Would you extend that to ALL forms of transport ? Bus and Train included ?
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Why The Obsession With Electric cars?
- Thread starter LOL The Irony
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Would you extend that to ALL forms of transport ? Bus and Train included ?
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No of course not.
Taxis - yes within reason. Generally it's antisocial to take a taxi if there's another option, but sometimes there isn't another option.
Disabled people (and others with a genuine reason to use a car in a city) - yes. They will be amongst the biggest winners from banning other cars. We may need a robust process for vetting applications for driving permits, but that's no reason not to do it.
Why a blanket ban of 'cars' ?
Both the bus and train produce pollution. Cars drive trade and are often essential. You have residents who have their cars and workers who need to travel in and out.
If you ban cars, then you still need a way to get thousands of people into and out of the city.
Both the bus and train produce pollution. Cars drive trade and are often essential. You have residents who have their cars and workers who need to travel in and out.
If you ban cars, then you still need a way to get thousands of people into and out of the city.
Mutant Lemming
Established Member
What about ski lifts to link the more rural areas ?
Sorry to be flippant but it is about as realistic as the other poster's wish to ban private transport.
I thought that we were discussing exactly that! It was first brought up in post #316, and mentioned indirectly in posts since.
Buses emit far less CO2 than petrol or diesel cars per passenger, (even when they are not full). Buses come in various sizes, - some not much bigger than cars. Finally, buses can also be electric and scheduled to be charged when necessary, so in most of the situations where workers need to travel into and out of workplaces (assuming towns, cities and other significant employment centres), they can and probably will help the UK to meet it's carbon reduction obligations. Similarly, taxis can also be electric. Legislation will ensure that wherever possible (or even practicable) carbon creation is removed from travel modes. With electric cars already having practical ranges of over 100 miles, just how many workers actually exceed that distance both ways in a working day and there is no other option?
It would seem easier to electrify taxis, as they may reasonably be expected to have a base to charge from - or even have ranks with charging facilities. So that solves the issue with the general public having nowhere to charge if they don't have their own driveway/garage.
underbank
Established Member
They emit more and take up more space when they're empty or there's only a few people on them. Outside the peak commuter/school hours, I see loads of virtually empty buses, especially at the remote ends of their routes. Inevitable if you run a full "all day" service.
It's not only about pollution and electric cars are not a solution.
Cars in cities are a problem. They are anti-social. They are noisy. They kill and maim many many people. They make the city an unpleasant place to be for everyone. They isolate people and make them hate each other, which defeats the point of being in a city. And they are monstrously inefficient - count how many people go through a traffic light in one phase in a city, excluding buses. Even a small proportion of journeys being made by car will lead to serious congestion in most cities. And car parking is stupid way to use precious, limited land.
That's why we need to get most cars out of cities, but please do not misrepresent me by claiming I want a blanket ban on cars. Those who genuinely have no choice but to use a car will still be allowed to drive, and they will see a big improvement in their quality of life when we clear the other cars out of their way.
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Come on. A bus takes as much space as two or three cars.
LOL The Irony
Established Member
I hope that means more spending on rail based schemes. Also, if you ban cars from cities, people will sell their cars, which means less cars on the roads, which means less road tax. So either you increase road tax or you reduce the roads budget, which will only affect rural areas because spending on the roads in the cities will stay the same because they need to look nice for the tourists.
It seems that those worried about losing their current fossil-based flexibility can only see problems with these globally important issues in terms of their own personal inconvenience. There have no suggestions as to what could be done to address the overriding issue which is the reduction and subsequent elimination of all unnecessary CO2 emissions.
... and as I mentioned, there are buses in other sizes, e.g. van sized minibuses and of course electric buses which do not produce any local emissions.*
* Before anybody starts clutching at straws and claims that the electricity needs to be generated somewhere in the world, just remember increasingly, the amount of CO2 generated by renewable methods isvirtually zero. How soon that happens is the subject of a different discussion.
Have you actually read what you have posted? People are fed up to the back teeth of big government telling them what they can and cant do. I am not sure any government will ever get elected on a policy like this. Having some civil servant telling people who and cant own cars.
It's not really up to governments. In many cases cities and towns can ban cars themselves, and they city councils (or equivalent) are elected by people who actually live in there, and they benefit from getting rid of most of the cars from their streets. This is why local democracy is so important.
very difficult to make renewables on dark cold windless nights during an anticyclone in Feb - just when demand is at its greatest. There was one night earlier this year when demand was over 45GW and wind was providing nothing. And many night in Feb 2018. Burning loads of coal to keep the lights on.
Some nice graphs here, and dials showing current generation and usage - gridwatch.co.uk
Yes I have read what I have posted. "Big government" bans other things that are dangerous and antisocial, such as assaulting people, smoking in public places, stealing, etc. Why not limit further where cars can be driven? I didn't say we should control who can own cars, I said we should ban them from being driven in cities (except for those who genuinely need them).
Also see my post 376.
What's your suggestion for when fossil fuels run out?
I have a colleague who lives on a different part of the city to work. Its like she lives at quarter to and work is at the hour on the map.
It would be 2 buses (into the city bus station and out again - (two - 30 minute journeys), or in to the ring road, ring road bus round, then bus out to work. All for a 10 minute journey by car. She also has to drop off and collect her small child from nursery.
Public transport worked in cities when most people worked in the centre. But so many work in out of town developments now it makes public transport useless to them. And out of my team of 8, 3 live in a different city altogether.
we are sitting on tons of shale gas. Wont be a problem for a long long time if we use that. Scare stories about oil running out have been doing the rounds since the 1960's.
