Traffic filters will divide Oxford into six '15 minute' neighbourhoods

[fez]

If you offer people a carrot and they won’t take it, you then have to beat them with a stick.

Exactly. It’s pretty clear at this point that humans cannot be trusted to make good decisions. What we want is the easiest option. Almost always. We then want someone to tell us it’s not our fault for being weak willed.

Psychology is always being used to manipulate people because you can’t expect them to make good choices on their own.

 

[mrochester]

Exactly. It’s pretty clear at this point that humans cannot be trusted to make good decisions. What we want is the easiest option. Almost always. We then want someone to tell us it’s not our fault for being weak willed.

Psychology is always being used to manipulate people because you can’t expect them to make good choices on their own.

I quite agree. As much as I wouldn’t like it, if I was priced off the road I would simply have to find an alternative solution. Nothing else is ever going to be as convenient as your own car but we might just have to accept reduced convenience to get the desired outcome.

 

[Rroff]

Exactly. It’s pretty clear at this point that humans cannot be trusted to make good decisions. What we want is the easiest option. Almost always. We then want someone to tell us it’s not our fault for being weak willed.

Psychology is always being used to manipulate people because you can’t expect them to make good choices on their own.

Convenience ultimately wins out - you can fight against it but eventually one way or another people will revert to.

Some people seem to be totally ignoring the complexities when it comes to this subject though - but ultimately the only real fix comes from tackling deep rooted inefficiencies and requiring a lot of cost - compelling people by force onto public transport and/or walking or cycling doesn't produce an ideal outcome and is just trying to shift the problem onto individuals rather than go to the effort and cost of really tackling the problem.

 

[mrochester]

Convenience ultimately wins out - you can fight against it but eventually one way or another people will revert to.

Some people seem to be totally ignoring the complexities when it comes to this subject though - but ultimately the only real fix comes from tackling deep rooted inefficiencies and requiring a lot of cost - compelling people by force onto public transport and/or walking or cycling doesn't produce an ideal outcome and is just trying to shift the problem onto individuals rather than go to the effort and cost of really tackling the problem.

The problem is the alternatives are never as convenient as a private car. If people are waiting to make a switch to alternatives when it is just as convenient as a private car, people will never switch as public transport will never ever match that convenience. I think that’s why it’s recognised that we might have to price people out of their cars instead.

 

[Rroff]

I quite agree. As much as I wouldn’t like it, if I was priced off the road I would simply have to find an alternative solution. Nothing else is ever going to be as convenient as your own car but we might just have to accept reduced convenience to get the desired outcome.

The problem goes so much deeper though - one of my colleagues for instance is getting on (60+), way past walking or cycling to work, public transport is a considerable discomfort for them - without their car they'd basically have to give up working, find a job closer to home (which has been made difficult by modern life) or find a job working from home which has its own significant challenges none the less they struggle with technology and their skill set and ability doesn't fit a lot of working from home jobs.

 

[fez]

I quite agree. As much as I wouldn’t like it, if I was priced off the road I would simply have to find an alternative solution. Nothing else is ever going to be as convenient as your own car but we might just have to accept reduced convenience to get the desired outcome.

Yeah, if we couldn't afford to keep 2 cars we wouldn't. If we didn't get value for money out of them we wouldn't keep them. If there was a better alternative we would consider getting rid of them. Personally I think its going to be a long time before we lose personal car ownership but I think we are massively too comfortable using our cars and jumping in them for any reason.

My mate works about 3/4 mile from his house and he drives without fail every day. He admits that if there is bad traffic he could do it quicker walking. It wouldn't be as comfortable though. So he drives.

Convenience ultimately wins out - you can fight against it but eventually one way or another people will revert to.

Some people seem to be totally ignoring the complexities when it comes to this subject though - but ultimately the only real fix comes from tackling deep rooted inefficiencies and requiring a lot of cost - compelling people by force onto public transport and/or walking or cycling doesn't produce an ideal outcome and is just trying to shift the problem onto individuals rather than go to the effort and cost of really tackling the problem.

Yeah, it requires a multi faceted approach. Make other modes of transport much better and disincentivise car journeys that are unnecessary.

 

[mrochester]

The problem goes so much deeper though - one of my colleagues for instance is getting on (60+), way past walking or cycling to work, public transport is a considerable discomfort for them - without their car they'd basically have to give up working, find a job closer to home (which has been made difficult by modern life) or find a job working from home which has its own significant challenges none the less they struggle with technology and their skill set and ability doesn't fit a lot of working from home jobs.

Absolutely there is no way to satisfy everyone. There’ll always be winners and losers.

