Is it true that "no one wants" car free towns?

[jæd]

It literally doesn't follow from what I said...the fact that (as I said) some people conceal their agoraphobia by using their cars, doesn't mean that everyone does. It's a non-point. I wouldn't disagree with what you have said above, would anyone disagree with it? It seems like the bleedin' obvious?

Ditto the previous one (non s) - haven't got time to go into that one, work is calling...

Then why bother posting it up...?

TBH, it seems you have some kind of car or traffic phobia. Eg: Its completely possible to drive across London on a Sunday, even in the afternoon. Anyhow, Stockwell *is* the outskirts...

 

[fredfelt]

I think this is what they are doing in this Vauban place near Freiberg in Germany but I haven't been to visit yet.

I've heard about that place as well.

In Gronigen 60% of all trips are made by bike. No one is stopping you from driving, but planners have given cycling priority over driving.

One of the many benefits has resulted in a massive reduction in transport expenditure for the city (less than 10% of expenditure for 60% trips).

I don’t know if residents complain about problems with driving to out of town shopping centres once a fortnight though. However one thing that’s certain is that bikes which are capable of carrying kids and large loads of shopping are becoming increasingly popular now that the roads are safe for everyone to use, rather than just the motorist.

 

[untethered]

Ok, people seem to be confusing taking away cars from exisitng, car-oriented towns, with creating entirely new towns that are designed to be used without a car.

It's perfectly possible. It requires a certain density, and a different approach to zoning - mixed housing/shopping and commercial. There is no reason why everyone in one of these towns can't live less than 5 minutes walk from everything they need on a regular basis. For longer journeys, rentable electric cars and
public transport can get you around. If you start from the premise that the private car is not needed, everything else can change.

Indeed. I strongly recommend the book Carfree Cities, which examines in very great detail how one would construct a carfree city while still providing essential services, including transport, to its residents.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carfree-Cities-J-H-Crawford/dp/9057270420/

The point needs to be reiterated that very many people live a carfree lifestyle in our existing cities, mostly through necessity rather than choice. These include people from all walks of life, young and old, with and without jobs and families, etc. If they can do it in cities designed for cars, imagine how much easier it would be for everyone to do it in a place which was designed without them.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Also its almost inevitable that no-cars would prompt an expansion in bus services.

cos the near 100 billion spent each year on combined car and motor transport would of course all be diverted to public transport with no adjustment of the finances of the govt at all oh no...

It really alarms me that some people are allowed to go outside by themselves let alone vote...

 

[fredfelt]

If they can do it in cities designed for cars, imagine how much easier it would be for everyone to do it in a place which was designed without them.

I think we need to be practical though. In cities cars need to be accommodiated, but they should not be prioriorised or encouraged.

 

[Brainaddict]

I've started to become fascinated by the process by which many people, when faced with a new idea, come up with an objection (perhaps perfectly valid) and then immediately dismiss the whole idea because of that.

It seems many people never say to themselves "Okay, I've identified a problem, but is it an *insurmountable* problem? Are there solutions to the problem that would still leave the benefits of the original idea intact?"

It's just "I see a problem so that's a bad idea."

Fascinating, in the psychological sense.

 

[untethered]

I think we need to be practical though. In cities cars need to be accommodiated, but they should not be prioriorised or encouraged.

As Crispy said, there is the issue of how you transition/retrofit existing cities for the post-car world and what you do with new developments.

I can see no good justification for building new towns and cities around the increasingly shaky assumption that most people will move around them in a powered personal vehicle.

 

[Leafster]

In your case I'd suggest taking a bike on the train and cycling the last bit but I know from personal experience that Sussex roads and lanes are not cycle-safe because of the speeds drivers take them at.

I have no problem cycling around Sussex, I used to do it all the time but I can't quite see my octagarian mum sitting on the crossbar of my bike when I take her out for lunch.

I do think if a largely pedestrianised zone is very large then there should be at least a few buses running through it (so okay, it's not completely pedestrianised, but mostly).

So I give you...park and ride!

The solutions man

I totally agree. Large pedestrianised areas do need public transport to carry people around within the zone or to the edges/other transport links to enable them to travel easily.

Ok, people seem to be confusing taking away cars from exisitng, car-oriented towns, with creating entirely new towns that are designed to be used without a car.

