Could banning cars from City Centres work?

[Ken H]

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.

i used to just get stuff delivered at work.

 

[Ken H]

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…

what local shops. the ones near where my mum lives have all gone. there is no retail in my village, the nearest shop is a mile away, and the bus service is dire. But neighbours take in each others parcels here, away from the communityless cities.

 

[AM9]

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…

No emoticons for your post then?

 

[option]

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.

but if the countdown isn't in seconds, as suggested above, then how do you know how long you need in the 'new time system' that is being used?

Are they going to also have different lengths of time on the countdown, cycling through a sequence, eg. countdown of 10, red, countdown of 15, red, countdown of 20, red, countdown of 10, red, etc etc etc

 

[option]

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.

Vast majority of shops, restaurants etc don't even have a daily delivery.
So, take the number of retail premises on a road & halve it. That's your max number of delivery vehicles. Also, they are generally delivering either before or after the premises are open to the public, so the vehicles aren't around when people are.

 

[PartyOperator]

what local shops. the ones near where my mum lives have all gone. there is no retail in my village, the nearest shop is a mile away, and the bus service is dire. But neighbours take in each others parcels here, away from the communityless cities.

The local shops that would exist if more people lived there and the people who do live there didn't prefer driving to the supermarket on the edge of town. That's the choice most village dwellers seem to have made, and they've got what they wanted. It's the same where my parents live.

I live in a larger town/city, in an area of mostly late-19th/early-20th century terraced housing. Thanks to the lack of things like car parks, garages, driveways and wide, car-friendly roads, there are roughly 10,000 people within a 10 minute walk of the central shopping street while it would be a 15 minute drive along congested roads to the nearest supermarket with no guarantee of a parking space near home on return. It's not terribly surprising that this leads to a thriving high street. Also unsurprisingly, the price per square metre of residential land is more than double what it is the suburbs a couple of miles away (near the supermarket). It strikes me as a bit odd that developers keep building low density suburbs with land dedicated to parking when house prices (land prices) clearly demonstrate that people would rather live somewhere with terrible parking and great local amenities. Maybe it's just easier given current planning laws. Then again, my neighbours love to complain about the lack of parking so maybe even they don't know what it is that makes their houses so valuable...

No emoticons for your post then?

Tongue firmly in cheek, though I'm sure if some fancy tech startup was pitching 'milk as a service' with EVs and reusable bottles they'd get a great deal of hype... I suspect the idea of sending schoolkids on bikes out onto busy roads in the dark early morning to deliver papers might not go down so well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

but if the countdown isn't in seconds, as suggested above, then how do you know how long you need in the 'new time system' that is being used?

Are they going to also have different lengths of time on the countdown, cycling through a sequence, eg. countdown of 10, red, countdown of 15, red, countdown of 20, red, countdown of 10, red, etc etc etc

It is in seconds. The point is that the amount of time allocated is unconnected to the existence of the countdown.

 

[AM9]

... Tongue firmly in cheek, though I'm sure if some fancy tech startup was pitching 'milk as a service' with EVs and reusable bottles they'd get a great deal of hype... I suspect the idea of sending schoolkids on bikes out onto busy roads in the dark early morning to deliver papers might not go down so well.

Neither of them ever hurt me, except maybe in the winter when it took about 20 minutes in front of an open Ideal boiler to thaw out before going to school.

 

[AM9]

It is in seconds. The point is that the amount of time allocated is unconnected to the existence of the countdown.

At the point of introducing the countdown maybe, but there is scope to trim the time because the pedestrians have been 'warned by the countdown'. Many crossings have now got sensors to detect whether anybody is waiting at the kerb. Although the original intention of those is to detect whether people give up and walk away before the green man phase arrives, they could equally detect that the kerb was empty during the cross period and shorten the pedestrians cycle.

