mr.chicken

Not quite East Dulwich, but does anyone know what happened to the greengrocer "Seasons of England" which used to occupy one of the arches in Herne Hill? It just vanished a while ago, with no notice, no sign up on the building and even the website is unchanged.

Lots of people here don't change their clothing. I doubt kids are specifically changing into school uniform just to cycle to school for example. And I see plenty of people cycling in normal clothes going about their business.

I haven't found any especially good resources for planning routes, unfortunately. I've usually found I can modify the routes making them a bit longer to avoid heavy traffic sections in areas I know.

I'm a non parent pro LTN person. To me, LTNs have opened up the local area in a way which it just wasn't open before. I've lived in London on and off a long time and have seen traffic levels go up and up and this made getting around by bike more and more dangerous to the point where I gave up on it about a decade ago. The buses aren't amazing round here and they were often stuck in heavy traffic before the LTNs. Now I have other options, and have started seeing how various routes are on lime bikes. It feels safe and accessible again on the roads in a way it hasn't in a very long time. I've now been as far afield as Clapham Junction and I got there faster than the bus, plus with no waiting time. The low traffic roads and signposted cycle routes are really good.

If this is correct, it's a strong indication that business's opinions on whether or not parking restrictions will harm their business are divorced from reality. The parklet space was about the size of one large SUV. It would often have a bike (noooo!!! lycra!!1!!! the horror!!!11one!1!1) or two chained up and a customer or two of one of the nearby coffee shops sitting there eating a pastry and drinking a coffee. That's now been replaced with one large SUV. It's almost always a huge SUV because of course it is. Oh and of course the SUV is parked there for a while, sometimes hours. It's less pleasant and there's less seating so the coffee shops are now more often full. I'm sure the one customer an hour arriving by SUV offsets all of that. But it's good, right, if we despise the rich people who must be going there. Much better to have one rich person dump their Canyonero in the spot for an hour than actually spend some of the excess money they have in a local shop.

Wind resistance force is quadratic, with power required to overcome the resistance being cubic. But since the distance you're traveling is the same regardless of speed, total energy consumed by air resistance is quadratic with speed. (approximately). Note this is still very bad: at 30 miles an hour you'll expend 2.25 times as much energy overcoming air resistance than at 20 miles an hour. But technically, not exponential 🙂

Well, if true, that makes the ULEZ even more important: if substantially more than 10% of cars are spewing huge amounts of noxious fumes, it's even more pressing to get them off the road ASAP. I'm sure @heartblock can fill you in on the deadly toll of air pollution. But let's look at a bit more realistically. The RAC which is a notably pro car organization has of course disputed TfL's claim. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65057890 And their estimate is that it's... er... 85% not 90%. Which means for the purposes of this particular discussion the difference is essentially irrelevant. If every ULEZ non compliant driver reduced their journeys to 0 overnight then it would have a temporary 15% dent in the number of journeys. That's if the RAC's most more pessimistic figures (and they have as much incentive to overestimate as you reckon TFL does to underestimate), and of course every ULEZ non compliant car never moved again. We both know the latter won't happen. Well actually I figure this means you do in fact agree with me. Instead of disputing the point you're just grandstanding about "Mr Khans lie".

Nope! That makes busses less polluting but does nothing to tackle car use. 90% of cars in London are ULEZ compliant. This may be good for pollution, but it's not going to have a substantial and certainly not long term impact on car use. Good for pollution and the one thing that would have an impact on car use for now if it was implemented right now. But we can also see from the congestion charge than any change will likely be temporary, and get swallowed up by the ever growing number of car. Two things which have NOTHING to do with reducing the number of cars. So no, you are not advocating reducing car use you are only advocating reducing pollution in general including cars. That's good and all but those are NOT the same thing. Ultimately having a load of electric cars clogging up the roads so electric buses can't get through will not improve things for those trying to get around the area safely, cheaply and quickly.

For the first time in my life I voted Labour in the last round precisely because of their record on this kind of thing. There is no "still" about it. Never gonna vote Tory but the Lib Dems decided to try and mop up those Tory votes by aligning themselves strongly against the LTNs etc. Hard no from me. You know I'm pretty sure the CPZs are real not false.

No you wouldn't. You say you do, but you are not prepared to put more than lip service towards it. You do not have a single suggestion which is actually (a) practical to implement and (b) would reduce car usage. It did. LTNs have reduced car use compared to the rising car use everywhere else.

