Ah, the dream

rick_chasey

Madrid bans half of cars from its roads in a bid to reduce air pollution.

Bet their bike commuters are happy!

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... -pollution

itboffin

and just like when Paris did it those that can will buy another plated car

DrLex

And didn't Athens (& Athenians) do exactly the same?

ugo.santalucia

A system based on number plates was trialled in Italy too, Milan, Rome, Turin... difficult to police and many families have two cars with good chance of one being allowed on odd days, the other on even days... I don't think it ever reduced traffic and pollution.
Congestion charge is a better system, but you need to charge even residents... especially considering in London they can afford it. Charge needs to be proportional to emissions but also size, it's no good having a massive hybrid that is exempt but take the same room as a van.

Nano sized hybrid vehicles could be exempt... Smart or smaller

The Rookie

Tried in Delhi as well.

It never works, worst case instead of using a new low emission car daily they use two old clunkers every other day.....

kingstongraham

ugo.santalucia wrote:

A system based on number plates was trialled in Italy too, Milan, Rome, Turin... difficult to police and many families have two cars with good chance of one being allowed on odd days, the other on even days... I don't think it ever reduced traffic and pollution.
Congestion charge is a better system, but you need to charge even residents... especially considering in London they can afford it. Charge needs to be proportional to emissions but also size, it's no good having a massive hybrid that is exempt but take the same room as a van.

Nano sized hybrid vehicles could be exempt... Smart or smaller

No, balls to them. They still cause congestion. Reduce it maybe, but still discourage use.

ugo.santalucia

KingstonGraham wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

A system based on number plates was trialled in Italy too, Milan, Rome, Turin... difficult to police and many families have two cars with good chance of one being allowed on odd days, the other on even days... I don't think it ever reduced traffic and pollution.
Congestion charge is a better system, but you need to charge even residents... especially considering in London they can afford it. Charge needs to be proportional to emissions but also size, it's no good having a massive hybrid that is exempt but take the same room as a van.

Nano sized hybrid vehicles could be exempt... Smart or smaller

No, balls to them. They still cause congestion. Reduce it maybe, but still discourage use.

I'd be quite happy with fewer people buying flats on 4 wheels... a Smart car or similar is a neat thing... parking becomes less of an issue, lanes become wider and there is room for cyclists and cars alike. Getting rid of cars altogether will never be popular...

rick_chasey

Fine fine, i'll keep dreaming of a London with half the cars on the roads then.

itboffin

a bit side topic but i was thinking last weekend how nice it must have been down here in the wild west 10+ years ago

its now at the point where a car passes by every 30s which is shocking when you consider how remote a location I live in and how narrow and unsuitable the roads are, single track twisting country lanes, very badly paved roads with zero speed controls or enforcements, I'll take my London commute over that anyday.

No speed limit signs seems to mean no speed limit

roger_merriman

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fine fine, i'll keep dreaming of a London with half the cars on the roads then.

Seems unlikely, more likely the beast will just change, by that I mean zero emissions cars be that Electrical/Hydrogen/what ever. people are just so wedded to the idea or dream of a car.

On the up side the autonomous tech i.e. self driving cars does seem to be better about bikes/people etc.

inbike

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fine fine, i'll keep dreaming of a London with half the cars on the roads then.

A new Toyota Prius in Singapore costs over £90k with CoE, compared to £24-28k in the UK. On top of that you have to pay road tax and variable road pricing.

That has managed to reduce the number of cars on the roads by about 6%* from a peak in 2012/13 and most of that is due to CoE supply shortages rather than pricing. Many routes are still running at capacity and heavily congested, even if 3 or 4 lanes wide.

To reduce the number of cars in London by half you'd need to raise prices to astronomical levels, or just start closing entry points when the city was full. Banning cars on alternate days would only double the cost of ownership, and Singapore's examples shows that even 4x the cost isn't sufficient.

I'm definitely in favor of smaller and narrower vehicles though. I've never been close-passed by a smart car! And these tiny buses would be much less intimidating and create lots of new jobs:



* http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/t ... e-year-low

thistle_

inbike wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'm definitely in favor of smaller and narrower vehicles though. I've never been close-passed by a smart car!

