A pizzeria owner has called for newly-installed cycle lanes to be removed so that car parking can be reinstated, claiming the active travel infrastructure is driving customers away and damaging local businesses.
However, Inverclyde Council and active travel charity Sustrans have argued that the £6 million street transformation is designed to boost footfall, support “café culture and night-time economy”, and make the high street more attractive to shoppers and visitors.
Tony Bonatti, who owns Tonino’s on Grey Place, Greenock, situated next to the National Cycle Route 75, said the West Blackhall Street redevelopment has caused chaos for years and failed to deliver meaningful benefits to traders or residents.
“West Blackhall Street might look good with the new cobbles, but what about the empty shops?” he told the Greenock Telegraph. “Honestly, I have had nine years of roadworks and disruptions. I wouldn’t mind, but it never gets any better. The roads are still a mess.”
Bonatti argues that the new cycle lanes have compounded the problems by reducing parking and creating more congestion. He said: “We now have a cycle lane and reduced parking. It is chaos and there is congestion every day. People park on the cycle lanes. What is the point?
While Bonatti described himself as a cyclist, he questioned the need for the infrastructure on this particular stretch of road, saying that it didn’t “connect to anywhere”.
“It feels like the council has been offered funding and has accepted it, but what do we get for it?” he added.
In a petition launched online, titled ‘Reinstate Car Parking on West Blackhall Street by Removing Cycle Lanes’, Bonatti wrote: “As a local business owner, cyclist, pedestrian, car owner, and stalwart believer in Inverclyde’s potential, I am deeply concerned about the negative impact that the new cycle lanes on West Blackhall Street have had on our community.”
The petition claims the lanes were “imposed without adequate consultation and [in] disregard for the needs of local business owners and residents”, and calls on Inverclyde Council to remove them in favour of more parking, stating that local businesses “rely on the availability of parking for their customers”.
He added: “I set up the petition because I am angry. Everyone is angry. But nothing seems to get done about it.”
So far, 350 people have signed the petition, one of them being nearby café owner Allan White of The Alchemist on Jamaica Street. He added that he had already reached out to Inverclyde Council to inform them of “gridlock and congestion”.
He said: “Cars can’t move out there. We are driving people away to retail parks and Braehead. I have customers who say they can’t come in because there’s nowhere to park.”
But the council, supported by active travel charity Sustrans, said the £6 million transformation of West Blackhall Street is designed precisely to revitalise the area and attract more visitors by making it more pleasant, accessible, and sustainable.
The project, delivered via Sustrans’ Places for Everyone scheme and supported by Transport Scotland, includes new paving, trees, seating, a simplified one-way system, and active travel infrastructure. Cycle lanes connect the street to the Oak Mall, the coastal route, and National Cycle Network Route 75, creating a direct link to Greenock Esplanade and Battery Park.
Simon Strain, head of the Places for Everyone programme at Sustrans, said: ““Making places safer and more accessible to reach and move around actively is a win-win for our communities, and we’re delighted to see these changes on West Blackhall Street which give the people of Greenock more choice for their everyday journeys.
“As well as benefitting people’s health and wellbeing, the revitalisation of West Blackhall Street will offer a huge boost to local businesses, who can expect greater footfall as the street becomes a more attractive destination for locals and visitors alike.”
Councillor Jim Clocherty, vice-convener of environment and regeneration at Inverclyde Council, said: “It was widely acknowledged that West Blackhall Street had seen better days. The council, thanks to support from Sustrans and SPT, stepped up to try and breathe new life into Greenock’s traditional high street.”
“Parking has been retained along the entire length of the street and there is ample parking in and around West Blackhall Street,” the council added. “We are also trying to encourage people to choose healthier and greener forms of transport, such as cycling, and the creation of the new active travel route helps to facilitate that.”
A council spokesperson added: “The West Blackhall Street redevelopment came about in response to feedback from businesses, residents, and shoppers that the street had seen better days and there was widespread acknowledgement that something had to be done to make it a more attractive place to live, work, visit, and do business.”
“We don’t own large parts of West Blackhall Street, such as shops and residential units, but we do have responsibility for roads, pavements and other public areas, which is where we focused our attention to make it as welcoming and accessible an environment as possible, and that’s what we have delivered.
“Parking has been retained along the entire length of the street, and there is ample parking in and around West Blackhall Street.
“We are also trying to encourage people to choose healthier and greener forms of transport, such as cycling, and the creation of the new active travel route helps to facilitate that.
“The cycle route along West Blackhall Street directly connects to the Oak Mall and to the coastal route that runs past the Ocean Terminal, the esplanade and along to Battery Park.
“We are committed to supporting businesses in the West Blackhall Street area and indeed right across Inverclyde, and we will continue to do what we can with the limited resources we have to help nurture existing businesses and encourage new ones to set up shop here.”
97 thoughts on “Pizzeria owner demands bike lanes ripped out and car parking reinstated, despite £6m active travel project to boost “café culture and night-time economy””
I’m sure I will be chastised
I’m sure I will be chastised for this view but…most of the people who go to takeaways aren’t walking there or cycling there. They are driving. Go to any takeaway and you will probably not see the healthiest members of society so up toa point, in the short term, they are right. People not being able to park right outside the business will negatively effect them.
I do also love the idea that all this stuff is done without anyone wanting it. Just because you don’t want it, doesn’t mean other people don’t and ultimately we need to stop worshipping at the alter of the car.
Yeah, I wasn’t consulted for
Yeah, I wasn’t consulted for my residential street (and all of the others around me) to become a high speed cut through for motor traffic.
The need for some people to have their own personal consultation and veto over any progress is astounding.
What is “progress” though?
What is “progress” though?
Clearly being able to get to the takeaway faster * without getting wet and perhaps with a couple of friends and your own in-vehicle entertainment – that is progress.
But it being easier to go there under your own power, using a form of transport that is over 100 years old **, and that is so simple and cheap that even kids can use? That’s clearly dragging us back to the cave that our ancestors were only too keen to leave!
A review of history shows that “progress” is generally associated with increased consumption and “waste”, greater wealth disparity and “side effects”. Although (very) recently those have not necessarily been associated with worse health, as they were in the past. (Obeseogenic environment and diseases of inactivity, though…)
* Sometimes faster, although in urban areas perhaps not by the time you’ve parked…
** The bicycle, not the car…
I’ve responded to a few local
I’ve responded to a few local consultations recently and have no doubt that when the changes are implemented, people will cry “but I wasn’t consulted”! People seem to think that consultation means a personal invitation delivered through your letterbox.
That’s true, but with my
That’s true, but with my local council only post things on social media meaning not all see it.
But then, maybe that is the point.
Id say most dont even bother
Id say most dont even bother going there and ironically, will be collected by and transported to them by deliveroo. Many of which are on e-bikes.
I cycle through Greenock and nearby Gourock fairly often. Its gotten better for cycling around the coastline in recent years and its down to the quite good cyxling infrstructure close by. The Cycle route 75 is very well maintained and has had lots of upgraded paths on it close by. I am actually MORE likely to stop in Greenock as I ride through than I used to thanks to the improved paths.
