Transport For London , December 2021, Section 114 "Bankruptcy" - Service Cuts?

[phil-b259]

3 hours ago, col.stephens said:

 

 However, he was and is in a position to remove these ridiculous cycle lanes and get London's traffic moving again.

 

Indeed he was / is, but your outburst shows up the REAL problem here - your complete unwillingness to face the TRUTH that private cars DO NOT BELONG IN CENTRAL LONDON FULL STOP.

 

Stop being a Mr Toad!

 

Road space (and parking) in central London is at a premium and needs to be prioritised for those vehicles which are essential. This includes things like vehicles belonging people providing services (e.g. plumbers), delivery lorries / vans, buses (which carry far more people per square inch of roadspace than private cars) and taxis (for those who cannot manage public transport).

 

If people are selfish enough to defy logic / factual evidence and continue to drive private cars into central London then the fact their journeys are now slower is a cause for celebration in my book - and I would advocate continued increases to the congestion charge to make them poorer too!

 

NOTE:- Please pay attention to the use of the term Central London - the further away from the centre you go the less good the public transport options get (particularly from an orbital perspective). Consequently the acceptability / need for private motoring increases accordingly and the reallocation of road space to other users such as cyclists gradually becomes less appropriate.

Edited December 1, 2021 by phil-b259

[adb968008]

7 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Indeed he was / is, but your outburst shows up the REAL problem here - your complete unwillingness to face the TRUTH that private cars DO NOT BELONG IN CENTRAL LONDON FULL STOP.

 

Stop being a Mr Toad!

 

Road space (and parking) in central London is at a premium and needs to be prioritised for those vehicles which are essential. This includes things like vehicles belonging people providing services (e.g. plumbers), delivery lorries / vans, buses (which carry far more people per square inch of roadspace than private cars) and taxis (for those who cannot manage public transport).

 

If people are selfish enough to defy logic / factual evidence and continue to drive private cars into central London then the fact their journeys are now slower is a cause for celebration in my book - and I would advocate continued increases to the congestion charge to make them poorer too!

 

NOTE:- Please pay attention to the use of the term Central London - the further away from the centre you go the less good the public transport options get (particularly from an orbital perspective). Consequently the acceptability / need for private motoring increases accordingly and the reallocation of road space to other users such as cyclists gradually becomes less appropriate.

Cutting tube and bus services isnt going to help bring people out of cars and back to public transport though is it ?

 

The last few sundays ive been in London, the entrance to Victoria tube was being regulated due to crowds on the platform… on a sunday. When I got down there, services were every 10 minutes…hence the crush, this was 3 sundays in a row in mid-afternoon…, no specific event, just a much reduced service.

 

when I saw other tubes doing the same thing, all of a sudden my cross london tube trip went from circa 12 mins to closer to 45 minutes to get to Euston.

 

When this starts to happen, I start to consider my long distance plans, as going long distance by car starts to become easier, than going into London, transiting and back out the other side again.

HS2 will be a complete fail for me, if the 30 minutes saved going North is lost going across Zone 1.

 

They might need to have a think about service provision and demand, it feels to me morning rush, weekends are busier, and the traditional 4-6pm has stretched considerably, but monday-friday day time and evenings are quieter than they used to be, but the cuts are in the wrong places.

Edited December 2, 2021 by adb968008

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

Cutting tube and bus services isnt going to help bring people out of cars and back to public transport though is it ?

 

 

Of course not  - but my comments related to the umbridge taken by motorists at 'their' precious road space being repurposed for cyclists and were not related to the current budgetary woes at TfL.

Edited December 2, 2021 by phil-b259

[adb968008]

41 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Of course not  - but my comments related to the umbridge taken by motorists at 'their' precious road space being repurposed for cyclists and were not related to the current budgetary woes at TfL.

Not everyone can use public transport.

Some places are inaccessible, some routes are impractical.

Some may have health needs, disability etc.

 

Plenty of valid reasons for needing a car, you cant move house/flat using a bus, take a christmas tree on a train  etc… real life still exists, even in London.