 

[radamfi]

I live in a larger town/city, in an area of mostly late-19th/early-20th century terraced housing. Thanks to the lack of things like car parks, garages, driveways and wide, car-friendly roads, there are roughly 10,000 people within a 10 minute walk of the central shopping street while it would be a 15 minute drive along congested roads to the nearest supermarket with no guarantee of a parking space near home on return. It's not terribly surprising that this leads to a thriving high street. Also unsurprisingly, the price per square metre of residential land is more than double what it is the suburbs a couple of miles away (near the supermarket). It strikes me as a bit odd that developers keep building low density suburbs with land dedicated to parking when house prices (land prices) clearly demonstrate that people would rather live somewhere with terrible parking and great local amenities. Maybe it's just easier given current planning laws. Then again, my neighbours love to complain about the lack of parking so maybe even they don't know what it is that makes their houses so valuable...

It is a common misconception that Britain is dominated by out of town development and sprawling low-density suburbia. A large proportion of Britain is as described here, not surprising given that most of Britain was built before the car and therefore most towns started out being very compact. Planning regulations were historically very strict until the 1980s, when a lot of car-orientated development occurred, but this was reined in by the 90s in PPG13. The incorrect perception of Britain being low density has been exploited by people who prefer car-centric transport and development policy. Nowadays, urban living is "cool" and large numbers of people now choose to live in flats with limited or no parking.

 

[The Ham]

No you're right, not everybody does. But for one person a day ticket is only £4.80, or £4.00 after 9.30. The 5 persons for £8.00 is great for a group of friends or a family out for the day.

At £5 a day that's £1,825 for each and every day of the year, that's ~£150/month (chances are a monthly ticket is less)

Most people would be paying more than that for their car when you consider purchase and running costs. £1,400 up front payment and then 36 months of £150 is £6,800 over three years or £188/month, plus instance plus fuel.

That would get you something like a Ford Ka.

 

[The Ham]

It strikes me as a bit odd that developers keep building low density suburbs with land dedicated to parking when house prices (land prices) clearly demonstrate that people would rather live somewhere with terrible parking and great local amenities. Maybe it's just easier given current planning laws.

It's the unhelpful parking policy, which is at as a maximum (so a maximum of 3 spaces for a four bed house), however those who review the planning applications rarely allow developers to have a lower level of parking (so all 4 bed houses have 3 parking spaces, rather than allowing 2 parking spaces and then a cluster of 3 parking spaces for 8 houses to share for visitors).

It gets more crazy when you have a set of flats which have to have spaces for visitors, but these can't be shared with other uses like a school or a nursery or offices. When the flats will need the most parking spaces when no one is at school or nursery or work.

This results in many more parking spaces than is actually needed. Which means more land required to facilitate the parking.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

At £5 a day that's £1,825 for each and erect day of the year

I am sure that you did not mean to say what exactly what you said above......

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Looking at major city centres, these have always been where better-quality retail establishments have based themselves, giving the hoi polloi the opportunity to enjoy the shopping experience. Manchester has its very own King Street where good examples of such establishments are to be found and in recent times, next to the flagship Marks and Spencer store, there is also now both Selfridges and Harvey Nicholls.

 

[158756]

It's the unhelpful parking policy, which is at as a maximum (so a maximum of 3 spaces for a four bed house), however those who review the planning applications rarely allow developers to have a lower level of parking (so all 4 bed houses have 3 parking spaces, rather than allowing 2 parking spaces and then a cluster of 3 parking spaces for 8 houses to share for visitors).

It gets more crazy when you have a set of flats which have to have spaces for visitors, but these can't be shared with other uses like a school or a nursery or offices. When the flats will need the most parking spaces when no one is at school or nursery or work.

This results in many more parking spaces than is actually needed. Which means more land required to facilitate the parking.

Regulations don't necessarily encourage density, true (this is not always a bad thing though) - Victorian terraces with no parking, garden, space to store the bins etc wouldn't get planning permission now. On the parking - residents and the highways authority always complain if they think there's any risk people at the new development might park on the street.

