Toxic Air Catastrophe!

Grahamd wrote:

srchar wrote:

I completely agree, Don. FWIW, I don’t advocate zero tolerance to cars with an ICE. I just don’t see a role that government can realistically play to get people out of cars for regular journeys of less than five miles, which IIRC account for 66% of car usage. What additional (and, being realistic, politically palatable) incentives do people need?

The government could do many things, here’s a few:

– Obligate companies over a certain size to provide cycle storage, showers and changing facilities.

– Lower NI contributions for those who cycle to work to reflect the health improvements cycling brings.

– Admonish head teachers who overstep their remit regarding pupils cycling to school.

I don’t think those measures would do anything to encourage new riders onto bikes. There is a huge bike storage area and awesome showers and lockers where I work. Cycle commuters number less than ten on a floor of hundreds. Cycling is already way cheaper than other forms of transport, so a financial incentive isn’t going to make any difference. 3% of kids cycle to school. You can’t tell me that the other 97% don’t because of their headteachers’ attitude.

People who aren’t already on bikes will probably never be.

srchar wrote:

I completely agree, Don. FWIW, I don’t advocate zero tolerance to cars with an ICE. I just don’t see a role that government can realistically play to get people out of cars for regular journeys of less than five miles, which IIRC account for 66% of car usage. What additional (and, being realistic, politically palatable) incentives do people need?

The government could do many things, here’s a few:

– Obligate companies over a certain size to provide cycle storage, showers and changing facilities.

– Lower NI contributions for those who cycle to work to reflect the health improvements cycling brings.

– Admonish head teachers who overstep their remit regarding pupils cycling to school.

I completely agree, Don. FWIW

I completely agree, Don. FWIW, I don’t advocate zero tolerance to cars with an ICE. I just don’t see a role that government can realistically play to get people out of cars for regular journeys of less than five miles, which IIRC account for 66% of car usage. What additional (and, being realistic, politically palatable) incentives do people need?

I commute ten miles each way

I commute ten miles each way in London, whatever the weather (OK, the recent cold weather and resulting icy conditions saw me work from home one day and suffer the train the next). While I enjoy it, I also choose to cycle because the trains are unbearably over capacity during rush hour; buses are so slow as not to be a serious option; and while I’ve never tried commuting by car, I pass endless queues of them on my bike – it looks neither quick nor enjoyable. Both public transport and car ownership are expensive propositions compared to the humble bicycle. Environmental improvement isn’t why I ride – that’s a side benefit.

There is rightly a lot of criticism directed at national and local government for their infrastructural shortcomings. But if the low cost, shorter journey times, control of one’s own destiny and massive health benefits of regular cycling aren’t enough to get 90% of commuters off more polluting modes of transport, I don’t know what is (making people feel guilty about local air pollution  and encouraging them to take personal ownership isn’t it).

I mean, why would you stand in a queue for a bus with fifty other people, cram yourself into sometimes armpit and spend half an hour bimbling three miles down the road? I just don’t understand it – if you’re able bodied, it must be laziness. Which brings me onto… eBikes. I think we’ll see a move en-masse onto eBikes over the next couple of years. Unfortunately, I think they will impact regular cycling negatively. But, the local air will be cleaner. Every cloud…

You’re all barking mad

You’re all barking mad paranoid lunatics with a twist of fascism on the side

On the radio news this
On the radio news this morning, I vaguely heard the story about £50m being made available immediately for a chemical defence lab, because, you know, a Russian spy is attacked once a decade.

That was immediately followed by the ‘no shit, sherlock’ article here. Weirdly, the government doesn’t seem to have found anything down the back of the sofa so readily for something that kills people on a massive scale (there is a fund but it was paid for through a tax reshuffle), presumably because we’re all happily doing to ourselves/each other.