What kind of father sacrifices his children in order, he thinks, to win an election

Glorianny

Lathyrus

I’m all in favour of walking to school if you can get a place at a school within walking distance. So many people can’t and even have to ferry their children to different schools.

This is what I mean by a scheme that addresses the reality if the lives that people live, often by no choice of their own.

We all know the traffic generated by the school run. One enormous step forward would be to go back to schools taking from their immediate catchment area.

Tackle the problem of traffic at its roots not with a sticking plaster.

The fact that a school is oversubscribed is no reason to stop measures which would enable the children already attending to walk there.
But if a council introduces LTNs arguing that a school is not within walking distance might help appeals.

LTNs won’t help school appeals because there is no joined up thinking in services.

What would help is children within walking distance of a school being allocated first choice for placement.

Like it used to be…….

Summary

Air pollution is one of the world’s leading risk factors for death, attributed to millions of deaths each year.
Air pollution is attributed to 11.65% of deaths globally.
It is also one of the leading risk factors for disease burden.
Death rates from air pollution are highest in low-to-middle income countries, with more than 100-fold differences in rates across the world.
Globally, death rates from air pollution have been falling. This has mainly been the result of progress on tackling indoor pollution.

^ The above is from ourworldindata.org

Loads more info if you care to look, most of which suggests that the air in modern cities such as we have in the UK is not such a big deal anyway: ourworldindata.org/air-pollution

Visgir1

My nearest City put into place a LEZ. Recently reported since its been applied they have lost over £200k in cost as its not generating enough income.
Council now considering removing it.

Exactly - interestingly my market town DESPERATELY needs a bypass, which they could have done easily many years ago by using the defunct railway track, however, a well known college and a supermarket, put paid to that idea (apparently the supermarket had a say because of just that, a loss of revenue. We now have huge traffic problems - if there is just one set of roadworks, or an accident, the whole town gridlocks - sometimes for weeks on end! It is a main north - south route and a main east to west route, and its utterly ridiculous! Not only is it an absolute nightmare for residents, businesses and visitors, who are trying to get through, the pollution must be awful! As for the state of the lovely Tudor, Elizabethan and Georgian houses, on The Green, you can literally feel the houses shake when huge artics come literally rumbling down the road - the main north/south route isn't even 2 lanes in one place! 2 cars can get through, but a car and a lorry can't, so the traffic has to stop in order to let them through. These are main routes, but were built for horses and carts! It's disgusting that the college and one supermarket can have such an impact on our town (not that you can stop and ark easily to go to said supermarket, but planners must be in the pockets of these big institutions, although why having a bypass would have an effect on the college is beyond me? Yes it would take away some of our countryside, but the town itself wold benefit hugely in my opinion ....

there
Autocorrect!

Blondiescot

Chances are a good number of existing pupils may not live within walking distance of a school. And if both parents work and have to be at work by 9, say, then they probably don't have time to walk their children to school and still get to work on time.

Many drop their children at school en route to work.

It would be better if Local Authorities abolished silly rules regarding school transport, ie regulating the distances from school when children are allowed to use free transport.

Many school children are not allowed to use the school buses which go past their homes because they might be ¼mile or less inside the specified distance. It could be too far to walk or parents are not happy about young children walking to and from home alone so take and fetch them on their way to and from work.

Catchment areas often make no sense either, or their may be all kinds of reasons why children do not attend the nearest school.
Those not in the catchment area have to pay high bus fares too.

Chances are a good number of existing pupils may not live within walking distance of a school. And if both parents work and have to be at work by 9, say, then they probably don't have time to walk their children to school and still get to work on time.

Lathyrus

I’m all in favour of walking to school if you can get a place at a school within walking distance. So many people can’t and even have to ferry their children to different schools.

This is what I mean by a scheme that addresses the reality if the lives that people live, often by no choice of their own.

We all know the traffic generated by the school run. One enormous step forward would be to go back to schools taking from their immediate catchment area.

Tackle the problem of traffic at its roots not with a sticking plaster.

The fact that a school is oversubscribed is no reason to stop measures which would enable the children already attending to walk there.
But if a council introduces LTNs arguing that a school is not within walking distance might help appeals.

I’m all in favour of walking to school if you can get a place at a school within walking distance. So many people can’t and even have to ferry their children to different schools.

This is what I mean by a scheme that addresses the reality if the lives that people live, often by no choice of their own.

We all know the traffic generated by the school run. One enormous step forward would be to go back to schools taking from their immediate catchment area.

Tackle the problem of traffic at its roots not with a sticking plaster.

My nearest City put into place a LEZ. Recently reported since its been applied they have lost over £200k in cost as its not generating enough income.
Council now considering removing it.

This is interesting showing that LTNs reduce car use in the area and even car ownership. One of the aims is that residents who can walk to a venue (say school) will do so. In order to facilitate this some roads around primary schools are designated car free for dropping off and picking up times.
rachelaldred.org/research/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-evidence/

maddyone

Germanshepherdsmum

I’ve had asthma since I was a small child despite living in a rural area. I can’t go anywhere without my inhaler. I don’t underestimate the problems of others but you seem to think those in rural areas are fine Imogen. We’re not. Many of us suffer badly from the pollen from food crops and we have no alternative to using cars.

