15 minute cities coming to your area soon

Yes exactly!

20 minute neighbourhoods is an ambition of the Scottish Government,announced a few years ago. It is intended to be people - centred, promote wellbeing,and encourage planners to take a holistic approach to providing essential services in every area. It would also help to reduce travel/protect the environment. I haven't seen anything about penalties for traveling however. I agree that approaches which restrict movement and apply fines could be hard to manage and unfairly disadvantage some people, unless it were very carefully implemented.

growstuff

Callistemon I agree that it's an uphill struggle, but I still think it's a journey worth starting. Acorns and oak trees.

I wonder how many people on GN have ever been involved in their Neighbourhood's Local Plan. It's a recurrent issue in mine and a reason why planning permission for new housing has sometimes been refused. Unfortunately, local authorities currently have neither the power nor resources to make it work properly.

Oh yes, but it goes ahead anyway, despite meetings with hundreds of people attending, local opposition and repeated demands for better transport and local infrastructure to be improved.

Big brother watching us! No. It won’t happen. Too many people will flaunt such a rule. Me for one! I’m disabled with heart and mobility problems and drive everywhere I go

* The traffic flow schemes are separate but have been linked by the conspiracy theorists. I'm not talking about GN, but in the media generally. In a 15 minute city NOBODY would be prevented from travelling outside their zone.*

Well if that is the case, why are you patronising those who have responded to the OP, which very clearly states that people (or those who can’t pay the fines, at least) will be prevented from leaving their zones more than twice a week?

I agree that housing estates must be very bleak places to live. There are lots of them surrounding my town, but no infrastructure to support them. People resent the building, as schools are bursting, doctors’ surgeries are not offering anything like a full service, whilst also continuing to take new patients, and those who drive are always complaining about lack of parking spaces. To be fair, some of the estates are too far out of the town centre to expect people to walk with shopping or children, so the residents need to take cars into town to the shops, increasing pollution and traffic jams.

To avoid this, all that is needed is for regulations on builders to provide schools, a health centre, shops and so on on a pro rata basis depending on the number of houses they build before they are granted permission. If public transport improved, which I and others have been pushing for for years, more people would leave their cars at home, and there would be no need to have zones or any restrictions on anyone else, as far as I can see, and no need for anyone to bang their heads against a wall.

Crikey does that make you think you are the good guys.

growstuff

LadyHonoriaDedlock Do you want to borrow my brick wall to bang your head against?

It's tempting, growstuff. On the other hand, sometimes it's better to walk away and do something useful.

Callistemon I agree that it's an uphill struggle, but I still think it's a journey worth starting. Acorns and oak trees.

I wonder how many people on GN have ever been involved in their Neighbourhood's Local Plan. It's a recurrent issue in mine and a reason why planning permission for new housing has sometimes been refused. Unfortunately, local authorities currently have neither the power nor resources to make it work properly.

LadyHonoriaDedlock Do you want to borrow my brick wall to bang your head against?

winterwhite

It's chicken-and-egg because car-use-limitation schemes can't be introduced without sufficient reliable public transport in place, and the bus companies won't invest in advance, they only respond to visible demand.

The alternative days for car use by numberplate worked well in Paris (I thought) and they also trialled a scheme for bikes only hours where private cars stopped. Those could be tried out here without major expansions to P&R car parks or brand new P&Rs, as planned for Oxford..

Also, communal out-of-town warehouses for all the major delivery companies (Amazon, dpd , Hermes etc), and onward deliveries to inner localities 2-3 times a week taking all parcels. When you think, the current system is absurd.

I agree it's "chicken and egg", which is why the "market" can't be relied on to deliver and there has to be central planning intervention.

Doodledog The traffic flow schemes are separate but have been linked by the conspiracy theorists. I'm not talking about GN, but in the media generally. In a 15 minute city NOBODY would be prevented from travelling outside their zone.

You and I obviously already live in 15 minute city/towns. Millions of people do. The issue is that when new housing developments are planned, there are often no facilities and people are forced to use a car for everyday living. There are also issues when local facilities such as libraries and swimming pools/leisure centres are closed down.

Time and again, reports (and individuals) have mentioned that communities/neighbourhoods no longer exist, which has been blamed for all sorts of society's problems. I think there's some truth in that. I would certainly hate to live on a housing estate, where there is nothing but houses (however nice) and no facilities. There have also been reports that some people don't live on an accessible route to a supermarket, even in towns sometimes.

The above aren't about restricting where people are allowed to go. It's about trying to ensure that people live in a neighbourhood with good facilities, for their own and society's wellbeing, which also happens to be better for the environment.

The whole idea has been hijacked by some fruitloops, such as the MP who called them an "international socialist concept". The conspiracy theorists have gone further and claim it's part of the "Great Reset", encouraged by the WEF and Davros representatives. Who would have thought that the people who toddle down to do their daily shop and meet their friends for a cuppa are part of some great global conspiracy?