But apart from that, there are other obstacles - obviously brownfield sites are more expensive to develop. In much of the country small houses and flats in a central location are not at all highly sought after, and those sites which remain undeveloped are clearly not the most attractive investment propositions. High rise city centre development is not usually the business of the volume housebuilders. On greenfield or other edge of town sites a development without parking a) (rightly) won't get planning permission in such an unsuitable location, and b) it wouldn't be worth so much, because you'd get all the disadvantages of lack of space without the access to services existing centrally located properties have.

 

[The Ham]

I am sure that you did not mean to say what exactly what you said above......

Corrected.

 

[The Ham]

Regulations don't necessarily encourage density, true (this is not always a bad thing though) - Victorian terraces with no parking, garden, space to store the bins etc wouldn't get planning permission now. On the parking - residents and the highways authority always complain if they think there's any risk people at the new development might park on the street.

But apart from that, there are other obstacles - obviously brownfield sites are more expensive to develop. In much of the country small houses and flats in a central location are not at all highly sought after, and those sites which remain undeveloped are clearly not the most attractive investment propositions. High rise city centre development is not usually the business of the volume housebuilders. On greenfield or other edge of town sites a development without parking a) (rightly) won't get planning permission in such an unsuitable location, and b) it wouldn't be worth so much, because you'd get all the disadvantages of lack of space without the access to services existing centrally located properties have.

I'm not suggesting that there should be no parking, rather that there doesn't need to be as much parking as there is.

If you've got four bed houses which are near (within 800m) of a primary school, local shops, nursery and a health centre. Not that far from (within 2km) of a secondary school and on a bus route (at least 2 buses an hour) as well as having good cycle facilities why should that house need to have 3 parking spaces when a house built out in the sticks with none of those facilities also has 3 parking spaces?

Likewise why should the local center, which has the primary school, local shops, nursery and a health centre provide all the required parking spaces for each of those as if they were provided independently of each other as well as all the visitor parking for the flats there when:
- parents with children at nursery are likely to also have children in the primary school
- most of the children will be within 800m of the school with half not needing to cross a main road and the other half who do having a traffic signal controlled crossing to help them
- peak demand for shops rarely coincidence with peak school parking and peak visitors to flats, with peak school parking being fairly short lived
- flats are most likely to have visitors of an evening when the nursery is likely to be closed and the staff have gone home
- again there is fairly good cycle and bus provision, meaning that a car is less essential

As an example when I lived near a school we often suggested to people who were visiting to park in the area of parking outside the school grounds when they were visiting us, as they were always doing so outside of school hours.

Likewise I used to work in an office which shared a car park with flats, the owners of the flats often used our spaces outside of office hours whilst our visitors used the shared visitor spaces during office hours. There was only 1 time this was a problem and that was when one of the residents was ill and hadn't moved their car. Even then it wasn't really a problem and there was plenty of other spaces which could have been used if needed without being a problem. That was in a 10 year period in that office.

 

[Sprinter107]

At £5 a day that's £1,825 for each and every day of the year, that's ~£150/month (chances are a monthly ticket is less)

Most people would be paying more than that for their car when you consider purchase and running costs. £1,400 up front payment and then 36 months of £150 is £6,800 over three years or £188/month, plus instance plus fuel.

That would get you something like a Ford Ka.

A monthly unlimited travel bus ticket is £65.50.

 

[Meerkat]

Home delivery is shockingly ungreen- loads of old Transits thrashing about and sitting idling whilst the driver waits at doors, plus ridiculous amounts of cardboard and plastic packaging.

 

[Bald Rick]

Home delivery is shockingly ungreen- loads of old Transits thrashing about and sitting idling whilst the driver waits at doors, plus ridiculous amounts of cardboard and plastic packaging.

The counter argument is that one van may make dozens of deliveries in a (well scheduled) ‘balloon’ trip, thereby saving potentially dozens of separate return trips being made by the recipients. Take it up a level, and I bet there are people who don’t own a car, or a second car, because they get most items delivered. So one van is preventing the need for the manufacture of several cars.

Besides, the delivery vans that come to my street never leave their vans idling, and they are not that old (and rarely transits).