Still boggles my mind how
Still boggles my mind how many people use delivery apps to get their takeaways. I think they are crazy money to start with but once you have added on the fees and taken into account the ~30% price increase in many cases you are looking at 40%+ more than going to pick it up yourself. I mean, how fucking lazy are people. Don’t answer that question. I already know.
mctrials23 wrote:
But if you’re signed up to Uber Eats you’ll find that they will quite often provide a discount code for 20-50% off some restaurants. It can be cheaper to get it delivered than to pick it up (although that does show what a give percentage Uber must be taking).
Also, a couple of months ago I ordered Chinese to be delivered. The next time we wanted Chinese I found that it was cheaper to order in their website and go and pick it up. Having now been to the restaurant I’ve decided that I was a lot happier with the food before knowing how run down the place was. Ignorance was bliss in that case.
Is that right re the uplift
Is that right re the uplift on price? I never knew that! There are stacks of chaps on dodgy ebikes no doubt delivering to all the poor students in Sheffield.
You would need to count
You would need to count customers and note how they travel – empirical evidence.
Quote:
They have a point – the lack of investment in mental health services is a problem.
Bonatti “It is chaos and
Bonatti “It is chaos and there is congestion every day.”
Allan White “gridlock and congestion”.
Council ““Parking has been retained along the entire length of the street”
Bonatti “I’m a cyclist myself, but…….”
Of course congestion only occurs where a cycle lane has been installed. As has been shown many times, if you remove the cycle lanes, the congestion remains exactly the same or is worse. Just because these people blame the cycle lane doesn’t make it true.
eburtthebike wrote:
Translation: “I can’t park outside my shop any more”
Where is the claimed “chaos
Where is the claimed “chaos and gridlock”?
There seem to be 3 pictures of this street accompanying this article, and none of them show anything remotely similar to either of those words. One appears to show a sufficiently-empty street that pedestrians are casually strolling down the middle of it.
From the photographic evidence provided, one might fairly conclude that transport has nothing to do with struggling businesses on that street, but rather that the cause is simply businesses that no one wants to patronize.
“Bonatti argues that the new
“Bonatti argues that the new cycle lanes have compounded the problems by reducing parking and creating more congestion. He said: “We now have a cycle lane and reduced parking. It is chaos and there is congestion every day. People park on the cycle lanes.”
“…nearby café owner Allan White of The Alchemist on Jamaica Street. He added that he had already reached out to Inverclyde Council to inform them of “gridlock and congestion”.”
Once again (surprisingly common, this) people are citing problems directly caused by people driving cars in complaints about the cycle lane. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
It’s simple, if you want to
It’s simple, if you want to reduce congestion you need to DRIVE people away!
With the volume of anti
With the volume of anti-cycling propaganda it publishes, I sometimes wonder whether road.cc is for or against getting around on two wheels.
Maybe this pizza shop owner
Maybe this pizza shop owner should have to explain to his grandchildren that he doesn’t care about them, that though they will be the ones having to deal with serious issues of climate change, he believes in furthering car ownership to bring these problems on more quickly.
I screenshotted from a
I screenshotted from a Youtube video review of the place. Below is what it all looked like in 2022. I honestly can’t imagine that the business – which is a sitdown restaurant as well as a takeaway – was so dependent upon people being able to park right outside…
You made me sufficiently
You made me sufficiently-curious to go poking around on StreetView, and holy cow, my condolences to any of you who have to ride this “infrastructure” — which seems to translate into “death trap” in Scottish. See image of same street, opposite direction. I suppose putting such obstacles in the path of cyclists is one way to encourage riders to use headlights, but there must be a better option than leaving them only to choose between OTB into the street, and crashing into the light pole/oncoming cyclists/pedestrians rounding that building’s corner ( pick as many as you like ). And if it is seemingly too dangerous for the bike lane to go straight across the intersection, how can it be deemed safer to do closer to the building, with both shorter sightlines and fewer evasive options?
If this is the caliber of bike lane in question, then I actually agree with the pizza-shop owner — tear it all out. It’s worse than nothing. What, other than malevolence or pyschopathy, would cause someone to build this mess?
“National cycle route 75” it
“National cycle route 75” it proudly declares itself.
Crumbs, if this the best we can do then bring on my trip to the Netherlands in September for a dose of sanity! Still, it’ll just make my return to the asylum all the harder to bear.
Looks rubbish. We had some
Looks rubbish. We had some better things but in that style as “Spaces for people” Covid-era emergency interventions in Edinburgh. I find myself tending to avoid them if the road is free of traffic!
Enjoy NL / lekker fietsen!
Thanks Chris, looking to go
Thanks Chris, looking to go up to Texel then across to Groningen or Zwolle, then down through the (for NL) high heathland. Experience so far is that I much prefer the wilder and emptier east to the endless fields and greenhouses. Fantastic dolmens to be seen, and you’re never far from a picturesque medieval town for a bit of more up to date culture.
Sounds good – have not been
Sounds good – have not been up in the North yet (home of hills, hunebedden and … David Hembrow!) I’ve yet to visit much outside of the south-west; must go and do a proper tour some time.
I saw two of the Hunebedden
I saw two of the Hunebedden last visit, near Havelte. The efforts made to restore them after wartime damage was almost as impressive as their original construction. The mix of heathland, woodland and wetland was a delight to cycle through.
pockstone wrote:
As I said to the other individual planning a trip, be careful while there. Despite a century of cycle lane construction, the Netherlands’ cyclist fatality rate remains stubbornly high (280 dead annually, from a tiny population) and is in fact considerably higher than the UK’s (~90) — despite the Dutch cyclists riding very slowly for very short distances, on average.
What the actual is that
What the actual is that little kerb thing?!!!
What were they thinking?!!!
ktache wrote:
From cruising around that town on StreetView, those kerbs are even worse than they initially appear — which is difficult to imagine. They are seemingly not attached securely to the ground, and apparently stay in-place due to their own mass, but they don’t do that well, either. A number of them have been knocked over into the bike lane, presumbly by motor vehicle impact. And being ramped as they are, any motor vehicle making a near-perpendicular approach will go right over them at speed.
So they provide no actual protection, and serve only to provide obstacles for cyclists. They should call them “police”.
The best answer to this kind
The best answer to this kind of anti-cycling venom is repeated organised mass rides along the cycling path concerned. Same for all your local routes, especially those the cyclist haters want to tear up. This will will show that (a) paths are used and (b) that there is also a cyclist vote; something that will not be lost on politicians with local and regional elections happening over the next two years.
On the subjectvof high street
On the subject of high street decline…
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2025/apr/18/high-streets-shops-the-stephen-collins-cartoon
Strangely no mention of bike lanes?
I’m 61 now, so I’m going to
I’m 61 now, so I’m going to Holland next year in order to enjoy a proper cycling infrastructure while I still can. As someone who remembers the 1973 oil crisis and the subsequent 300% oil price hike it saddens me to see just how we wasted such an opportunity to change. Just think what we could have achieved in 52 years if we’d followed the Dutch example.
We need to defend the gains we’ve already made. That means using those routes we’ve already got (if we feel safe on them) and pressing our elected representatives to improve them and provide more. It’s clear that the Tories and Reform are only too ready to exploit the current anti-cycling hate for their own gain. Write to your councillors and MPs or your regional elected representatives if you live in Wales, Scotland or Ulster, or the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Go to election hustings and counter the anti-cyclists who’ll be there. The more who do this the more they’ll listen to us.
biking59boomer wrote:
Just be careful while you are there. Despite the construction of all that infrastructure, the Netherlands still sees 280 cyclist deaths annually, which is an absolutely massive number for such a tiny population, especially considering that they only ride very slowly (<8 mph) and for very short distances, on average.
