Our roads are choked. We’re on the verge of carmageddon

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Our roads are choked. We’re on the verge of carmageddon

(26 posts)

Started 8 years ago by crowriver
Latest reply from Cyclingmollie

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crowriver
Member

Our roads are choked. We’re on the verge of carmageddon

It was a mistake – a monumental, world-class mistake. Cars for everyone was one of the most stupid promises politicians ever made. Cars are meant to meet a simple need: quick and efficient mobility. Observe an urban artery during the school run, or a trunk road on a bank holiday weekend, and ask yourself whether the current system meets that need. The vast expanse of road space, the massive investment in metal and fossil fuel, has delivered the freedom to sit fuming in a toxic cloud as your life ticks by.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/20/roads-car-use-health-driving?

Posted 8 years ago #
stiltskin
Member

My only problem with the article is that, despite being a left-leaning green voting intellectual, anything written by George Monbiot makes me want to club the nearest baby seal into a bloody pulp.

Posted 8 years ago #
gembo
Member

George 5 allotments Monbiot, he's not that bad is he?

Posted 8 years ago #
Morningsider
Member

What would be interesting is a series of interviews with politicians from the places pursuing great new infrastructure and radical new policies - asking why they are doing this, what made them change from old car-centric policies. I don't think people in Hamburg or Helsinki are any smarter than us. I doubt their politicians are really much better - so how can they do this?

I agree with Stiltskin about Monbiot though - honestly, I feel like burning some tyres after reading most of his articles (even though I generally agree with him).

Posted 8 years ago #
Cyclingmollie
Member

I like the article but I would go further:
Make all parking by paid permit, it's private property using up public space. Use the revenue to build cycling infrastructure. Increase crossing attendants tenfold. Why should a driver have priority over a child or pensioner walking through their own village or town?

Posted 8 years ago #
paddyirish
Member

@Stiltskin wins CCE today

Posted 8 years ago #
minus six
Member

I don't think people in Hamburg or Helsinki are any smarter than us. I doubt their politicians are really much better - so how can they do this?

perhaps they have a surfeit of monbiot-like media pundits shaping opinion, and the citizenry aren't altogether repulsed by that, as would be mandatory in uk plc

or maybe they are just smarter, after all

Posted 8 years ago #
cc
Member

Cyclingmollie, I'd vote for that.

Posted 8 years ago #
wingpig
Member

Make it a condition of office that councillors, elected government representatives and their policy-devising staff had to use public transport or active travel on official business (facilitated by subsidised travel passes, pooled active travel equipment etc.), or charge them private vehicle mileage rather than subsidising it. More people in positions of influence being exposed to the solution rather than the problem might help. Perhaps make them attend traffic-modelling awareness classes, showing the difference in effect between adding an extra lane at a couple of junctions versus reducing the number of vehicles.

Posted 8 years ago #
Cyclingmollie
Member

Nice one wingpig. And make organisations that receive Council funding conform to Council initiatives for sustainable transport i.e. support your staff to use sustainable transport alternatives or lose your funding.

Posted 8 years ago #
LivM
Member

I know when our office building was built (2002-ish) there were strict controls on how many parking spaces were permitted (this is not a city centre site but an industrial brownfield on the edge of the city) and all sorts of "active travel" solutions were encouraged. 14 years later, there's still a strict(ish) policy on car-sharing to get a parking space (oh, unless you're a senior manager) and there's a pay and display car park over the road for the rest.

Much better than it might have been, but it still gets so many grumbles from staff "why don't they just build more parking spaces?"

Posted 8 years ago #
sallyhinch
Member

haha! What is it about George Monbiot, because I have the same reaction... Possibly because I agree with him on so many issues it makes me uneasy.

Posted 8 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"it makes me uneasy"

Possibly because he can come across as a left/Green version of Boris and maybe you are uneasy about his views on nuclear energy(?)

Posted 8 years ago #
cc
Member

The cover picture on his book is amazing, though.

Posted 8 years ago #
wingpig
Member

Maybe it's because there's the risk that he'll say a load of things you agree with then require you to despise yourself as being no better than a corned-beef-guzzling seal-clubber (who throws away each Amazonian hardwood club after each clubbing) when you accidentally eat a supermarket apple sourced from New Zealand?

Posted 8 years ago #
Min
Member

That and the Garudian is really just the opposite of the Mail and is therefore just as annoying but for different reasons.

Posted 8 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"just as annoying but for different reasons"

+1

Posted 8 years ago #
nobrakes
Member

+2

Posted 8 years ago #
crowriver
Member

"he can come across as a left/Green version of Boris "

Now that is just really unfair.

Maybe it's more that somewhere deep down in your subconscious you don't like him. Maybe he makes you feel guilty, gets under your skin. So you react to this with irritation at his apparent holier-than-thou attitude which may compare unfavourably to your own flawed, compromised lifestyle approach.

You know, a bit like the reaction of many motorists upon encountering cyclists and their opinions on transport?

Posted 8 years ago #
crowriver
Member

"the Garudian is really just the opposite of the Mail"

Only in terms of political and lifestyle positions. Both publications mirror each other in being resolutely bourgeois. :) The direct opposite of the Mail would be something like the Morning Star.

Posted 8 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"

"he can come across as a left/Green version of Boris "

Now that is just really unfair.

"

I chose my words carefully.

"Maybe he makes you feel guilty"

Don't think so.

I suspect he feels more guilt than I do.

Most of what he says is sensible, but we don't live in a sensible world. So maybe I am more pessimistic than him (but don't feel guilt about that!)

He thinks nuclear energy is 'necessary' for a 'transition'. I think that the availability of that electricity supply will delay necessary decisions until (possibly) it's 'too late'.

Posted 8 years ago #
crowriver
Member

"He thinks nuclear energy is 'necessary' for a 'transition'. "

On this I disagree with Monbiot. Energy efficiency would be a better use of investment.

Oh when I said "you" I meant in the sense of "one" not you personally. :-)

Posted 8 years ago #
chdot
Admin

"Energy efficiency would be a better use of investment."

Very much so, but we're back to politicians' love of 'big projects' (though I expect that is politician-blaming, when it is, to a degree, 'human nature').

Even energy efficiency is encouraging a 'more of the same' imagined future - a cosy, consumerist, Western (middle-class even) view of the world.

Whatever the future, I know it's not going to involve everyone in the world enjoying my current lifestyle/energy use (inc food production/distribution etc).

In an idealised world - which Mr. M clearly thinks about - I have no idea if I would be worse off in current comforts (adequately heated dwelling, enough to eat, bicycle(s) etc) or much worse off.

Posted 8 years ago #
i
Member

Dave Mackay has a good point to say about sustainable energy in the UK. Energy demand in the winter is highest, yet solar energy is low; so how are we going to have reliable energy if there is a week of still wind in the winter?

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Posted 8 years ago #
chdot
Admin

Tidal.

Posted 8 years ago #
Cyclingmollie
Member

Too much of the energy debate assumes proponents of one form must be opponents of all others. It will always be a mix.

Posted 8 years ago #

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