that you could replace 90% of car journeys with public transport is ill conceived and unrealistic, even with a limitless budget.

Really? I live in London and before that in Copenhagen and haven't owned a car in years.

It's interesting - recently some cities challenged their elected representative to use nothing but transit for a week - most failed miserably. Many said that was because they would have been late for an event/appointment. Or they needed to go to a shop the other side of the city and it would have taken hours. Or they couldn't leave work and get to their organic hot tantric yoga class on time. They completely missed the point - to experience what they can and can't do on public transit. You have to change your lifestyle. That's the larger problem. You simply cannot build enough transit to live like you do with a car. The lifestyle changes have to come firat otherwise it will fail.

Car ownership reductions disproportionately affect the poor and differently abled. Cheaper household supplies are often available in places further away for instance.

Plus if you think hybrids and electrics are less polluting, think again. They are worse to make, need batteries we don't know how to reuse or recycle and even if your electricity isn't fossil fueled it might be nuclear and burying that isn't sustainable in the long run

need batteries we don’t know how to reuse or recycle and even

Incorrect, there are plants operating for recycling lithium ion batteries. The one in France was on the news recently. The get 70-80% of the lithium back and the residue is incorporated into building blocks.

Renault have a power storage unit using old car batteries.

There is higher embedded energy in EV production but an ICE car always overtakes it in emissions over lifetime according to the Fraunhofer institute even with the brown-coal heavy German electrity production. UK electricity is 32% renewable and less than 50% carbon producing.

An small ICE car burns about 8 tonnes of fuel in it's life in addition to the energy used to make and recycle it. And in cities people breathe a significant amount of the resulting exhaust gas. None of those 8 tonnes of hydrocarbons are recycled.

Could STW start a reporting system for people who consistently post "fake news" and have a three counts and you're out system, please.

Edit to add a link so I don't get accused of fake news - first Google result for recycling lithium bateries:

https://siecledigital.fr/2018/02/01/processus-recycler-batteries-lithium/

But everywhere outside London is banned from doing the same thing that London does, even when it’s pretty obvious it works.

Not entirely true. Areas which have combined authority Mayors (Manchester for example) have the powers to introduce bus franchising if they choose. The challenge is that it’s not necessarily the golden bullet people think it might be, as it still requires significant public investment to run services to the places and at the frequency that you’d like. But, if you’re prepared to pay for it then there are definite advantages.

And nowhere outside of London gets the same amount of central government funding for its transport infrastructure.

It’s interesting – recently some cities challenged their elected representative to use nothing but transit for a week – most failed miserably. Many said that was because they would have been late for an event/appointment. Or they needed to go to a shop the other side of the city and it would have taken hours.

See here is the shocking point, it's rather obvious....
Private cheap car ownership has left us lazy and wasteful.

Public transport will not replace a car but keeping this one bonded in a city context will do a lot more, a lot more efficiently.

You want to travel to the bargain shop? I can get it delivered from Amazon at a good price.

Long term views here - ie stuff we can implement
Shared car schemes - ie a number of easy to rent cars that are parked in communal areas, sensible limits on individual renters (ie can't just block book it) that allow you to do the infrequent need a car jobs (I have access to 3 schemes now and have registered with one)

Again public transport priority over private cars in all situations, watching a bus try and deliver 40-60 people somewhere while crawling behind hundreds of single occupancy cars is depressing.

Subsidised public transport for low income families, make it free for kids, make it free for job seekers.

Ban single occupancy cars from within cities during peak times while increasing park and ride near outer stations and tram terminals - and yes you choose to live in the country you can handle the car parking out there.

Sort out school catchments - you go to the one where you live and transport is provided - make the incentive to improve schools for all not just move kids to the nice one.

We tackle the cities, then the town and protect people in rural areas the best we can, or more realistically we protect rural workers who are low paid and need to live locally, we don't assist those who choose to live miles from where they work despite it having no transport option but a car - that is your choice.

