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Some myths about 'traffic'
(10 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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Good myth busting conference of 11 years ago
You sense a film is about to be written - kind of Defence of the Realm/Constant Gardener
where the hero/heroine is a professor of traffic who stumbles on a huge conspiracy generated by Henry Ford and a huge political funding scandal where MPs are involved in ensuring more roads get built and all cars to be subsidised to allow oil companies to continue to rule the world via saudi arabia.
Is tHe recession just now not because oil prices are so dear,? it is a wonder that more politicians don't go green
Posted 12 years ago # -
There is some really interesting information there, now how much has change in the past 11 years?
Posted 12 years ago # -
I got as far as
10.00 - Professor David Begg, CfIT
For that reason, I'm out.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"For that reason, I'm out."
Well you missed the good bits then.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I can't resist: aren't most of these "myths" just Aunt Sallies countered by an alternative set of myths, where they can be bothered countering them at all?
Posted 12 years ago # -
In interests of stirring up debate, maybe I should explain what I mean above. The first session tackles the myth "Technology will solve all our transport problems". Who says this? And in what way do these unnamed people think technology will solve all our unspecified transport problems? He doesn't say. But he sets up his Aunt Sally, his straw man of an argument by "inventing" a pollution-free perpetual motion engine rather than by dealing with the ability of real technologies to solve specific transport problems.
This fantastic engine, he claims without evidence, would automatically lead to "cheaper, and therefore more, motorised travel", ignoring any constraints on expansion. This expansion would in turn lead to a host of other problems, which, if they were true, would be Bad Things but which need not flow directly from the assumed massive expansion of motorised transport.
Anyway, you do no bust the myth that technology will solve all our transport problems by demonstrating that a fanciful technology could create to a range of different, health and social problems. You bust a myth by showing that the claimed benefit will not materialise i.e. that technology will not solve transport problems.
Another example. The myth is "Road pricing discriminates against poorer motorists". It's not clear why this is a myth since it's undoubtedly true that consumption charges are inherently regressive. For the same mileage, road pricing would take a larger share of a poor motorist's income. Road pricing therefore discriminates against poor motorists. Still, you do not debunk this "myth" by making unrelated claims such as "only 42% of the lowest income quartile of households own a car". That they are a relatively small percentage of the poor doesn't save those 42% from the regressive impact of road pricing. Or "Income from road pricing recycled to better buses and safer streets directly benefits children, old people, women and low income families". That may be true and may make the regressive nature of the pricing more palatable to other people but it still doesn't undermine the original "myth" that road pricing is regressive. A progressive system of road and vehicle pricing, more related to income, perhaps using some vehicle related proxy for wealth like its engine capacity and fuel consumption would be a non-discriminatory way of charging for vehicle use without disproportionately impacting on poor motorists.
I could go on but you get the idea.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Instography Not defending the conference or criticising your criticism.
The conference was clearly 'in the past' and the 'myth' structure would have been open to question at the time. I haven't read all the papers, so don't know if the "myths" were 'valid' then or have since been proven to be true - or not!
"
"Technology will solve all our transport problems". Who says this?
"Well I'm assuming Jeremy Clarkson and Transport Ministers down the ages. Though they don't seem to agree on the future of electric cars! Also there must be plenty of the 'general public' who hope/believe that more oil will be found or that the "hydrogen economy" is just around the corner (like it has been for 40 years) or "technology" will 'fix' it for 'business as usual'.
"And in what way do these unnamed people think technology will solve all our unspecified transport problems?"
Good question...
BUT apart from the 'practicalities' - Peak Oil, Climate Change, air pollution (including particulates), land for more roads/parking spaces - there are other things (not related to technological fixes) that generally get less of a look-in.
Many people here are car owners, but have made (for them) rational choices about when to drive and when to cycle (and sometimes take the bus).
Other people are at the 'I have a car so I'm going to drive it' stage. Other people are at the 'I'd like to cycle but it's not safe' stage.
Most policy formers/makers - journalist/officials/politicians - are at the stage of believing that cars are here to stay, normal and have to be further facilitated.
Whether any of those are 'myths' is open to question.
Whatever the upsides of cars, the downsides are discounted too much - especially in residential/urban areas.
Posted 12 years ago # -
chdot - "Most policy formers/makers - journalist/officials/politicians - are at the stage of believing that cars are here to stay, normal and have to be further facilitated."
I'm not sure this is always, or even often, the case. I believe most of these people know that current travel patterns are unsustainable. They also know that some major decisions on changing these will have to be taken - in fact they may even have put their name to policies that propose just that.
What they also believe is that the general public will not willingly accept these changes, so they actually scupper their own policies by not backing them up with funding or any meaningful support.
What this situation calls for is real leadership - someone willing to take on a possibly unpopular cause, win the case for it with the public and then set in motion policies that deliver.
In the last 10 years, how often has this happened? I would argue once - when Scotland led the UK with the ban on smoking in public places, something inconceivable to many Scots only a few years previously which would never work in practice.
It is clear this is what happened in cities such as Copenhagen. The fact cycling is so popular in such cities is not an accident - someone had to make this happen, the car could easily have been king there as well, were it not for political leadership in the 70s and 80s.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Morningsider
Well -
"What they also believe is that the general public will not willingly accept these changes, so they actually scupper their own policies by not backing them up with funding or any meaningful support."
Yes, which more or less agrees with what I said. The subtle difference being that you think they know better, but daren't act.
That must be true for some of them (I did say "most"), but after last week's weaselling on the 20mph it's hard to figure out how many are a) ignorant, b) in denial, c) cowards, d) 'pragmatic'.
"What this situation calls for is real leadership"
ABSOLUTELY
That's what politicians used to do - then they discovered focus groups.
Now they have e-petitions, but folks want to bring back hanging, so that bit of 'democracy' won't last long.
"In the last 10 years, how often has this happened? I would argue once - when Scotland led the UK with the ban on smoking in public places, something inconceivable to many Scots only a few years previously which would never work in practice."
I think that's probably true. Credit probably goes to Jack McConnell, but he was copying a bold move from elsewhere - 'Scotland's first minister has given his strongest indication yet that the country will follow Ireland's lead by banning smoking in public places."
"The fact cycling is so popular in such cities is not an accident - someone had to make this happen"
YES. Basically council officials, starting over 30 years ago. Subtly at first with small changes and then taking politicians and public with them. Public then asked for more...
It sort of started happening here in Lothian Region days. Begg and Hazel introduced Bus Lanes, opened stations and had a Cycle Team of 3.
Local Government was reorganised (again) for political reasons and momentum and expertise was lost as the unitary authorities were formed from the dismembering of the Regions and the inflation of the Districts. I think the quality of councillors altered at this time too. Some previous ones went to Westminster others left front line politics.
Writing this I have one eye on H F-W and the Fish Fight campaign.
Clearly 'we' need some slightly telegenically eccentric Old Etonian to defuse the 'you're just the cycling lobby' tag.
Or something.
Of course 'stop chucking fish away' is simpler than "Edinburgh really would be a nicer place if more people cycled' and 'by the way you'll have to do something to discourage car use'.
Posted 12 years ago #
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