It's perfectly possible. It requires a certain density, and a different approach to zoning - mixed housing/shopping and commercial. There is no reason why everyone in one of these towns can't live less than 5 minutes walk from everything they need on a regular basis. For longer journeys, rentable electric cars and
public transport can get you around. If you start from the premise that the private car is not needed, everything else can change. <snip>

The bit I've highlighted is a major problem as I see it. There was a plan to redevelop the middle of Croydon (it may still go ahead but I'm not sure). The major premise for the redevelopment seemed to be that Croydon could not compete as a major "shopping destination" without it. I felt at the time (and still do) that any large-scale development should include housing and commercial elements to bring the community closer to the resources they need not push them apart.

 

[untethered]

The bit I've highlighted is a major problem as I see it. There was a plan to redevelop the middle of Croydon (it may still go ahead but I'm not sure). The major premise for the redevelopment seemed to be that Croydon could not compete as a major "shopping destination" without it. I felt at the time (and still do) that any large-scale development should include housing and commercial elements to bring the community closer to the resources they need not push them apart.

This is an effect of lightly-regulated development. Land/property values in the commercial town centre will increase because commercial tenants can afford to pay more than most private ones. There may be some expensive housing in the town centre but it will be mostly unsuitable for families (eg. flats) and very little social or affordable housing. The market left to its own devices will just perpetuate this cycle.

 

[Cobbles]

As streets are car free it's a pleasure to get to your local shops, so you willn't miss you car at all.

Except when I want to buy more than one or two bags of shopping, a case or three of wine, a new laptop etc. etc. etc.

I do shop locally as I have an excellent fishmonger and 2 butchers both of whom are game dealers within half a mile but if I want bulk crap like bogroll or detergent, then I take the car and fill the boot once a month or so - so much better than tootling around on buses every day or two, spewing out particulates on a regular basis.

Make it difficult for people to park and shop in cities and people vote with thr tyres and head for the retail parks. QED

 

[fredfelt]

I've started to become fascinated by the process by which many people, when faced with a new idea, come up with an objection (perhaps perfectly valid) and then immediately dismiss the whole idea because of that.

It seems many people never say to themselves "Okay, I've identified a problem, but is it an *insurmountable* problem? Are there solutions to the problem that would still leave the benefits of the original idea intact?"

It's just "I see a problem so that's a bad idea."

Fascinating, in the psychological sense.

Me two. I've conlcuded that you protect yourself from new ideas, or ideas which may challenge your outlook, by labelling the person delivering the idea as someone who is broadly contra to your ideology.

Eg Fundamentalists / Atheists. Pro choice / Pro life. Petrol head / anti car. This way you can dismiss the whole concept without letting it challenge your preconceptions.

Labeling people in this way makes it easier for you to make sense of the world, while also helping to polarise your outlook. But I digress.

 

[untethered]

Except when I want to buy more than one or two bags of shopping, a case or three of wine, a new laptop etc. etc. etc.

How do you think other people manage? My household is carfree and we don't seem to have a problem getting shopping. You can manage quite a bit just on foot or bike using a trolley or cart and for anything really big you can just get it delivered, which is much more efficient than everyone having their own motor transport.

 

[Fruitloop]

Crikey, just the names on this thread let you know it's going nowhere. It's the voice of the machine, discoursing to itself (well, to Brainaddict) in the void.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Anyhow, Stockwell *is* the outskirts...

Hardly... takes a good hour to get out of London from Stockwell, even going straight down the A23.

 

[Leafster]

This is an effect of lightly-regulated development. Land/property values in the commercial town centre will increase because commercial tenants can afford to pay more than most private ones. There may be some expensive housing in the town centre but it will be mostly unsuitable for families (eg. flats) and very little social or affordable housing. The market left to its own devices will just perpetuate this cycle.

Agreed. The planning regulations need to be changed to ensure that large scale developments must include elements which provide housing for all groups of the population.

 

[Leafster]

Crikey, just the names on this thread let you know it's going nowhere. It's the voice of the machine, discoursing to itself (well, to Brainaddict) in the void.

Really? I was finding the discussions very interesting. It's just a pity I can't spend more time to focus on it as I've got to work. The posters may have there own agendas but don't we all?

 

[fredfelt]

Except when I want to buy more than one or two bags of shopping, a case or three of wine, a new laptop etc. etc. etc.

I do shop locally as I have an excellent fishmonger and 2 butchers both of whom are game dealers within half a mile but if I want bulk crap like bogroll or detergent, then I take the car and fill the boot once a month or so - so much better than tootling around on buses every day or two, spewing out particulates on a regular basis.