 

Theres a lot of idealists, dreamers in London government, who just dont live in the world the rest of us inhabit, and probably would become Darwin victims if they were let out. There needs to be a balance, which is incentivising travel, rather than coercive. Some of the transport problems affect those who need to use cars most, whilst dont affect those wealthy enough to brush off those measures and continue to drive, when they need cars least.

 

Ive red several time honest frank reports saying measures to make road travel harder have been implemented, like removing parking close to stations, resetting traffic lights and redesigning junctions to make roads inconvenient. This imho is wrong as if affects the wrong people, a better approach would be to make the alternative lucrative that people want to switch, rather than aggravating them to the point of annoyance, as they just take it out on someone else, force alternative routes and continue the frustrated same way..usually because their is no alternative, otherwise they’d already be doing it.

 

I’d love to cycle downhill 14 miles to London, but its unsafe, impractical and turning up in a sweaty suit to a city financial customer meeting simply wont work… but I can see how an idealist in a university far away doing some study would think making it impossible to drive to a station and catch a train might conceptually encourage me to look at a cycle alternative, but they’d never do it themselves. They lack the real world experience, and probably protest on streets against capitalism on the weekend.. of course after youve finished, its 14 miles back up hill, assuming the bike isnt stolen or damaged whilst in the meeting, no punctures, or buckled wheels, and I survive being mugged in Brixton, if a car, bus, truck, cyclist, pedestrian, pot hole didnt kill me,  Streatham hill probably would.

Edited December 2, 2021 by adb968008

[phil-b259]

28 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Not everyone can use public transport.

Some places are inaccessible, some routes are impractical.

Some may have health needs, disability etc.

 

Plenty of valid reasons for needing a car, you cant move house/flat using a bus, take a Christmas tree on a train  etc… real life still exists, even in London.

 

Firstly please stop and take note of what I said about the suitability of transport by private car changing from being pretty much in-justifiable in Central London to becoming fairly reasonable on the outskirts.

 

London (as with Manchester, etc) is not some uniform blob that needs (or should have) a 'one size fits all' policy when it comes to the private car.

 

Secondly In central London (the area bounded by the congestion charge zone public transport is good - the only justifiable reason for accessing it by private car being things such having a disability preventing the use of public transport or occasional things like moving house (which is not something you do several times a week / month). Similarly the transportation of Christmas trees once every 12 months is a pretty lame excuse for the need to regularly drive a car into central London.

 

The further out from the centre the less good public transport becomes (routes and frequencies) - particularly for orbital type journeys as most PT is aligned an a radial basis so the suitability of a private car as a mode of transport increases, however as a generalisation, it is also the case that as you go further out there is more scope to provide things like cycle facilities without unduly compromising road space, so the effect on motorists can be less significant.

 

Now I am aware that there are of course many 'pinch points' where the removal of road space from motorists to provide expanded cycle / pedestrian provision is the only alternative to extensive property demolition, but even so the general principle I outlined above still holds true.

Edited December 2, 2021 by phil-b259

[Nearholmer]

The debate on this point is about central London, and it is perfectly possible to live (if you can afford it) and conduct daily life in central London without a personal car. As Phil has said, its obvious that as you radiate out from the centre, densities fall, things are more dispersed, and use of a car gradually changes from selfish luxury to occassional necessity, and I guess by the time you get "out in the sticks", to frequent necessity.

 

That having been said, it is surprising how well it is possible to manage without a car in many places. I'm in a city 50 miles from London and I routinely need a car for about eight hours a week, during which it is actually moving for about 90 minutes (three trips of 15 minutes each way: football practice; football match; one trip fetching something from a shop, taking stuff to the dump, going to do a bit of DIY for MiL etc). On top of that, probably one "outing" a month involving a longer car trip. Everything else can be done by bike, bus, or "dial a ride". I frequently ask myself why I'm taxing and insuring the car, and the answer is: instant availability if ever needed. I look forward to the day of self-driving "instant hire" cars.

