Government's zero emissions ambitions, now government's zero ambition

[Penguin68]

Oxford's population is about half that of Southwark, but their proposal - in Southwark terms - is that you would be allowed 100 trips a year out of your electoral ward into other Southwark wards by car, but no more (fines would follow) and non Southwark people would not be able to enter or cross Southwark by car, without a fee (I think, though there may be a blanket ban). Oxford only has buses for public transport, whereas North Southwark has tubes, and both North and South have trains, so it would be easier to cope with in Southwark. You could walk or cycle without restriction. Oxford people, who live and work in Oxford may find that their work and, for instance the schools their children go to are in different 'wards', as may be the shops or healthcare or leisure centres they visit - tough!

The car option is to drive out of your 'ward' (away from the centre) and then go round very restricted ring roads to enter your next 'ward' destination (adding a lot of time to your journey - and miles with the concomitant emissions).

This is fine for fit people who don't need to transport stuff, maybe. But not for others.

And of course in London there are no 'Southwark specific' ring roads - if implemented across London travelling anywhere by private vehicle would be stopped, as boroughs would exclude 'foreigners' entering their borough. The idea that you can create self contained villages (with are 15 minute centres) inside large conurbations is entirely mad, of course. But entirely mad appears to be a qualification in local government nowadays.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Penguin68

[Rockets]

1 hour ago, malumbu said:

Hats off to Kuenssberg for not letting Sunak off.  She will do the same with Starmer.  Streeting spoke better but please use other examples of the cost of living crisis not a litre of fuel.  Surely the cost of housing and rental market far more important.  

But Malumbu - Streeting was doing this to try and show he is on the side of drivers so referencing housing or rentals would not have met his objective (and merely validated the war on cars message). Watch for more of this during their party conference - Labour has to respond and they will want to show they are supporting drivers because it is a huge swathe of the electorate. Interesting as well that Laura K opened with the "war on drivers" gambit as her first question to Sunak so it shows it is starting to drive, pardon the pun, the agenda.

 

Penguin68 - I am afraid it seems to have been a case that the "lunatics have been running the asylum" for far too long in terms of active travel and those pushing their own agenda have been allowed to do that scott-free since Covid. All of the things the Tories are targeting have been carefully selected, I suspect, to do most damage to those who have been championing them (i.e. Labour, Labour run administrations and the pro-active travel lobby).  Right now I would not want to be a council that has run a less than transparent consultation or a researcher paid to prove LTNs (by the very people who are implementing them) have delivered on their objectives (especially if you are personally closely allied to the pro-active travel lobby or have a history of vandalising posters from anyone who opposes your view...;-)). Very quickly we will all learn how robust the procedures have been and whether they did actually meet the thresholds required in a democratic process and how nepotistic the industry telling us this is all great actually is.

[malumbu]

Rocks, we should all be pro active travel.  By using your wording it could suggest that those who oppose LTNs etc don't believe we should walk and cycle.  I've said numerous times it doesn't help by putting people into camps. I've just used a ludicrous example.  There are those on the extreme which believe we should drive everywhere (not so far off the truth in large areas of the US) and those who would ban all cars.  Most believe somewhere between the two.

I'm still not getting these views that local authorities could and would enforce restrictions in travel between neighbourhoods.  Everything I read, and perhaps Google has me so well profiled it leads me to different articles than others, which appear to suggest that there have been bizarre interpretations of what Oxford and others have said.

I find Politico informed and balanced:

www.politico.eu/article/dont-lock-me-neighborhood-15-minute-city-hysteria-uk-oxford/

What do you and others think of this report?

 

[Rockets]

Malumbu - not sure how you come to that conclusion.

But you claim to not want to put people into camps and yet the article you post has the architect of the 15-minute city concept reverting to the well-used "how dare you not agree with my view of how we tackle this problem" trope:

"This kind of fear-mongering is, to me, something very fascist," Moreno said. "But it's also so absurd that it shows that the people buying are terribly gullible, terribly ignorant, in line with flat-earthers or those people who think the world is controlled by lizard people."