Make it difficult for people to park and shop in cities and people vote with thr tyres and head for the retail parks. QED

I think you have got my point Cobbles. Well done. I was talking about 60% of journeys being made by bike in Groningen. Then for times when you really need to use the car, like the circumstance you mention, you use it. Simple. The point is for the vast majority of journeys in Groningen you do not need you car.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I've started to become fascinated by the process by which many people, when faced with a new idea, come up with an objection (perhaps perfectly valid) and then immediately dismiss the whole idea because of that.

It seems many people never say to themselves "Okay, I've identified a problem, but is it an *insurmountable* problem? Are there solutions to the problem that would still leave the benefits of the original idea intact?"

It's just "I see a problem so that's a bad idea."

Fascinating, in the psychological sense.

you don't think that it's the factoring of experince in that if group a with a known agenda or impalementation record get hold of idea 1 and then fail to notice flaw x or flaw y then they are likely to continue with the project and potentially exaserbate the issue.

a classic example would be that people before Iraq said it'll be a bloody nightmare and there'll be hell all over the middle east for years to come which was decried at the time as people suggesting that nothing should be done and cowardace as i recall... excpet that the people who said it had some recollection of the reputation of the people involved and knew it would be whoelsale badly implamented....

one uses one previous experince to make these kind of judgments, so in this respect it's not different from any other descion making process...

 

[co-op]

Then why bother posting it up...?

I think we've got at cross-purposes here...I'm abandoning point, if there ever was one...

 

[co-op]

Ok, people seem to be confusing taking away cars from exisitng, car-oriented towns, with creating entirely new towns that are designed to be used without a car.

Nailhead, meet hammer.

And these are supposed to be "ecotowns". Nothing that is based on cars will be ecological in any meaningful sense of the word until we have working fuel cells or something similar. Until then cars are guaranteed to be part of the CO2 emissions problem and will also be creating lifestyles that will be literally unsustainable when the oil runs out (?not long? - we presumably want towns that are going to last at least a few decades?)

Everyone on this who is arguing that this won't work for them - they are right. Nearly every town and suburb in the country is designed for the car, and you couldn't take it away without breaking essential systems. Which is why this sort of living requires wholesale rethinking of the design and layout of towns. If these pilot projects can prove the iea, then we can start to rebuild and change our existing towns and cities.

I don't agree with the idea that nearly every town and suburb in this country is designed for the car. Of course loads of post WW2 ones are. But none of our city centres were, they vastly pre-date cars, and the phenomenon of "suburbia" itself is completely created by the train. Vast swathes of 1920s and 1930s suburbia were built without the car as the expected focus of transport. That's why it's so difficult to park in loads of those places now; the roads are too narrow (especially for today's space-guzzlers) and there are no off-road parking places.

In many ways the train-oriented suburb is rather an appealing example of city planning. A small knot of shops and services emerges around a local hub created by the train and its access to major centres of shops and services, jobs and other major nodes of transport - mainline stations etc.

 

[soulman]

Park and ride. But in reverse. There's a car lot at the edge of the housing. This area you have your car pool, or maybe even your private vehicle parked. Secure parking for bikes and any disabled carrages, including three wheeled bikes, are at the centre of your community with space to park your bike next to your car.

With someting like 50% of all car journies being under a mile this cuts out lots of uncecessary car travel. Then immediatley in terms of polution and RTA's your kids are safe to play in the streets.

This way the best locations can be used for people to live in, and more undesirable locations can be used for cars. It seems that there are massive savings to be had in terms of land usage (use space more efficiently) and urban design (it's very expensive to cater for cars opposed to walking / cycling).

As streets are car free it's a pleasure to get to your local shops, so you willn't miss you car at all.

Interesting idea. Like it.

 

[co-op]

Anyway the point of the OP was to encourage people who think that car-free towns should be given a try, to sign the petition...here,

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/CarfreeEcoTowns.

 

[Crispy]

In many ways the train-oriented suburb is rather an appealing example of city planning. A small knot of shops and services emerges around a local hub created by the train and its access to major centres of shops and services, jobs and other major nodes of transport - mainline stations etc.

This is true. Those narrow sreets are good for cyling and walking, and the occasional rented car for deliveries. transport of large items, disabled access. Such vehicles could be pooled at the end of each road, for example.

