Could banning cars from City Centres work?

[HSTEd]

Does that shift parking places from elsewhere, maybe on-street, or is it additional parking?
If it's the latter, then it shows the utter stupidity that has to be fought against.

It appears to be new parking, but I am not absolutely sure because the building the car park is built into has been built on a building site that has been a hole in the ground since I arrived in Manchester in 2008.

 

[sprunt]

The power to regulate private hire vehicles properly, plus a big tax on parking spaces, might get numbers back down again. But currently, it's still hell out there for those of us cycling and walking around the centre.

I'm sure it's hell cycling round the centre - I wouldn't dream of it, possibly with the exception of the City at weekends where it's mostly quiet, but where do you find it especially bad walking around the centre of London? It doesn't seem any worse than anywhere else to me - albeit that there's nowhere I've been in this country I'd describe as especially pedestrian friendly - and there is no shortage of routes available that avoid major roads.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm sure it's hell cycling round the centre - I wouldn't dream of it, possibly with the exception of the City at weekends where it's mostly quiet, but where do you find it especially bad walking around the centre of London? It doesn't seem any worse than anywhere else to me - albeit that there's nowhere I've been in this country I'd describe as especially pedestrian friendly - and there is no shortage of routes available that avoid major roads.

The corners of the junction at Holborn are pretty busy at rush hour - people trying to get in and out of the tube, various bus stops, and I think also some street vendors on the footways that aren't particularly wide in the first place.

 

[AlbertBeale]

I'm sure it's hell cycling round the centre - I wouldn't dream of it, possibly with the exception of the City at weekends where it's mostly quiet, but where do you find it especially bad walking around the centre of London? It doesn't seem any worse than anywhere else to me - albeit that there's nowhere I've been in this country I'd describe as especially pedestrian friendly - and there is no shortage of routes available that avoid major roads.

One of the ways in which walking in central London is awful is the spate of new "countdown" lights for pedestrians. It's nonsense to try to tell me how long I should take to cross the road - I need as long as I need; if my knee's playing up, and I'm carrying a load of shopping, it takes me longer (sometimes far longer than the countdown gives me). Installing these was an excuse to keep the pedestrian phase too short and give more time to traffic; it also makes many drivers even more anti-pedestrian because they think they have an excuse to try to move forward when people are still crossing and tell them "you've had your time" - it's happened to me. I know some more vulnerable pedestrians find the countdown system really intimidating. And while I'm on the topic, drivers also increasingly ignore the meaning of the flashing amber lights at some pedestrian crossings - ie the phase that means "it's still pedestrians' right of way, but if there aren't any then you can move off without waiting for the traffic's green light" - many drivers just head off and "barge through" people still trying to cross the road.

A further "subtlety" about the countdown lights which I've found alienates some people with poor eyesight is that some of them are timed with barely a second or two of green for pedestrians before the numbers start - it's easy, if you don't keep your eyes fixed on the light, to miss the green completely. And NB, thinking about the countdown, remember that the figures aren't necessarily even seconds as you might assume; some numbers change much faster than once a second.

As to "there is no shortage of routes available that avoid major roads". Well, most of my regular (quite short) journeys in central London can't do other than cross several main roads - often including the need to walk along some of them part of the way; that's how it is in central London. Not that side roads are much good very often - especially in my borough (Camden) where in my patch they seem to have a policy of moving traffic away from commercial frontages and diverting it down narrow residential streets!

 

[Bletchleyite]

One of the ways in which walking in central London is awful is the spate of new "countdown" lights for pedestrians. It's nonsense to try to tell me how long I should take to cross the road - I need as long as I need; if my knee's playing up, and I'm carrying a load of shopping, it takes me longer (sometimes far longer than the countdown gives me)

Not with you there, I'm afraid. The countdown is simply to tell you how long you have left to cross in that cycle to inform your decision. It doesn't shorten the cycle. I favour countdowns on ALL lights to help that judgement - if they were added to road traffic lights you'd get far less "amber gambling".

 

[AlbertBeale]

Not with you there, I'm afraid. The countdown is simply to tell you how long you have left to cross in that cycle to inform your decision. It doesn't shorten the cycle. I favour countdowns on ALL lights to help that judgement - if they were added to road traffic lights you'd get far less "amber gambling".

But the point is that it claims to tell me how long I've got, but that's not always how long I need. (There is no legal limit on how long you "should" take crossing the road - it takes you how long it takes you.) For people whose speed of movement is such that the "allowed" time is insufficient, it's intimidating, and it also encourages drivers to add to that intimidation (as I know personally). And, by the way, in some places it has been used in combination with a cutting of the time "allowed" for pedestrians to cross. Its introduction has been to keep as many vehicles moving as fast a possible, not to make life better for pedestrians. Which is not what's needed in dense urban areas. And note that the (literal) green phase, ie when pedestrians feel they can start to cross, is now much shorter; hence where the countdown is introduced, there's a much shorter time when you feel able to start crossing, thus increasing waiting times for pedestrians.