A final point and one that starts to ring true as I've been interviewing recently, there does appear to be some correlation between home ownership and car ownership

Of course it would be overly simplistic to call that cause and effect there are many factors but a system where home ownership is the aim leads to a less flexible workforce, it means you need to make big decisions when changing jobs - simply read the threads on here about new job/rubbish commute dilemma. The cost or moving is huge, it stops people being able to live in the best place for the job they are doing, a massive increase in remote working will help this but fundamentally are we going in the right direction?

There are other reasons for not wanting to move house besides having to sell it. Most of the renters I know want stability and permanence. Home ownership isn't just about avarice as many on here seem to suggest.

There are other reasons for not wanting to move house besides having to sell it. Most of the renters I know want stability and permanence.

Which is achievable, most renters I know what housing at an affordable price That ship sailed though.

and ooo new word leaned today "avarice" did I ever suggest is was?

For me certainly if I'd owned houses along my moves through life the only person who would be getting rich are estate agents.

The opening of this thread was about getting somewhere better in 10 years - do you think things will be better if we keep going the way we are?

We paid a more for a small house within an easy walk of the station, bus hub and Madame's place of work than we would have for a flash place with a swimming pool and half-hour commmute. It wasn't just an eco-choice though. We also considered schools, access to trails, distance from a public swimming pool (we can hear the tanoy), access to services... . And we had enough in the bank to pay more, some don't.

Very few pepole choose their home just on the bassis of transport and short of state attribution of property it's not going to happen.

Their motorways are still completely overloaded, just try and drive past Rotterdam at rush hour.

And how much worse would things also be in urban areas if the Dutch didn't have their cycling infrastucture?

I've spent a bit of time cycling around The Netherlands, and it was a pleasure. I wish we had the consensus and the leadership to do what they have done.

You want to travel to the bargain shop? I can get it delivered from Amazon at a good price.

You can but it isn't any more environmentally friendly than going in your car.

Incorrect, there are plants operating for recycling lithium ion batteries. The one in France was on the news recently. The get 70-80% of the lithium back and the residue is incorporated into building blocks.

Forgive me I omitted the " in an environmentally sound way" I assumed from context that would have been obvious. Shipping it to China on ships, storing nasty chemicals in building blocks which will eventually be released back into the environment, and the inevitable fact that some unscrupulous persons/companies will try to save money by disposing illegally mean that we haven't found the answer.

Honda has had cars on the road which are ICE which leave the air cleaner in their wake than it was before and have done for over 10 years.

Energy produced from fossil fuels produces carbon even cleaner burning natural gas. EV cars get these than a third of the quoted mileage in cold climates thus need recharging more often using more power etc. Etc. I would have thought you would realise one source is insufficient.

Could STW start a reporting system for people who consistently post “fake news” and have a three counts and you’re out system, please.

If that is addressed to me you can stick your slander (or libel, doubtless you'll do some sole source research and tell me which) and stick it where the sun doesn't shine, sunshine. I'm surprised with all the absolute bollocks you spout regularly and on the other car thread in particular that you've got the nerve to acuse anyone else of fake news. I hope to Christ you aren't teaching anymore and that the pupils you did have have been deprogrammed.

Even with reliable buses there is still a big element of walking (in rain and cold) and the journey taking longer because of all the stops and indirect route to where you are going.
One way of stopping car use would be to not allow it.

So you’d force people out of work to satisfy your dictatorial attitude to private car use? I’m lucky to have the job I’m doing, there is very low unemployment around here, so you’d prefer I had a journey to work lasting over two hours, probably closer to three on the bus, if there was even a bus in the early hours of the morning, rather than the twenty-twenty five minutes in my car, at far greater cost?

We tackle the cities, then the town and protect people in rural areas the best we can, or more realistically we protect rural workers who are low paid and need to live locally, we don’t assist those who choose to live miles from where they work despite it having no transport option but a car – that is your choice.

