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"War on the car"

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    That's the front page headline on today's Sunday Herald. Perhaps a step away from 'war on motorists', but will no doubt upset a few of the seldom silent 'majority'.

    Strangely the SH doesn't appear to be on-line (yet?)

    If you turn to "pages 6 & 7" you find - "EXCLUSIVE The Scottish Government is considering a raft of plans which would declare war on car culture It won't be an easy ride By Environment Editor Rob Edwards"

    "For months it has been discussed behind closed doors. It is one of the most important policy documents produced by the Scottish government, and now it has come out of the shadows. The "proposals and policies" report leaked to the Sunday Herald outlines how ministers plan to meet their ambitious target of 42% cut in climate pollution by 2020."

    Quote picked out by SH for highlighting - "If the Scottish Government had any sense they would see that taxing and charging people out of their cars would be devastating to many livelihoods" ("said Jennifer Dunn from Drivers' Alliance in London.")

    The Herald web site has details of Transport Summit 2010 "This interactive one-day summit will explore the transport priorities for Glasgow and the west of Scotland to ensure the region can compete successfully in domestic and global markets."

    The list of speakers is a bit predictable - in this context "transport" is about engines, distance, speed etc.

    "It won't be an easy ride" looks like a bit of an understatement.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  2. LaidBack
    Member

    Although I like much of The Sunday Herald this kind of headline is not helpful.

    The paper has a car review section that is like something from 20 years ago...
    Todays offering is the Seat Cupra which dumps 190g/km of CO2 and only goes 35 miles per gallon. How dated is that...? Sorry going off topic....

    Posted 13 years ago #

  3. chdot
    Admin

    "Sorry going off topic"

    But you're not...

    Posted 13 years ago #

  4. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    Marina Hyde had an interesting article in Saturday's Guardian called "Are we there yet? Soon we'll all be on a road to nowhere".

    Quote: "We say we are "in" traffic, dramatising ourselves as a lone vehicle of noble and rational intent, with a sea of malevolent, dead-weight antagonists stretching endlessly fore and aft. It was in a bid to highlight the flaws in this position that a German transport campaign erected road-side boards reading: "You are not stuck in traffic - you are traffic".

    The whole article is an interesting read, focusing on the Chinese nine-day traffic jam and relating it to a book called "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do" by Tom Vanderbilt.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  5. cb
    Member

    Marina's Guardian article

    Tom Vanderbilt's book is really good. I'd recommend it.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  6. TwoWheels
    Member

    You guys should see it over here. Compared to Scotland, the U.S. is a third-world country.

    I'll second the vote on Vanderbilt's book.

    Anybody need to hire an experienced, devastatingly handsome, chiropractic doctor in Edinburgh?

    Posted 13 years ago #

  7. chdot
    Admin

    "Compared to Scotland, the U.S. is a third-world country."

    I'm glad you (as an American) said that.

    I visited Boston about 10 years ago and saw someone I knew from Edinburgh who said 'in some ways this is like a third-world country'

    It was the time of the Big Dig. Bit like the tram works here - only, er, bigger.

    However if you stood on the edge of the sidewalk cars stopped to let you cross...

    Posted 13 years ago #

  8. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Compared to Scotland, the U.S. is a third-world country.

    Yeah, we're proud of being a 2.9th world country! :D

    Posted 13 years ago #

  9. davidmhodgey
    Member

    I'm a driver and a cyclist and I firmly believe most of Edinburgh city centre should be for busses, bicycles and taxis only.

    My office is on the Royal Mile with parking and I often drive up town and park there on the weekend but there's really no need - I should be cycling or taking the bus. Until someone forces us to stop being lazy we'll continue to enjoy our bad habits.

    Perhaps there should be an exception for people with disabled badges, I don't know. When you visit most other European cities and see how many cyclists there are compared to here it makes me sad. But honestly, I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing my partner/children were cycling on Edinburghs roads every day, I have no idea how I've survived years of commuting by bike!

    Posted 13 years ago #

  10. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    davidmhodgey: "I'm a driver and a cyclist and I firmly believe most of Edinburgh city centre should be for busses, bicycles and taxis only."
    I agree. It seems so selfish to take a car into the city centre. The only people who benefit from a car are its occupants, everyone else has to put up with the danger, pollution, noise and loss of space. Admittedly many cars are being driven by people who provide valuable services but that doesn't make an alternative any less desirable.

    Posted 13 years ago #

  11. DdF
    Member

    Cyclingmollie: very true - except that your 3rd sentence should usually be in the singular: "The only person to benefit from a car is its occupant, ..."

    In the twice-yearly Spokes traffic counts, around 75% of Edinburgh peak-period cars have only one occupant! i.e. despite the space occupied and noise emitted, that huge machine is carrying no more than does a humble bicycle.

    Wait a minute, oh dear, just noticed a possible flaw in that last assertion ;) Have you spotted it?? Stop and think! - the answer is at the end below.

    Meanwhile, if you'd like to read up on the Spokes count data, it's here...
    http://www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/downloads/technical-and-research/spokes-traffic-counts/

    Possible flaw in argument above: I assumed that the average cyclist and the average driver weigh the same!! The figures would be interesting - wonder if an estimate has ever been made?

    Posted 13 years ago #

  12. chdot
    Admin

    The SH story is now online.

    The related editorial "We must change our lives, not just our driving habits" ends with -

    "The big, and still unanswered question, for the environment lobby is how best to manage the cultural change which is the unavoidable logical end to their argument. While welcoming Holyrood’s moves to produce specific measures to achieve Scotland’s environmental targets, this newspaper recognises that our politicians have some way to go to persuade the public of our responsibility to change our lives to make them more sustainable. It is in all our interests that they succeed."

    Posted 13 years ago #

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