Japan has the Kei Car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car , the original idea of it was to get more cars on the road!

fat daddy

I think commuting would be more fun if they did a similar thing with bikes

say everyother day you can ride a road bike, but on Tuesdays is SS day, Thursdays is MTB day and Saturdays is Hipster fixie day

tangled_metal

Nigeria had this scheme in their capital about 30 years ago. They also had special traffic cops with their orange detailed and capped uniforms. The trouble was how easy it was to get them to give you a police escort through the city. When family members got posted out into the countryside over there they just got the escort out from the airport or their hotel. Full on blues and twos! Car in front and motorcycle cops too. All for the equivalent of a few quid back then, cost of a London pint i think.

rolf_f

They'd do better requiring low emission vehicles on alternate days. At least that would force those who wanted to drive every day to have at least one sensible vehicle - which they might after a while decide is a rather better device than their moronic Audi Q7 or whatever and eventually get rid of that.

fat daddy wrote:

I think commuting would be more fun if they did a similar thing with bikes

say everyother day you can ride a road bike, but on Tuesdays is SS day, Thursdays is MTB day and Saturdays is Hipster fixie day

Good luck growing the ridiculous beard every Friday to be ready for Saturday.........

The Rookie

roger merriman wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Fine fine, i'll keep dreaming of a London with half the cars on the roads then.

Seems unlikely, more likely the beast will just change, by that I mean zero emissions cars be that Electrical/Hydrogen/what ever. .

You mean remote emitting cars then!

j_mcd

On your route in, what kind of percentage do you think are actually private cars? On my route it seems that the overwhelming majority are work vans/trucks and minicabs. So.Many.Minicabs.

I think that we really need to break peoples reliance on taxis, although with Uber, this is becoming more of an issue rather than less. Perhaps only allow a certain percentage of cabs on the road at times when other transport options are less viable (i.e. pub/club closing time).

hopkinb

J_MCD wrote:

On your route in, what kind of percentage do you think are actually private cars? On my route it seems that the overwhelming majority are work vans/trucks and minicabs. So.Many.Minicabs.

I think that we really need to break peoples reliance on taxis, although with Uber, this is becoming more of an issue rather than less. Perhaps only allow a certain percentage of cabs on the road at times when other transport options are less viable (i.e. pub/club closing time).

On my route i.e. Raynes Park to St Pauls on CS7, the difference in the morning between term time & school holidays is enormous, so I'm saying a lot of that is private cars, whether it's teachers driving to work, or kids being ferried to school. Evening traffic - I don't know - it varies, but there's an awful lot of single occupant cars, as well as the vans, taxis, trucks etc. There are also now a whole load of bikes on CS7, more or less all year round, both morning and evening, and that is some pretty crappy infrastructure. If they built proper segregated lanes I reckon cycle journeys from approx. Balham up into town would increase exponentially.

jgsi

I'm in 2 minds about expanding cycle commuting..... less space in the secure cycles sheds... hmm
I think cars are here to stay .. yet again... I remember the 70s when the death of the motor vehicle was first announced... or was that an Austin Maxi ?

j_mcd

hopkinb wrote:

On my route i.e. Raynes Park to St Pauls on CS7, the difference in the morning between term time & school holidays is enormous, so I'm saying a lot of that is private cars, whether it's teachers driving to work, or kids being ferried to school. Evening traffic - I don't know - it varies, but there's an awful lot of single occupant cars, as well as the vans, taxis, trucks etc. There are also now a whole load of bikes on CS7, more or less all year round, both morning and evening, and that is some pretty crappy infrastructure. If they built proper segregated lanes I reckon cycle journeys from approx. Balham up into town would increase exponentially.

Good point, I come in a bit before the schools really get going so I didn't consider that.

fat daddy

JGSI wrote:

I remember the 70s when the death of the motor vehicle was first announced... or was that an Austin Maxi ?

I think most motor vehicles died in the 70's .... especial GM ones