An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson said ministers should work to build cities that “focus on transporting people, not vehicles”.

How many cities are being built?
Whar about those of us who live in rural areas?

How many cities are being built?

One is being built around Cambridge.

What about those of us who live in rural areas?

Not many people live in rural areas. That’s kind of the point.

I think modifying existing cities also counts. Hardly anything new to say that public transport needs to be better

We are, within cities, all too reliant on cars. Just been back in the UK to Chelmsford, a mid sized town in the middle of Essex and there were traffic jams every day due to people’s aversion to buses, bikes or using their feet….

Went to pick up my nephew (on foot!) at his primary school 1/4 of a mile away. Saw people leaving the close at the same as me. When I got to the school ten minutes later they were parking about 250m from the school as they couldn’t get any nearer. WTF. Lazy *****!

Even existing cities are always being built

How many cities are being built?

Have you been to China in the last 20 years? They seem to be building hundreds of new cities, although they do sprawl together, so maybe it’s just one gigantic city. The scale of construction is utterly mindblowing.

Extinction Rebellion

So this is public, lots of different people with different views.

They don’t have a thought through policy other than ‘PROTEST!’. Which is good as they are trying to highlight the environmental emergency we face.

They certainly don’t think through much of what they are doing in my experience – I’m trying to work with some of them professionally.

Exactly. They are a protest group not a policy based political party looking to get into government.
Best way to stop cities relying on cars is not allowing cars into cities. Other solutions (walk, electric bus, electric scooter and so on would soon be found)

Most of the climate change challenges are very simple to fix. The problem is that the general public don’t want to bear the inconvenience and there would need to be cross party agreements rather than relying on voting/be at mercy of losing because of unpopular environmental policies. You can imagine how well that would work…

Have you been to China in the last 20 years? They seem to be building hundreds of new cities, although they do sprawl together,

Have XR tried protesting in China ? Or is the threat of the gulag too much for the cause ?

While I agree with Kerley.

XR just don’t do themselves any favour to garner popularity.

Not many people live in rural areas

Yes they do! My nearest city is 30 miles away. The nearest proper city is 50 miles away.

Just so I’m clear.

What’s a proper city and why do you need petrol or diesel to go to a proper city?

Most of the climate change challenges are very simple to fix.

They are most definitely not because there are billions of people like you and me, Kerley. I’ve cut off the gas, insulated, fitted PV and solar thermal, run an electric car, select what I eat and I’m still a country mile away from being climate neutral. When I consider my part in the CO2 emissions I have no control over I’m still producing huge quatities and I really don’t see how many of those things I contribute to can be made carbon neutral by any government or industry.

They are most definitely not because there are billions of people like you and me,

Actually not many people making an effort like you Ed, just totted up in our close of 9 x 4 bed detached houses, 24 adults with an average of exactly one car per adult, only one car is electric and that only arrived at the weekend, none have got solar panels. I did as much as I could insulation and control wise when I moved in and we are the only house that bring the car owning average down, most people just don’t seem to know or care… 😕

Whar about those of us who live in rural areas?

What is the question? The original quote doesn’t really apply to you since you don’t live in the city.

Unless you’re asking why this is not being extended to rural areas?

Old cities were not designed for cars, but evolved around a pedestrian and horse transport system. The streets were for people. Just look at film of turn of the century cities (1900s) and you’ll see people stopping in the middle of a major thoroughfare for a chat and crossing wherever suited them and the traffic weaving around them.

Everything was at human speed. Perhaps that should be the basis of allowing vehicles into city streets. That and reducing the size of private vehicles allowed in. You can get 6 people into a vehicle the size of a Honda ActyVan, so why do we need anything bigger? (As opposed to want 🙂 ).

WTF. Lazy *****!

Not necessarily. Maybe they were taking their children somewhere after school? Dropping others off on the way home?

The problem with the school run is that parents are often going to work after and hence drop children on the way. I used to cycle the children to school and ride home before driving to work.

alpin

Member

Just been back in the UK to Chelmsford, a mid sized town city in the middle of Essex and there were traffic jams every day due to people’s aversion to buses, bikes or using their feet….

FTFY 😉

That’s partly true. However a big problem in Chelmsford is the councils mismanagement of the roads. E.g. allowing the army and navy flyover to fall into disrepair forcing its closure with no replacement plan.

Also the public transport is quite expensive, for example the park and ride scheme is £5 for two adults two children. However you can park right in the centre on Parkway for £2.50 for two hours and it’s a lot more convenient as you don’t have to wait for a bus (which at peak times are very busy). And I don’t have to pay an extra £3.60(!!!) if granny wants to come along!

FunkyDunc

Yes they do! My nearest city is 30 miles away. The nearest proper city is 50 miles away.

So why does it bother you?

Drive to Park and ride, get bus, congestion problem solved.

