Small #dieselgate cars emitting more than Bus or 40 ton HGV
21 Wednesday Oct 2015
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Ban Private Cars in London
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21 Wednesday Oct 2015
Posted in Uncategorized
Car Free Cycle Routes.
Or
Green cycle routes
My idea is to create a network of car free roads right around London (& and the whole country).
If cycling is to grow significantly and become the main preferred method of getting from A to B, then it needs to be invested in hugely.
There are many suggestions about what needs doing but most are tweeking when what we really need is a complete re-evaluation of who gets to use the roads, we need to question the primacy of the car on our roads and maybe slaughter some sacred cows.
Somehow the car has squeezed itself into every nook and cranny and having insinuated itself onto every road in existence continues to squeeze out other road users, making it less and less possible for anyone outside of a car to use the roads in safety.
Cars are either pumping out poisons, screaming by at lethal speeds or are left cluttering every road and many cycle lanes and pavements.
They are alternately dangerous or in the way.
Harm from cars.
The harm that cars do is manifold and accepted as inevitable. The sheer clutter on every road, the uglification of our surroundings, a continuos stencilled constant running through every scene bringing noise and danger at every turn, raising chronic asthma due to particulate pollution, and occasional sudden death (about 29,000 deaths a year and uncountable amounts of minor accidents). Not to mention green house gasses, CO1, CO2, habitat destruction & climate change!
The Tax angle.
Drivers do not pay for the roads!
Road tax doesn’t exist. It’s car tax, a tax on cars and other vehicles, not a tax on roads or a fee to use them. .
Motorists do not pay directly for the roads. Roads are paid for via general and local taxation.
In 1926, Winston Churchill started the process to abolish road tax. It was finally culled in 1937.
So who does pay for the roads? We all do. Roads are paid for out of general taxation thus A child buying a sweet somewhere along the line, is paying for the roads. And yet it is car drivers that hog all roads.
The Basic Argument.
Cycling has so many benefits. It could be characterised as a positive elixir, a simple solution to so many problems.
Imagine, we need to travel to mums house 5 miles away. Our group includes your 85 year old grand parents and my 5 year old children. Normally they all go in cars, gramps doesn’t like the bus, walking is too far and cycling on those busy roads is simply madness but in this story they all get on bicycles and cycle the whole way along quiet, car free, leafy Avenues only stopping at junctions only to let the cross traffic pass. We arrive calmly, relaxed, healthy, happier, fitter and unharmed.
“Ok nice story but that won’t happen”, I hear you say. Well let’s not write it of quite so quickly.
There are many advantages to car free roads, many are very seductive and there are a lot of road use who presently can’t use the roads because cars are dangerous including equestrians, dog carts, walkers, cats, stall holders, street foods, kids playing football. It must be remembered just how exclusive roads for cars are.
Desirable living spaces.
People would like to live on these new cycle routes, indeed it could actually make the houses on those roads worth a lot more than those on the infernal combustion routes.
The quieter, greener roads would be lovely places to live and work as well as places to travel through.
House prices.
Most of us would opt for those homes in quieter streets instead of those on busy routes, in fact it would probably increase the value of those homes.
CO2 emissions etc.
Transport accounts for about 50% of the CO2 we can get control of in our city’s. If we
If we want to be safe in the future we can’t use the oils we have now let alone that which fracking etc can provide. Oil fuelled vehicles must be used less. We need a carbon negative economy and have for a very long time, car free routes would provide a truly viable alternative.
If the Government were really serious about reducing CO2 emissions it would make it safe for all cyclist to use the roads. Therefore the government must make it safe for my 80 year old mother and my 5 year old daughter to cycle. Otherwise my mum will continue to drive and I will be forced to drive my children because I don’t want them endangered.
Achieving this is actually quite easy but it’s scary for government and councils because it’s a big change in the accepted way of doing things.
Health.
It is obvious the we all value our health and that the NHS has to fork out billions to help us when we are sick but if we did have greener, car free, cycle network we would cycle more. Cycling more will keep us fitter and that means we won’t have to visit our Dr quite so much. So there is a clear financial benefit.
Cost
Bicycle only roads cost less and last longer and need less upkeep, with the added bonus of healthy people costing the NHS less.
Wellbeing.
Wellbeing study’s carried out by the NHS have shown that living near green spaces has a definite, positive and measurable impact on our health. Green cycle networks would bring green space closer to all of us and we would all benefit from this.
Parking.
These Green Cycling Networks would not all be totally car free, after all we still need parking and GCNs can provide huge amounts of convenient parking for all.
Access for cars.
No one will be stopped from getting to their homes or stopped from parking outside their homes. The only thing that would change is that car could only enter and leave from one end of the road. This is all that is necessary for us all to have a far rosier future.
Danger
Is you child safe on a quiet way? No.
It takes no thought to recognise the danger a car or lorry presents to a human on a bicycle.
A painted line will simply not stop a driver who looses attention or control from ploughing through cyclists. The same applies to a curb stone. Simply ask yourself if you would let your 5 year old cycle on one. Would you feel them to be safe on any CSH or cycle lane, even a quiet-way? No? Me neither. Quiet ways are a step in the right direction true but cyclists have been knocked off and endangered time and again. No cyclist is safe with a car roaring past 2cm away. If it touches it will send you flying, it will terrify and injure.
Drivers are inclined to think they own the roads and are very quick to tell you so. Often by driving very dangerously, honking horns while being 2 foot from your rear wheel or squeezing you off the road.
What if we need to get an ambulance through?
There are so many roads that this won’t be a problem but if it were all accident & emergency services already have a key that lets them open any gate across a road.
Pollution
Pollution is appalling and most cycle lanes are right next to busy traffic that’s constantly pumping out poisonous fumes and particulates. The media just published figures that are breathtaking, 29,000 deaths attributable to traffic pollution. It simply is not good enough to ask anyone to breath that air any more.
More greenery.
Having all these quiet roads would allow for a great deal more greenery, and flowers and fruit and many other creatures, insects and plants that are now impossible on our busy and overstretched. In short they could be seen as nature reserves and add to the London as National Park concept.
Quiet-Ways
These are by and large previously defined cycle routes but with Signs on them, so no real improvement.
A lovely idea but proposed only because we are afraid to challenge the minority of us who drive, the oil industry and roads lobby.
Pootling
One of the joys of cycling is pootling, meandering, taking it easy. At present all cycle routes are dangerous because we have to be “in warrior mode” all the time. There is no place to relax and enjoy the scenery because the moment you do your very likely to get killed. This will not encourage cycling.
Would any one be forced to cycle?
Certainly not. You can still drive your car from your house and park by your friends house just as before, it’s just that some roads would be for cyclists alone to travel through.
Quality of life.
This scheme would bring calm and joy and safety to so many people that that alone should be enough. But the real pay back will be in many years time.
Who pays for the roads?
Firstly, “road tax” does not exist, and has not existed since the 1930s. What drivers do pay, however, is Vehicle Excise duty. What you pay for your car’s tax disc – is based on your vehicle’s emissions. Since a bike creates no emissions, it is not liable for Vehicle Excise Duty.
So if we cycled a bit more Instead of driving the whole society would be better off.
So who is with me on the these Green Cycle Routes?
Leon Maurice-Jones
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