You'd still need some wide road vehicle arteries, but they would be strictly for getting in and out of the town, not getting around it.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

And these are supposed to be "ecotowns". Nothing that is based on Human interaction will be ecological in any meaningful sense of the word until we have working fuel cells or something similar. Until then cars are guaranteed to be part of the CO2 emissions problem and will also be creating lifestyles that will be literally unsustainable when the oil runs out (?not long? - we presumably want towns that are going to last at least a few decades?)

you are never going to have carbon netural human endevour period. it cannot be done. not while you breath!! think about it.

If this is about minimising the problem then the whole thing needs to be looked at as an entire problem. That means dealing with the built in factors such as the trend to almost force car change every 3 years (thus making it unsustainable and increasing the carbon footprint) looking at the design of towns villages, design of roads, etc etc etc... these simplistic concepts of remvoing this factor isn't practical is deviseive and is designed to create a prolier than thou attitude

 

[co-op]

you are never going to have carbon netural human endevour period. it cannot be done. not while you breath!! think about it.

No. You think about it. Exhaling CO2 during respiration is carbon neutral.



Next!

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

No. You think about it. Exhaling CO2 during respiration is carbon neutral.



Next!

it is how so you are producing carbon and releasing it into the enviroment... indeed even dying has a carbon cost involved...

 

[co-op]

it is how so you are producing carbon and releasing it into the enviroment... indeed even dying has a carbon cost involved...

I haven't got time to explain the current carbon cycle just now beyond saying that the CO2 that matters is that sequestered from the atmosphere millenia ago, ie fossil fuels. Children do this for GCSE, it's not complex, google it.

But you haven't understood it, that much I will tell you.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

Yes, and in those days, you could smoke in a pub. I seem to recall that London has experienced killer smogs in the past, and generally worse pollution than you experience today. I'm sure part of that related to the use of coal for energy, but probably all those lorries going to all those markets didn't help matters. Modern cars produce a fraction of the pollutants emitted by those vehicles. It's just that no one cared back then, and no one studied it.

Tbh I'm not sure a town's cars would produce less emissions than lorries doing deliveries to smaller shops (considering lorries would still have to do deliveries to supermarkets anyway).

You don't have children to shop for either. Believe me, my weekly shop can't be carried home in a rucksack the way maybe it could have been done when I was single.

If you were to talk of relying on 'local' shops rather than supermarket there would be no fruit, veg, decent bread or anything around here.

Tbh I did think of people with children after I logged off after posting last. But then I also remember my mum regulary took me shopping to the local market when I was little, and I was not the best behaved child. I recognise of course that some parents would have a lot more difficulty with this, e.g. larger families or those with children with behavioural problems or disabilities themselves, so I'd never generalise that all families would experience no problems. As Crispy points out earlier though, we are talking about towns specifically designed for this. So in my ideal town, there would be facilities to help families in these situations.

I think my original point was more to counteract the complete "it couldn't work" attitude, from at least one person who I'm pretty sure has no children. Sometimes I think it's very easy to say "it's impossible" when actually when it's looked at in more detail, there are ways round stuff. And I do know that if you're single and mobile, being carless is doable, more so than some people who have had cars for a while think, even in towns which aren't designed specifically to be carless.

In re: to local shops not having the stocks, as I mentioned I'm talking about a specifically designed town which would have appropriate stocks in local shops, which would be essential in a car limited area. I mean, if there were very local shops which had your basic supplies, would that reduce the time most people spent in supermarkets which they have to drive to? Tbh I think whether a place was car free or not, well stocked local shops would be useful anywhere. I guess the reason that there aren't so many is because people go to the supermarkets.

 

[_angel_]

Think community green grocers etc would help. There's none round here. If they were subsidized might help overreliance on supermarket. They're rubbish for fruit and veg too.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I haven't got time to explain the current carbon cycle just now beyond saying that the CO2 that matters is that sequestered from the atmosphere millenia ago, ie fossil fuels. Children do this for GCSE, it's not complex, google it.

But you haven't understood it, that much I will tell you.

i understand it impicitly thanks all the same. however it's not as simple as you'd like it to be gcse remvoes a load of informaiton which is deemed unesacerry.

carbon is the substance which is unbonded form causes problems in humans it is bonded while we are alive but like all living things will become unbonded when we decay. The carbon we produce through breathing is also a problem (as is the methane...) in terms of producing and releasing carbon into our enviroment.

if you think about it the act of eatting food which has been grown (and therefore during this process has also bonded the unbonded carbon and stored it up) this is then released via the process of both mastication and defication afterward this released unbonded carbon then goes into the enviroment and can then pose a probelm...

as i said name one action humans do which doesn't have carbon impact... (hint there isn't one)