 

[Meerkat]

Are you saying green including countdown is now shorter than green with no countdown was?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Are you saying green including countdown is now shorter than green with no countdown was?

If so, it's a completely separate issue from the countdown itself.

 

[158756]

Not with you there, I'm afraid. The countdown is simply to tell you how long you have left to cross in that cycle to inform your decision. It doesn't shorten the cycle. I favour countdowns on ALL lights to help that judgement - if they were added to road traffic lights you'd get far less "amber gambling".

I've got to disagree with this. A city centre should not be a hostile environment for pedestrians. It shouldn't be run across before the countdown finishes or get run over. If there are still people crossing when the lights change tough, you can't teleport through them. Even if cars aren't going to be banned from many places anytime soon, city centres shouldn't be designed around them.

 

[PaulMc7]

I've got to disagree with this. A city centre should not be a hostile environment for pedestrians. It shouldn't be run across before the countdown finishes or get run over. If there are still people crossing when the lights change tough, you can't teleport through them. Even if cars aren't going to be banned from many places anytime soon, city centres shouldn't be designed around them.

We had 1 set of lights with a timer in Glasgow but it was a countdown for cars and even that didn't stop incidents of people being knocked down although it was more by buses than cars. A lot of people struggle to grasp how to cross a road here too so it isn't helping. Glasgow is also guilty of having a very car centric policy although with free parking on a Sunday gone and a couple of new bus gates I suppose it's a small step in the right direction

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've got to disagree with this. A city centre should not be a hostile environment for pedestrians. It shouldn't be run across before the countdown finishes or get run over.

That, as you well know, isn't the purpose. It's a means of making your decision whether to start crossing based on how long you need.

 

[AM9]

That, as you well know, isn't the purpose. It's a means of making your decision whether to start crossing based on how long you need.

And how do you cross the road if you aren't confident that you can make it in that time? There is an obligation on waiting vehicles to allow pedestrians who started to cross during the 'green man' phase, to complete their crossing onto the other footpath even after the lights have returned green, let alone a flashing amber.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And how do you cross the road if you aren't confident that you can make it in that time?

That is, as I said, a completely separate issue. If the lights do not allow enough time, that needs to be adjusted.

 

[radamfi]

Just because traffic has a green light does not automatically give permission to start moving and run over crossing pedestrians. Regardless of the colour of lights, or even in the absence of lights, traffic must give way to pedestrians already crossing the road.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

City centres should be about people walking and cycling first, then buses, deliveries and the disabled. Any other car travel should be stopped.

People often decry the ever-decreasing number of small, medium and large retail units in city centres which seem to bear large increases in rental costs, as has been seen with noticeable cases of well-known stores of late. So I do wonder about the prioritisation that you show above where the essential logistical servicing of these retail units comes, in priority terms, after pedestrians, cyclists and buses.

 

[edwin_m]

People often decry the ever-decreasing number of small, medium and large retail units in city centres which seem to bear large increases in rental costs, as has been seen with noticeable cases of well-known stores of late. So I do wonder about the prioritisation that you show above where the essential logistical servicing of these retail units comes, in priority terms, after pedestrians, cyclists and buses.

That's probably covered by the word "deliveries" in the post you quoted. Larger shops will have off-street deliveries and smaller ones may require a handful of vehicles to stop outside the front of the shop every day. Many pedestrianized streets cope with this now. In extremis there are places on the continent where deliveries can only be made by miniature electric vehicles, although they tend to be tourist traps where shops can charge high prices to cover the extra cost.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's probably covered by the word "deliveries" in the post you quoted. Larger shops will have off-street deliveries and smaller ones may require a handful of vehicles to stop outside the front of the shop every day. Many pedestrianized streets cope with this now. In extremis there are places on the continent where deliveries can only be made by miniature electric vehicles, although they tend to be tourist traps where shops can charge high prices to cover the extra cost.

The other way to do it is to require it to be done well out of hours. Which it often is, anyway - shops don't generally want to take deliveries when they're full of customers, deliveries arrive at the crack of dawn in many cases, when the road isn't busy anyway.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The other way to do it is to require it to be done well out of hours. Which it often is, anyway - shops don't generally want to take deliveries when they're full of customers, deliveries arrive at the crack of dawn in many cases, when the road isn't busy anyway.

The larger retail stores/supermarkets that are near to where we live appear to have specific areas of their premises which are segregated away from the other areas that are frequented by their customers.