 

[Ken H]

The counter argument is that one van may make dozens of deliveries in a (well scheduled) ‘balloon’ trip, thereby saving potentially dozens of separate return trips being made by the recipients. Take it up a level, and I bet there are people who don’t own a car, or a second car, because they get most items delivered. So one van is preventing the need for the manufacture of several cars.

Besides, the delivery vans that come to my street never leave their vans idling, and they are not that old (and rarely transits).

what is the cost is manufacturing, transporting and disposing of the huge amount of packaging. Huge box with tiny item in it (Yes Amazon, I am talking about you)

 

[Bald Rick]

what is the cost is manufacturing, transporting and disposing of the huge amount of packaging. Huge box with tiny item in it (Yes Amazon, I am talking about you)

The cost is relatively small. The delivery I have received from Amazon this morning is in packaging made from 100% recycled material. And it will all be going back in the recycling. It will have cost Amazon less than 10p.

 

[Meerkat]

Round here Amazon is delivered in right old rag bag of vans.
I think there is a big difference between food and other stuff.
The supermarket deliveries are probably pretty efficient with the way they change fees to help them be organised, and people probably getting one big delivery in weekly.
However Amazon etc is just too easy to continually order minor things that might have previously been bought in one big occasional shopping trip. I signed for 4 separate Amazon deliveries in one day, then another couple the next day, for my neighbours the other week.

 

[Ken H]

Round here Amazon is delivered in right old rag bag of vans.
I think there is a big difference between food and other stuff.
The supermarket deliveries are probably pretty efficient with the way they change fees to help them be organised, and people probably getting one big delivery in weekly.
However Amazon etc is just too easy to continually order minor things that might have previously been bought in one big occasional shopping trip. I signed for 4 separate Amazon deliveries in one day, then another couple the next day, for my neighbours the other week.

Mrs h buys loads online. Stuff thats cheaper and stuff you cant get in a small town. Stuff comes most days. Royal mail and people like yodel, DPD etc. Mostly knackered vans and cars. In remote aeeas they subcontract to local guys. See all these vans going to remote farms too.

 

[HSTEd]

Home delivery is shockingly ungreen- loads of old Transits thrashing about and sitting idling whilst the driver waits at doors, plus ridiculous amounts of cardboard and plastic packaging.

My research group did work on this and concluded the emissions from delivery is something like a tenth of the traditional "go to shops" concept.

Ofcourse the best idea would be for newbuild housing to come with automatic delivery system for pallets/waste like that seen in warehouses.

 

[radamfi]

what local shops. the ones near where my mum lives have all gone. there is no retail in my village, the nearest shop is a mile away, and the bus service is dire. But neighbours take in each others parcels here, away from the communityless cities.

I'm guessing traffic isn't a major problem there? Probably not like in city centres, which is what this thread is about.

Arguably rural areas are the big winners from the online shopping revolution. Before the internet, it was a big advantage to live near a big city. Londoners could buy almost anything in the West End. Nowadays, someone living in a remote area can buy the same stuff as someone who lives in London. Londoners are more likely to have hassle with home delivery and some offices have stopped accepting personal parcels for their employees.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My research group did work on this and concluded the emissions from delivery is something like a tenth of the traditional "go to shops" concept.

Ofcourse the best idea would be for newbuild housing to come with automatic delivery system for pallets/waste like that seen in warehouses.

We could also consider having one organisation go round once each day using environmentally-friendly methods of transport (human-propelled, or like some other countries electric scooters) in what could be called "rounds".

Now, what could we call such a thing?

 

[Ken H]

We could also consider having one organisation go round once each day using environmentally-friendly methods of transport (human-propelled, or like some other countries electric scooters) in what could be called "rounds".

Now, what could we call such a thing?

and these?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Does the proposal stated in the thread title apply to the use of "electric-cars" ?

 

[PaulMc7]

Does the proposal stated in the thread title apply to the use of "electric-cars" ?

Yes. Would still be unnecessary congestion