15 minute cities coming to your area soon

Galaxy

Asking questions is not seeing the negative.

Agreed. This is a strange thread. Discussion is not encouraged - instead anyone who asks questions is accused of being right wing and of negativity.

I still haven't seen an explanation of where political 'wings' come into this, but sometimes it feels as though they are completely misunderstood concepts, and used as generalised insults to those who disagree with the accuser.

Exactly Maw

Too much of it'll never work and what I like
on this thread.
I wonder why the people who do like these ideas can't have a chance to try them for a change?
Ask those who actually use buses how to improve them.
Where I live there is no direct bus to the hospital and most nurses cannot use public transport because it doesn't fit with their shifts.
So many small improvements could make a hellofa difference.

Callistemon21

Hospitals became centralised because they can provide more up-to-date procedures and are supposedly centres of excellence.
Small local hospitals cannot ever offer the same facilities although it might be a good idea if Minor Injuries Units were reintroduced instead of people having to travel 20+ miles to A&E.

So local authorities need to liaise with transport providers and make sure there's a good network of buses, minibuses and subsidised taxis.

Minor injuries units and smaller hospitals/healthcare centres combined with expanded local community nursing could take pressure off expensive acute services and provide efficient outcomes for patients without the hassle and expense of stressful journeys to hospital.

SueDonim

I know of two hospitals where that’s happening, Growstuff. Local services were closed down and relocated at larger centres, meaning people had to travel long distances for not particularly complicated stuff (It’s understandable that high-tech medicine can only take place in a few locations).

That put pressure on the big centres, with not enough parking and not enough staff, because the people working at the smaller places didn’t necessarily want to make 50 mile round trips to work. They retired early or found other work. Then someone must have said ‘Ooh, I know what, let’s offer services locally, to save people travelling!’ and they’ve busily been trying to reopen the various units that closed down 20 years ago.

Good! I'm glad to hear it. It's happening locally too. A local hospital was earmarked for closure and redevelopment for housing. There was a lot of local opposition and some of the services are being returned with consultants' having outreach clinics.

Callistemon21

Doodledog

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?

Yes, I'm not getting it either.

I just ignored it.

Did you read MaggsMcG's post?

growstuff

Callistemon21

Doodledog

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?

Yes, I'm not getting it either.

I just ignored it.

Did you read MaggsMcG's post?

I always read threads before commenting. It's not always possible to join the dots that lead to a particular comment, however, which is why I asked.

If you mean the one about how Labour, Lib Dems and Greens support the scheme, then yes, I read it. IMO that doesn't make the zones a left-wing idea (I assume that those parties also support granny murder being illegal but that isn't a left-wing idea either). And disagreeing with something that a left-wing person believes doesn't make one right wing, does it? Assuming that one agrees with large state politics and government responsibility for welfare, one has (whether broadly or narrowly) left wing views, and the reverse is true for being right wing. They are not religions, however, and people can step outside of the lines on some policies without being a traitor.

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.

Did you spot Conservative MP Nick Fletcher, who spoke in Parliament and claimed they are "an internationalist socialist concept" which will "take away personal freedoms"? Or Neil Oliver writing about "the idea of limiting our horizons to within walking distance of our houses is about preparing us for smaller, meaner lives lived under perpetual scrutiny"?

It's taken over from lizards and 5G implants as the latest talking point for conspiracy theorists.

I actually think there is something about looking at the possible consequences of not encouraging people to move beyond the confines of their local area, and I am left wing. I work in a Northern city with areas of considerable deprivation, it is an enormous challenge to get people to attend groups that are not in their local area, some view areas of the city that arent their 'own' as foreign countries almost. Now it might be that really good public transport is the answer to to this but there is something about it that raises my concerns.

growstuff

Callistemon21

Doodledog

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?

Yes, I'm not getting it either.

I just ignored it.

Did you read MaggsMcG's post?

MaggsMcG didn't say it was a right-wing idea.

Exactly, growstuff. People are terrified that their cars are going to be taken away from them. It's about me, me, me. I bet most of those who are up in arms about the idea live in nice houses in nice areas and drive nice cars to the big-box out-of-town supermarkets once a month to fill the freezer. I don't think they live in one of the huge peripheral estates of the 50s and 60s where cars are a luxury and libraries and other social resources have been closed down following the slow strangulation of local government budgets over 40 years. They are places like Blackbird Leys in Oxford and Hartcliffe in Bristol.

The estates shops fell victim to the superstores leaving only convenience stores selling undiscounted tins and, naturally, lottery tickets to con the poor out of what little they have on an empty promise of riches (and have you noticed that among the boarded-up shops there's always a trifecta of bookies looking smugly prosperous). The people who live there are caught in a trap, because buses have been pared right back and are expensive – never mind feeling hard done-by at the idea of driving out of your area only twice a week, some people can't afford to leave their areas once a week. Nor can they afford the luxury of a big enough grocery order to be delivered. Life in these places is grim.

These are the places 15-minute neighbourhoods will benefit enormously. Funnily enough MaggsMcG these areas tend to be heavily Labour-voting. Should it surprise you that Labour are more enthusiastic about the idea than Conservatives?

So local authorities need to liaise with transport providers and make sure there's a good network of buses, minibuses and subsidised taxis.
Yes, yes, yes, that's what I keep saying

But unfortunately the opposite is happening.

Planners persuaded us that the way forward was out-of-town shopping malls with free parking, killing off town centres, new hospitals out in the country which are inaccessible except by car, allowing new estates of houses to be built without the infrastructure so that people have to travel to amenities. Village schools closed and big hubs built so that children have to travel - but they are not allowed to use the bus service if they live within a certain distance so buses travel half empty whilst most parents drive.

Sorry, but this has been caused by planners who may now realise their mistakes but it is going to be costly to try to change the way people live.

First start with affordable transport - however they cannot get bus drivers so are cutting services.
Second - stop putting up parking charges around small towns. The shopping malls do not charge.
Third - no new housing should be allowed without the schools, the surgeries, the shops which are necessary.

Now they are realising that perhaps this was not the best way and that people do like localised services.

I worked briefly in a planning department very many years ago and permissions were given which should never have been passed and some of us knew exactly why.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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"?

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.

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.

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.

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.