15 minute cities coming to your area soon

The other thing is the core of these schemes is bus travel and it doesn't take into account people who find bus travel difficult because of travel sickness.

I avoid buses for just that reason because urban buses with their stops and starts and jerks and smells are the ones most likely to induce it.

I prefer if at all possible to walk, but some distances are just too far, or take too long.

I have never not been able to find a parking space in one of Cambridge's park and rides.

MOnica It's not a scheme. It's a consideration to be taken into account when development is planned. I don't really see what planners can do about people who suffer from bus sickness.

A dd lives about a 15 minute drive from the centre of Oxford - that’s outside rush hours, which frankly can be pretty horrendous.
I dare say it’s a good idea in theory, but what about getting to e.g. the nursery or childminder, which may well not be walking distance, and sundry children’s activities? Gdcs have weekly swimming lessons during the rush hour - it’s much too far to walk, and except for the smallest, they can ride bikes, but they’re still too young to cycle in very busy traffic, even with cycle. lanes. There is no convenient bus service, either.

The youngest is taken to and from the childminder by SiL, via bike with a trailer - he’s very fit and used to it, but it still takes a good 20 minutes each way. By public transport it’d need probably 3 buses and take forever, given that he has to take and pick up during rush hours.
This is besides working full time, same as dd.
Plenty of people IMO just wouldn’t be able to manage that.

We are just very thankful that the school where the 2 elder go is a short walk away.
I dare say this scheme will cause a great many people - perhaps particularly parents of younger children - a great deal of inconvenience, and will cost the current council a lot of votes next time.

Simple! They use the car! What's stopping them?

Or maybe ...

Town planners might consider building local swimming pools, etc.

I've heard Newham in London are considering ... as is Ipswich and Oxford.

There are 33 million cars on Uk roads so from a pollutant and ecological viewpoint something has to be done to limit the damge they cause.

Personally I think everyone has become so used to car ownership and the convenience it offers over public transport that no one will like this system nor will they sacrifice their cars ..
Was it Finland who opted instead for the alternating days system based on car registration?

I wonder where EV's fit in here.

Well doesn’t really bother me as I don’t have a car 😂

Me neither .... and I'm glad I don't

growstuff

Dickens Nobody would be "penalised". What it might mean is that planners might consider the needs of disabled people and possibly (yeah well, I can dream) and build local healthcare facilities and make sure there is good public transport to hospitals.

According to the OP, fines would be issued if people use their car to cross zones more than the allotted number of times. Of course that's penalising them (if it's correct).

I'm all in favour of anything that makes life easier for non-drivers - I'm one myself, and I get tired of everything being planned on the assumption that everyone has a car and can drive to out of town retail parks or whatever. Public transport here is prohibitively expensive, there are no concessionary fares until SPA, and in any case buses are few and far between. Brining the provinces were brought into line with London would be fairer, but we already pay higher Council Tax than Londoners, so putting that up to subsidise transport seems an unlikely way forward.

As I've said, I dislike the idea of a 2 tier system that makes it even harder for people in poorer areas to make use of centralised facilities and cultural pursuits. It could ghettoise places that are outside the central zone, and the chances are that young people will not want to live in more outlying areas if they can only go out twice a week. They will move out, and it could be problematic for them to visit older relatives in other zones if that would use up one of their allowances. My mum is more than 15 minutes away from me - should I not be able to see her, or have to get three buses to do so?

I wonder if it's another scheme to 'encourage' people to go back to work, as if they can cross a zone to do that they could stay on to socialise afterwards and it won't (I assume) count against their 'allowance', or will people only be allowed to go to work twice a week? How many couples both live within 15 minutes in the same direction of their respective workplaces? Public transport availability is not necessarily compatible with working hours, either, and by no means all towns, never mind villages, are adequately served by public transport. My last bus home leaves the city at 10.30, which rules out most theatre performances, music gigs and so on. If (and it's a big 'if') money were allocated to improving transport I would be delighted, but that would require the government coughing up instead of making demands on councils then expecting them to find ways to pay for them out of slashed budgets.

Since I left work I don't go into the city more than twice a week - I did before Covid, but my life changed then, and my health is not as good as it was. It wouldn't make much of an impact on me (and I got the bus anyway), but I'm not so out of touch that I can't put myself in the shoes of those who do want an active social life, and won't be happy with shopping, health and the sort of recreation offered by small towns. Many younger people have good health and shop online anyway, so the attraction would be to move to zones where there is more of a 'buzz', and we oldies would be left on our own in deadzones.