By way of comparison, the UK sees only around one-third as many cyclist deaths from almost four times the population. Even measured per-cyclist, the UK fatality rate is much lower than in the Netherlands.
I think they’ll be just fine
I think they’ll be just fine – and certainly far less stressed than in the UK!
Although older people in general should watch out when cycling. (Risk starts going up from 50 apparently). Talking of which – have you checked who is cycling in the UK vs. who is cycling in NL and how much? Might shed some light on those percentages. (One striking difference: where England has around 15 trips per year made on average by those up to 16, Dutch kids from 6-18 make almost 50% of all trips by bike!)
The Dutch have definitely stagnated on the “improving cycling safety” front in the last few (10?) years though. And it looks like that is largely due to an increase in collisions with motor traffic. I’m not sure they should be spending money on helmet campaigns just yet.
Still, by some distance the majority of injuries of cyclists requiring a trip to hospital in NL are due to crashing or falling off with no others involved.
chrisonabike wrote:
That’s far from certain, and misses the point. Does it do a person good to be less stressed right up until they are killed in a crash? I suggest not.
Well you need to pick a lane, no pun intended. Those old and young Dutch cyclists also ride extremely slowly ( < 8mph ), and for very short disances from their homes — and yet they are killed at least as-often as British cyclists who tend to be prime-age males riding much faster and further.
Which is contrary to the claim that those Dutch cycle tracks improve safety.
“Stagnated” is an interesting way to describe a massive increase in cyclist deaths and injuries.
So I will offer to you the same question that I asked of Harris, how many more centuries should we expect to wait, before all those Dutch cycle tracks begin to improve safety? One more century? Three? Just a ballpark estimation, please.
dh700 wrote:
Why not let the people decide (after all – not everyone has the benefit of your opinion)? Call a cycling election – let people vote with their bikes! Where are the most trips cycled? Where does the largest fraction of the population cycle? (Hints are available – of course you might want to slice it and dice it other ways in which case there are a range of other statistics here. I think I can see how the votes lie but people can make their own picks)
chrisonabike wrote:
Why not let the people decide (after all – not everyone has the benefit of your opinion)? Call a cycling election – let people vote with their bikes! Where are the most trips cycled? Where does the largest fraction of the population cycle? (Hints are available – of course you might want to slice it and dice it other ways in which case there are a range of other statistics here. I think I can see how the votes lie but people can make their own picks)
— dh700
You’ve lost the plot, Chris. The question at-hand is “When will that dedicated cycling infrastructure begin to save lives?” We’re a century in so far, without any progress. How much longer?
dh700 wrote:
2023 UK 87 deaths in 5.8 billion kms cycled, Netherlands 270 deaths in 17.9 billion kms cycled, i.e. UK one death per 66.6M kms cycled, Netherlands one death per 66.3M kms cycled, so yet again you’re desperately trying to manipulate the figures to satisfy your monomaniacal desire to prove that cycling infrastructure doesn’t work.
Great to see you back after the long break you took following your previous humiliation though, have you figured out the difference between a rigid and a suspension mountain bike yet?
Rendel Harris wrote:
I’m quite sure that we already covered this issue of miles-cycled, and that you were found — again, as you always are when you attempt to argue with me — at least one hundred percent wrong. Actually, in that case, you were 300 percent wrong.
That said, even using the dubious statistics you quoted, you managed to find no difference at all in the respective fatality rates of the UK and the NL. So, at a bare minumum, you just provided support for my claim that a century of cycle-lane construction in the Netherlands has not saved any lives.
How many centuries should we expect to wait, until that construction begins to have the desired effect? Just a ballpark estimate will do — 3 centuries? Four?
I can, if you like, dig up links to all of the many previous times that you have waded into an argument with me, and wound up crawling away with your tail ‘twixt your legs. But I’m sure that I don’t want to have to do that, and I’m even more sure that you don’t want me to do that. So let’s contain your remarks to this reality, and not your imagination.
dh700 wrote:
No sweetie, what we found was that you claimed I was wrong because you, as usual, claimed that every official statistic was made up for propaganda purposes. That’s not so much me being wrong as you being ridiculous.
Anyway, enough of this acrimony, I need your help, how can I unlock the suspension on the fork of my rigid MTB as per your advice?
Rendel Harris wrote:
Down, boy. Go hump someone else’s leg.
Here is the most-recent ( I think ) example of Harris being entirely wrong with nearly every word, and forced to tuck tail and run ( pages 2 and 3, mainly, for those lacking unlimited interest in Harris’ capitulation ).
https://road.cc/content/news/uk-cycle-sales-plummet-early-1970s-levels-2024-313015#block-node-comment-block-node-comments
dh700 wrote:
Ah yes, that’s the thread on which you claimed that 40% of people in the Netherlands don’t have access to a bicycle and don’t ride a bicycle even once a year. You need to realise that bullshit times infinity remains bullshit only more so.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Do you really want to go point-by-point and force me to repeat all of the many times that you have slunk away from a discussion with your tail between your legs?
As I said, I don’t want to have to embarrass you like that, and I seriously doubt that anyone wants to read all your garbage again. I question whether or not road.cc would regard that as an acceptable use of their service.
So, while I recognize that I live entirely rent-free in your head at this point, and you are obsessed with trying and failing to argue with me here, how about you act a little bit closer to your presumed age, and just stick with current discussions?
For just one example, if those Dutch cycle lanes are the panacea that everyone here claims they are, why were you unable to find any statistical support for that claim?
Oh, bailing out so soon?
Oh, bailing out so soon?
David9694 wrote:
Believe it or not, educating Harris on a variety of topics is not, in fact, my sole responsibility, or even hobby.
dh700 wrote:
don’t give up the day job
David9694 wrote:
Wasn’t planning on it — road.cc doesn’t pay me hardly at all to make Harris run away from these comment boards on the regular.
And that excellent safety
And that excellent safety record is despite spending vast amounts of money on cycling infrastructure.
The 4 or 5 people that UK
The 4 or 5 people that UK drivers have killed today would like a word.
Of course the lack of hills
Of course the lack of hills in Holland had nothing to do with cycling being more popular in Holland!
Which Holland? This one?
Which Holland? This one? Certainly flat, but not known for a large proportion of the population cycling and walking. Definitely known for lots of driving and not a very good road safety record (e.g. here).
We see story after story of
We see story after story of retailers complaining about local environmental factors affecting trade (“killing” trade if it’s something the Council is doing). I guess you stand there in your shop, you’ve done everything you can within your four walls. The days are long: people don’t come in or they do and leave without buying anything, or (in my experience) they ask for something you don’t remotely sell. Your thoughts must turn to the building / scaffolding works on the property up the street, the roadworks a mile away, the parking charges. Bunting and lights will fix it. Free parking and absence of traffic restrictions will fix it.