 

Reducing car usage isn't, in a practical world as it exists today, about all or nothing, its about using the car as little as practicable, instead of defaulting to using it without thinking about it, and the "public policy" bit is about growing the practicable alternatives to the car. Personal cars are a habit that is going to be hard to kick, though, because our entire physical and mental landscape has become inextricably linked with them since about 1960, but the fact that it barely was before that should make crystal clear that they are not "they only way".

 

 

[adb968008]

Tbh I cannot imagine how two parents in the 1960’s managed to work a 10 hour day in London, add two hours for commuting, take kids to school, do shopping all by tram and bus. 

 

In the good old days food, housing was cheap, shopping was local and 50% of the adult family stayed at home and looked after the house because of it. Saturday was shopping day, sunday was a day of rest. Plenty of local jobs available reduced competition in the job market.

 

Maybe comparing 1960’s to the modern world isn’t a good comparison, unless the plan includes cutting peoples mortgages in half, restoring allotments on housing sites, ceasing Saturday working, and returning everyone to a 35 hour week (wednesday afternoons off) once more, and creating millions of manual jobs like ticket inspectors, car park wardens, station porters etc.

 

One of the reasons for rail growth is because families are priced out of London, and both adults are going to work, and both need to goto London to afford the property as the salaries arent sufficient in the suburbs to support it any more.

 

The other fallacy of expanding cycle lanes in the suburbs, is much assumptions are built on the Dutch model, lets not forget Holland is mostly post war grid street construction, and is flat. London is ancient and hilly… Hogs Back is for fun not for commuter cycling… Cycling isnt a big thing in Paris, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney etc either, for much the same reasons, beyond the odd 1mile CBD hops.

 

This in part is the issue, people have gone back home, they just cut out the commuting, which will create more local jobs, delivery, restaurants, shops etc, but reduce these jobs in London… road transport problems in the suburbs is more acute now and cycle is recreational. The problem is, inflation in the suburbs outreaching London levels now.

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by adb968008

[Nearholmer]

8 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Maybe comparing 1960’s to the modern world isn’t a good comparison,

 

Its a cracking comparison, because it illustrates that the present way isnt the only way ........ people existed just as happily/miserably in 1960, and 1860 come to that, as they do now, and they did so without personal cars.

 

What cheap personal cars have done is totally re-shape our existence, and if we are to wean ourselves off them, and the damage that they do in terms of emmissions, land-take, slicing-communities in two, noise etc, a lot of re--re-shaping will be necessary, some of which might involve putting back things that the availability of cheap personal cars has taken away, some of which will to totally new things that existed only in science fiction in 1960 (like Teams meetings).

 

If you approach the matter as "Someone is going to deprive me of the ability to use my car, right now, toady, and everything else will stay the same.", its bound to be a scary, vexing prospect. If you approach the matter as "Can the way society works be reshaped to reduce reliance on personal car useage, and in so doing increase quality of life?", then it feels like a different thing.

[adb968008]

Were dock workers in Canary Wharf really commuting from Redhill, Hendon, Maidenhead in 1860, both adults in the family ?

I know in my village we used to have 4 banks, there used to be at least 20 bank branches with 4 miles. Today there isnt 1.

 

When facilities you need move out of town, you have little choice but to drive to them. Purley Way wasnt full of shops in 1860… Supermarkets didnt exist either.. they were on the high street too in 1860. I was amazed to think there was two street markets in my town in the early 1920’s, and 2 more just two miles away… if I want farm fresh today I know 1 shop 5 miles away today… and i’m in Zone 5.

 

The world has changed.

You cant compare, unless the plan is to turn back the clock as well, bring back barrow boys, horse and carts, Terriers and Trams.

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by adb968008

[Nearholmer]

57 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

The world has changed.

That’s the point: it has, and part of those changes have been a function of the availability of cheap personal cars.

 

And, the world needs to change some more, because the way we live now isn’t sustainable at an environmental level, and I’d argue not at a human level either, because we’ve got ourselves trapped into a mode of society that makes a great many people miserable, as well as trashing the planet.