Christ on a pogo stick, the arrogance of the man! Stalin would be proud of you. I DO NOT CHOOSE to live miles from where I work, it was the only job I could find after the last one ended, leaving me with barely any savings and a mortgage and other bills to pay, and I’m bloody luck to haveone that’s fifteen miles away and relatively easy to drive to.
Your obsession leaves you blind to the realities of life outside of cities in the UK.

Your obsession leaves you blind to the realities of life outside of cities in the UK.

Which is why I said we start in the cities, make heaps of improvements, increase levels of service first. This is about a vision for the future where we can make improvements to the way the world works. I completely understand that it's important to make improvements before coming in with the stick.
It's also why my post made a really clear distinction between what we can do in cities right now and what we can try and do further out over time. But don't let that cloud your anger, this entire idea is to make your life harder and to target you individually.

Your obsession leaves you blind to the realities of life outside of cities in the UK.

Try reading more carefully there, I'm currently sat in a very rural spot 7 miles from the nearest town, 35 from a city, public transport is shocking out here, it's worse than when I grew up here, it needs some significant improvements - it's the area I mentioned above with a rail line that could make a huge difference to people moving around here and stop heaps driving into Newcastle to queue and park every day.

To make any of this happen needs significant investment over 10-20 years but it needs to be started and changed need to be made from now going forward.

How would you change things?

Honda has had cars on the road which are ICE which leave the air cleaner in their wake than it was before and have done for over 10 years.

Laughable. Peugeot claimed the same so some journalists turned up at the tech centre well prepared. The people in the tech centre refused point blank to breathe the exhaust gas from the car they claimed cleaned the air.

How would you change things?

Hover boards

Oh, well. Clearly your peugeot anecdote completely overwhelms any data Honda collected in it's experiments.

That would be like me inviting you to go and breath in what comes out of a Chinese battery recyling plant's smokestack, since batteries can be "safely" recycled.

I’ve lived in places with great public transport systems (relatively speaking), but they were rubbish in reality

That doesn't make sense. You lived somewhere with great public transport but it wasn't great? You didn't live somewhere with great public transport then London has what I would consider great PT. Yeah the tube is busy and smelly and whatever, but it does its job - imagine getting around if everyone had to drive to work? There's no way on earth you could get all those people to all those jobs any other way.

When I worked in Helsinki, in a suburb, none of the team drove to work. They all got PT from various parts of the city, even though most of them also owned cars.

you’d prefer I had a journey to work lasting over two hours, probably closer to three on the bus

No, I'd rather you used a bus or tram and it was a good service. People advocating public transport are quite aware of how shit it is - we're not telling you to use what's there when it's unfeasible. We want proper investment in a decent comprehensive service.

Not a Chinese smoke stack within 8000km of here, Olly. Lots of filthy Honda exhausts packed with:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates of average passenger car emissions in the United States for April 2000[5] Component Emission Rate Annual pollution emitted
Hydrocarbons 2.80 grams/mile (1.75 g/km) 77.1 pounds (35.0 kg)
Carbon monoxide 20.9 grams/mile (13.06 g/km) 575 pounds (261 kg)
NOx 1.39 grams/mile (0.87 g/km) 38.2 pounds (17.3 kg)
Carbon dioxide - greenhouse gas 415 grams/mile (258 g/km) 11,450 pounds (5,190 kg)

London's PT can't hold a candle to Montreal's.

Now I am aware that this might sound like a random city choice, but...

A single adult Société de transport de Montréal (STM) pass costs around $80 CDN per month, and can get you anywhere on the island by metro, as far as Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue in the West, Laval in the North, and Longueil in the South. It includes buses and commuter trains, and makes the freedom to travel for even the poorest an unsurpassed experience in any city (with "good" PT) I have ever visited. That includes Toronto, Mexico City, Rome, Berlin, Paris, just to name a few.

