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sergius.
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September 1, 2015 at 8:28 am #24728
ianrobo
this is a positive step forward
BBC News (UK) @BBCNews
VIDEO: London bans ‘unsafe lorries’ bbc.in/1PIgN2y
But I ask the question if OK to ban in London and in effect make illegal why not the rest of the country ? Why is it that as soon as you step outside the precious M25 these Lorries are then deemed ‘safe’.
Surely if London can ban them then the ban should actually be made across the UK. After doing many miles recently on the M5 I have concluded the driving standards of lorry drivers are appalling. But as usual in this so called ‘one nation’ only London is deemed good enough to have measures imposed.
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ianrobo wrote:As to
ianrobo wrote:As to Birmingham/London debate, some figures last year showed more and more people moving to Birmingham from London because of the housing costs and is a reason supporters of HS2 use.But, but, you’d have to live in *Birmingham* :O
Nothing useful to add really; other than I don’t think you’d find many cyclists, based in London or otherwise, who would argue against spending money on cycling schemes all over the country – the more the better IMO. I’d hesitate to assume there is some kind of conspiracy against everywhere outside of the M25 – I think we just suffer from uneven devolution.
Jon lets look at some of that
Jon lets look at some of that“The density of people, traffic, and commuters is on a completely different scale in London compared to much of the rest of the UK – it’s not a relatively compact centre with urban sprall. To do anything at all gets VERY expensive very quickly, and in spades in the case of Crossrail. ”
Or is it that public bodies and others allow the costs to escalate. Look at the Olympic staduim now and the £650M spent on Wembley. So London is more expensive, you could say centralising everything in London causes this, spend even more, attract even more etc.
But the key thing for this debate
“joint TfL and DfT-funded Industrial HGV Taskforce (IHTF). ”
So it is a money issue, TFL has shed loads of cash, far more than Centro, GM etc. This can only be enforced by using money to enforce it. You need the people on the streets to catch lorries.
If this comes from money from DFT then that is central money and if it is OK for London to recieve central money to enforce it why not all urban centres ?
Every time we see extra cash being spent in London there is always a reason or excuse for it. But in this case the regulation could easily be country wide if not a money issue ?? Esp if it is DFT sanctioned which is a NATIONAL body and not like TFL which is a regional body.
As to Birmingham/London debate, some figures last year showed more and more people moving to Birmingham from London because of the housing costs and is a reason supporters of HS2 use.
JonD
ianrobo wrote:Get this right
ianrobo wrote:Get this right teaboy I fully support 100% what London have done with everything, the infrastructure, these rules etc.Yes some designs could be better etc but the general mood is correct.
What I am saying is that London can only do this because of the vast amount of money. For example to police the Lorry ban, we could not do it here, not enough police etc.
How can we campaign for something that money can not allow to happen here and elsewhere ?
It is a money issue pure and simple, as I showed with the links, London has the cash to do these things and police them.
No, it’s not a money issue, it’s one of getting the regulations through.
If you think there’ll be a ‘vast amount of money’, think again. The Met have various road campaigns from time-to-time, this was probably just one of various spot-checks, and was the day the new regulations come in.
“The scheme will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and will be enforced by the police, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the joint TfL and DfT-funded Industrial HGV Taskforce (IHTF). ”
It’s all very well complaining about devolution, but the reality is it can be easier to get things through on a local level…plus if it relied on Government (particularly the current one) it’d probably just get stalled – which can be an advantage of devolution – eg article on bbc breakfast this morning, Scotland NHS fund air ambulances, England/Wales are charity-based, N. Ireland doesn’t have one.
In the 27-odd yrs I’ve lived in Greater London (2 near the new Olympic Park when it was Eastway, the balance nr Kingston/N Surrey) it’s not so much ‘London getting all the infrastructure’ as general – and gradual – renewal on the whole. Some of the main infrastructure changes have been the result of redevelopment – eg Docklands/DLR, N Greenwich/Jubilee Line. Crossrail1/2 more recently to ease cross-city travel and free up other parts of the network.
It’s worth bearing mind that traditionally tube changes in London have been **very** slow to occur as employment numbers wander up and down, prior to the Jubilee Line extention and DLR I don’t think it had changed much for decades..
But it’s very easy to spot a feature eg http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/07/london-gets-24-times-as-much-infrastructure-north-east-england
and get up in arms about it, but simply looking at numbers misses the point.The density of people, traffic, and commuters is on a completely different scale in London compared to much of the rest of the UK – it’s not a relatively compact centre with urban sprall. To do anything at all gets VERY expensive very quickly, and in spades in the case of Crossrail.
Outside of the centre the only infrastructure projects I can recall in the last 20-odd years are a Croydon tramway. FWIW once you get out of the outermost travelcard zone 6 (where I used to live) ticket prices/travelcards get a lot more expensive because of the train operators…and a lot of people travel in from outside zone 6. Where I am – only a few miles away from zone 6 – I have to use the train (min fare 3.50-4.50) to get the few stops into zone 6, and bus services here outside the zone are very patchy – more akin to the ‘Midlands Red’ network in/around Brum (well, that’s what it was 30yrs ago). Where I used to live I was *just* at the end on one night service route, here – nada.
Locally in Kingston there’s some ‘mini holland’ initiative going on, but it remains to be seen how that winds up after the Tories took control of the council from the Libdems..
Whilst I agree with ‘why can’t it be done everywhere’ it’s less about money and more about the ability to do so, plus it’s not all sweetness and light once you get out of the centre…
Oh, and as a Brummie I spent most of my first 25yrs there, apart from 3 in Manchester, so I have a reasonable idea of Brum travel *used* to be like, at anyrate 🙂
Scoob_84
I made this point elsewhere,
I made this point elsewhere, but could you imagine the uproar if Local authorities based in London started automatically changing the rules for other local authorities because Londoners wanted change in their areas. =))teaboy
ianrobo wrote:Get this right
ianrobo wrote:Get this right teaboy I fully support 100% what London have done with everything, the infrastructure, these rules etc.Yes some designs could be better etc but the general mood is correct.