 

I’m not in any way proposing going backwards, although some of the things we probably need in the future are going to look very like things that existed in the past (the re-birth of home grocery deliveries already does), what I am saying is: don’t get trapped into thinking that how it is now, or what the next step of software technology dictates, is the only way it can be.

 

Ask yourself why, for instance, does it now take two full-time adult incomes to house and bring-up a family, when sixty years ago it didn’t, and whether the outcome of that is more happiness, or more stressed and frazzled people? Ask yourself why, for instance, it used to be possible to stroll to any high street, or even village shop, and buy some woods crews to fix up a shelf, whereas now you have to drive five miles each way in a car to a giant warehouse to buy six screws (OK, you can now buy them by post over the internet), and whether that adds to the sum of human happiness?

 

It would be pretty miserable if the future was a copy of the past sixty years ago, but it would be very miserable indeed if it were exactly like now. I certainly don’t wish “now society” on my children - it is in desperate need of change for a whole host of reasons.

 

Cars and public transport are very clearly only a component of what is broken, so I’m wandering way OT really.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Nearholmer

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

Tbh I cannot imagine how two parents in the 1960’s managed to work a 10 hour day in London, add two hours for commuting, take kids to school, do shopping all by tram and bus. 

 

In the good old days food, housing was cheap, shopping was local and 50% of the adult family stayed at home and looked after the house because of it. Saturday was shopping day, sunday was a day of rest. Plenty of local jobs available reduced competition in the job market.

 

Maybe comparing 1960’s to the modern world isn’t a good comparison, unless the plan includes cutting peoples mortgages in half, restoring allotments on housing sites, ceasing Saturday working, and returning everyone to a 35 hour week (wednesday afternoons off) once more, and creating millions of manual jobs like ticket inspectors, car park wardens, station porters etc.

 

One of the reasons for rail growth is because families are priced out of London, and both adults are going to work, and both need to goto London to afford the property as the salaries arent sufficient in the suburbs to support it any more.

 

The other fallacy of expanding cycle lanes in the suburbs, is much assumptions are built on the Dutch model, lets not forget Holland is mostly post war grid street construction, and is flat. London is ancient and hilly… Hogs Back is for fun not for commuter cycling… Cycling isnt a big thing in Paris, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney etc either, for much the same reasons, beyond the odd 1mile CBD hops.

 

This in part is the issue, people have gone back home, they just cut out the commuting, which will create more local jobs, delivery, restaurants, shops etc, but reduce these jobs in London… road transport in the suburbs is more acute now. The problem is, inflation in the suburbs outreaching London levels now.

 

I think your second paragraph neatly and succinctly sums up the difference between "then" and "now" (whatever/whenever they are).

It is also possibly the main reason why going back to "then" isn't going to happen without a lot of pain.

Edited December 2, 2021 by rodent279

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

The world has changed.

You cant compare, unless the plan is to turn back the clock as well, bring back barrow boys, horse and carts, Terriers and Trams.

 

Quite.  100 years ago everybody lived within walking (or maybe cycling) distance from work.

200 years ago they lived on the farm where they worked, or maybe in the attic of the big house where they were employed as a servant.

 

The only way the common man would see the world would be if he was rounded up by the press gang and even so he would only see a foreign port for a couple of days from time to time.  Or if you took holy orders, you might get to go on a pilgrimage to Rome or the Holy Land.

 

Only the really wealthy could afford to travel, and even then they were limited in range by the speed of the horse.

Even the aristocracy lived on a diet limited by what fruit & veg was currently in season locally.  If you wanted milk,, meat or eggs you needed animals nearby, and unless you were at the coast fish was only available from what could be caught in the river.

In short, nobody travelled because it wasn't practical, and this limited the size to which a town or city could reasonably exist.

 

Canals and later railways allowed cities to expand somewhat but you still had to live close to your place of employment unless your pay was high enough to be able to commute by train.  Trams and buses allowed people to move a bit further than walking distance from work, but you still had to live close to a bus stop or station on the right route with a regular service.  Change your job and you might well have to move to a different route.   It was only when we had the flexibility of private motor vehicles that it became possible to live off direct routes or in more remote areas other than in an agricultural capacity.   