There is a philosophy in Montreal that travel belongs to everyone, and should not only be inexpensive, but should seriously reduce traffic. I just got back from there this week, and it never ceases to amaze me how empty the streets are of cars even a peak travel times.

Good price in Canada
https://www.tfgm.com/tickets-and-passes/tram-season-ticket-annual-adult
£930/year for me or £77.50 a month
http://systemonetravel.co.uk/travelcard-finder/?age=adult
£125/month(4 weeks) for all trams and busses in Greater Manchester

Discounts also available for kids, elderly (some free) and other concessions

Worth noting that Montreal has about a tenth the population of the London area. But that just goes to show what can be done if you invest.

Honda exhausts packed with:

estimates of average p

One of these things is not like the other.

Googling random factoids that don't relate to each other do not an argument make. See if you can refute the idea that the technology on the front of the Honda removes more pollutants than the back end puts out. Note that isn't the same as saying the back end puts out none, which your Peugeot journos failed to grasp.

Then Google how transport accounts for a minority of pollution. Then Google the amount of pollution produced by the manufacture of all the parts of an electric car and the pollution produced when you "recycle" batteries.
Then stitch all those related facts together into a cogent argument.

Then stitch all those related facts together into a cogent argument.

Cars are bad, private transport is wasteful regardless of the fuel used.

t never ceases to amaze me how empty the streets are of cars even a peak travel times.

You jest, yes? Compared to London maybe. And the two? bridges in all of Vancouver.

Montreal heavily subsidises it's transit, which does serve a lot of riders. It also got massive subsidies to buikd it. It helps that they have an excellent underground pedestrian network. They have done a brilliant job of making transit serve as many people as possible but it isnt a system many places could afford. Quebecers pay a lot of taxes.

Cars are bad, private transport is wasteful regardless of the fuel used.

6/10. Non sequitur, no sources cited. Must do better.

Then Google how transport accounts for a minority of pollution.

What pollution and where?

Read theOPs article but not all of the subsequent posts but i’m entirely inclined to agree with Monbiot.
Surely it’s a no brainer to sob what ever we can to find and encourage new and better ways to travel and even to maybe just accept that we’ve had the mad gold rush on private transport for our own leisure and lifestyle needs but it surely can’t go on like this without reaching a saturation point can it?

I live in an old victorian town which when is now literally bumper to bumper with cars lining the roads. People do have some garages but these are either not used as they are too small for modern cars or just a hassle to enter and exit. I myself and guilty of running 2 cars... one of which is very rarely used but stupidly required as i need to have one for work (comes with a car allowance) but the wife only works a couple of miles away yet has only cycled about twice in 20 years FFS!!
I cycle most days though to work when not on site which involves a ride to the station then a train 20 miles then a cycle the other end and i quite enjoy it...and for all of the train issues i very rarely get held up. I also try to cycle to the shops or just walk (we do have 3 local supermarkets) and even drag one of those old lady shopping trolleys (much to the mirth of anyone i see) to negate the ridiculous drive round to the shops routine.

I work for a firm run by 2 guys who’s wives and sons both work there (6 people, 2 house holds) and yes, they all drive in in separate cars!! Rational being they have different agendas so it’s more convenient... and there’s the problem, we just are not willing to be inconvenienced these days. The 2 young lads at work point blank refuse to get a bus or train as they won’t be mixed with the general public and god forbid have to sit next to someone else. Thing is that we have limited space for parking now and it’s a constant source of complaining from the staff yet most live no more than 5 or 6 miles from the office! Both my employers recently moved house so they could get 4 cars nicely parked off road... and the irony is that the 2 dads often drive in in there daughters small run around as opposed to their huge BmW,s or porsche,s because they can’t be arsed getting the cars off the drive so they can get theirs out of the garage.... it’s bonkers! But they see it as their god given right as they “work hard and pay their taxes”.
The final bloody straw for me last year was when they told me they were rescinding my work from home (2days a week) as it was a maverick situation and the other 20 or so employees don’t get this. Again here’s the problem... i’m now forced to come into work (25miles) by hook or crook 5 days a week to sit at a computer when i got just as much (actually more) done from home! Now they have run out of office space and are moving with no option for cycle or rail links so i’m off as soon as i can. But this bums on seats mentality in some work places is just madness if the work can be done from home!! Our lead engineer drives 2 hours each way every day... soon to be further when the office moves.
Somethings got to give.

you can refute the idea that the technology on the front of the Honda removes more pollutants than the back end puts out.