There’s been a terrible hollowing-out of High Streets out progressing since the 2008 crash, with everything from Wilkinsons to House of Fraser closing. But the gifty nick-nack and barista coffee shops have only come along in the past 20 years, I think. Are they a kind of mini reprieve for retail after the closure of the butcher, the baker the candle-stick maker? There have always been cafes; I’m less sure about all the take aways – we were too poor often to visit cafes and Chinese take aways were just an occasional family treat. I guess there was always fish & chips back when that was a cheap blow-out. I fingers of one hand for the number of take away pizzas I’ve had.
As noted below, the MO for many seems to be (I) send food order to take away (ii) drive to take away (iii) use your “it’s only for a minute / I’ve just got to nip in here / no-one minds” flashers (IV) drive back (distance travelled: 3 miles).
I think people still want to go shopping, but they are very particular about the experience, prices, range and so on. I constantly read of shopkeepers blaming everything except (i) theirs is a business that people don’t want to patronise (ii) people don’t have the money at the moment for this line of goods or service for it to be a priority.
I guess carbrain means retailers will always focus on driver access. I know people can be unpredictable and fickle, but if you’re serious about going shopping you’ll find a way to get to your retail destination.
Curiously, it seems that in
Curiously, it seems that in places where active travel is more popular, they’ve retained / regained more small local shops.
Whereas in places where mass motoring has been “let rip” we see declining “high streets”.
Obviously there are complications eg. online shopping, increasingly online *living* etc.
Ah yes, let’s all drive out
Ah yes, let’s all drive out to the ring road and then wonder why the beloved hardware shop, so friendly always had what you needed has closed a la Guardian giant.
I want to look at toasters – park. Can we look at socks. Move the car and park. I need some paint – move the car again.
Mixed bag (and beware
Mixed bag (and beware nostalgia) – the massive chains are able to attract with cheaper prices *, often wider ranges, better availability and longer opening hours.
And a number of jobs – albeit often low-paid / short hours (so those people may still need some local / state support).
But yes – set against that do we want to pay in terms of our streets becoming roads out of town, money flowing elsewhere, perhaps no support for *local* producers (in favour of bigger ones they’ve got better deals with / who can supply national demand) etc.?
* But also for the biggest strong-arming suppliers, sharp financial work around taxes, getting concessions from local government, playing games with real estate – again, pros and cons…
Funny you should say that. We
Funny you should say that. We have a small hardware shop in the village a short ride away. The alternative is a longer unpleasant ride to the out of town Wickes. The local shop is more expensive but the staff are helpful and nearly always have what I need saving a great deal of time. When I was younger I would have resented the extra cost and would have driven out of town. I’m glad I’ve grown older and wiser.
Sadly that is not a
Sadly that is not a sustainable business model in this day and she!
Train commuter here : Where I
Train commuter here : Where I worked last year, it was a ten minute walk into town to T K Maxx from the office; this year’s job in a different town the T K Maxx is on the edge of town, or on the far side of the moon if you don’t have the use of a car.
I hope you are are wrong but
I hope you are are wrong but I fear you may be right. Freezing fuel duty and taxing cars up front to mask the real cost of each driven journey certainly doesn’t help.
Where is the evidence to
Where is the evidence to support this?
Advanced Driver wrote:
For what?
A449 road closure diversion
A449 road closure diversion is ‘devastating’, businesses say
While businesses are still accessible, he said those without local knowledge may have been confused by signage for the closure.
“Quite a lot of my business comes from Malvern Wells but with the road closure, they have got to come all through Welland and Eastnor.”
He said: “It’s devastating for a business, it’s awful. In other countries, a road closure for gas works take two days. It’s the state of the whole country.
“There are so many companies affected. I understand gas works have to be done but it’s just the pace.”
https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/25096610.a449-road-closure-diversion-devastating-businesses-say/
Would love to know what these other countries’ secret is for maintaining gas mains.
Some of these posters are just one click away from saying “you don’t need a regular mains supply – we never had that in the old days”
The closure (’til Jan 2026, says Google Maps) is east of him from the B4218 to the A4104 junctions.
I am amazed that those who
I am amazed that those who are in favour of ‘active travel’ are so insensitive to the needs of those who cannot, due to age, infermity or the need to transport a significant number of children or less able adults.
Not everyone in our towns and cities wish to cycle or walk to their desired destination. In my humble opinion it is this insensitive and somewhat arrogant attitude of those who promote the huge growth in cycling infrastructure who are responsible alienating a large proportion of the non cycling population.
Advanced Driver wrote:
Getting windy here today!
Where do you live by the way? I’m in Scotland but I’m interested to visit some of these places where there has been a “huge growth in cycling infrastructure” – or even where that is being promoted. Presumably I’ll need to fly or take a boat at least?
Of course “huge” is in the mind’s eye (of the critic). I guess going from “none” to “very little” is huge…
I’m pretty sure that everyone who fancies driving is very well catered for, and will continue to be as far as I can imagine. (Even over there!) Except for delays and problems due to all the other drivers (who are in no way as you describe) wanting their space and getting in the way, that is!
Unfortunately lots of people who might need / want to avail themselves of these wonderful subsidised motoring opportunities can’t – due to being a child, or having certain disabilities or visual impairments or “infirmity”.
Still, it would be insensitive of me – nay arrogant – to point that out.
I’ll just leave a few of these here: selective concern, “We shouldn’t provide for cycling, as it disadvantages people with physical disabilities“, “Cycling for transport is for young, fit people – it excludes old people“, who else benefits from “cycling” infra?…
Assuming irony isn’t quite
Assuming irony isn’t quite dead yet: Drivers are of course doing so many things those for less fortunate than themselves (sorry I can’t find any examples of this)unlike those arrogant cyclists plastering cycle lanes EVERYWHERE.
https://www.pedall.org.uk/
Hello Advanced Driver.
Hello Advanced Driver. Welcome to Road CC. Here’s a little something I wrote to get you up to speed. So if you are pro car, here is a few things that you are in favour of:
Cars are not the only source of pollution that is taking us towards global warming, but you are having a pretty good try at it. You can explain your choices to your grandchildren later on. You knew fine what you were doing what it would lead to, and they will despise you for it. Climate breakdown means we will not be able to grow enough food for 8 billion people. you could leave the grand kids a little note in a time capsule to remember you by : Fry, flood, freeze, starve.
Similarly, you aren’t the only reason for the Middle East being such a global trouble-spot (all my adult life, anyway), all magnified by oil revenue. But you make the top five. (70% of a barrel of crude goes to make petrol and diesel.)
More locally, and it bears repeating, you must be in favour of or at least not mind about 4 to 5 people a day dying through road violence in the UK. You must be in favour of / not mind about dozens more people getting seriously injured each day on the UK roads. Countless near misses. I don’t understand how you can find that acceptable, not least because one day it could be you. See our Near Miss of the Day feature if you want to deny that this unreported stuff happens. Every cyclist has a horror story.
The in-car technology exists to eradicate speeding and curtail bad driving, but we don’t apply it outside of fleet management – something, something my freedom accelerate out of trouble. Responsible fleet owners are testing their drivers for substances, installing driver monitoring and dashcam.
You must like pollution as well. Drivers are often telling us, when they are required to take a longer route or go more slowly, that the pollution they make, a variety of particulate nasties, will get worse. Thanks a bunch. It’s great that you’re concerned about your pollution, it’s just a shame about the past 40 years. Electric vehicles, like all others, produce harmful particulate waste from brakes and tyres.