 

Even if you wanted to go back to the middle ages, you don't stand much chance of finding a job as an old-fashioned farm labourer or a Franciscan monk.  But if we do turn the clock back, I'd like to go back as the squire not the peasant please!

[Hobby]

I agree, @rodent279 and I don't think insulting everyone who likes to use cars as "Mr Toad" does Nearhomers' argument any favours.

 

If anything the use of EVs, if they can be produced cheap enough and producing enough electricity to charge 40 million of them is sorted all we are likely to see is the disappearance of IC cars to be replaced by EVs. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Hobby

[stewartingram]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

Tbh I cannot imagine how two parents in the 1960’s managed to work a 10 hour day in London, add two hours for commuting, take kids to school, do shopping all by tram and bus. 

 

In the good old days food, housing was cheap, shopping was local and 50% of the adult family stayed at home and looked after the house because of it. Saturday was shopping day, sunday was a day of rest. Plenty of local jobs available reduced competition in the job market.

 

Maybe comparing 1960’s to the modern world isn’t a good comparison, unless the plan includes cutting peoples mortgages in half, restoring allotments on housing sites, ceasing Saturday working, and returning everyone to a 35 hour week (wednesday afternoons off) once more, and creating millions of manual jobs like ticket inspectors, car park wardens, station porters etc.

 

One of the reasons for rail growth is because families are priced out of London, and both adults are going to work, and both need to goto London to afford the property as the salaries arent sufficient in the suburbs to support it any more.

 

The other fallacy of expanding cycle lanes in the suburbs, is much assumptions are built on the Dutch model, lets not forget Holland is mostly post war grid street construction, and is flat. London is ancient and hilly… Hogs Back is for fun not for commuter cycling… Cycling isnt a big thing in Paris, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sydney etc either, for much the same reasons, beyond the odd 1mile CBD hops.

 

This in part is the issue, people have gone back home, they just cut out the commuting, which will create more local jobs, delivery, restaurants, shops etc, but reduce these jobs in London… road transport problems in the suburbs is more acute now and cycle is recreational. The problem is, inflation in the suburbs outreaching London levels now.

 

Couple of errors for the '60s there:

 

The 35 hr week hadn't come in. It was a 44hr week.

The working week wasn't Mon-Fri; it was Mon-Sat lunchtime.

And shops were closed on Sundays.

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Tbh I cannot imagine how two parents in the 1960’s managed to work a 10 hour day in London, add two hours for commuting, take kids to school, do shopping all by tram and bus. 

 

 

 

You still aren't getting it!

 

You keep referring to 'London' as if it is one homogenous lump!

 

What is appropriate for Westminster, the City is naturally going to be very different from the likes of Bromley or High Barnet - which in turn will be different from the situation in Wembley or Leyton. All of these places could legitimately be described as 'London'

 

Some of the loudest complaints have been about the likes of the Victoria Embankment - well within the central area and a place private motoring has no justification save for the various exceptions where disability precludes the use of public transport.

 

Whether a cycle facility is appropriate thus depends on the circumstances pertaining to that area - and the principle that further you go towards the centre relocating road space away from (and thus penalising private motorists) becomes more and more sensible.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by phil-b259

[stewartingram]

I've often wondered why families have 2 cars. The 2nd car (and we aren't talking cheap old bangers here) is very often there just to take the kids to school (see below) and wifey to work (not a profession, perhaps even part-time).

As for schools, the kids always used to go to a local school - they had to, no choice. Nowadays parents choose the school (assuming there are vacancies). Why do they choose one further away?

Now I've done various back-of fag-packet calculations, that show many that I know could give up the 2nd job, which only gives income enough to be paying for the 2nd car and running it. What is the sense there?

 

[Bittern]

On 01/12/2021 at 18:42, adb968008 said:

12. Studies leading to driverless trains with an on board conductor for Waterloo and City line, and progress towards Piccadilly line.

 

That’ll ensure harmony between the unions and tfl.