What I am saying is that London can only do this because of the vast amount of money. For example to police the Lorry ban, we could not do it here, not enough police etc.
How can we campaign for something that money can not allow to happen here and elsewhere ?
It is a money issue pure and simple, as I showed with the links, London has the cash to do these things and police them.
I’m not really sure what you want. Would you rather the money spent on cycle infra in London was spread really thinly across the country? How would that actually get anything on the ground? How many people would it help? Surely it’s better to get something good down *somewhere* that will show that it’s possible, doesn’t cause the end of the world and actually encourages people to ride. At the moment that place is London, but other places are already following. Look at what’s happening in Leicester – some decent-looking protected infrastructure being built there at the moment. I agree that funding needs to increase, and the LCC and others are campaigning for that nationally.
These lorry changes are not publicly-funded. It’s perfectly possible to campaign for stuff before funding is in place – the #space4cycling campaign is doing just that. When campaigning works, funding is found.
Get this right teaboy I fully
Get this right teaboy I fully support 100% what London have done with everything, the infrastructure, these rules etc.Yes some designs could be better etc but the general mood is correct.
What I am saying is that London can only do this because of the vast amount of money. For example to police the Lorry ban, we could not do it here, not enough police etc.
How can we campaign for something that money can not allow to happen here and elsewhere ?
It is a money issue pure and simple, as I showed with the links, London has the cash to do these things and police them.
you’re in Birmingham,
you’re in Birmingham, right?http://www.pushbikes.org.uk/content/will-birmingham-follow-london-lorry-safety-measures
ianrobo wrote:teaboy
ianrobo wrote:teaboy wrote:ianrobo wrote:
In terms of this thread surely the same rule London wants can be applied across the country as a road regulation, why just London ?Because people in London campaigned for it, and those in charge of implementing the rules locally changed the requirements.
So London got the rules changed just for them when they could be done elsewhere. Why not change the campaign to one across the whole of the UK, it is devolution that causes this kind of nonsense.
typical I am OK now in London the rest of you sort yourselves out.
thatcher’s children
I agree – they should be changed elsewhere, but because of how the country works(!?!) politically this was an issue that my local government has a say in.
Did you campaign to change the rules in London, or did you let us “sort ourselves out”? Post a link to your local campaign petitioning for the same thing and we’ll sign it, share it and help.
teaboy wrote:ianrobo
teaboy wrote:ianrobo wrote:
In terms of this thread surely the same rule London wants can be applied across the country as a road regulation, why just London ?Because people in London campaigned for it, and those in charge of implementing the rules locally changed the requirements.
So London got the rules changed just for them when they could be done elsewhere. Why not change the campaign to one across the whole of the UK, it is devolution that causes this kind of nonsense.
typical I am OK now in London the rest of you sort yourselves out.
thatcher’s children
ianrobo wrote:
In terms ofianrobo wrote:
In terms of this thread surely the same rule London wants can be applied across the country as a road regulation, why just London ?Because people in London campaigned for it, and those in charge of implementing the rules locally changed the requirements.
Stumps, I have been to
Stumps, I have been to Sydney, Paris, New York, Madrid and worked in London.I like London as a place, I like the people I worked with and the transport/tube did what it needed to to get me from Birmingham to Tower Hill on time etc.
However in terms of the UK London has it all. Every time a major expense is down there it is always justified by the need to be a great city. Well why can not Manchester. Birmingham etc be that ?
But to do that we need the cash and then we can build CSH’s, we can do all the things that London can.
In terms of this thread surely the same rule London wants can be applied across the country as a road regulation, why just London ?
Stumps
crazy-legs wrote:[
Thecrazy-legs wrote:[The self-fulfilling problem is that London is one of THE cities of the world so infrastructure improvements need to be carried out as a matter of urgency compared to anywhere else.
London transport is far from perfect but it is still miles ahead of anywhere else in the UK.
Regular and comparatively cheap trains, buses and Tube. Excellent bike hire scheme.[/quote]I think your wrong there mate. London is not one of the top cities in the world, we (as in the people of london) only think that. Take away the monarchy then the visitor numbers are pretty poor compared to other world cities – latest figures show that over 50% of visitors to London only come to see the monarchy.
As for transport the north east has the metro system which is viewed by other cities as the best in the country in relation to cost, availability and quality of travel.Here is another one from 2011
Here is another one from 2011Independent body on purely transport spend look at the massive gap even wider. This is not even a party thing as whether Blue, red or yellow the same applies.
Look at the facts guys
Look at the facts guysThis is infrastructure in total of which transport and cycling is part of it. Look at teh massive gap in spending per head of population. It is not that we don;t want to do these things outside of London, it is the FACT we have no cash to do it !
Shall I mention the public funds for the Garden Bridge then ?
Scoob_84 wrote:can’t believe
Scoob_84 wrote:can’t believe this website sometimes. Every time a cyclist dies we collectively complain that something needs doing. Campaigners campaign in their area and get things sorted. People from outside the area then complain that the campaigners didn;t fix the problem in their area.Then we get a load of other nonsense unrelated to the topic that London is apparently shit, but gets everything and the rest of the UK is much better.
no you miss the point totally. London can do it because it has the cash because it gets so much more per head of population. If London spending on trasnport per head was the same as Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool London would not be able to do it.
London gets all these things because our whole country is London centric. That is the facts you surely acknowledge ?
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