Primary education could probably happen within a 15 minute zone, but High Schools are more problematic - many round here have feeder schools miles away - and universities couldn't possibly have a campus every 15 minutes that could offer a range of courses. Would students all have to live near the university? What about mature students or those with caring responsibilities etc?

As I don't drive, Mr Dog sometimes gives me lifts, if I can't get to where I want to be on public transport. Would that count as one of his trips, or would both of us get them allocated to one car?

What is 'right wing' about having these reservations, please? I don't understand that at all.

Everybody, here and elsewhere, seems to want to look for the edge cases, the ones where the basic idea isn't perfect, and use them to dismiss the idea completely

After a long career in IT I know all about the edge cases. The things that don't fit conveniently into the proposed structure. The thing is, you don't junk the whole system because of the anomalies, you adapt the system to accommodate them or at least introduce ways to exempt them so that even though they don't fit they don't crash the system.

The way to look at 15-minute communities is to look at the benefits of the idea as whole for most people involved, then consider the things that could possibly go wrong and adjust for them. Not to deliberately go looking for reasons do dismiss the plan.

Sorry, senior moment. As you were on that one
😀 we all have them!!

Callistemon21 I'm definitely having more of them than I used to.

I'm not looking for edge cases - I'm looking at the likely outcome of something that doesn't seem to me to have ben thought through. The examples in my last post are hardly outliers, are they?

First, I think a lot of right wing loonies have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. This type of scheme does not prevent car use - it simple restricts use on certain roads at certain times. Second, these schemes do depend on all facilities being available rather than promised for the future. In another example of urban planning he extension of the ULEZ zone in London is not accompanied by the immediate provision of public transport, merely a promise to improve it.

Unless everything everyone needs is in that particular area then I cant see how it will work.

It's limiting choice and dictating what people purchase.
Surely retailers will not be happy to go back to the corner shop principle as it could be more expensive for them than having their goods located in one large store located in a convenient, central position?

Planners, of course, do decide how we should live and how we shop. Out-of-town huge shopping malls killed off town centres because planners decided that was the future.

What we need is better, frequent, affordable public transport.

It's not for us. It's for the future. We aren't the future. We are the past.
Think of an environment we want for our DGC not whether or not our lifestyles can carry on as they have been indefinitely ignoring the warnings.

I love that future planners are having bold ideas and that towns sorry cities such as Oxford have the courage to test them out.

What we need is better, frequent, affordable public transport.

I'll vote for that, but I wouldn't have voted for Mussolini .

I'm still at a loss to see the right wing connection. Can anyone please explain without just repeating the accusation?

I’m typing this because n my phone, so apologies for any typos.

I think people are conflating two (or more) things in this thread: the Oxford proposals (which are merely a 6 month trial of a traffic filtering system on very few roads), the wider 15 minute city concept, and general car reduction initiatives.

Being careful not to out myself too much here: firstly, I’m not a town planner, although I have had some training. I have, however, worked on a number of planning initiatives and projects, at policy and grassroots levels, in England, Scotland and some overseas countries.

When residents in urban and suburban areas are asked to describe, or draw, their ideal living environment, there are common factors: walkability (ie they can walk to services and facilities that meet their daily needs); good local services and amenities for those daily needs; fewer cars; separation of cars and people not in cars; green space (and often, water - canal, river, lake, commonly, as most people don’t live near coasts); and good public transport for accessing services and amenities that they don’t need daily (hospitals, museums, theatres etc) or for those who cannot drive.

In fact, exactly the kind of area that is routinely described as an ideal place to retire to on Gransnet.

The 15 minute city (and 20 minute neighbourhoods in Scotland) concepts are just that: concepts which provide a possible development framework that meets community needs and wants. There are certainly challenges and questions to be asked about the concept, but they are answerable, and challenges resolvable, because there is no one model - it’s very much about a planning and design process that results in liveable areas which meet, as far as possible, local needs and contributes to reducing pollution.

Contrary to what the anti-brigade would have people believe, they are not about banning cars, but about providing viable alternatives, except where that is genuinely not possible.