I'm sure they'll just redo their last study into it, which showed that it was a bad idea to have a cab-less conductor, and totally uneconomic until they get the new trains and resignalling, and then only if they can get the money to do the necessary enabling works, and you couldn't usefully de-skill the T/Op job without other supporting works. I think the LR consensus was that Treasury would have to provide far more money than they have shown any willingness to spend on London even for the sake of union-busting, plus you'd get a better BCR on that capital spent on other works.

[adb968008]

17 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

I've often wondered why families have 2 cars. The 2nd car (and we aren't talking cheap old bangers here) is very often there just to take the kids to school (see below) and wifey to work (not a profession, perhaps even part-time).

As for schools, the kids always used to go to a local school - they had to, no choice. Nowadays parents choose the school (assuming there are vacancies). Why do they choose one further away?

Now I've done various back-of fag-packet calculations, that show many that I know could give up the 2nd job, which only gives income enough to be paying for the 2nd car and running it. What is the sense there?

 

I find that reads to me quite sexist that…

 

A lot of women in Londons suburbs have highly paid, highly professional careers.

To suggest they should give up work and stay home, just to save on a second car is a bit wrong imho.

 

And choice of school, isn't always a choice either.

Edited December 2, 2021 by adb968008

[4630]

Probably no surprise given the current financial situation at TfL, as reported on the BBC website;

New Year's Eve free London Underground travel scrapped

Edited December 2, 2021 by 4630

[ikcdab]

I think this highlights the problem with "green" policies. They have to be paid for and they generally don't make a profit. People support green policies where they make money (eg reducing packaging in supermarkets, or increasing parking charges) but as soon as they cost, they get dropped.

We just need to face the fact that if we want people to use public transport then it needs to be subsidised to make it cheaper and somehow this needs to be paid for.

[Nearholmer]

35 minutes ago, Hobby said:

I don't think insulting everyone who likes to use cars as "Mr Toad" does Nearhomers' argument any favours.

For the record, I wasn’t the one who used that term. It was Phil, in what looked like a moment of frustration.

 

14 minutes ago, Bittern said:

I'm sure they'll just redo their last study into it

It’s interesting that the Minister explicitly undertakes to fund the revisited study. He’s effectively buying a piece of consultancy work from TfL, presumably because nobody else has the competence/knowledge to do it. Presumably he’s had the DfT look at the previous study, and they’ve advised him that it isn’t thorough enough, or maybe he just doesn’t like the conclusions, so wants the homework done again.

 

One way treasury and DfT can hugely influence things is to define assumptions to be used within financial modelling. I can’t say too much about it, but assumptions about things like values to use for “optimism bias” can swing outcomes one way or the other.

[phil-b259]

52 minutes ago, Hobby said:

I agree, @rodent279 and I don't think insulting everyone who likes to use cars as "Mr Toad" does Nearhomers' argument any favours.

 

If anything the use of EVs, if they can be produced cheap enough and producing enough electricity to charge 40 million of them is sorted all we are likely to see is the disappearance of IC cars to be replaced by EVs. 

 

Firstly, I used the term quite delbrately as the tone of post was:-

 

"How dare that evil Mr Kahn iminge on my ability to drive my car where I want by nicking roadspace for cycle lanes"

 

There was:-

 

• No reignition that the dastadly Mr Kahn was merely continuing a policy of the aparently inofensive Mr Johnson
• Any locational context such as which of the many cycle lanes was so very vexing
• Any regognition of the laws of physics which dictate that a motor car takes up a finite ammount of space and even more space (depending on speed) when in motion - yet urban areas generally have roads whose footprint cannot be expanded upon.

 

Had adb968008 shown an appreciation of these points then I would not have used "Mr Toad" analogy.

 

Secondly, as regards EVs you are falling into the trap of many in assuming they will magic fix all our woes. Bad news THEY WON'T

 

That is because it doesn't matter what is providing the propulsion, an EV still takes up road space while in transit or parked up. As such they will do nothing to eases congestion in urban areas or prevent the need for yet more road widening etc which ultimately results in a loss of carbon absorbing vegetation, etc.