 

Moreno is a left-wing thinker who had to flee Columbia for Paris because he was a member of the 19th of April Movement and he is teaming up with a left-wing mayor in Paris to force his vision on Parisians and then when they say, hey, we don't like what you are doing, don't agree with the measures you're taking and you're killing our city's ability to function he calls them fascists.

Here's another take on this - the "right-wing" mantra/conspiracy trope is perpetrated by those people (more often than not left-wing thinkers) who have spectacularly failed to communicate to people, beyond their own echo chamber, why they should support and engage with the changes they are forcing upon them. If you're not capable of bringing people along for the ride it gives you no right to lean back off your horse/bike and scream at them "fascist" just because you have not been able to convince them - the problem lies with your inability to get people onside.

 

[first mate]

Post removed as it may have breached posting policy.

Edited October 4, 2023 by first mate

[malumbu]

Fortunately the BBC have listened to me and debunked this conspiracy theory nonsense on 15 minute cities.  Rocks why are you so drawn to this?  Looking forward to you debunking the BBC debunking this.  [That's banter not personal snipes 😉]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66990302

What a shame the BBC couldn't have verified the tosh that came out of the Leave campaign the way they fact check and verify stuff now, we many still be in the EU.....

[Rockets]

Malumbu - the BBC article highlights exactly the point I am making - that it is the lack of clear communication and engagement with communities that leads to these wild stories. It is clear that fringe right-wing and conspiracy groups try to leverage the information vacuum but it is also true that those who support the measures use this to create a trope that anyone anti the measures is some sort of far-right, anti-vax, conspiracy theorist (we have seen it a lot from posters on here) - which they are clearly not.

 

Penguin explained what was happening in Oxford with the limits on journeys and then you said:

On 02/10/2023 at 16:13, malumbu said:

I'm still not getting these views that local authorities could and would enforce restrictions in travel between neighbourhoods. 

 

And the very article you flag confirms (clip below) the plan for Oxford to limit journeys to 100 days a year for private cars in six locations - is that not a local authority enforcing restrictions in travel between neighbourhoods? Now this has nothing to do with their separate plans for 15-minute cities but can you now see how people could easily conflate the two things, especially if the communication from the council is poor, scepticism about the council's motives and objectives are strong and there are those who are happy to stoke the fire for their own fringe/conspiracy theory ends? 

 

It was in Oxford where this idea truly sparked a misinformation storm.

Last November, Oxfordshire County Council approved the creation of traffic filters, enforced through cameras in six key locations.

Private cars would not be allowed through without a permit (which they could use up to 100 days per year), but all other vehicles would be exempt - to incentivise the use of public transport and cycling.

The BBC understands that Oxford was one of the places Mr Harper had in mind when he spoke of councils that "ration who uses the roads and when".

But, while some people may find this "controlling", it is definitely not the same as a "15-minute city".

The traffic filters scheme attracted significant opposition from people worried about the impact the measures might have on their mobility and livelihoods.

But online, a separate conversation appeared to be taking place - one that tapped into genuine grievances against the trial, blending them with rumours pushed by far-right blogs and fringe media outlets around the world.

On social media, some users suggested this was part of a sinister plot to confine people to their local areas for the sake of the environment.

Others wrongly linked the traffic filters scheme to a separate council proposal to introduce 15-minute neighbourhoods in Oxford.

Oxfordshire County Council publicly dismissed claims suggesting a link between the two, as well as the claim that traffic filters will be used to confine people to their local area.

But soon the social media frenzy also began having a real impact offline: councillors received death threats. Others were faced with anxious questions from residents.

"People have come up to me and said: is it true that we're not going to be allowed out of our houses, that it's going to be just like the coronavirus lockdown?", Emily Kerr, from Oxford City Council, told the BBC at the time.