Galaxy

Actually LadyHonoria it certainly isnt about me me me for me , when I hear talk of butchers and grocers and hardware stores it sounds like a very middle class concept of what people need. Oh and when people talk about bakers I take it people mean Gregg's or a similar chain.

Gregg's used to sell nice bread ☹

Why is there so much sniping on this thread? People have different views about something that may or may not happen - is that so hard to accept?

I have seen nothing to suggest that anyone is being selfish and 'me me me' at all - people are simply putting forward reasons why the scheme might not work as it has been described.

I for one am not interested in keeping things car-focussed. I don't drive, and it's unlikely that I will learn now. If this scheme comes in, it won't affect my daily life at all, as I live in the centre of a small town, which has a variety of shops, and I get my groceries delivered anyway. I'm lucky if I go into the city twice a week - it's more like once a month. I'm not speaking about how it would affect me me me, but about how it would have affected my children when they lived here as teens/young adults, and about people who want to take courses or work outside of their 'zone', those who have a social life that involves going further afield, and those with friends and relations who don't live on the doorstep.

And the descriptions on this thread (not necessarily reflecting the scheme itself) are from affluent villages from a different era, I live in a very middle class village, the local shops are a spar, a chain bakers, and a butchers that has diversified into a deli/take away food place, and everyone does the majority of their shopping at Tesco or asda.

To improve life chances in my city LadyHonoria, the ability to drive, a car, and the means to fund it. Sorry of it's not the answer you want.

swimcold

Mostly about social control, mass surveillance, limiting movement, social credits and digital ID - l hope people won't accept it?

No, swimcold, it's not a crazy scheme by the World Economic Forum and the villain du jour to rule the world from a Swiss mountain top while stroking a white Persian cat. It's about rebuilding coherent, human-scale communities and breaking the stranglehold of international megacorporations on our lives.

So what do non middle-class people need then, Galaxy? Is it a case of working-class people really wanting crap, additives-filled produce? Or is it, as Paul Weller once sang so perceptively, a matter of "The people want what the people get"?

Callistemon21

^Still, I believe the only answer will be to make travel (especially car use) extremely expensive.^
You can't do that, though, without providing viable and convenient alternatives.

And it is a deeply divisive and unfair approach to what should be a fundamental right - the right of movement. Not a right to pollute, but I repeat - making movement something that not everyone can afford is simply wrong, and smacks of dictatorship.

I would dearly love to see a tram system with free or subsidised travel (such as they have in Switzerland and other countries) go get people around cities, with regular and cheap buses or trains into cities from other areas. That would improve the lives of vast numbers of people immeasurably, and cut loneliness, pollution and ghettoisation. It would probably help employment too, as if people could easily get to other towns they could shop in small outlets or use services based out of their own immediate environs. Bring it on, but not by penalising travel or by giving out allocations of the numbers of journeys we are allowed to make.

Mostly about social control, mass surveillance, limiting movement, social credits and digital ID - l hope people won't accept it?

Actually LadyHonoria it certainly isnt about me me me for me , when I hear talk of butchers and grocers and hardware stores it sounds like a very middle class concept of what people need. Oh and when people talk about bakers I take it people mean Gregg's or a similar chain.

Callistemon21 well that's First Bus for you! We have them in Glasgow too, and Glasgow buses are the pits, especially in the evening. It pains me to say it but Edinburgh buses are so much better than Glasgow's. Edinburgh buses are operated by Lothian Transport, an arms-length company majority-owned by the city council.

Nobody I've met who works or has worked for First Bus (or Stagecoach for that matter) has a good word for them. That pay you quote isn't great, especially in an expensive city like Bristol, and the conditions aren't very good either – as with railway workers the operators relied on the goodwill of drivers working on their rest-days rather than take on more staff, and the goodwill has run out.

Funny, isn't it, how those you shout the loudest about how the Market will fix everything sing to a different tune when it comes employing people at the lower end of the social hierarchy.

Still, I believe the only answer will be to make travel (especially car use) extremely expensive.
You can't do that, though, without providing viable and convenient alternatives.

Incentives - good word Hetty58

People need incentives if they are to be persuaded to change their life style.

It's amazing that, although working from home still continues to some extent, the amount of traffic on the roads now seems far in excess of what it was pre-Covid.

Much road building has been cancelled in Wales - but does that mean that already polluted and congested towns will continue suffering as by passes are cancelled?

I like the idea of cutting all the incentives for travel right down - as we desperately need a sustainable future (or there simply isn't one).

Still, I believe the only answer will be to make travel (especially car use) extremely expensive. That's the way to change habits.
Obviously, local facilities have to come first.

Hartcliffe in Bristol.
They can't get bus drivers in Bristol.
Pay starts at £27,000 pa.

November 2022:
One of the main issues, says First Bus, is a lack of trained drivers; leading to daily cancellations and frustration among fed-up users. Just this week, Metro Mayor Dan Norris suggested the group target students in its bid to fill the gap in drivers.

And today (November 16) First Bus took the action to cancel hundreds of scheduled journeys across 19 routes from now until April 2, when the group warned there will be another major change to its timetables. The full list of cancellations can be seen here