15 minute cities coming to your area soon

100 times a year for leaving your zone is a good allowance. That's twice a day for heaven's sake! And the key phrase "with exemption for certain vehicles" would surely cover most of the objections.

The truth is, we have become too accustomed to relying on cars for everything. I read about the 15-minute neighbourhoods and I think, that's just like the town where I spent my adolescence. My school, on the edge of town, and the town centre where there were proper shops in the 1960s were easily walkable or cyclable. Both my parents worked locally – it was a Home Counties New Town designed to incorporate industry as well as housing, shopping and services although since I lived there that has pretty much collapsed and it's mostly commuter country these days.

Anyway, I thought this article in the dear old Grauniad was very good and enlightening.

I agree Callististamon- it does sound more like it used to be. Now I've read more about the 15 minute idea (all main services and needs ( health, shops, schools, parks) locally within 15 minutes walk/ cycle to reduce car use) its a good idea to work and plan (back) towards. Not every one can work from or near home.

choughdancer

Siope

I see, from this thread, that the right-wing interpretations of what is an interesting planning process, which has been around since the 1920s (although re-named and to an extent re-invigorated by Carlos Moreno in 2016), are gaining traction.

To quote Professor Moreno, describing some of the claims of critics of the idea:

“Their lies are enormous. ‘You will be locked in your neighbourhood; cameras will signal who can go out; if your mother lives in another neighbourhood, you will have to ask for permission to see her, and so on’.”

Hard to argue with him, when the Tory MP Nick Fletcher called it an ‘international socialist concept’; a GBNews presenter said ‘Creepy local authority bureaucrats would like to see your entire existence boiled down to the duration of a quarter of an hour,”said it was ‘dystopian plan’ and would create ‘a surveillance culture that would make Pyongyang envious’; the idiot Farage described the concept as ‘climate change lockdown’; and online media has reported the nonsense about roadblocks, and only being able to drive 100 days a year, which I see reported here as fact.

It’s not fact. The proposal in Oxford is for a road filtering system - not roadblocks - on just 6 routes. The filters will only operate between 7am and 7pm. There will be cameras, and those who break some rules will be fined). Cyclists, pedestrians, public transport, taxis and disabled drivers are exempt. 100 trip permits will be available for others, but if that isn’t enough, the answer is simple: even if you don’t have a permit, you will still be able to drive everywhere. You might just need to use a different route or drive around some of the ring road to avoid the traffic filters.

The Oxford scheme, to my eyes, seems to have been badged as ‘15 minute city’ when it really isn’t - although traffic filtering could be part of a 15 minute city planning process, it would not be the whole of it.

Re the Athens scheme: it was bonkers (I lived there when it was first introduced). Athens has four rush hours a day (because siesta) and immense pollution. The scheme was somehow meant to tackle this by allowing drivers to bring their cars into the city centre in alternate days, defined by your number plate. All that happened was that an awful lot of Athenians bought second, cheaper, older and more polluting cars, and registered them for their alternate days.

I think it is an excellent idea, reducing the need to rely on the car, and as NorthFace said, it seems to me more of a managed return to life in the past, before the over-dependence on the car became so high. Of course it will have to be planned very carefully, to avoid some of the possible problems mentioned, but surely it is something to aspire to, rather than the conspiracy theorists' Big Brother scenario.

First step is to improve public transport but everywhere seems to be going backwards as far as the bus systems are concerned.

People feel marooned, children unable to get to school, all because bus services have been cut.

This scheme is all very for those who live in or on the edge of cities but it would penalise those who live in country areas.

Siope

I see, from this thread, that the right-wing interpretations of what is an interesting planning process, which has been around since the 1920s (although re-named and to an extent re-invigorated by Carlos Moreno in 2016), are gaining traction.

To quote Professor Moreno, describing some of the claims of critics of the idea:

“Their lies are enormous. ‘You will be locked in your neighbourhood; cameras will signal who can go out; if your mother lives in another neighbourhood, you will have to ask for permission to see her, and so on’.”

Hard to argue with him, when the Tory MP Nick Fletcher called it an ‘international socialist concept’; a GBNews presenter said ‘Creepy local authority bureaucrats would like to see your entire existence boiled down to the duration of a quarter of an hour,”said it was ‘dystopian plan’ and would create ‘a surveillance culture that would make Pyongyang envious’; the idiot Farage described the concept as ‘climate change lockdown’; and online media has reported the nonsense about roadblocks, and only being able to drive 100 days a year, which I see reported here as fact.