 

[fez]

The problem goes so much deeper though - one of my colleagues for instance is getting on (60+), way past walking or cycling to work, public transport is a considerable discomfort for them - without their car they'd basically have to give up working, find a job closer to home (which has been made difficult by modern life) or find a job working from home which has its own significant challenges none the less they struggle with technology and their skill set and ability doesn't fit a lot of working from home jobs.

These sort of arguments are a bit silly though. We have exemptions for all sorts of things. We give people free bus passes at 60. We give people with disabilities motability vehicles. You can make sure that people who need a car aren't punished. Its all the people who work a few miles from work or drive 500m to the shop that we shouldn't be encouraging. We shouldn't be encouraging lots of idling traffic in town and city centres. Hubs like that should not be for cars.

 

[Rroff]

These sort of arguments are a bit silly though. We have exemptions for all sorts of things. We give people free bus passes at 60. We give people with disabilities motability vehicles. You can make sure that people who need a car aren't punished. Its all the people who work a few miles from work or drive 500m to the shop that we shouldn't be encouraging. We shouldn't be encouraging lots of idling traffic in town and city centres. Hubs like that should not be for cars.

Problem is you are going to need a horrifically complex system of exemptions in the real world without visiting considerable injustice on many people. A lot of this thinking it kind of like the mentality MS seemingly employs towards developing Windows with the seeming thinking everyone works a 9-5 job Monday to Friday and everyone's life revolves around that.

 

[a1ex2001]

Problem is you are going to need a horrifically complex system of exemptions in the real world without visiting considerable injustice on many people. A lot of this thinking it kind of like the mentality MS seemingly employs towards developing Windows with the seeming thinking everyone works a 9-5 job Monday to Friday and everyone's life revolves around that.

I don’t think anyone is saying is is easy or that there won’t be winners and losers but that cannot be used as an excuse to maintain the status quo where we will all be losers on an entirely different scale! At some point we have to end our love affair with the automobile and we are running out of time to keep putting it off.

 

[Rroff]

I don’t think anyone is saying is is easy or that there won’t be winners and losers but that cannot be used as an excuse to maintain the status quo where we will all be losers on an entirely different scale! At some point we have to end our love affair with the automobile and we are running out of time to keep putting it off.

Ultimately it is a very regressive approach to tackling the problem and ignoring just how big the issue is going to be for the losers - it isn't just some people who could/should be walking 5 minutes, etc. and largely shifting the burden to individuals rather than tackle the problem at its roots - for instance most businesses these days have optimised around a model where a significant percentage of employees have their own transport, many towns have inefficient, due to legacy/historic reasons, layouts when it comes to efficient use of motor vehicles and so on (or even adapting them for some more optimal form of transport - such as having an intra-town network of roads designed around small city cars, etc.).

 

[Trifid]

many towns have inefficient, due to legacy/historic reasons, layouts when it comes to efficient use of motor vehicles and so on (or even adapting them for some more optimal form of transport - such as having an intra-town network of roads designed around small city cars, etc.).

I see the reducing the number of car journeys within cities in favour of other means of transport as fixing an error of the past. Many American cities were hollowed out to make motorways dividing the city, city blocks removed for ground level parking and what they are left with is soulless places and traffic. By contrast, European cities where they have rebalanced away from private cars are so much more pleasant to be in.


I'd really recommend watching the Strongtowns playlist here, even if you don't agree with the message of reducing private car use, surely we can all agree we would rather not live in these places that have been 'rebuilt' around making private car usage the only way to get around?: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa

 

[dlockers]

Should just use the odd/even system in Paris. The British public are mostly thick unfortunately. God like characters like Musk and Peterson have really got them bruising their knees.

 

[Rroff]

I see the reducing the number of car journeys within cities in favour of other means of transport as fixing an error of the past. Many American cities were hollowed out to make motorways dividing the city, city blocks removed for ground level parking and what they are left with is soulless places and traffic. By contrast, European cities where they have rebalanced away from private cars are so much more pleasant to be in.


I'd really recommend watching the Strongtowns playlist here, even if you don't agree with the message of reducing private car use, surely we can all agree we would rather not live in these places that have been 'rebuilt' around making private car usage the only way to get around?: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa

That goes back to one of the problems I mentioned early in the thread - most UK larger urban areas haven't been rebuilt around private car use or rebuilt (often post WW2) in a way some of the examples of European cities where rebalancing away from private car use works better. Most UK towns and cities are a cluster **** of approaches over the years leaving a mess whatever you do and to be honest most of the modern builds from scratch trying to fix that such as Milton Keynes just end up very soulless as well - though the only real solution is to phase out existing town layouts and transition to better designed from the ground up urban areas (but that isn't going to happen/go down well either).

EDIT: Personally I'm neither for/against the message of reducing private car use as such - I am against people advocating for measures that suit them here and now they'll almost certainly have a different opinion on at a different part of their life, largely uncaring for the issues it will have, without really fixing the underlying problem(s) and shifting most of the burden on to other people.

