15 Minute Cities

aaronyuri said:
Rush hour in Cardiff has become unbearable. It has gotten so much worse in the past two years; more so since Churchill Way was changed around forcing a lot of the outbound traffic to Adam Street.

Walking and the train beats the car ride every time - I won't even entertain the idea of driving into town during/near rush hour.
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I don't have. Train station near me. Nearest one is about 1.7 miles away but I park and ride or sometimes ride in summer
 
How many people actually work locally? There are no jobs for me within about 25 miles. Not if I actually want a good wage and employer.

Anything done to try and limit freedom of movement is going to backfire or be met with mass disobedience. Look at the whole ULEZ thing, which is still going on btw, loads of camera don't actually work. They get replaced and then immediately trashed again. It will be that, but national.

Everything in the UK seems to be about punishing people. Do this or else. Not actually make it good.
 
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Nasher said:
How many people actually work locally? There are no jobs for me within about 25 miles. Not if I actually want a good wage and employer.

Anything done to try and limit freedom of movement is going to backfire or be met with mass disobedience. Look at the whole ULEZ thing, which is still going on btw, loads of camera don't actually work. They get replaced and then immediately trashed again. It will be that, but national.

Everything in the UK seems to be about punishing people. Do this or else. Not actually make it good.
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Well, up until Covid I largely worked away from home Mon-Fri as I was a contractor and local roles in the SW were thin on the ground. I also did a few horrible daily commutes - Wells (where I was at the time) to Reading being the worst - 2hrs 20 each way - although Frome to Swindon for 2 years as a permie was also exhausting. Although, I'd have been unaffected by any clampdowns on driving as I did most of mt travel by train, apart from the drive to the station.

As an aside, with the IR35 changes, that would largely be unachievable these days as hotels & trains are no longer expensable ( if you're caught inside IR35) so the advent of WFH worked really well for me for a few years but, the flip side of it is that if you can work remotely 100% then so can anyone in any part of the world and do the job for a lot less.

The IT job market has been in a dire state for a couple of years - not just because of off/on shoring but also the state of the economy, interest rates etc and, people are saying, investment in AI.

But I digress....
 
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Slam said:
Traffic reduction is a key part of implementing 15 minute cities, they help make non private car use more attractive and encourage the use of smaller more frequent purchases from local shops. Cars are of course used for more than just shopping so there is an impact on travel for other reasons such as visiting friends and family. In London, cross borough traffic is discouraged, road use by borough residents is preferred and promotion of local communities helps to localise activity and therfore reduce the demand for longer journeys.
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What do you mean by non private car use? uber/cabs, driverless cars? Because Idon't see how that reduces traffic volume at any given time.

I saw a vid earlier on FB of a driverless Tesla successfully navigating the magic roundabout in Swindon. I think they should be able to wrap up their testing after that achievement :cry:

Seriously though, they seem to be incredibly well driven - they know how to take any corner with the optimum speed and positioning and people are saying that the standard of the driving is flawless.
 
That Jekka Gal said:
What do you mean by non private car use? uber/cabs, driverless cars? Because Idon't see how that reduces traffic volume at any given time.

I saw a vid earlier on FB of a driverless Tesla successfully navigating the magic roundabout in Swindon. I think they should be able to wrap up their testing after that achievement :cry:

Seriously though, they seem to be incredibly well driven - they know how to take any corner with the optimum speed and positioning and people are saying that the standard of the driving is flawless.
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Until their cameras can't see properly.

When I had a Model Y, I was driving through a sunset and the low sun was blinding. This also blinded the camera resulting in the car slamming the brakes on many times at 70mph.
 
by non private car use I mean alternatives such as ubers, cabs, buses. If you can use those to get somewhere more quickly and/or more cheaply than if you run your own private car then some people will change their behaviour. And if they don't then more income is generated so that's helpful for local and central government in the meantime.
 
It may not actually cheaper to run a private car once you factor in all the costs. This is particularly the case if you have a relatively new one due to depreciation.

There the bus falls down is speed, comfort and convenience. You could make bus and train travel free and I’d still use my car for almost all the journeys it gets used for now.
 
I’d got used to just driving everywhere since moving back to the UK a few years back, after having not owned a car for a decade.

I’ve recently started using the Nottingham park and ride, which I’d foolishly just driven past on the way into the city centre to sit in traffic and get ripped off for parking. The park and ride is excellent, a few huge, free, car parks at the termination of the main tram lines. Park, get on tram, arrive city centre 20 minutes later, no hassle. Sometimes we do things right in the UK, but we’re too stubborn to adapt and use it!
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
There the bus falls down is speed, comfort and convenience. You could make bus and train travel free and I’d still use my car for almost all the journeys it gets used for now.
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This is exactly it

If I go into Southampton, i'll drive all the way into the centre and park. It's crap to drive into and parking is expensive but the other options are worse.

If I go to Portsmouth, i'll use the Park & Ride because it's crap to drive into Portsmouth but the Park and Ride is easy to access, loads of parking spaces, nice facilities, quiet buses (with bus lanes that breeze past 80% of the traffic jams), cheaper than inner city parking and doesn't add much time.

Portsmouth got it right by offering something that added convenience. Southampton are just flapping about making everything more expensive and more difficult and wondering why it makes no actual difference other than annoying all the residents.

(Edit - similarly with Winchester, i'll use Park and Ride there too because it's less hassle than driving and parking in the centre)
 
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That Jekka Gal said:
Ah, I never said you weren't permitted to leave your neighbourhood, just that you'd be restricted to 100 times per year if you wished to do so by car and that you'd need a permit to do so. The alternative route by car would be to drive out to the ringroad and re-enter elsewhere.
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Initially it does sound a bit draconian.

But, realistically if everything you need is a few minutes drive away most people aren't going to need to leave that area 100+ days a year (not times, I imagine you can leave multiple times in the same day).

It will naturally limit how much people need to travel to the point that the 100 day limit is irrelevant for almost everyone, and if you do need to for work purposes I imagine there will either be allowances or it will be a tax write off. Or, hopefully paired with improvements in public transport that render it a moot point.

I may be biased, as I don't drive and still manage to get around fine despite having a minor mobility issue. Public transport works pretty well here, there's bike rental schemes and large parts of the centre are being pedestrianised anyway.
 
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