CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Just shows you what the current Tory party really thinks of their own voters. They expect people to believe:
a. that a cabal of global leaders and billionaires want to prevent people from travelling outside their local area by means of strategically placed flowerpots and bollards; and
b. Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister and billionaire, is just the guy to stop this happening.
ejstubbs
“One also might wonder why they are keeping it secret if they actually think the policy will appeal to the electorate?”
BIG promise in manifesto/election campaign?
(This article may have stopped it??)
I think in this case it's simpler than that: the murderer is already inside the house, ie the Tory MPs themselves are crazy effin' loons who genuinely buy into this nonsense.
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But now anyone who promotes what we had thought had become mainstream common sense transport policies risks being demonised as being part of the car hating and sinister mob. Would someone please explain to me why the concept of 15 minute cities has been described by none other than the Secretary of State for Transport, Mark Harper in this way? Being able to access work, leisure and shops easily without having to drive by car was always seen as a desired holy grail by transport planners.
Now it's 'big brother' local authorities telling us where and when we go Soviet style. In my view this has crossed a line. If I were working as a civil servant or in one of the Government's transport agencies I would not hesitate to call him out for it. Its fine to have legitimate debates about ownership and control and the merits of HS2, but to resort to fabricated rhetoric that you would associate with Putin or Trump is unacceptable and not something we should have any truck with in our country. The comments were made some six months ago, but I'm still incensed by them.
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The toxicity around paying for road use and cutting pollution will mean that we are unlikely to experience the radical shift in transport policy associated with the last time Labour replaced a Conservative Government. It's harder to win consensus for any measure which increases motoring costs during a cost-of-living crisis, although ironically there is not the same backlash when public transport fares go up. This explains why you have to go back 13 years for the last increase in fuel duty and why politicians are like a rabbit caught in a car headlight when it comes to discussing how we pay for roads when the road fleet is electrified. Labour needs to set up both a cross-party commission and a Citizens Jury to look at the options.
There has been much talk following the budget about the £40 billion funding gap if National Insurance is to be abolished. Why no focus on the £40 billion revenue lost when fuel duty goes? Many people argue that this funding gap will force a future government to act and introduce a new tax/charge on road use. If this Government is anything to go by, then I wouldn't bet on it. They have boxed themselves into being the motorist's friend regardless of the financial, social and environmental consequences. If we don't replace fuel duty, then the projected growth in traffic will double. The congestion associated with this makes it anti motorist in my book. And what about the equity implications of people on low incomes paying for road infrastructure and not owning a car?
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https://www.transporttimes.co.uk/news.php/What-is-the-strategy-for-transport-715
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Carlos Moreno, a jovial and owlish professor at the Sorbonne University, came up with the phrase “15-minute cities” and has been quietly getting on setting them up in Paris. He has a bemused air when asked about how his modest proposal for a more enjoyable urban life has caused such vile conspiracy theories, and takes it all in good humour despite the death threats and other abuse he has received.
Moreno says: “We don’t have the conspiracy mongers, because it is impossible to say in Paris that Moreno wants to create a new Paris lockdown. This is impossible to say that I am Pol Pot or that I am Stalin – because we live in Paris, I can invite guests to visit me and they see this is impossible.
“We have created a lot of new districts and they have been popular. The opposition in Paris is not the same that you have in the UK, because nobody can say in Paris we want to create an open jail – this is evident that it is not the case. We have beautiful new green spaces and areas to live.”
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Previously
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So where did the fear come from? Many of the UK conspiracy theorists highlight that these “un-British” ideas of urban walkability emanate from France, so they must be distrusted on principle. Worse than that, they point out, the ideology has been driven by a bearded Colombian scientist with radical roots. The ideas had been around since the 1920s, but the 15-minute city phrase was coined by Carlos Moreno, esteemed professor at the Panthéon-Sorbonne in Paris, who was once a member of a leftwing guerrilla group in the 1970s. And now he’s coming for your cars.
“Their lies are enormous,” Moreno said in a recent interview , describing some of the claims made by his critics. “You will be locked in your neighbourhood; cameras will signal who can go out; if your mother lives in another neighbourhood, you will have to ask for permission to see her, and so on,” adding that they “sometimes post pictures of concentration camps.”
Moreno first promoted his concept of la ville du quart d’heure in 2016, but it gained international attention when the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, adopted it as part of her re-election campaign in 2020. She promised she would close off roads and turn them into public plazas, plant more trees and turn schools into the “capitals of the neighbourhood”, open to everyone for sports and recreation in evenings and at weekends.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/16/15-minute-city-planning-theory-conspiracists
The fear of the 15 minute city is definitely spread by spewing from teh American right, where suggesting that people shouldn't go bankrupt after breaking an arm can get you branded a Marx-lovely terrorist.
I think there's some evidence that this sort of paranoia being in English makes other English-speaking countries susceptible to it in a way that other language-speakers won't be.
People can be very stupid if they want to be.
@Canuck...Unfortunately not limited to the English speaking world, I've heard it spoken about on Spain's national radio broadcaster.
Yes, it is international, but it does seem more prevalent in the English-speaking world. :(
Or else my friends in non-English countries are managing to dodge this nonsense, lucky things...
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