 

[HSTEd]

In all honesty, if we want to reduce congestion in city centres, we should encourage mass use of deliveries direct to customers and abandon the idea of a shopping district entirely.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

In all honesty, if we want to reduce congestion in city centres, we should encourage mass use of deliveries direct to customers and abandon the idea of a shopping district entirely.

Can you imagine the implications of what you propose in terms of the required numbers of delivery vehicles on the residential areas to make deliveries?

 

[HSTEd]

Can you imagine the implications of what you propose in terms of the required numbers of delivery vehicles on the residential areas to make deliveries?

Yes, but I also know that the environmental impact of deliveries is drastically lower than having people driving cars to shops and back and similar journeys.

One lorry can make potentially dozens of drops.

 

[AM9]

Can you imagine the implications of what you propose in terms of the required numbers of delivery vehicles on the residential areas to make deliveries?

If they are large items they will need to be delivered anyway. A way of handling smaller items would be for them to be delivered to local distribution points similar to corner shops (or even actual corner shops as Amazon and some Ebay goods can be directed). This would make city centre shops function as showrooms for certain types of goods, - more preferable to buying on the strength of a web page picture and description, a van delivers it, then finding what it really is like and getting another van to return it.

 

[AM9]

That is, as I said, a completely separate issue. If the lights do not allow enough time, that needs to be adjusted.

So all lights need to be adjusted to allow the slowest pedestrian still walking, time to cross?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Yes, but I also know that the environmental impact of deliveries is drastically lower than having people driving cars to shops and back and similar journeys.

One lorry can make potentially dozens of drops.

Agreed, but under your proposed fully comprehensive delivery van service to residential areas, do you propose a vehicle depot transhipment service where a fewer number of vehicles carrying goods from a large number of companies will run, or do you think that John Lewis et al vans will still be carrying goods only that were purchased in their own stores?

With many households having all residents working, will there be a proposed "van rush-hour" in early mornings and peak evening times that will clash with the commuter times?

 

[Bletchleyite]

If they are large items they will need to be delivered anyway. A way of handling smaller items would be for them to be delivered to local distribution points similar to corner shops (or even actual corner shops as Amazon and some Ebay goods can be directed). This would make city centre shops function as showrooms for certain types of goods, - more preferable to buying on the strength of a web page picture and description, a van delivers it, then finding what it really is like and getting another van to return it.

Which is, of course, simply going back to the way things used to be prior to widespread car ownership and out of town shopping centres.

 

[AM9]

Which is, of course, simply going back to the way things used to be prior to widespread car ownership and out of town shopping centres.

So in a future where widespread car ownership may have to be curtailed, it may be a way that the public space in towns and cities isn't lost to ever increasing car congestion. Or should we do nothing and just walk around grumbling into our respirators?

 

[Bletchleyite]

So in a future where widespread car ownership may have to be curtailed, it may be a way that the public space in towns and cities isn't lost to ever increasing car congestion.

Indeed. And there are ways to make it more efficient. For instance, at the moment you choose a slot for your groceries so vans zoom around the place not in the most efficient manner. Whereas if we all had externally-accessible refrigerated[1] delivery boxes deliveries could be done on a milk-style round, making better use of the vehicles. I believe one of the supermarkets is piloting this in the Netherlands.

With regard to other stuff (tellies, say) you can't so much do that, but a delivery is no worse than going to a showroom by car - in both cases a return journey is required, just in opposite directions.

[1] Freezer blocks would do; they wouldn't have to be chest freezers.

 

[radamfi]

Agreed, but under your proposed fully comprehensive delivery van service to residential areas, do you propose a vehicle depot transhipment service where a fewer number of vehicles carrying goods from a large number of companies will run, or do you think that John Lewis et al vans will still be carrying goods only that were purchased in their own stores?

With many households having all residents working, will there be a proposed "van rush-hour" in early mornings and peak evening times that will clash with the commuter times?

In addition to collection points already mentioned, Amazon already have a huge network of unattended "Amazon Lockers" where small items can be delivered and can be collected at the customer's leisure by entering a code. They are usually conveniently located in town centres or at transport nodes, as well as supermarkets and petrol stations.

 

[Ken H]

We could get our stuff delivered by Granville on his bicycle.

 

[PartyOperator]

Having high-density housing with shops nearby largely eliminates the need for driving to shops or getting deliveries (other than rare, large items or house moves etc.) You just walk or cycle to the local shops and buy enough for a few days.

Things like bread and milk that most households would buy most days can be delivered efficiently with very few vehicles. Where I live, there’s a subscription-based milk delivery service using custom-designed electric vehicles and reusable glass bottles. There’s also a subscription-based newspaper delivery service that uses children on bicycles. Radical stuff, but it seems to work…