Noise pollution must be another thing you are happy with and are content to overlook the effects on mental health of all this. You wonder at why the students wear chunky noise-cancelling headphones in the street – it never occurs to you that you are most of what they want to cancel. Whole swathes of housing made unliveable. Cars aren’t progress.
Driving itself is usually boring, lonely, isolating and tiring. I guess you get a lot of time on your own to think on how driver unfriendly the world is, or why there’s so much traffic today. The car adverts lied to you – about the luminous empty city centre, the four gorgeous smiling companions, the sweeping ocean road and the gnarley mountain track.
I guess you are in favour of the whole townscape and countryside being re-shaped over the past 60 years to accommodate cars. Roundabouts, underpasses, one-way systems, multistorey car parks, surface car parking all designed by the traffic engineers in order to keep this unsustainable system afloat. One more lane, one more upgrade will fix it – but you’ve been saying that for decades. Where does it end? You often complain that what “they” have done is not is not enough for cars.
More flooding in urban areas does not trouble you as so much space that might otherwise allow rainwater to drain away, gets concreted over. The grotty underpass, the iffy car park etc are places for anti-social behaviour and crime to lurk and are uniquely the products of cars.
Cars create urban sprawl – if you are building-in space in your development for say one car per adult, the whole thing takes up more space and things become more distant from each other, and on it goes.
If cars are so great, then let’s add another 5,000 flats and houses to your town. What’s that? We can’t do that because the roads are choked already? So you can’t upscale your car is king solution then?
All of this car-friendly infra is great when you are travelling in your car, but as cars become more numerous, the whole thing still grinds to a halt at irregular intervals for no notable reason. It’s the holidays/ the school run, it’s sunny/ it’s raining, sports fixture, roadworks. It doesn’t get better. In town, the car is an illusion of speed as you scurry from one hold-up to the next.
Each bottleneck the engineers mitigate simply points up the next one. In my view, the traffic engineers have given their all – we’ve got in every town the multi-storey, the one way, the complex intersection. There’s nowhere left to go other than to go back to demolishing the very world cars were meant to serve.
You must’ve been in favour of the degrading and destruction of all forms of public transport. We regularly hear how terrible the buses are. Old bus timetables are on EBay – pick one up from the 1970s for your area to see what has been lost. The closure of the trams in the 1950s and the railways in the 1960s – all due to cars. It helps if you can portray public transport as slow, dirty, old, for losers.
Widespread obesity in children and adults and the myriad health consequences arising from all that you must be prepared to overlook. Children now have to be ferried everywhere to do anything outside of the house. Great timesaver you have there. What a drab existence for kids – childhood stolen by cars. Children now have to be taken somewhere just to play. Somewhere safe, away from road danger, dog mess and bad men – usually car users because cars have been an accessory in a range of crimes since the beginning. Used as a murder weapon too, some times.
We’ve all heard the phrase “road rage”, but just look at the state of some of the pro-car comments in your average social media debate : it’s never about promoting harmony, or how everyone can all get along better together, is it?
One of my other favourites is the driver accounts trying to make rules for everyone else, all while disparaging any rules applying to them. Pavement parking excuses: Everyone does it, it was only for a minute, I’ve just got to nip in here, where am I supposed to leave it, it’s not in anyone’s way, go around – a mouthful of obscenity if challenged on the spot. I’m glad some councils are starting to get a grip of this. You’re told you can’t drive down 200 yards of road and now it’s all a massive plot, an authoritarian council that must be blinkered or corrupt or something. You don’t hear it so much now but weren’t the WEF getting everyone out the cars by 2030?
The positive effects on safety and insurance premiums emerging from Wales are pretty clear. You have to subscribe to a special range of lies to be opposed to them – that’s assuming you believe that you’re entitled to an opinion, of course. By all means show us how else you plan to stop seriously injuring 60-70 a day.
If your car really can’t cope mechanically with 20 mph, that sounds like a you problem – see your dealer. If you’re finding it really boring or are getting distracted then maybe it’s time to stop driving. You will make less pollution at slower speeds – although I am glad that you recognise that you do make pollution, just a shame you’ve only mentioned it now. Don’t bother whining about buses and ambulances that you hold up and have held up for decades.
The driver narrative again in your typical social media debate starts with the victimhood and the poor little me stuff, then it’s childish insults, it moves through the massive lies, onto the Conspiracy theories and in a few cases, to accusations of paedophilia and death threats – what great company to keep, eh?
If you want to give yourself an excuse to deny and disparage all this, you will find it in whatever intellectually cowardly/lazy way you choose to employ. All I ask is please be orignal – the bluster, the lies, the distractions are as tiresome as they are predictable. With all that going on, is it any wonder the private parking companies make sure you can’t contact them by ‘phone. I don’t especially like their methods, but I can’t blame them for employing them.
There’s an awful lot else that you have to put out of your mind as a car advocate. I guess car ownership alters your perspective. The idea of riding a bike 5 miles becomes terrifying. I’m forgetting the hills and the weather aren’t I? Yet many people are longing to cycle, given the chance.
Drivers these days are so full of frustration, their own wallowing self-pity that they lose any sight of the people who are excluded from the club and left with nothing to fall back on. Buses infrequent and reliable; cycling, only for the foolhardy, walking dangerous, circuitous and unpleasant.
Spare me the “drivers are working class” narrative. The system relies on excluding the poorest for it to have any chance of functioning at all. You should be grateful to every cycle commuter and bus user as that’s one less car to compete with for parking or to queue up behind. Life was lived quite happily, things got done (e.g. the Industrial Revolution, Victorian building boom, the First World War) before the rise of the car.
Don’t bother me with “roads are essential” or “roads came first”. Peace, quiet and the absence of road violence were here first. I do enjoy the occasional Janet and John lecture that I rely on motor transport for deliveries, etc. You might want to consider that I’ve been at this for a long time and: I’ve heard it. Somehow the person in the £15000 van is a working class hero doing necessary things, the one on the £1500 bike is middle class and either entitled or unimportant.
Sometimes I ask drivers about their thoughts on the future as cars become ever more numerous. Where do they see all this going, I ask. Do you know what, I never get an answer, just more boring old bluster and evasion, the same as with the deaths, the health issues and pollution. It’s hardly grown-up, is it?
Please feel free to keep forwarding me your “how can I deliver 3 tonnes of cement to a site in the Cotswolds at 2 am without a van – tell me that”. We’ve spent over 50 years getting car-dependent and allowing the alternatives to wither on the vine, but sure I’ll let you have a definitive answer to all your questions by return.
From time to time someone appoints themselves a representative of drivers. OK then you can start by apologising for killing 1,500 people a year – and state how you intend to stop this continuing year after bloody year.
If I could be granted one wish, it would be for drivers to take responsibility for what they do, in terms of finance, environment and health. Fat chance in a system that excuses, blinkers and wraps drivers up in cotton wool – so long as you keep up the monthly payments, of course. You have to maintain the fiction that driving is for everyone – not so if you don’t have the health or wealth to sustain it. If you don’t have the wealth, you are as I say out in the cold. The driver narrative is of course silent on what happens to those people.
Why do you think you should be allowed to park for free? Pay your way like everyone else. Society’s most privileged whining about their lot – that’s one of the many things I find offensive.
