Forum topic: Would my day have been possible without a car?

8:50 a.m school drop off in Winchmore Hill.
9:45 - 10:15 shopping in M&S Ilford
10:30 - 11:30 business meeting in Ilford
12:00 - Pick elderly disabled parents up from their home in Chigwell
12:30 - lunch in Winchmore Hill
14:00 16:00 - with elderly parents attend nativity and infants panto Cinderella I at school
16:00 - 18:00 take partner and son, then parents home and return to Palmers Green.
18:00 - 18:20 - partner uses car to take son to gymnastics class in Winchmore Hill. She returns home
19:00 - 19:30 collect son from gymnastics. Take him to scouts evening at Intimate Theatre to see Cinderella II.
19:30 - 22:00 social evening in Grange Park.

As you can see there are short journeys mixed in with longer ones. Now how do you do that other than with a car? On other days I may have the luxury of walking, using public transport or cycling everywhere, but not on this day.

So please guys, I wish you would stop all this lecturing on car use.

And so what? The number of short car journeys in London is ridiculous; whether or not they can be done by other modes apparently does not matter as people do them by car by default anyway.

Tom: Why are you judging other peoples' actions? Firstly, as long as they are legal, who are you to lecture to others. Secondly what you judge as ridiculous, may not be the opinion of someone else.

Because they don't live in a vacuum: their behaviour has resulted in a massive problems for society, air pollution being a major one that is just now coming into public conciousness. Look, I know it some car journeys are necessary, but we have significantly stretched the meaning of the word 'need'.

If people want to drive everywhere, fine, but I see no reason why our entire environment should be built to allow this behaviour at the expense of everything else. In the Netherlands they have taken a different approach since the 1970s and that has resulted in a far higher active travel rate. Their journeys are no different from ours, so it stands to reason the same is possible here.

For example, I've spoken to one person who claims that it's a 'way of life' and he drives to Palmers Green, but funnily enough walked to Enfield Town. He is very capable of cycling to the former, and it would probably take less than walking to the latter. Perhaps if infrastructure existed that would allow this he would.

In any case, mass car usage and ownership cannot continue with a rising population.

Ok Paul here is my day, though it isn't quite finished yet so some of it is speculative.
0730-0830 home to Westminster
1630-1730 Westminster to home
1830-1830 drop children at Intimate theatre
1935-2000 travel to restaurant near Wood Green.
2300-2320 return journey home from restaurant. Would it be desirable of even possible to do these journeys in a car? No, both cars will stay in the garage and today I bus/tube/trained it to work and back. I could have cycled as I do many times a week but I am fairly fed up with the way I am treated on the roads (especially as it is dark for both legs) so I have had a few days off. The rest of journeys are local walking or bus. So what is your point? That some journeys are easier by car - of course. Nobody is suggesting that you are prevented from driving your journeys but some of us would like a choice of transport. A to B journeys by bicycle for example - the group you represent are doing their best to prevent safe cycling routes to the major centres in Enfield, thus denying us choice (which I would have have thought you would be in favour of). It is the local walkable journeys that should be discouraged. For example, my step mother trying to give a lift to my 24 year old nephew (poor dear) so he can buy a loaf of bread in the morning - it is an eight minute walk! Or the person who drives to the next parallel road in the Lakes estate to "save time". You and your group have never offered any solutions to the transport problems this borough faces with its rising population. Isn't it about time you put some flesh on the bones about what you would do rather than carping and complaining from the side lines? Please can we have some positive ideas?

For a long time now I've been fretting about the fact that it seems impossible for opponents to address the fundamentals which lie behind the Mini-Holland project: current congestion, a very large projected increase in population leading to many more cars on already congested roads, very bad air quality, an obese borough, widespread lack of exercise. Read that long sentence again, it's frightening without even adding various practical,community and childhood issues which have dogged London life for years now.