83.4% of the UK population lives in an urban area.

Birmingham are actually talking about implementing a dutch style infrastructure for cars. You will be able to drive into the city center, but not around it. so if you want to get from A to B within the city you will have to get public transport, walk or ride a bike. If you want to get from one part of the city to another you would have to go out to the ring road, around and back in again which goes a long way to leveling the paying field.

Also the public transport is quite expensive, for example the park and ride scheme is £5 for two adults two children. However you can park right in the centre on Parkway for £2.50 for two hours and it’s a lot more convenient as you don’t have to wait for a bus (which at peak times are very busy). And I don’t have to pay an extra £3.60(!!!) if granny wants to come along!

Not directly having a go, my OH makes the same argument when we go into Reading, so I’m well rehearsed.

Might be true to an extent, but assuming the town is ~3 miles from the park and ride then that’s another £2.70 in car costs (at 45p/mile). And doesn’t granny have a buss pass? Because of the way a car’s costs are accumulated up front (depreciation was paid for years ago, insurance and tax annually, tyres every few years, fuel last week) there’s a tendency to think it’s free compared to a bus/train ticket when it’s actually a long way from it. It’s why we’ll probably have to go to a PAYG tax system with black boxes or ANPR.

It’s also no stress, no multi story car parks in shopping centers to get out of, no traffic, no traffic lights. Door to door in Reading it’s quicker as the bus will drop you off at the center of town, no in the NCP’s.

And 5 people in a car is obviously better than 1, which is what the P+R should be trying to force. If it’s borderline cost effective for a family of 4 to get the bus Vs drive, it must be cheaper for an individual.

Not many people live in rural areas. That’s kind of the point.

Beg to differ on the numbers – and that there’s not city Vs rural, there is a middle ground, and we are not in opposition.

They are most definitely not

They most definitely are. Give me full power to do what I want and I could fix climate change within a few years. I would probably be killed within the first week due to the majority of people hating what I have planned though.
When I say “Most of the climate change challenges are very simple to fix.” I mean things such as no cars in cities, 1 flight per year per person. Very simple to do if anybody actually wanted to.
The challenges around energy provision are still simple enough as we have the solutions (wind, solar etc,.) but again the implementation wouldn’t be as quick and certainly wouldn’t be popular with the current energy providers, land owners, etc,.

thisisnotaspoon

Not directly having a go, my OH makes the same argument when we go into Reading, so I’m well rehearsed.

Might be true to an extent, but assuming the town is ~3 miles from the park and ride then that’s another £2.70 in car costs (at 45p/mile). And doesn’t granny have a buss pass? Because of the way a car’s costs are accumulated up front (depreciation was paid for years ago, insurance and tax annually, tyres every few years, fuel last week) there’s a tendency to think it’s free compared to a bus/train ticket when it’s actually a long way from it. It’s why we’ll probably have to go to a PAYG tax system with black boxes or ANPR.

It’s also no stress, no multi story car parks in shopping centers to get out of, no traffic, no traffic lights. Door to door in Reading it’s quicker as the bus will drop you off at the center of town, no in the NCP’s.

And 5 people in a car is obviously better than 1, which is what the P+R should be trying to force. If it’s borderline cost effective for a family of 4 to get the bus Vs drive, it must be cheaper for an individual.

The car is costing us £145 a month and I’m 95% certain we will not need to spend anything on maintenance or tyres during the term. It’s insured and taxed anyway. So really the only marginal cost for us (and I would think most people who finance a car) is fuel which I calculate at being just over £1 for a 6 mile round trip in town traffic.

The car park I mentioned is not a multi storey, it is literally bang in the centre of the shopping area.
If you use the P&R you have to wait for a bus at both ends, often you won’t get a seat, it’s noisy (so **** noisy, it’s like somebody’s rattling a coin in a quality street tin the entire time plus the weird high pitched drivetrain noise which sounds like straight cut gears from a rally car onboard, except shit), smelly, dirty, the bus driver treats the pedals like an on/off switch and there’s nowhere to put your shopping.

If there is a quality service for a reasonable price it will be used. Cambridge’s seemed pretty good last time I was there.

We could always travel less. I expect a number of us are working in a more agile way (cos we all work in IT) but generally I am still surprised at the number of people who still travel into an office or place of work when they could use technology more.

Most of the climate change challenges are very simple to fix.

Catastrophic climate change is a done deal. We can all ‘do our bit’, and I try to, but we’re pissing into the wind.

We are on a sinking ship.

Very apt; in that catastrophe the rich’uns got off quite lightly as they had access to the liferafts, whilst the poor’uns were left to their fate. Plus ca change…

The car is costing us £145 a month and I’m 95% certain we will not need to spend anything on maintenance or tyres during the term. It’s insured and taxed anyway. So really the only marginal cost for us (and I would think most people who finance a car) is fuel which I calculate at being just over £1 for a 6 mile round trip in town traffic.