Exactly! I have asthma. The main culprit was dust mites! Diesel fumes were also horrendous, but we now have much cleaner diesel and cleaner, greener petrol. Electric cars pose many problems, especially if we all had one. Insufficient charging points, lithium batteries (a problem to dispose of cleanly I believe) cars bursting into flames, and lack of power on longer journeys, particularly if you’re using the heater/air conditioning, the radio, the lights, the Sat Nav. My verdict on electric cars, not good enough yet. I’ve ordered a new petrol car. It’s very economical and clean.

I agree with you about electric cars, we had to buy new cars because of ULEZ but research showed that a petrol car is better for us at the moment for many reasons. I usually keep my cars for a long time and do wonder if I'll ever actually be able to buy electric in my lifetime!

Without paying a charge?

Callistemon21

Glorianny

Callistemon21

MaizieD

Callistemon21

What will be banned is traffic passing through the neighbourhood

Care workers for a start? How will they get to their patients?
Already they are on wages which do not reward the value of their work. Can they afford to change their cars, pay constant charges?

Delivery drivers?

People visiting relatives and friends?
We know someone who is finding it too expensive to visit elderly relatives; she cannot afford to change her car and using public transport is impossible.

Care workers, or others, visiting people within the zone won't be 'passing through', will they?

How are they not?

Through traffic is designated as passing from A to B without stopping.
Some of these ways are what used to be called "rat runs" a short cut through a residential area. The aim is to stop that happening.

But carers may not live in the zone themselves and have to go from house to house (as speedily as is allowable) in order to get to their next patient, who may be inside or outside the zone.

You don't have to live in the zone to access it. If you are visiting 1 house you are permitted access. If you are visiting several houses you will probably find access easier because there will be less traffic.

MadeInYorkshire

Elegran

But they have to pass through a lot of side streets to reach the ones they are going to. Not once but every time they visit, and for every different house at which they spend their allotted fifteen minutes, then they have to find somewhere to park for those fifteen minutes, not once a day but multiple times - that can use up a chunk of the allotted time..

Yes, and don't get paid for travelling time, and a snivelling 26p per mile! I was getting 45p a mile when I last worked in 2010!

A for disabled people, buses don't stop for them now, the tube is inaccessible, and they will be getting rid of staff at stations who have to get the ramps out for them to board .... nothing changes for us there! The Govt are asking disabled people currently what is important to us - the choices are
- making it easier for disabled people to be elected to a
public body
- playground accessibility
- emergency planning and resilience work
- climate adaptations and mitigations
- a Disability Enabled Badge
- Special Olympics World Summer Games
- Addressing access refusals for guide dogs
- Raising the profile of assistive technology
- Wellbeing and opportunities for disabled children

Well. what a waste! Nothing about if we have enough money to live on, suitable housing, respite care - most of the above is just for selected groups, not affecting the majority - assistive technology, we cannot afford it; climate adaptations and mitigations that's a good one. Being poor, I'm entitled to help under the ECO4 scheme. I asked for Solar, with which to heat my room as I didn't have any heating on all winter when I found out my electric underfloor heating was costing me over £21 a day! However, because the rest of the house has gas, I will get wall insulation and a new boiler (which they want us to start getting rid of in 18 months time) with which to heat the part of the house I don't live in ... stupid!

Sorry, I digressed, again ..

On the other hand if traffic is restricted in the area they work they may find they spend less time sitting in traffic queues. The parking would be the same regardless of who is accessing the area.
Some disabled people may feel with less traffic they are more confident using a mobility scooter.

Elegran

New-build estates are a small fraction of the places where real people live.

How do you police the difference between 1) those carers who come from elsewhere and are passing through suburban (or mid-city) streets to spend fifteen minutes getting someone up, showered, dressed and breakfasted before moving on and passing through the streets again to the next client, and 2) other motorists who are passing straight through those same suburban (or midcity) streets because they are between their starting point and their destination?

If you make side streets into one-way routes like a maze, with complicated timings for banning some traffic while allowing others (the preferred option here), you have lots of local residents spending four times as long and six times as much fuel and pollution negotiating them (im)patiently every time they go to or from anywhere, and building up even higher levels of stress than they did previously.

As Elegran has explained.

I sometimes wonder who thinks up these ideas and whether or not they think them through properly.

In Wales there are 50mph restrictions on some motorways to try to reduce pollution. Less pollution is produced at 50mph than at 70mph but this restriction has resulted in traffic jams, traffic crawling along at 10 or 15mph at rush hours and consequently more pollution than before.
Coupled with 20mph in every built-up area, cities, towns and villages, a dismal lack of transport and a moratorium on road building including by-passes, Wales will become just one smog of pollution.