I do absolutely refute it. It's a pack of lies.

I found the original quote which is in itself bollocks

'[I]n some high smog areas, the Z-LEV's tailpipe emissions can be cleaner than the surrounding air,' says Honda

becuase it doesn't consider the main pollutants put out by an internal combustion engine, the gases, as pollutants at all. It just looks at things that can be removed by a filter and says that if they are pollutants they will be removed. It ignores what's going to happen at the end of the filters life, probably burned. What teh claim is really saying is:

"if you light a bonfire and run the smoke and fumes through a honda air filter it will remover the particulate pollutants, however the petrol engine will add a mass of unburnt hydrocarbons, NNOX, CO2 and other chemicals that will make already poisonous air aven more poisonous."

I found the quote in a Quentin Wilson book - a bollocks spouting petrolhead if ever there was one.

I do absolutely refute it. It’s a pack of lies.

The same goes for the claim that "only a minority of pollution comes from transport". So what? It's still there, and a short journey to buy a pint of milk can be easily converted to walking or cycling. That doesn't mean that we can't also look at increasing power generation from renewables, or improve gas central heating efficiency.

The comment about councillors trying to use public transport and failing is probably true everywhere in the UK except inner London. There, public transport is the default sensible option. Friends who live there only use their cars when they come back 'home' to visit family or friends. Otherwise, the car sits unused for weeks at a time.

Absolutely, bails.

I refuse to buy another new car until I can get something close to a tesla (hopefully Dyson will do this for us) for £30K

And the OP is correct Rudolph Diesel Born 1858 invented the engine we are still putting into new cars in 2019, if it wasn't for him we would be buying steam cars today.

At least Hitler's U-boats embraced the E-power

Also I am pleased car sales are down and Honda is closing - it serves the industry right for being greedy and lazy.

I find this thread interesting, I have read the article and most of the four pages of circular arguments that followed, there are some quite entrenched views from either perspective, but honestly I don't think anyone can really argue against the idea that cars have gone from being an extravagant toy for a few wealthy individuals, to a tool providing more freedom for the masses, to an environmental and social problem...

Personally I don't think we need to completely remove private car ownership, just make it less 'normal' the 80% of us that live in a major urban centres do need to reassess our ownership and use of cars as well as our willingness to fund and support more sustainable alternatives.

Anyone still arguing for a continuation of widespread private car ownership and use is essentially arguing for a decline in quality of life for the majority (IMO).

The thing that struck me was this graph on pg 2:

My parents were born in the early 1950s, so over the course of their lives car ownership has gone from a 15% minority thing to an 80% majority thing...

So it's happened inside the life span of a single generation... Is there any real reason why that trend can't that trend be reversed in a similar timescale?

I love these threads. As soon as anyone suggests reducing private car use a whole stack of people leap in with how they couldn't possibly do anything without a car and all this unrealistic lentil powered green nonsense couldn't possibly apply outside London.

Nobody is saying that every journey can be made without a car but a hell of a lot more could be. Yes, there needs to be higher quality, more frequent public transport outside London, it needs to cheaper to use (and car travel needs to become more expensive so that the marginal cost for each trip by car is higher than the public transport alternative).

When i was a kid my Dad commuted 24 miles from Chelmsford to Ilford by car and I remember it being a car share - 3 or 4 of them took turns to drive in. I'm sure a few people will chip in and say they do this but it's extremely rare now.