I guess so-called motor sport has to exist to at least to try to make some sense of “sport” features cars have, including being capable of speeds never achievable or legal in the real world.
Oh, and congratulations on infiltrating criminal justice, which now bends over backwards to excuse drivers for their irresponsible mis-deeds – medical episode? Well, never mind, it happens. The car aquaplaned, how unfortunate. Needed to get to get to the toilet, or to work – mind how you go, sir; children in the car or attending a funeral – yet another free pass to say or do whatever you like. It’s Remembrance Day – park wherever you like, no-one will dare reproach you. Sun in your eyes, standing water – of course no-one would expect you to drive to the conditions, anticipate, slow down, just do your job as a driver properly.
Although there is a reasonably comprehensive set of laws and regulations to control drivers, these are loudly resented and trivialised, and even attacked; driver offending is on an industrial scale, yet much enforcement remains manual, under resourced and labour-intensive, which again is just the way the cookie crumbles and isn’t deliberate.
Road safety partnerships and the like who push cycle helmets and hi viz as some kind of safety precaution get short shrift from me. It’s all just dodging upsetting drivers. If you’ve opted for the 1.5-2.5 tonne metal box, you’ve assumed a lot of responsibility for safety, however much you try to push it away on to others. If you have gone for the 2.0+ tonne effort, you are actively choosing to put others at risk.
I guess the many road safety campaigns – e.g. Tufty Club, Green Cross Man down the years started out with good intentions in the face of tragedy. But all they do is establish the idea that cars take precedence of others, something many drivers are all too happy to take on board. They are silent on anticipation and driving to the conditions – it’s for children to keep themselves safe, not the for the grown-ups. And why wasn’t he wearing his viz/ a helmet / what was he doing in that busy / fast / dangerous road?? You’ve done well at transferring any blame for the violence you inflict, including deflecting it onto children.
Of course, the innocent motorist (“I was only…/ I was just…) narrative portrays all this as a system out to get drivers for the slightest misdeed. In fact there are many things like speeding, mobile phone use and pavement parking that many drivers no longer see as wrong. Actual enforcement is so rare there’s outrage about it when it happens, powered by the aforesaid driver poor little me/victim complex. I guess the newspapers like these whinges as it’s a story that practically writes itself.
Then there’s the deliberate physical sabotage of things like speed cameras – often supported by the same drivers who would be the first to go rushing to the police expecting the law to be rigorously upheld (and camera footage welcome) if their parked car gets so much as a scratch.
Every factor brought up in court support of yet another “exceptional hardship” plea is to me just another thing you should have thought of before you decided to speed/ overtake recklessly etc. Funny how there’s always an elderly relative living up a remote cart track needing their shopping, isn’t it.
Perhaps the loudest scrape of the barrel by drivers is the regular “whataboutery” about people with disabilities. How despicable and low can you get? Pretending to espouse a cause you’ve never taken any interest in before and people whom you’d throw under the bus in a heartbeat if it meant five more parking spaces.
So yes, by all means if it makes things simpler for you to understand, colour me anti-car. Enjoy your pro car stance and all that goes with it – it’s quite the package.
Wow, that has to be the
Wow, that has to be the longest comment ever.
While not directed at me, a few points of reubttal follow:
Given the almost-universal opposition — largely fomented by megacorporations — to even the suggestion of population reduction, this is going to happen eventually and sooner than later. We are already way beyond the planet’s human carrying capacity. We have largely fished-out the waters, or poisoned them, and we are already farming a sufficiently-high percentage of the airable land that within a generation or two, there will be no remaining wild terrestial animals larger than a dog. In fact, if we were trying to feed the current population with just, say, 300 ppm of atmospheric CO2, most of us would already be starving.
Not only that, but there’s no feasible way to feed 8+ billion mostly-urban humans without motor vehicles. You cannot otherwise transport the food from where it is produced to where it is required, while it remains edible.
Basically, everyone with more than one child is the problem, and that’s been the case for a while now.
The most-stable, and most-pleasant-to-live-in ( unless you are a woman ) places in the Middle East are the ones which are fabulously drenched in oil money. The others are the trouble spots. The notion that the ME would be better-off without any meaningful sort of economy is dubious, at best. That area of the world has also not been particularly peaceable since long before humans had the idea to drill for oil.
There is no actual reason that humans cannot operate vehicles safely. We do not successfully train or motivate people to do so, but we could. We can train dogs to drive cars ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czgC3T3lwEk ) so humans have at least a chance.
As alluded to above, how do you propose to service 8+ billion mostly-urban humans? If you don’t want sprawl, they must necessarily be living in urban environments. That means they are wholly dependent on vehicles to bring them all of the necessities of life, never mind their many desires. Are you going to try and do this with cargo bikes?
Every part of this conversation runs into scalability issues — including bicycles. Sure, a bicycle requires less space on the road — but carries fewer people and cargo. So now you need more of them, and to make way more trips. TANSTAAFL.
Again, the problem is too many humans.
Children do not have to be ferried everywhere. That is largely the product of the misguided belief that, “for safety reasons”, children can never be left unattended while awake. Ironically, putting them in a car is likely more dangerous than anything else they might be doing.
Food kills ten times more people per year than cars do. We don’t blame the existence of food, we blame the people who use it improperly. Same applies to cars.
Just out of curiosity, are you suggesting that bicycle parking should also not be free?
Regardless of vehicle type, there’s an explanation for why parking may be free. If the owner of the land derives more value from allowing people to park a vehicle on it than they would from charging for that privilege, parking may be free. This is usually going to be the case when the land in-question does not have high demand for parking, or if it does, when the owner derives significant value from welcoming people to it.
The indolence of law enforcement in general, and particularly with regard to traffic law, is an enormous problem all over. If we fixed that one problem, many of the others that you just listed would disappear. Again, we could do this, if we decide to.
That is, in fact, the only reason that bicycle helmets exist — to shift blame for injury onto cyclists and away from motor vehicle operators.
dh700 wrote:
The complaint wasn’t about some parking being free, though. It was about drivers demanding that free parking should be provided as a ‘right’, whether it’s economically justified or not.
Often that ends up meaning that all of us subsidise it through taxes, whether or not we use it or twice any benefit from it at all.
Of course, there is still a judgement of value happening, but that judgement is more in terms of the number of votes that the decision makers concerned think they’ll lose by charging for parking, weighed against those they might lose from the tax bills.
mdavidford wrote:
All of which applies to bicycle parking, as well. Are you suggesting that bicycle parking should not be free?
If not, you need a good explanation for exactly why everyone else should subsidize “our” parking while you complain about subsidizing others.
dh700 wrote:
The complaint wasn’t about some parking being free, though. It was about drivers demanding that free parking should be provided as a ‘right’, whether it’s economically justified or not.
Often that ends up meaning that all of us subsidise it through taxes, whether or not we use it or twice any benefit from it at all.
— dh700 All of which applies to bicycle parking, as well. Are you suggesting that bicycle parking should not be free? If not, you need a good explanation for exactly why everyone else should subsidize “our” parking while you complain about subsidizing others.— mdavidford
There’s certainly no absolute right to free bike parking. In most places, though, we’re in a position where encouraging more bike journeys is desirable in order to shift us away from the alternative of… more cars. So there is likely a public benefit case to be made in favour of free bike parking for whatever small incentive that provides, given the generally minimal negative impact on the public realm.