I heard it was a dentist as well. I stopped to chat to the builders and that's what they said.

... but in practice will object in the strongest terms to anything the council does to actually reduce car usage.

@first mate hm yeah I don't think that was good. I didn't mean it like that, so I retract that. Sorry.

We both know that's not true. You read other things here too, some of which you're pointedly ignoring! Or maybe it's just that you're re-imagining past writing in the same way people re-imagine past local traffic.

You seem a bit sensitive about light mockery, @first mate. Might I recommend that if you dislike being on the receiving end then you perhaps should avoid being on the giving end? Edit: Boris uses those tactics for a reason, specifically because reason, logic and facts aren't on his side so he wants to convince people by appealing to their lower instincts. Your defense is that you're not racist. I'm 100% sure that's true, but don't you think that's an awfully low bar? If should give you pause for thought if you adopt the tactics of awful people even if you believe you are using them for good.

It was a fun little light mockery, comparing your arguing tactics to that of our erstwhile prime minister. I though you were just telling me how a little light mockery was entirely fine, but now you jump to ridiculous extremes (racism! what a silly idea). Have I misunderstood you about mockery? Is it not something you're happy with?

Yeah continuously dragging Lycra into the conversation is just "a bit of mockery" and not a peculiar obsession. Sure thing! Though I'm a bit unclear as to what you want to mock a group based on their clothing.

What a curious world you live in! When people spew hatred without ever explicitly saying they hate something it's easy for me to deduce the hatred is there. You on the other hand seem to believe in a kind of get-out-of-gaol free card if you never say the magic words. Doesn't work like that. Merely wearing is "obsession" in your mind? Are you obsessed with underpants then: they too are unnecessary. No my fine fellow, everyone who drags Lycra into the topic of conversation especially in the context of how much they hate cyclists is deeply obsessed. That includes you. People with a healthy attitude don't care nearly so strongly what other people are wearing, and certainly don't use general categories of clothing as an excuse to hate someone. Interesting! something you're not denying. Anyhow, no deflection: the solution is clearly to close the bridge to cars., because it's cars which are stopping the buses, not bikes. You keep deflecting from that. It's alllmost like you will reflexive fight against anything which challenges the prime position cars have enjoyed for decades. 😉 I have no idea what the "LCC playback" is. Are you writing this while tired and emotional? This makes even less sense than usual.

What are you referring to?

Well looks like I've triggered the ire of the hivemind by daring to report a positive experience with an LTN and (worse!) a bicycle. Let's see what we have: Dogpiling Aggressively bizarre misreads of what was posted A peculiar obsession with Lycra A very unhealthy hatred of cyclists Insistence on dangerous infrastructure---is this related to point 4? Must be an new low! And notable by what we don't have: Acceptance of anything which would decrease car usage We are coming for your SUVs. You will be forced into Lycra for your journeys around London. Resistance is futile.

My true colours have been clear all along: I don't have a pathological hatred for a mode of transport I have used maybe five times in the last decade. Also, dude, what is your obsession with Lycra? Do you like to police everyone's clothing or just people you hate? We both know exceptions could easily be made for taxis, disabled drivers and emergency vehicles. And indeed any vehicles out of congested hours. But I will give you bonus points for claiming the moral high ground in favour of, well, every demographic that's underrepresented in car usage while advocating that nothing be done to restrict cars! 😉 I don't particularly see why package delivery should be exempted. It's a big cause of congestion and pollution and much of it can be done by bike.

That's some of the most dangerous and bike hostile car infrastructure: anything goes wrong and cyclists get smeared into pieces along the barriers. It's not surprising they changed something so awful. You're right, they should have removed a car lane instead!

Wait... so TFL installed those huge anti terrorist barriers on waterloo bridge to prevent cars being used as weapons and buses then get stuck in car traffic and somehow bicycles are the problem?

I wasn't replying to you, so I wasn't attempting to address it. But since you bring it up, no bus ever got stuck in traffic before LTNs. Plus I recently was on a bus with a rather unpleasant passenger. I think it's important to note that incident happened AFTER the LTNs were introduced. Also the LTN kicked my dog (or would have if I had a dog).

I needed to take a trip to quite near Balham station recently to do some shopping at a very specific shop. There is a lovely network of LTNs, quiet roads with heavy traffic calming and bike paths nearly the entire way there. I also decided to give the Line bikes a go. This made the trip very quick, easy and pleasant. The LTNs are game changing for getting around.