 

The agenda (as painful as it might be for Brits who have grown up and made the motor car such an intrinsic part of their lives) needs to be cutting private vehicle use in the first place. You can start this in places like central London with its excellent public transport provision - though I freely admit mid and outer London are much harder to tackle. It would also help if nationally the Government weren't so hell bent on building housing estates which effectively lock in car dependency and preservation of the status quo for ideological reasons.

 

[adb968008]

44 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Had adb968008 shown an appreciation of these points then I would not have used "Mr Toad" analogy.

 

I do apologise, I missed this one. I do get used to various insults from you, so this one must have just washed off my back, sorry for being slow on the uptake.

 

I think you got me confused on that one. I couldnt really give a monkeys about more or less cycle lanes as I wont be using them and good luck to those who do.  Its far too dangerous to use londons roads on a bike… the cyclists themselves are a danger, let alone anything else on the road.
 

Cars protect us from the maniac drivers of other cars, as well as allowing us to move. I used to regularly cycle in London, but after my third hospitalisation by cycle-assassination my wife decided its time for me to put the family first and use something else.

Outside the city they are pointless, and long distance cycling is for the diehards. In the city they make sense, but not for people travelling from outside the city, so its more of a 20’s flat dwelling city singletons solution, rather than solving a real practical family need.

 

I still have my Brompton from my city-boy “change the world” days too, its useless on surreys hills. The difference between me then and me now, is Ive grown up to realise there is more than just me in the world, (and a lot of people also think it is just them in the world too), but one size doesnt fit all.

 

My point was your belief all cars should be banned, which I think is medieval..as there are far too many with valid justifications that do need them, starting with Taxis, and hundreds of other use cases… you cant put manure back in the horse..the car exists, you cannot uninvent it, just replace it..the replacement is electric, not shank’s pony and his mate penny farthing.

 

If someone lives outside, its idealistic to think they will park up half way and cycle the rest… just because theres a bike lane 3 miles from the city…theres no where to park for a start.

 

Food for thought, back in 2001 everyone cycled everywhere in Shanghai and Beijing, today they are all driving. Workers were in fields, today they are in factories. They are much wealthier than today. Others propose we stop driving and goto cycling, so they can carry on. In that case investing in rice paddies as we close our factories may make sense too, as our wealth slips away. We really need to introduce some acceptance & realism, not just idealism & extremism into this situation before we become a Stone age tourist state… personal transport isnt going away, in a world where you need to travel further to earn or spend… the world is moving the same direction.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by adb968008

[Bittern]

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

The other fallacy of expanding cycle lanes in the suburbs, is much assumptions are built on the Dutch model, lets not forget Holland is mostly post war grid street construction, and is flat. London is ancient and hilly…

The pre-war bits of London and the suburbs were mainly dependent on trams, busses, bicycles, LU, and main line suburban trains, and of course shank's pony (though mostly in the East End, because London's major employment centres were already too big to walk to). The problem in those areas is the post-war changes made to facilitate cars, and the growth of scattered outer-suburban employment (which combines with two-worker families and housing costs to increase rather than decrease commuting and require travel in awkward directions).

[Nearholmer]

35 minutes ago, Hobby said:

I don't think insulting everyone who likes to use cars as "Mr Toad" does Nearhomers' argument any favours.

For the record, I wasn’t the one who used that term. It was Phil, in what looked like a moment of frustration.

 

14 minutes ago, Bittern said:

I'm sure they'll just redo their last study into it

It’s interesting that the Minister explicitly undertakes to fund the revisited study. He’s effectively buying a piece of consultancy work from TfL, presumably because nobody else has the competence/knowledge to do it. Presumably he’s had the DfT look at the previous study, and they’ve advised him that it isn’t thorough enough, or maybe he just doesn’t like the conclusions, so wants the homework done again.

 

One way treasury and DfT can hugely influence things is to define assumptions to be used within financial modelling. I can’t say too much about it, but assumptions about things like values to use for “optimism bias” can swing outcomes one way or the other.