[Penguin68]

Anybody who thinks that splitting Oxford into 6 neighbourhoods, residents of which would be restricted to 100 private car movements out of those neighbourhoods in the course of a year has nothing to do with the concept of creating 15 minute mini-cities within Oxford, whatever the council claims, needs to review their thinking - unless you believe that Oxford Council intends to create a different  set of15 minute city neighbourhoods from the 'restricted' travel neighbourhoods it also plans to implement - which would be more perverse than even local councils can normally manage!

Local actions against travel restrictions in Oxford have been extreme, matched in the UK now only by anti-ULEZ actions in Greater London.

And I'm afraid that our own (local to Dulwich) experience (for those readers who are local to Dulwich) seems to suggest that Council statements, truth and reality seem rarely to be bedfellows nowadays.

[malumbu]

Wouldn't you say that charging people into driving on certain streets is limiting their movement?  This is what government did when they came up with Clean Air Zones in 2015, already preempted by Mayor Johnson with his annoucement of the ULEZ.  Ditto for the C charge.

In fact every thing that national and local government do to restrict traffic, dead ends and cul de sacs, fuel duty, bus lanes, cycle lanes, Vehicle Excise Duty, VAT, speed controls, driving licenses, MOTs etc etc is designed to control us and imprison us in our homes.  We must man the barricades and take to the streets.  Hasta la victoria siempre!

That appears to be your logical solution.

Those extreme groups campaigning for motorist's freedom are also opposed to road user charging.  That is something you are OK with Rocks.

[snowy]

Penguin's interpretation of the Oxford rules is wrong. They've made this misinterpretation several times.

An Exeter MP is now getting death threats over the small number of LTNs being piloted there, even with better communication about how they work. The police arrested someone for the threats. 

[Spartacus]

13 minutes ago, snowy said:

Penguin's interpretation of the Oxford rules is wrong. They've made this misinterpretation several times.

Can you explain how and why Penguins interpretation is wrong and yours is right ? 

[snowy]

Your trips are not limited.
 

You have 100 free passes and then pay for others (much like the congestion charge)

you can use alternative including the ring road for free

its only in Cowley & east oxford

[Rockets]

Snowy, trips through the filters are limited and you are wrong as there is no facility to pay for other permits.

You have to apply for a permit to get 100 passes if you live in the Oxford permit area, 25 if you live in the Oxfordshire permit area - there is no facility to buy more passes beyond those 100 or 25.

 

Here is an excerpt from Oxford council's website: https://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/2332/joint_statement_from_oxfordshire_county_council_and_oxford_city_council_on_oxford_s_traffic_filters

 

If residents in the permit areas are not using a permit or run out of permits, they will still be able to drive to any destination in Oxford or elsewhere, whenever they like, as often as they like. Depending on their location and destination, they might have to use a different route to avoid the filters, which would usually be the ring road.

And their brochure acknowledges that this may mean longer journeys and journey times:

 Some car journeys will need to find a different route, usually using the ring road. This may result in longer journey times, mainly for trips between Oxford’s suburbs and across the city.

 

Bad news for those on the displacement routes but what is it Cllr Leeming kept saying about A-roads....

Also, I very much suspect local residents got confused about the filters and their role in 15-minute cities as the council cabinet member for travel appeared to have done interviews telling everyone that the filters would create 15-minute cities! No wonder everyone got confused....looks very much a case of "that's not what I meant to say" 😉

ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six "15 minute" neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.

 

Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet member for travel and development strategy, explained the authority's traffic filter proposals in an interview in The Sunday Times.

He said the filters would turn Oxford into "a 15-minute city" with local services within a small walking radius.

 

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23079671.anger-travel-chief-announces-traffic-filters-going-happen-definitely-ahead-decision/

 

[Rockets]

Bravo to Norway - positively encouraging the transition to EVs and it's working! Free parking, use of bus lanes and no tolls for EV drivers - now that is progressive!

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx25ljxpygeo