No one is saying everyone has to ride a bike for every journey, but a hell of a lot more trips could be made by bike if there was safe infrastructure for people to ride on comfortably. And not just in the city.

The UK average commute length is 10miles - most are far shorter.
70% of UK car journeys are under 5 miles.
Anyone can ride those sort of distances in a reasonable time and an e-bike means hills are no longer a barrier. Yes, there are a few wet days, but not nearly as many as you think when you start commuting by bike.

Transport is the largest contributor to UK carbon emissions and private car travel the largest part of Transport emissions. Car journeys under 10 miles make up 37% of car carbon emissions.

I do absolutely refute it. It’s a pack of lies.

I found the original quote which is in itself bollocks

For a guy who insists on having factoids to support everything anyone says that disagrees with whatever internet enabled opinion you hold, you spout a lot lot of unsupported opinions

You've googled the wrong thing and I know this because you talk about filters. Wrong tech, wrong Wikipedia website.

You confuse trivia with knowledge and understanding.
So I will leave this here for you:

Your next responses will be bollocks,lies, etc etc. When what you mean is I don't wish to believe it because it disagrees with my firmly held beliefs backed up by random web searches. So right back at you.

only a minority of pollution comes from transport”. So what? It’s still there, and a short journey to buy a pint of milk can be easily converted to walking or cycling.

If you live in city, have easy access to to a shop and are normally abled, true but try to step outside your own experience and consider how others live.
It also matters because transport is the low hanging fruit but everything else is the bigger problem we must address if we are to reverse the damge we are doing.

Transport is the single biggest contributor in the UK but not elsewhere and in the UK it is the single biggest contributor but still accounts for just under 1/4 of the total. Again low-hanging fruit to avoid the really difficult conversations we must have

If you live in city, have easy access to to a shop and are normally abled, true but try to step outside your own experience and consider how others live.

It's almost as if everyone has ignored that, has never suggested using a different approach in different areas, or that a significant number of people live in urban areas so that does apply to them. We should not dissuade people in urban areas to reduce their driving because people live in the country. We can do many things to make using private cars in cities less attractive and make the alternatives more usable and cheaper.

Or to turn it around why should I suffer air pollution, congestion, poor cycling infrastructure and a lack of open spaces because you have to drive to buy milk. step outside your own experiences and consider how others live.
Then consider who we survived all those years ago without the majority owning cars.

The comment about councillors trying to use public transport and failing is probably true everywhere in the UK except inner London.

Okay but where do you think most people live?

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/urban-population-percent-of-total-wb-data.html
Well closing in on 83% in urban areas, think we should be doing something about car use in those areas? How about if what we were talking about here is what we could and should so rather than what exists today.

The UK average commute length is 10miles – most are far shorter.
70% of UK car journeys are under 5 miles.
Anyone can ride those sort of distances in a reasonable time

Well that isn't true.

A 20 mile daily distance is way beyond most people. If you have never ridden a bike for 20 years and then try to start commuting 10 miles each way, it's going to be very difficult. For some people, it's never going to be possible. Especially with the existing infrastructure.

Also, it's not just the journey that takes time, you need to change and ideally shower. All takes time.

I wish we had a proper cycle infrastructure and more people would use bikes but it's not going to happen.

They've build a massive housing estate close to me. Not a single shop. Have grand plans to have a 'High Street' to hang out and have a latte in, but apparently not for mundane things like buying food, or a paper. So people drive everywhere, funnily enough.

Well that isn’t true. A 20 mile daily distance is way beyond most people. If you have never ridden a bike for 20 years and then try to start commuting 10 miles each way, it’s going to be very difficult. Also, it’s not just the journey that takes time, you need to change and ideally shower.

And just as predicted. *Average* is 10 miles - theres a minority who do stupid distances - read the next fact. 70% of trips are under 5miles.