Exactly, you pay £145 to save ~£1.70, or several £1.70’s, and the ability to live somewhere where you don’t work etc. Long term none of that is going to be sustainable.

Also, cost to the environment as well as financial.

Hence my point that car use probably won’t change until we move to a system where it’s not £££ upfront for a year, but say £5 every time you leave your driveway plus …p per mile which would more accurately reflect the cost of driving (about £1000 more per car per year than VED and fuel duty collects)

Sauce : https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/government-challenged-over-motoring-myths-real-cost-of-roads-far-higher-than-ministers-say-transport-1416229.html

FTFY 😉

That’s partly true. However a big problem in Chelmsford is the councils mismanagement of the roads. E.g. allowing the army and navy flyover to fall into disrepair forcing its closure with no replacement plan.

Also the public transport is quite expensive, for example the park and ride scheme is £5 for two adults two children. However you can park right in the centre on Parkway for £2.50 for two hours and it’s a lot more convenient as you don’t have to wait for a bus (which at peak times are very busy). And I don’t have to pay an extra £3.60(!!!) if granny wants to come along!

Not thinking Chelmsford is more deserving of attention over other settlements but I know it so I’ll throw my tuppence in. Another factor not isolated to Chelmsford is the constant need to fill in every green space or brownfield site with more houses, retirements homes and flats with no thought to the road network and no wider plan or ability to tackle congestion. The kind of fixes they propose like a bus gate on to the Army and Navy do nothing to reduce traffic and just shift it to other parts of the City and generate huge local opposition. They also opened a new Aldi on the Army and Navy which exacerbated issues.

Just so I’m clear.

What’s a proper city and why do you need petrol or diesel to go to a proper city?

We need to go there to get to the public transport…

Not thinking Chelmsford is more deserving of attention over other settlements but I know it so I’ll throw my tuppence in. Another factor not isolated to Chelmsford is the constant need to fill in every green space or brownfield site with more houses, retirements homes and flats with no thought to the road network and no wider plan or ability to tackle congestion. The kind of fixes they propose like a bus gate on to the Army and Navy do nothing to reduce traffic and just shift it to other parts of the City and generate huge local opposition. They also opened a new Aldi on the Army and Navy which exacerbated issues.

The problem is everyone’s fighting the ‘motorist’ with one hand tied behind their back. Because a council can’t really implement road pricing or tax cars off the road on their own. They can’t subsidize public transport as they’ve no funds. They really have very few tools at their disposal. And double yellows, parking permits everywhere bring out the daily wail / war on motorists brigade.

e.g. bus gates, do absolutely nothing to improve the buses but make it worse for cars to try and force people to not use cars.

At some point the cost of using a car is going to have to rise to a level where it actually reflects the cost of providing the infrastructure for it and the damage they do. Even electric cars only solve part of the problem (they emit less, not zero CO2 and still cause congestion).

Whar about those of us who live in rural areas?

Well you might still need to own a private car for a bit longer, but then you are in the minority, there are fewer rural dwellers and their motor vehicle journeys are (arguably) less polluting.

The problem of polluting motor vehicles, is most concentrated within major urban areas cars and vans sat idling or running inefficiently in lower gears, chucking more crap out of the exhaust.
I think it’s fair to suggest tackling the bigger problems first. Don’t worry they’ll get round to you eventually…

XR just don’t do themselves any favour to garner popularity.

I don’t think they’re worried about popularity.
As pointed out already, they’re not a political party, or contestants on a TV show. Their point is quite simple, Climate change is already in progress, we were warned decades ago and society as a whole chose to ignore those warnings. their actions are intended to raise awareness, and apply pressure on those in a position to influence policies or make changes to limit the impact of climate change…

If you insulate your loft or buy an EV that’s great but XR are after more fundamental change.

XR just don’t do themselves any favour to garner popularity.

Their aim, or one of them, hard to say when they’re ostensibly leaderless. Was to be the inconvenience and financial cost that tips businesses into action.

e.g. if you bring London to a standstill so commuters can’t get in (yes that kinda includes super gluing yourself to the roof of a train), you encourage people to work locally rather than commute, which makes it more expensive to companies to base themselves in London. The current commuter model is based on (for example) 100 companies being based in London, each attracting 100 commuters from 100 satellite towns each. Each commuter travels ~25 miles (assuming the average is the m25) which means 250,000miles of commuting every day for those 100 companies. If those 100 companies based themselves in 100 towns and people worked locally then that 250,000miles drops to almost nothing.

250,000 passenger miles, even on trains, is still a lot of CO2. And there aren’t enough trains, so even if you got rid of every current train commuter by pissing them off, they’d be replaced immediately by people who currently drive because they got fed up of not being able to get a seat.