Glorianny

Callistemon21

MaizieD

Callistemon21

What will be banned is traffic passing through the neighbourhood

Care workers for a start? How will they get to their patients?
Already they are on wages which do not reward the value of their work. Can they afford to change their cars, pay constant charges?

Delivery drivers?

People visiting relatives and friends?
We know someone who is finding it too expensive to visit elderly relatives; she cannot afford to change her car and using public transport is impossible.

Care workers, or others, visiting people within the zone won't be 'passing through', will they?

How are they not?

Through traffic is designated as passing from A to B without stopping.
Some of these ways are what used to be called "rat runs" a short cut through a residential area. The aim is to stop that happening.

But carers may not live in the zone themselves and have to go from house to house (as speedily as is allowable) in order to get to their next patient, who may be inside or outside the zone.

I don't think anyone on here is saying we shouldn't bother - but as others have rightly said, any plan has to be a realistic one, and a workable one. You can't just change these things overnight.

Elegran

But they have to pass through a lot of side streets to reach the ones they are going to. Not once but every time they visit, and for every different house at which they spend their allotted fifteen minutes, then they have to find somewhere to park for those fifteen minutes, not once a day but multiple times - that can use up a chunk of the allotted time..

Yes, and don't get paid for travelling time, and a snivelling 26p per mile! I was getting 45p a mile when I last worked in 2010!

A for disabled people, buses don't stop for them now, the tube is inaccessible, and they will be getting rid of staff at stations who have to get the ramps out for them to board .... nothing changes for us there! The Govt are asking disabled people currently what is important to us - the choices are
- making it easier for disabled people to be elected to a
public body
- playground accessibility
- emergency planning and resilience work
- climate adaptations and mitigations
- a Disability Enabled Badge
- Special Olympics World Summer Games
- Addressing access refusals for guide dogs
- Raising the profile of assistive technology
- Wellbeing and opportunities for disabled children

Well. what a waste! Nothing about if we have enough money to live on, suitable housing, respite care - most of the above is just for selected groups, not affecting the majority - assistive technology, we cannot afford it; climate adaptations and mitigations that's a good one. Being poor, I'm entitled to help under the ECO4 scheme. I asked for Solar, with which to heat my room as I didn't have any heating on all winter when I found out my electric underfloor heating was costing me over £21 a day! However, because the rest of the house has gas, I will get wall insulation and a new boiler (which they want us to start getting rid of in 18 months time) with which to heat the part of the house I don't live in ... stupid!

Sorry, I digressed, again ..

It needs to be a realistic plan for lives as they are lived, not an idealistic vision.

It does. I have no objection to a 'nudge' towards a different way of doing things, but this should not be in favour of the rich at the expense of the poor. Not everyone is fit enough to cycle, for instance. As has been said, EVs are beyond the reach of many people, and the LTNs I know about tend to be in better-off areas, and the overspill areas that become their rat runs are not.

As for killing children (which nobody wants) either the idea is to cut down on the mobility of some (and that may not be stated, but it will be the less well-off) by cutting down the number of cars, or it is to keep the number of cars the same, but shift the pollution out of some areas and into others, where there will still be children.

knock on

I think we should bother of course and I think life would be more pleasant and healthier if we all used our cars less.

But I don’t think it’s been thought through in regard to knocking effects. Measures to mitigate those need to be put into place along with more support to prevent people from feeling put upon frustrated and angry because their lives have not been made better but more difficult.

I had a look at some London boroughs proposals and see that more than one are charging quite a lot to park your bike securely. Make you bike and then make money from you.

It needs to be a realistic plan for lives as they are lived, not an idealistic vision.

Well if we are going to adopt China as an example I hope you are all prepared to sacrifice someone in your family
Air pollution is responsible for about 2 million deaths in China per year. Of those deaths, ambient air pollution alone caused more than 1 million deaths, while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused another million deaths in the same period in China.
Still why should we bother?

Oreo

Shelmiss

“just cannot get my head around the idea of a father prepared to sacrifice his children for a petty political gain“

good grief, going a bit over the top aren’t you?

That’s what I thought too 😂

Why should the UK impoverish itself when the likes of China has no intention of doing anything to restrict emissions?
Why should citizens here have to be massively inconvenienced and put out of pocket in the mad rush to go green?
What the UK puts out is a tiny drop in the world ocean.

Enough to kill its own children though

Better to put pressure on the Americans and Chinese to reduce emissions, that might make a little difference. Actually the Chinese are doing some things in that direction because in Beijing you are only allowed to drive on certain days of the week and only then if you are a resident.

Forget which political party he supports, I just cannot get my head around the idea of a father prepared to sacrifice his children for a petty political gain.

I don't believe his is sacrificing his children for gain.

I suspect, could be wrong, he is attempting to find a way forward for people who need to traverse and work in LTN, people who want petrol not dependent on foreign sources - to drive to work, school, shops.

Seems to me, further lowering allowable auto CO emissions may be a way forward, along with implementing decent bus transportation.

I thought petrol CO emissions standards were re-set in 2005, perhaps that number could be reduced by (say) half, through re-engineering?