It’s not fact. The proposal in Oxford is for a road filtering system - not roadblocks - on just 6 routes. The filters will only operate between 7am and 7pm. There will be cameras, and those who break some rules will be fined). Cyclists, pedestrians, public transport, taxis and disabled drivers are exempt. 100 trip permits will be available for others, but if that isn’t enough, the answer is simple: even if you don’t have a permit, you will still be able to drive everywhere. You might just need to use a different route or drive around some of the ring road to avoid the traffic filters.

The Oxford scheme, to my eyes, seems to have been badged as ‘15 minute city’ when it really isn’t - although traffic filtering could be part of a 15 minute city planning process, it would not be the whole of it.

Re the Athens scheme: it was bonkers (I lived there when it was first introduced). Athens has four rush hours a day (because siesta) and immense pollution. The scheme was somehow meant to tackle this by allowing drivers to bring their cars into the city centre in alternate days, defined by your number plate. All that happened was that an awful lot of Athenians bought second, cheaper, older and more polluting cars, and registered them for their alternate days.

I think it is an excellent idea, reducing the need to rely on the car, and as NorthFace said, it seems to me more of a managed return to life in the past, before the over-dependence on the car became so high. Of course it will have to be planned very carefully, to avoid some of the possible problems mentioned, but surely it is something to aspire to, rather than the conspiracy theorists' Big Brother scenario.

I avoid driving into our local city because of the traffic restrictions, I have to drive there for work but for leisure I now avoid going in, this means shopping is done online or in a retail park, there are consequences that might not be welcome by many.

Doodledog has some interesting points. The rich will carry on as usual. The poorer members of society must change their ways. Not everyone is in a position to work flexibly or from home or use public transport for many reasons.

And good point Growstuff. So many councils close down the leisure facilities such as libraries, swimming pools etc. and then cut bus services making car use essential in some areas.

I'll stay where I am thank you.
It sounds restrictive to me.

Good posts Siope. Thank you for your contributions.

I think it's aspirational and a good thing. Next time the council wants to shut a library or build over a park, it should take into account whether its actions would restrict facilities based on a 15 minute rule.

I've read about this. I think it's more an idea for planners than a serious attempt to restrict people's freedom of movement.

Now I don't go out to work, I already live in a "15 minute town" for most of the time. I would have to travel outside my "zone" to see my partner and a few friends/family and to go to hospital appointments, but that's less than 100 times a year.

Just about everything I need is within walking distance or (if I'm lazy) a short car ride.

I don't know if that is the solution but something has to change. The traffic in cities is slow moving and the pollution from vehicles sitting in traffic is heavy.

I think service vehicles and public transport should be the only traffic allowed in cities.

If it means they have to build a swimming pool nearer me I'm all for it. Everything else I already have within 15 mins. As for cars- don't have one. It would help if they made public transport cheaper and more efficient first.

MerylStreep

Unless the penalties are prohibitive I can’t see it working.

Any penalty will be prohibitive to those who can't afford to pay it.

I hate the idea. It is limiting the freedom of the poor whilst allowing the rich to pollute as much as they like. I would much rather see ecological concern rewarded by investment in free or cheap public transport that is safe, reliable and clean.

I'd like to see the detail, as these bright ideas often take no account of people with restricted mobility (not necessarily registered disabled) who can't easily walk or cycle very far. Also, what about those who live in a suburb or town outside of the city limits? Do they have unlimited travel, or none at all? How would the scheme deal with people with multi-car households? Could one family member use the others' cars to go into town several times, or are there checks and balances?

I would like to live somewhere with shops/doctor/dentist within walking distance.
I have to drive everywhere as I live in a tiny village with only a church and pub out in the countryside.

I don't see that it is worse for people living within the City than it is for people living on the immediate outskirts commuting in.

The Oxford scheme has a deservedly bad press. The 15-minute-city and other anti-congestion measures have become hopelessly confused in the public mind.

Good bus services will make or break these schemes, so until/unless buses are properly funded and run as public utilities the results will be resentment, chaos and misery.

Thanks notspaghetti I missed the other thread.

I think there are all sorts of questions that are relevant to 15 minute cities - issues such as how to ensure genuinely equitable communities, particularly in relation to quality of services? What about people who can’t work within 15 minutes of home? Optimum population density? And so on.