We need to go there to get to the public transport…

Well my rural town is now a proper city.

So really the only marginal cost for us (and I would think most people who finance a car) is fuel which I calculate at being just over £1 for a 6 mile round trip in town traffic.

That’s the problem right there.
While I don’t know your specific circumstances, mobility problems or heavy loads to carry or whatever, it has sadly become normal to drive to something three miles away.

I did a small survey this afternoon in central London. I counted:

Busses: 16
Taxis: 29
HGVs: 2
Vans: 32
Bicycles: 5
Motorbikes: 6
Private cars: 2

I’m not sure that cars are the problem.

car use probably won’t change until we move to a system where it’s not £££ upfront

Public transport is, for me, £7000/yr upfront (car is about an order of magnitude less). The upfront cost isn’t the issue, the issue is that public transport is expensive, unreliable, doesn’t go where people want to go and can’t transport goods.

Public transport is, for me, £7000/yr upfront (car is about an order of magnitude less).

Is it though?

Working backwards from that figure on the trainline you get to something like banbury to london. Which by car is 78 miles and 1h30 without traffic.

Assuming a really economical car thats still £12 in fuel each day, plus say £20 to park in vaguely central london.

47 weeks of that is £7520. Plus the cost of the car, tax, insurance, etc. plus you (if you get a seat) get 3 hours of work done on the train, thats probably enough hours to setup a second business and income!

And its obviously a lot better for the environment. Which is the real point.

We could always travel less. I expect a number of us are working in a more agile way (cos we all work in IT) but generally I am still surprised at the number of people who still travel into an office or place of work when they could use technology more.

I don’t actually know anyone who works in IT. I don’t, the nearest was print prepress, and I couldn’t have done that remotely, I didn’t have a £65,000 drum scanner at home, or several thousand pounds worth of Mac.
I did have a job for eleven years where I could actually walk to work, or cycle, but that ended four years ago, and the job I have now involves a fifteen mile drive to work, which in turn involves moving actual real cars around from workshops and various outdoor storage areas, and that couldn’t be done remotely, not by any stretch of the imagination!
Although, after being outdoors all day in today’s wind and rain, I could have done with a Waldo suit and sat at home in the warm and dry!
As regards public transport there was a news report tonight about Bristol’s MetroBus system, which has turned into a fiasco, cost half-a-Billion pounds, and people are having to wait for buses that are up to an hour late!
If I wanted to use Bath’s Park-and-Ride, I have to actually drive through the city to get to it, then join huge queues to get back to my car and then join the traffic to drive back through the city!
Bristol is almost as bad, and public transport to the city is useless in the evening, the time I’m most likely to want to go, for a gig; anyone who goes to gigs knows they usually finish somewhere around 11pm – the last train from Bristol TM heading east is 10.32pm!
I’m so amused by the delusional view that nobody worth a damn lives outside cities; Salisbury, a cathedral city in Wiltshire (according to Russian assassins), has a population of 45,477; the population of Chippenham, Wiltshire, where I live, a rural market town, has a population of 45,650!
But of course, nobody lives outside of cities, rural areas are just a wasteland.
#rollseyes

The problem of polluting motor vehicles, is most concentrated within major urban areas cars and vans sat idling or running inefficiently in lower gears, chucking more crap out of the exhaust.

The problem is concentrated within urban areas, but how many of those vehicles come from rural areas? On a per capita basis, people generally create far less emissions living in a city than in rural areas.

These threads always bring out the loons.

The fact is that no amount of protesting is going to stop people wanting to move around the country, towns and cities, in comfort and without having to wait for hours/make multiple changes of vehicle/walk for miles/get wet/getsweaty etc. The sooner people realise this the sooner we can get away from this ridiculous self flagellation and focus on developing technological solutions. More home working would be a good start.

JP

Busses: 16
Taxis: 29
HGVs: 2
Vans: 32
Bicycles: 5
Motorbikes: 6
Private cars: 2

I’m not sure that cars are the problem.

I’m not sure that quick survey is definitive.

I’m not sure that quick survey is definitive.

Nope. But it highlights two things; a modern city needs to move goods around as well as people and “city” is a fairly meaningless concept in this context (Barbican is different to Barnet is different to Bath).

Is it though?

Possibly I didn’t make the point very well. The example was to disprove the hypothesis that the sunk cost is an incentive to drive. Even with a sunk cost in public transport much greater than that of a car, like I have, it’s still usually preferable to drive (parking in central London the obvious exception). Although that example is for one route and a car can be used almost anywhere. Can you imagine the upfront cost of an anywhere in the UK rail season ticket and compare that to an old banger, road tax and a tank of fuel?

get 3 hours of work done on the train

In over four hours travelling a day it maybe possible to get a couple of 20 minute work sessions before it just becomes too crowded. Real world it means reading Singletrack! Still better than driving though.