Then Paul Mandel caps the lack of concentration on the subject with "A day in the life of my car" story. What does that illustrate, that cars are flexible and convenient? We knew that anyway, but it doesn't mean that every journey is best made by car, or that there are no detriments to drivers in over-use of cars: lack of exercise, much worse air quality than biking, for example.

Paul, I can accept that the council, London's Mayor, the Government, may be wrong in seeing cycling as helping the Outer London Boroughs to cope with a large rise in population, but if so how would you deal with it?

More buses? OK, but if cars are in the way that's not going to help.

Your call Paul. Though I should take this opportunity to plead with people who read these posts, but haven't so far contributed, to propose a solution which satisfies government at all levels, and Paul/others who take his stance.

None of you have answered the question.

And that is the point. Because, mass car ownership equatesd to personal freedom and is here to stay, whether some people like it or not. However, there do need to be alternatives and people need to have choices

Air quality is not an excuse for being anti- car. Most parts of the London Borough of Enfield do not currently suffer from poor air quality. It is where the highest traffic volumes and the most congested parts of the road network that have the worst air quality. examples: A406 through PG and New Southgate, A10 around Southbury Road junction & Enfield Town by the main crossroads.

www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/annualmaps.asp

Those locations have a disproportionate amount of through traffic, much of it commerical and you are not going to solve anything with cycle superhighways. In fact you will make it worse. Because they will increase congestion.

Among the guilty ones are the planners and the politicians behind them who are allowing large residential developments at places such as Bowes Road. They should be planting trees there, not building enormous blocks of flats.

As I have said on numerous times before: in time, improved technology will solve the air quality issue. But, In recent years the increase popularity of diesel against petrol has been the main driver of worsened air quality in urban areas. In the short term it only needs a shift in the balance of taxation from petrol to diesel to change that.

In the longer term, we will all be driving electric cars, using power generated from renewables.

Cycling also has a role to play. On a personal level, I have a bicycle and I use it regularly, though not so much when is cold and wet! I would say that iam 10 times less likely to be involved in a collision than the average cyclist, simply by the manner in which I ride.. I support Greenways and Quietways and would be delighted for the New River Path to be extended and upgraded to make it suitable for cycling.

However, that is not enough.

How will the outer London Boroughs cope will a large rise in population? Well, personally I would rather that wasn't happening, though it is somewhat inevitable. One thing about higher population density, is that your daily needs can usually be served much nearer home, so there will naturally be more walking.

When population densities are very high, extending the undergeround rail netwerk to those areas also makes sense. Rather than the North South Crossrail, I think an outer orbital underground line should be built.

Obesity is not going to be solved totally or easily. It is likely to become worse before getting better. It is not just lack of exercise that causes obesity, it is also how many calories we consume, too. Sugar and cooking fat is very cheap and easy to digest. Making it much more expensive, through taxation and through education is an obvious solution. I guess surgery such as gastric bands and appetite suppressants can also help.


And before anyone mentions the Netherlands again, and I havesaid this before, there is three times as much motorway per mile in that country, than in the UK., car ownership there is similar to ours and Amsderdam Schiphol Airport has six runways.

Not only that, but have none of you ever seen the French Autoroutes during the summer? Full of Dutch people, heading south with their caravans!

Paul it was because it was a weak argument. Essentially you are saying that you can find journeys that require a car. Again, so what? No one is saying all journeys must be made by bike. Also, in my opinion with infrastructure not all those journeys needed to be made by car anyway, but I didn't want to be 'judgmental'. For example, driving a few miles to Winchmore Hill from Palmers Green are possibilities perhaps.

And of course people will be driving to France and not cycling! Cycling isn't for those sorts of trip lengths. But with the journeys they that are cyclable ( which is a large chunk ) much more of them are cycled in the Netherlands than here, thanks to the infrastructure. In fact, around 25% of all journeys are cycled IIRC.

And, yes, they have a far lower death rate due to inactivity than us, which is more of an issue than being overweight is.

Another interesting fact: in Utrecht they are removing a motorway and putting back in the original river. Is that happening anywhere in Britain? They made similar road building mistakes to use for many decades.