And yes, they are about urban, not rural areas - the clue is in the name. There are other conversations to be had about rural transport and connectivity to local cities (hub and spoke, concentric ring model and more) but this probably isn’t the place.

Surely retailers will not be happy to go back to the corner shop principle as it could be more expensive for them than having their goods located in one large store located in a convenient, central position?

Errr, isn't there a proliferation of 'local' versions of the big supermarkets all over the place?

It's limiting choice and dictating what people purchase.

Well, how much choice do people want in their everyday shopping?
When I lived in Sheffield more years ago than I care to remember, it was a 10 minute walk from our flat down to the main road where there was a butcher, a greengrocer and a bakers, paper shop and launderette* (probably one or two more that I can't remember). If we wanted dry goods or fish there was an excellent, cheap bus service to the city centre, where, of course all the other shops were available. I don't recall feeling that my choice was restricted, we had everything we needed and without a car it was no particular hardship. I think that many people would be more than happy with a range of small shops within easy walking distance. As home delivery is a pretty well used concept it could be extended to the goods that people don't feel able to carry home in bags.

(*those Sheffield shops aren't there now, of course)

I do think that people are making heavy weather of this.

Grantanow

First, I think a lot of right wing loonies have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. This type of scheme does not prevent car use - it simple restricts use on certain roads at certain times. Second, these schemes do depend on all facilities being available rather than promised for the future. In another example of urban planning he extension of the ULEZ zone in London is not accompanied by the immediate provision of public transport, merely a promise to improve it.

Expanding the ULEZ is going to hit the lower paid, those on shifts who cannot afford to replace their vehicles for one that’s not going to incur charges.

Unless Sadiq Khan intends to implement 24 hour efficient safe transport in the entire zone his plan is discriminatory.

growstuff

Dickens Nobody would be "penalised". What it might mean is that planners might consider the needs of disabled people and possibly (yeah well, I can dream) and build local healthcare facilities and make sure there is good public transport to hospitals.

... OK, I get that.

If the day ever dawns when planners, developers, etc - with the aid of government - actually consider the needs of ordinary people, I think I'd be in shock!

Public transport would not only have to be accessible - but also affordable. As for building local healthcare facilities, that would require some investment and I can't see a Tory government focusing itself on providing the funding - not unless there was some way it could make money for them and their backers and donors.

Of course, I'm very cynical... and maybe looking well into the future, this government might be history because the nation will have woken up and realised that contrary to all the mutterings about 'levelling-up', the Northern Powerhouse, 'global Britain', 'build-back-better', etc, their lives have not improved, and the promises encapsulated in those little sound-bites, did bugger-all to deal with the real problems of housing, wage-stagnation, job security, the scarcity of GPs, the dire state of the NHS... and will have (I can dream also!) voted in a government that has accepted its role is to govern for the nation as a whole rather than prioritising party over people plus making sure it rewarded itself and its cohorts!

In principle, it's a brilliant idea. I don't think it will ever happen.

MaizieD Sheffield is currently exploring the possibility of becoming a 15 minute city - likely to be a 20 year plus project.

Can't see why the ultra-righters are so disturbed about fifteen minute cities; don't we need the Vicar's permission to leave the parish on a Sunday as it is?

There’s a similar-sounding plan to divide Canterbury into ‘driving’ zones. It’s a Tory council proposal, btw. www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/canterbury-could-split-five-parts-8077244

There’s a great to-do going on about it, with resignations and whatnot. It’s also pretty pointless regarding pollution because by the time it’s fully implemented, in 2045, all cars will be electric anyway. Canterbury is also proposing building thousands and thousands of new houses to pay for a new ring road.

I don’t really see how these 15 minutes cities could ever become a reality, when over the past 40 years so many things have been centralised, particularly health and education services, and public transport has been cut.

Dickens I'm cynical about it happening too, which is why I said that it's aspirational.

Nevertheless, when new developments are planned, I think the accessibility of facilities should be considered.

There are millions of people in the UK who live in modern housing developments. Very often there aren't any shops, schools, healthcare facilities, swimming pools, leisure centres, vets, village halls, nurseries, parks and playgrounds etc etc within miles.

It's very difficult for communities to develop in such places and people are forced to have cars. The lack of facilities also means there is no local work, so people have to commute.

I don't know why it's become a topical issue because I read about the idea years ago. I don't really understand why it's been hijacked by people who think it's some kind of conspiracy.