They certainly seem to think
They certainly seem to think so (for “short term”) here. (The first 24 hours are free, apparently when opened it was half a Euro for every additional 24 hours. You can also buy a yearly parking pass). And apparently it’s usually seen as worthwhile to provide lots of free cycle parking at stations (presumably so people consider cycling to stations and taking trains for some trips instead of driving).
I was looking forward to
I was looking forward to Reading’s cycle hub, the one that was proposed for the old Primark, the peace of mind of being just a little more secure than just leaving it on the street for a quid or two for a few hours appealed to me.
I used to trust the parking
I used to trust the parking at the stations in Edinburgh. Less so now. Certainly Haymarket seems to have become significantly seedier / dodgier over the last 5 (ish) years – and it’s actually outside the station.
Wouldn’t mind paying a quid or two to have someone casting an eye out for sparks…
mdavidford wrote:
That’s a bit of a tautological argument, however. Sure, you want your parking subsidized because you want your preferred mode of transport to be supported. So do car drivers.
I bet if one polled pilots, they would find very high support for public financing of airport construction. I bet train conductors are enormously in-favor of rail subsidies. Neither of those are great arguments, either, as they boil down to “Everyone else should pay for what I want.”
Except that you’ve
Except that you’ve misrepresented my point. It wasn’t about the benefit to the bike user; it was about the benefit to public at large. Cars come with significant negative externalities that aren’t present with bikes, so switching a journey from car to bike benefits everybody, not just that particular person.
Anyway, that’s besides the main point: you asked whether bike parking should be free, and the answer is not necessarily – only when there’s a justification for making it free. There’s no right to free parking, for your bike or for your car.
mdavidford wrote:
And from the perspective of drivers, the opposite is the case. That’s the point.
And most of those externalities do exist for bikes, by the way.
dh700 wrote:
Except that you’ve misrepresented my point. It wasn’t about the benefit to the bike user; it was about the benefit to public at large. Cars come with significant negative externalities that aren’t present with bikes, so switching a journey from car to bike benefits everybody, not just that particular person.— dh700 And from the perspective of drivers, the opposite is the case. That’s the point. — mdavidford
Again – it’s not about ‘from the perspective of…’ – it’s about the objective case that can be made. You can argue over whether that case exists, but as i say, it’s rather irrelevant to the original discussion.
You missed the word ‘significant’ in there – for the most part, those externalities are negligible when it comes to bikes.
dh700 wrote:
Vehicles, maybe. But vehicles doesn’t have to mean cars. Once you get away from the hegemony of the car (particularly the private car) there are much more efficient ways to manage the servicing of those needs (a lot of which absolutely could be by cargo bike).
Indeed. And maybe some
Indeed. And maybe some Internet theoreticians struggle with this but I seem to manage to get most of the necessities of life to my flat, not owning a car. (I’m not average though – for example I moved in by bike…)
The majority of goods arrive in the UK in containers on giant ships (we’re not self-sufficient for food, clothes etc.). We could do more in the way of rail transport to depots – truck to sub-depots etc. ending up with eg. cargo-bike-scale deliveries. Currently it just seems to be trucks all the way, or switching to still pretty large vans.
The smallest businesses (corner shops, takeaways) often seem to rely on the owners’ vehicles – that’s probably the reason for lots of “we have to have parking outside”.
Here’s an example of somewhere that has been experimenting with several ways of reducing impact of / numbers of large delivery vehicles in city streets.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lRqKOztzLDs
chrisonabike wrote:
Okay great — how do those supples get to a location that is sufficiently-close to your domicile that you can retrieve them via bike? Not by other cargo bikes.
Okay great, now we build a bunch of new rail lines — which requires demolishing a bunch of homes and shops and businesses. So some people — maybe you, maybe not — are losing that close-by shop to which you previously biked. And those people who just lost their homes are now increasing rents in other places, so some people — maybe you, maybe not — can no longer afford to live so close to a shop that stocks all of your necessities.
TANSTAAFL. “Just build rail lines” is not all that easy.
Per the video — which is just sales promotion, by the way — they still have to truck the supplies to a depot just 300 meters from “the city center”, due to the slow speed and limited range of the new device. In other words, the scalabiilty of that plan remains in doubt.
mdavidford wrote:
Actually, people have been living in cities of hundreds of thousands for millenia, and both London and New York had populations of above a million before the first mass produced car…
Of course – that’s not saying “NO cars and trucks” is achievable with our vastly more resource-intensive modern life, never mind if we could likely get there from here.
Certainly it would be possible to have a LOT fewer cars, and likely fewer large goods vehicles without civilisation collapsing – and indeed with benefits to the inhabitants too.
chrisonabike wrote:
Great — now they are an order of magnitude beyond that. When NYC reached a million residents, Manhattan still had plenty of farms.
Seen any farms on that island lately?
Farms on Manhattan you say?
Farms on Manhattan you say? (Some more here apparently)
Urban populations: apparently in 2018 it was 55% in urban areas according to the UN (of 7.7 billion). Back then they projected 68% by 2050. Seems quite low to me – but then I’m not living in Africa / Asia. (US, Europe and indeed Australia have a much more urban population).
Personally I do think there maybe a few too many of us also. But I’m not in charge. On that – ultimately humans can conspire to limit our population or – like other animals – ours will expand (like other life forms) until it hits some limit. (We have only become so numerous by accumulating cunning via efficient cultural transmission of technology – but there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to continue to get round restrictions).
Talking of which: don’t panic! There are indeed precedents for nations rapidly transforming their food and supply industries (as we are seeing e.g. in Ukraine / Russia now). At the start of the 2nd World War the UK imported 75% of its food – and by the end 75% was produced locally [ detail ]. Of course, the Germans helped us out by creating spaces for allotments in built-up areas, but that wasn’t very popular…
In fact, this happened in WW1 also – and in the US too.
We do seem to be getting through theoretical problems and examples of solutions in practice at a rate recently. Talk about putting the world to rights!
chrisonabike wrote:
The first is educational, not a working farm. More like a museum, in other words. The others are not in Manhattan.
mdavidford wrote:
Are there? Do tell.
Yes, “vehicles” means more than cars, it includes the wide variety of trucks (possibly ‘lorries’ to you) that transport almost everything currently. And those trucks need roads.
When you actually try to design a system for supplying 8+ billion humans that avoids motor vehicles, you’ll see that it becomes incredibly difficult at that scale. 8 billion city residents can not cargo-bike out to a farm and retrieve their groceries every week.
dh700 wrote:
Vehicles, maybe. But vehicles doesn’t have to mean cars. Once you get away from the hegemony of the car (particularly the private car) there are much more efficient ways to manage the servicing of those needs (a lot of which absolutely could be by cargo bike).
— dh700 Are there? Do tell. Yes, “vehicles” means more than cars, it includes the wide variety of trucks (possibly ‘lorries’ to you) that transport almost everything currently. And those trucks need roads. When you actually try to design a system for supplying 8+ billion humans that avoids motor vehicles, you’ll see that it becomes incredibly difficult at that scale. 8 billion city residents can not cargo-bike out to a farm and retrieve their groceries every week.— mdavidford
The original point wasn’t about trucks/lorries though – it was about the vast amounts of space required to accommodate enormous numbers of private cars. Not just to drive them but to store them as well.