 

[Mrwong]

If you offer people a carrot and they won’t take it, you then have to beat them with a stick.

You offer them the carrot they take it, then you beat them with the stick.

 

[fez]

EDIT: Personally I'm neither for/against the message of reducing private car use as such - I am against people advocating for measures that suit them here and now they'll almost certainly have a different opinion on at a different part of their life, largely uncaring for the issues it will have, without really fixing the underlying problem(s) and shifting most of the burden on to other people.

These measures wouldn't suit most people at all, its just that plenty of people understand that the current way we are doing things is not sustainable and not good for the environment or peoples health. We need a new paradigm. We don't have good public transport and its a bit chicken or the egg but part of it is because its a bit **** and part of it is that not enough people use it so it doesn't make money.

We should be building infrastructure around getting about by public transport, walking and cycling. We should be investing in eBike infrastructure and modes of transport that take fitness out of the equation if thats a problem. We should be encouraging communities, not ****** satellite house estates that exist purely to cram people into as small a space as possible and make as much money as possible for developers.

 

[Mrwong]

These measures wouldn't suit most people at all, its just that plenty of people understand that the current way we are doing things is not sustainable and not good for the environment or peoples health. We need a new paradigm. We don't have good public transport and its a bit chicken or the egg but part of it is because its a bit **** and part of it is that not enough people use it so it doesn't make money.

We should be building infrastructure around getting about by public transport, walking and cycling. We should be investing in eBike infrastructure and modes of transport that take fitness out of the equation if thats a problem. We should be encouraging communities, not ****** satellite house estates that exist purely to cram people into as small a space as possible and make as much money as possible for developers.

Ban flying for holidays or even better everyone has 1 flying credit they could use or sell.
Planes chuck out enormous amounts of political air contamination. Let’s see how that pans out with the middle class lefties.

 

[fez]

Ban flying for holidays or even better everyone has 1 flying credit they could use or sell.
Planes chuck out enormous amounts of political air contamination. Let’s see how that pans out with the middle class lefties.

The difference is that getting to another country without flying is largely impossible in a lot of cases. Getting to your local shop to buy a pint of milk without a car is not. We should 100% be punishing people for very polluting behaviour though. As with all these things, you would have to base it on wealth or you are simply pushing the burden onto the poor and letting the moderately wealthy get away with it.

We should also be doing things like forcing companies to use properly recyclable packaging. By that I mean not plastic which says "tray recycled, film not" when the film is welded to the tray.

All these things should be part of an overall move to be less polluting and wasteful but we are not going to achieve this by following our current paradigm.

 

[Rroff]

The difference is that getting to another country without flying is largely impossible in a lot of cases. Getting to your local shop to buy a pint of milk without a car is not. We should 100% be punishing people for very polluting behaviour though. As with all these things, you would have to base it on wealth or you are simply pushing the burden onto the poor and letting the moderately wealthy get away with it.

We should also be doing things like forcing companies to use properly recyclable packaging. By that I mean not plastic which says "tray recycled, film not" when the film is welded to the tray.

All these things should be part of an overall move to be less polluting and wasteful but we are not going to achieve this by following our current paradigm.

If we are going to these lengths of forcing people, which isn't just going to mostly impact those who should/could be using other methods than the car for popping out to the shops, etc., then we should also be banning flying for holidays, etc. (strangely enough the same people often aren't so happy with that idea when it is something which affects them).

 

[Mrwong]

The difference is that getting to another country without flying is largely impossible in a lot of cases. Getting to your local shop to buy a pint of milk without a car is not. We should 100% be punishing people for very polluting behaviour though. As with all these things, you would have to base it on wealth or you are simply pushing the burden onto the poor and letting the moderately wealthy get away with it.

We should also be doing things like forcing companies to use properly recyclable packaging. By that I mean not plastic which says "tray recycled, film not" when the film is welded to the tray.

All these things should be part of an overall move to be less polluting and wasteful but we are not going to achieve this by following our current paradigm.

But that is what is going on now, with the congestion zones, etc. if you can afford to pay you pay if you can't you walk and ditch the car. This way of charging is grossly unfair on those that are low to low middle earners.

You either ban flying or everyone has 1 credit sir credit which they can sell.

Unfortunately, lots of people will start to lose their jobs and I mean lots. Then factor in A.I and the loss of service sector jobs.

When it comes to GPs well that's a dying trade, with the advancements in A.I and blood analysis their days are numbered. This goes for solicitors and account's. The middle class are going to be hit very hard in the job market. I don't think many have realised the real impact A.I is going to have.

Funny the jobs that will not have an issue are building trade electricians etc.