I do wonder when the electorate is going to wake up to the fact that these initiatives are costing them alot of money. Not everyone can afford to get a new car to keep up with the latest fad. It appears that politicians from all sides are ignoring this right now and I suspect alot of people aren’t speaking up directly because they’ll be accused of killing the planet and their childrens future, whereas actually they are making their children’s lives harder. There have been a few “I’m giving back my EV” stories recently, but the media trend is still “we are all killing the planet!!!”. I wonder..
Using aircraft towed banners will only lead people to notice the 8% aviation contributes to the NOx.
Personally I’d say that limiting cars and all that is ok as long as you provide a decent alternative and limiting through traffic in residental areas to the main thoroughfares is ok, as long as these roads can take the traffic!
But alas, everyone looks at Copenhagen who invested billions and where it took 20+ years to make it work. But when local politics try to emulate them, basically the only thing that remains from the original carrot and stick is just the stick. And the rough end at that, because: “My voters don’t need a car in Berlin anyway! They don’t even posess a car”
On the other hand, there is a lot of public money put in roads and if the electric scooter rage taught us anything, it’s the fact that one has to rethink the old adage of public spaces for everyone – because when someone, in this case scooters (or cars) just take up more and more of that public space like a cancerous growth, one has to put a stop to it. Especially today, as cars used by a single commuter in some cases exceed three tons and take up space accordingly.
Here in the suburb where I live, many people park on the curb, obstructing traffic while keeping gardening implements in their garage. It’s only fair to have everyone pay a fair price for the use of the public roads according to your useage and when you consider the cost of making a road – maybe even include the property cost – car owners are heavily subsidized.
Concerning pollution and PM10… does London still allow private fireworks? Germany does, too, but they don’t take measurements on the day after, because that would “falsify” the statistics….
Inkognito wrote:
Personally I’d say that limiting cars and all that is ok as long as you provide a decent alternative and limiting through traffic in residental areas to the main thoroughfares is ok, as long as these roads can take the traffic!
They don’t! No one even tries. And what about the local businesses? Imagine you have a place where you have customers driving to you, and at some point there is a hard stop preventing them from doing so.
Or the street next to you stopped all the traffic and now it has been redirected through your residential street? Not fun. Or people with limited mobility – in the UK is ABSOLUTE nightmare for some people to get the blue badge (I know that for a fact). How they should get to certain places? Right now they just pay for everything, with hard stop, they cannot go there.
I strongly believe that changing rules like that would be materially affecting your place of residence/work and the cost of the real estate. It should not be done by some local council with 1.5 people doing it as a part-time activity, after they read the brochure “how to cover you aXX while you do anything for your local council”.
Overuse of cars is a blight on cities. ULEZ doesn’t go far enough.
Inkognito wrote:
Personally I’d say that limiting cars and all that is ok as long as you provide a decent alternative and limiting through traffic in residental areas to the main thoroughfares is ok, as long as these roads can take the traffic!
Induced demand is real, and part of the idea of LTNs is to reverse the deleterious effects of induced demand. The sheer amount of cars on our road means every extra car is making things overall worse, rather than better – and we hit that point many years ago now. Forget the global environment for a moment, the gross overuse of cars today have ruined our local environment through noise, the amount of space that has to be turned over to parking them, often destroying nice buildings in the process (and I don’t think “as pretty as a car park” has ever been a phrase used in any language), and the danger they present to anyone not in a car.
No I am not anti car, I own one (and 4 motorcycles), but I use it very sparingly. Even when I worked 12 miles away from home I very rarely used the car to do that journey. All our local journeys are done on foot or by bike, yes, including the supermarket which many claim is impossible without a car, and things like taking the tree prunings down to the tip (with the bonus that it doesn’t mean I have to spend another hour getting broken bits of palm tree out of the back of my car). Too many people insist on driving these trivial distances to the detriment of the quality of life of anyone living nearby.
alioth wrote:
things like taking the tree prunings down to the tip
You’re lucky to have a tip that accepts pedestrians or bicycles. Mine – and it seems many others – will only let you drive in, for ‘safety reasons’.
alioth wrote:
Too many people insist on driving these trivial distances to the detriment of the quality of life of anyone living nearby.
@alioth, how many people you know that REALLY drive to London for “fun” from outside M25? They might do it once a year maybe…
And again, you miss a limited mobility issue.
I think a better solution is to say to people “if you want cleaner air, go and live somewhere else”. Over-population is the issue that no politician wants to touch.
Absolutely, and meanwhile in my area the government encourages building permits for high density housing specifically, actually requiring it in most development scenarios, while collecting annual property tax from every new house and apartment built. That is a disease, not a plan.
The common ground with that and the thread is that the ‘solution’ to any problem finds favor with government if it removes people’s money and gives it to…. government. If that causes other problems and doesn’t address the real problem (population density), that’s OK.
Lots of banner towing here BTW, and it’s fun to watch. Wouldn’t you need a twin engined tow plane (or helicopter?) to be be legal for the OP’s purpose, given the wacky UK ‘glide clear’ regulation that applies to flying over urban areas?
arj1 wrote:
And again, you miss a limited mobility issue.
Driving and life in general would be far easier for people of limited mobility if perfectly able bodied people didn’t clog up the road with their cars, especially on trivially short journeys which can easily be done on foot or by bike. Every motorist who decides to leave the car at home and walk or bike is not competing for parking space with people of limited mobility.
Silvaire wrote:
given the wacky UK ‘glide clear’ regulation that applies to flying over urban areas?
The US has the same wacky rule. See 14 CFR 91.119 (a): it’s just rather more vigorously enforced in the UK.
§ 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General.
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:
(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
Nothing in 91.119 prevents banner towing over cities, nor my single engined operation over cities every time I fly.
Obviously there is no FAA prohibition intended for single engined aircraft operation over cities at 1000 ft agl, or lower when operating from an urban airport. The intent is that you land on any available street, park, golf course etc, minimizing hazard to those on the ground just as you when parking a car that breaks in a city. Not that you get harassed and fined.
§ 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General.
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:
(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft
Silvaire wrote:
given the wacky UK ‘glide clear’ regulation that applies to flying over urban areas
That’s not the same whacky regulation as 14 CFR 91.119(a)?
—
91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General.
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an
aircraft below the following altitudes:
(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an
emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the
surface.
Administrator v. del Rio, NTSB Order No. EA-3617 (adopted 1 Jul 1992) (pdf), footnote 6:
[Footnote] 6
See Administrator v. Michelson, 3 NTSB 3111 (1980), Aff’d,
Michelson v. N.T.S.B, 679 F.2d 900 (9th Cir. 1982), a case
involving a low helicopter pass over a resort. We stated that
“`[U]ndue hazard’ [as found in FAR section 91.79(a),]… embraces
a situation in which a pilot’s cruising altitude would not likely
permit the aircraft to land without striking, or passing
dangerously close to, people or property on the surface. … To
prove a violation of section 91.79(a), the Administrator did not
have to show that it would have been impossible for respondent to
have made an emergency landing without injury or damage to
persons on the surface in the event his engine had failed at some
point along his low pass over the resort. The Administrator had
to show only that an emergency landing from the altitude
respondent passed through presented an unreasonable risk of such
harm.” Id. at 3113-14. See also Administrator v. Colvig, 4 NTSB
202 (1982).
14 CFR 91.79(a) has been moved to 14 CFR 91.119(a).
Post plagiarised from here.