Look guys and gals. There are no two ways about it. We are going to have to stop using cars the way we do. No one (Well maybe a couple of people) is saying everyone has to stop using cars tomorrow and people in Cornwall have to use the one bus a week instead.
We have to completely change the way we live, it is not sustainable. I can remember what it was like getting a lift to school 30 years ago, it took 10 minutes. If I did the same trip on Monday I would be quicker walking.
The car park where I work covers several times the area of where all of the workers actually do their job. The cars are sat their all day not doing anything. If everyone had to pay for the land their cars take up the way they do for their houses it would be thousands for each car. I pay for this in council tax.
Electric cars don't solve this problem. In fact you have to mine rare earth metals to make the batteries. The cars still clog up the roads and pavements. We still have to generate the electricity.
The answer is that slowly we have to move away from viewing houses as an investment, we have to use technology to allow us to work closer to home. We have to source what we use closer to home.
What we are doing now is not sustainable and if we don't try and change it even gradually then at some point it is going to collapse.
We have to completely change the way we live, it is not sustainable. I can remember what it was like getting a lift to school 30 years ago, it took 10 minutes. If I did the same trip on Monday I would be quicker walking.
The car park where I work covers several times the area of where all of the workers actually do their job. The cars are sat their all day not doing anything. If everyone had to pay for the land their cars take up the way they do for their houses it would be thousands for each car. I pay for this in council tax.
Electric cars don't solve this problem. In fact you have to mine rare earth metals to make the batteries. The cars still clog up the roads and pavements. We still have to generate the electricity.
The answer is that slowly we have to move away from viewing houses as an investment, we have to use technology to allow us to work closer to home. We have to source what we use closer to home.
What we are doing now is not sustainable and if we don't try and change it even gradually then at some point it is going to collapse.
I was allowed to work from home (WFH) after a severe illness last year. While I was aboe to do my IT job, the effort of getting to the office would not have been possible. My client was keen for me to continue.
But before then there was no possibility of WFH. This is stupid - I can work as well at home as I can in the office.
Its not people who are the issue here, its management. They are all scared we are not actually working, but are decorating the kids bedroom.
Despite out output is the same as if we were in the office.
Another client would not let people work from home because some staff needed to be in the office to do their jobs. It was considered unfair that some IT staff could WFH while these other staff could not, so no-one worked at home except in special circumstances.
and hospitals. My local hosp is 22 miles away. There is a health centre run by the same trust as the hospital a mile away. But do they do outpatient appointments there? or pre op assessments? No, everyone has to trail into the hospital. so that is 5 return journeys instead of 1 if the medic travels.
The oil will run out. What do you think the people alive at that time will say about this thread?
New out of town developments are slowly being stopped in the UK. Planning laws changed some time ago, and city centres are now targetted for new developments. Employment (and also residential development) is now moving back to cities again.
It sounds like your alleged colleague doesn't either live or work in a city, but in suburban sprawl. This is a horrible place, to a large degree because it's full of cars.
its a city of about 300,000 people. she is 30 so town planning since the last war is hardly her fault. She and her husband bought a suburban semi to have a family in.
No one is asking anyone to hand their car keys in tomorrow. Looking to the future this has to stop though .
so make public transport better and more affordable.
I work in an industrial estate built near a trunk road 3 miles from the city. along side it there is a large housing estate and a big shopping mall, including a massive tesco.
but this important area doesnt have quick bus from the city. It takes 30 minutes as it winds its way through housing estates. And it runs from the bus station, not the train station. so useless for people arriving by train. so rather than a 2 hour journey (bus-train-walk -bus), they do the half hour drive.
I’m afraid this is just too simplistic.
Cars in cities are a problem: yes but only if there are too many of them, and it depends how you define ‘a problem’
They are anti-social: that’s a matter of opinion. For many people they a critical enabler for their work and personal life.
They are noisy: Electric cars aren’t. I was walking through a central London street the other day, and by chance all the vehicles on it were electric. By far the greatest noise was footsteps and the egeneral hubbub of people talking etc.
They kill and maim mny many people. Indeed they do. But then so do many other things, some of which have far lower benefits to society than independent transport.
They make the city an unpleasant place to be for for everyone: simply not correct. I love the city I live in, and another city I work in, cars and all. They are both very pleasant. The tens of millions of tourists who visit the latter every year wouldn’t come if it was unpleasant.
They isolate people and make them hate each other: perhaps if you are that way inclined. But I suspect it is a very small percentage of the population.
Monstrously inefficient: for some activities yes; ie moving a large number of people in the same direction at the same time. For others, no, for example moving small numbers of people in different directions at different times. A functioning economy has a lot of the latter.
Be under no illusion, within 2-3 years air quality in London (and other cities introducing emissions based charging, like Birmingham) will be significantly improved. I have already begun to notice it at times in London given the number of electric buses and electric cabs in the areas I work. And that is a key benefit of electric vehicles on the road.
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yes. I went for a run out from near Skipton to Glenridding in the lakes (on Ullswater)
OK I could have got a train to lancaster, then train to penrith and bus to Glenridding. If it had been summer I could have got the bus over kirkstone but it doesnt run in winter. But how much would that have cost for 2 people. If I didnt have a car i probably would not have bothered, and the caff where we had a light lunch and coffee and a scone would have lost our revenue.*
cars are so much a part of our economy away from cities. Electric cars are nowhere near viable for a journey like yesterdays (including over kirkstone to 1500').
Also my car is 2010. Buying a new car will release another shedload of carbon into the atmosphere. Scrapping stuff is rarely beneficial. We need to re-use what we already have. I dont commute into a city at rush hour.
*There are many many small businesses that rely on car bourne trade. rural cafes, pubs etc for a start. And farm shops,
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