As CoaB noted, we probably do need some trucks (and vans) in the mix, though we could probably manage with a lot less of them if we made better use of other alternatives. But where we do need them, they’d be a lot more efficient, and requires a lot less road space, if there weren’t a gazillion cars clogging up the roads where we need them to go.
mdavidford wrote:
Okay, so let’s consider how this might work. We get rid of all the private cars. Now what, every family gets a cargo bike or maybe a trailer with which to fetch all their supplies? That makes a grocery run with, say, 2 kids in-tow a lot more challenging. But let’s say that Dad has sufficient free time to load up the kids every day and bike to the store and fetch that day’s groceries — since his vehicle lacks the capacity for any more with 3 people already on-board.
Now we also need more and smaller grocery stores so that every house has one sufficiently-close. That means more delivery trucks, and more waste due to inefficiency, and higher prices — none of which are great.
And, to the point, are those roads which are currently clogged with cars all that much emptier with millions of cargo bikes making daily grocery runs? I’m not sure they are.
As I said, every part of this conversation runs into scalability issues, which ought to make it obvious that the problem is too many people — not transport devices.
Well they don’t necessarily
Well they don’t necessarily need to fetch all those supplies – much of them can be brought to them. That’s a much more efficient model, because you can combine many trips into one.
mdavidford wrote:
Okay — so where are you going to find millions of people to deliver those supplies via cargo bike?
How much are those supplies now going to cost, to cover all of that human power? How are you going to arrange all of the deliveries when each recipient is home?
Y’know – I don’t think
Y’know – I don’t think mdavidford has thought this through. He’s never going to find time to cover supplying all the requirements of the 8 billion people in the world from his bike (which seems somehow to follow from “perhaps we don’t need to have all deliveries done by motor vehicle” – if I have you right?)
Or even around 4 billion (let’s say the folks not in urban areas look after themselves).
Also, his bike may be more efficient / take up less space / be less dangerous to others / produce less pollutants than a truck, but as you point out it still counts for something in all of those categories. And he might need several trips, which multiplies all those negative externalities. So obviously he can’t use a bike either.
But … if you and I volunteered to help him out perhaps we could cover a slice (!) of the pizza delivery requirements of Greenock, for example?
dh700 wrote:
Well they don’t necessarily need to fetch all those supplies – much of them can be brought to them. That’s a much more efficient model, because you can combine many trips into one.
— dh700 Okay — so where are you going to find millions of people to deliver those supplies via cargo bike? How much are those supplies now going to cost, to cover all of that human power? How are you going to arrange all of the deliveries when each recipient is home?— mdavidford
You’re beating up on a straw man there. I never said they all have to be delivered by cargo bike. For example, one van route can replace many car trips.
“Food kills more people” –
“Food kills more people” – well, you get a Cadbury’s cream egg for originality there – it’s usually heart disease, cancer or people falling off ladders that are cited as this oh so grown up context that silly old me is missing – none of which, I might add, are perpetrated on them by someone else. And where we notice things like disease we respond with hospitals, medicine and doctors. Comparatively speaking, we shrug our shoulders, as you are doing about road death.
So back to the point which was that (in the UK alone) drivers kill 1,600 a year – was the food thing meant to be a response to that?
We can agree about the Malthusian position global population wise, but the lomger pursuit of that one soon becomes a distraction from the more local, immediate issues. I hear a lot about the UK’s population being too great – the people harping on about that are usually harbouring some kind of racist / reset position, but I think being unwelcoming of new development is back to our old friend carbrain.
I’d recommend an aerial view of an American sports stadium and surrounds if you want to see how space is consumed by cars (typically carrying 1 or 2 people) related to that consumed by people. Bikes sit somewhere in between and aren’t a major solution for freight transport – you get a 4′ straw man for that one and oh look he’s riding a little straw bicycle – cute, huh?
David9694 wrote:
I can do you a cane one – but only if they’re wearing a cycle hat…
David9694 wrote:
Road deaths are “shrug-worthy” in comparison. Diabetes alone kills 10 times more people annually.
There is only one issue, and it is both local and immediate — we have too many people. Humans are theoretically clever, but despite the fact that we understand that populations without predators grow until collapse, we’re rushing headlong into that fate. This is going to kill us long before the climate might.
Talk about a straw man! You do yourself and your argument no favors at all with this paragraph, which I suggest you elide from your reply to save you embarrassment.
First of all, from across the pond, you may be possessed of the false notion that America is nothing but sports stadia since that’s all you see on your teevee, but that is actually not the case. There are a few dozen such facilities across the entire country — which, as you may have heard, is rather large.
Second, they don’t even build that type of stadium anymore. Yes, we have the Meadowlands complex which paved over many acres of swampland forty years ago. It is quite massive, and if we built 999 more just like it, that would consume 3/4ths of one percent of the country’s land area. The newest such stadium, SoFI in Los Angeles, sits on 1/60th of the land area that MSC does. We could build 1,000 of those stadium complexes — if we ever had the reason to — on just one ten-thousandth of our land.
Third, many of those large stadia sit on university campuses. Here is the 3rd-largest stadium in the world, and largest in the West — Michigan Stadium.
You may want to constrain your further statements to topics on which you are familiar.
Here is another example of a
Here is another example of a modern American stadium, from an aerial perspective. Mercedes-Benz Stadium ( ironically ).
Viewers may have to look closely to find the actual stadium. It’s that roundish thing near the middle.
You’ve chosen to miss the
You’ve chosen to miss the point which is a simple one re stadia – several times – well done there.
The point was simply how space-hungry cars in relation to given number of people (the icing on the cake in this example factors in conveyance by public transport.)
The bad stadia with th3 screws of parking lot only need to operate at full capacity the one time to demonstrate this the point I’m making.
I’m pleased to read that stadia aren’t being designed that way now, but that is deflection on your part.
David9694 wrote:
Whew, you are still alive. I was getting worried after it took you so long to reply — I mean, you certainly would not have “run away” as you accused me of doing when I look far less time to reply.
That said, you literally recommended that one should examine aerial photographs of America stadia. So I did exactly that — and to no one’s surprise, I found that you had no idea of what you were talking about.
Now you can look up the age of Arrowhead Stadium — that you just pictured. When you do, you will find that it is 53 years old. Again, stadia are not built this way anymore.
And your supporting evidence was exceedingly-poorly chosen. I note here with interest that you declined to address both of the stadia that I pictured.
Would you like to try that again, perhaps in English?
While you are at it, you are wrong as well. A one-time collection of a few ten thousand cars has vastly less impact than the construction of all the public transportation that would otherwise be required to fill a stadium with 76,000 people.
At least you learned something today. Next time, try it before commenting. It’s not as though Google Maps is confidential information.
Speaking of which, since you are so fond of Arrowhead Stadium, here’s another look at it, with some context. It looks quite horrible from up-close, as you discovered, but when we are not consumed by your myopia, we find that it’s actually about the same size as the neighboring parkland.
Or, in other words, we again find that David9694 hasn’t got even a clue what he’s trying to talk about here.
Should we call this one
Should we call this one “pizza-*delivery*-gate” and done? The tangent seems to have gained its own momentum…