But it’s beyond me that the response from far too many (not specifically/exclusively Gransnet) is to condemn any move towards walkable, less car dominated, communities, from, as you say, a position of little knowledge.

petunia I live just outside Oxford, and I think you exagerate a bit. Nothing I have read in the Oxford Times, which covers this issue in detail, has mentioned any restrictions on the number of times you can drive out of your zone into another. certainly not the restrictions that you suggest.

I have read the 15 minute city plans, although I understood, the intention was to apply it as widely as possible, and I can see all kinds of practical problems. It will require many more doctors surgeries, for example, with lots more facilities, lots of smaller supermarkets dotted in lots of city suburbs, rather than large ones on the outskirts. This will mean people having access to a much smaller range of food than they are used to. How do you get the weekly shop home on a bus?

I think it is a lovely idea and I hope it comes to pass, but currently it lies just on the edge of cloud cuckoo land.

I agree, Siope. The concept is a return to a time before mass industrialisation and over-reliance on the car created urban sprawl. In it's purest sense, it will make use of new technologies to reforge a sense of community.

MIT's Kent Larson in his 2012 TED talk gives a brief synopsis of the historical context and the design innovations then in development.

www.ted.com/talks/kent_larson_brilliant_designs_to_fit_more_people_in_every_city?language=en

Why not introduce more Park and Ride schemes outside cities?
But preferably not on SSSIs.

I was forced to comment on this on another thread Siope.
Some people seem to prefer believe any nonsense spouted by a particular "set". Thete isn't any reading around the matter and no attempt to understand.

I see, from this thread, that the right-wing interpretations of what is an interesting planning process, which has been around since the 1920s (although re-named and to an extent re-invigorated by Carlos Moreno in 2016), are gaining traction.

To quote Professor Moreno, describing some of the claims of critics of the idea:

“Their lies are enormous. ‘You will be locked in your neighbourhood; cameras will signal who can go out; if your mother lives in another neighbourhood, you will have to ask for permission to see her, and so on’.”

Hard to argue with him, when the Tory MP Nick Fletcher called it an ‘international socialist concept’; a GBNews presenter said ‘Creepy local authority bureaucrats would like to see your entire existence boiled down to the duration of a quarter of an hour,”said it was ‘dystopian plan’ and would create ‘a surveillance culture that would make Pyongyang envious’; the idiot Farage described the concept as ‘climate change lockdown’; and online media has reported the nonsense about roadblocks, and only being able to drive 100 days a year, which I see reported here as fact.

It’s not fact. The proposal in Oxford is for a road filtering system - not roadblocks - on just 6 routes. The filters will only operate between 7am and 7pm. There will be cameras, and those who break some rules will be fined). Cyclists, pedestrians, public transport, taxis and disabled drivers are exempt. 100 trip permits will be available for others, but if that isn’t enough, the answer is simple: even if you don’t have a permit, you will still be able to drive everywhere. You might just need to use a different route or drive around some of the ring road to avoid the traffic filters.

The Oxford scheme, to my eyes, seems to have been badged as ‘15 minute city’ when it really isn’t - although traffic filtering could be part of a 15 minute city planning process, it would not be the whole of it.

Re the Athens scheme: it was bonkers (I lived there when it was first introduced). Athens has four rush hours a day (because siesta) and immense pollution. The scheme was somehow meant to tackle this by allowing drivers to bring their cars into the city centre in alternate days, defined by your number plate. All that happened was that an awful lot of Athenians bought second, cheaper, older and more polluting cars, and registered them for their alternate days.

Fortunately my village has just about everything a city has, all within walking distance, except John Lewis!

It wouldn't really affect us except for hospital appointments at the city hospital which luckily at the moment are few and far between.

I used to visit my elderly mother almost every day. When she lived in her sheltered apartment I could easily walk there but when she was forced by her physical condition to live in a residential care home, I couldn’t walk there. A hundred days is only a little over three months. How would I have visited my elderly mother almost every day with this scheme? Pay big fines to visit my mother? Or just not bother to visit mother? It’s totally unacceptable!

Councils will need to ensure that there are good and sufficient public services within each zone. I'm thinking education, medical facilities, libraries and leisure facilities etc. If you are only able to leave your zone in a car for 100 times per year, those passes would soon be used up. Imagine being stuck in a zone that was poorly supplied with shops or the shops available were pricey and the nearest supermarket was in another zone. Or having a medical complaint that entailed frequent trips to a hospital in another zone. For me, I would be concerned also if my grandchildren's school and out of school activities was in another zone(s) and I was restricted in picking them up in the car to ferry them here there and everywhere several times per week.