You don't need to change or shower after riding 5 miles at a relaxed pace and it'll take you under half an hour. Maybe a quick wipe with a flannel on the hottest days of the year but even if you are riding futher and are a smelly sweaty individual a shower and change is only 10 minutes (and you no longer need to do it at home so theres a time saving there)

Add ebikes into the mix and you're not going to need to change over a much longer distance or even when it's really hot.

I wish we had a proper cycle infrastructure and more people would use bikes but it’s not going to happen.

Why not? the budget for HS2 is 56Bn. The Autumn budget had £5bn a year for road upgrades for each of the next 5 year. In Feb 18 the Gov announced cities could bid for a share of 7m for cycling schemes. The return on investment for cycling infrastructure is massively higher than for road or rail https://cyclingfallacies.com/en/23/it%E2%80%99s-too-expensive-to-provide-for-cycling

70% of UK car journeys are under 5 miles. I work in Chiswick and cycle just under 5 miles each way into work. I've done it for nearly 25 years and when I started there there were 3 of us who cycled now about 10 do. But there are still 2 people who work for me who are inordinately proud that one drives a mile and the other a mile and a half each way, and rent parking in Chiswick to allow them to do it. Strangely both of them complain about not being paid enough.
But as I said before within 7-10 years there'll be road charging in the UK. It's happening in Australia on about those timescales, and in Canada too as fuel tax revenue falls with the take up of EV cars then that revenue has to be replaced. It will be coming to the UK, and the rest of Europe in about that timescale. So people will be forced to re-evaluate their personal transportation methods.

We can do many things to make using private cars in cities less attractive and make the alternatives more usable and cheaper.

Absolutely true. No argument there. Except we have to have the much more difficult discussions about what the alternatives are, whether they are any cleaner, or more viable in the long run.

Or to turn it around why should I suffer air pollution, congestion, poor cycling infrastructure and a lack of open spaces

What makes you think getting rid of cars will help any of that? We now know that diesel emmissions are far worse polluters of far more dangerous things than other forms of ICE and there will be more of them. EVs are not viable long term because contrary to edukator there isn't a scaleable viable way to recycle the lithium from the batteries, we can recover the metal, partly by burning the plastic around it. So we have to keep mining it, which is horrible for the environment and unsustainable.

Why should the entire population of the south east quadrant of the world suffer so London can have EVs?
Equally, where was your (multiple?) Bikes made? To what environmental standards? How did they get to you? On a ship powered by unicorn farts?

Those are the larger, far more difficult conversations we must have instead of being distracted by the whole cars are evil thing. It's a fig leaf for the fact that we have neither the collective will or the ability to address what is really going to kill us.

How did people get around before we had cars? Well if you were disabled you probably didn't live long enough to worry. Thank God we have to think about those people now.

Well closing in on 83% in urban areas

Which is different from inner London. Most urban areas don't have a tube system for a start.

What makes you think getting rid of cars will help any of that?

Because cars are the dominant source of poor urban air quality.

Add ebikes into the mix and you’re not going to need to change over a much longer distance or even when it’s really hot.

Where do you out the kid you are taking to school, the toddler you are taking to daycare, Tge bulky equipment you need for your job, the diapers you need to buy and the foodstuffs to make dinner on your bike/ebike? Biking as a primary form of transportation just isn't going to cut it for all but a select few (who tend to work in certain reasonably well paid jobs in areas with good resources).

Because cars are the dominant source of poor urban air quality.

A) they aren't
B) if you replace them with something else, which you will have to unless you are willing to have the much harder conversations referenced above, you will end up in the same place but with different things taking up the space..

Every "solution" to air quality and pollution we are willing to consider merely moves it somewhere else.

Biking as a primary form of transportation just isn’t going to cut it for all but a select few (who tend to work in certain reasonably well paid jobs in areas with good resources).

The select few who don't need to transport children to two different locations? You're undermining your own argument.

I used a trailer, btw.