Cycling UK Forum

Tangled Metal wrote: ↑17 Sep 2024, 2:53pm

Psamathe wrote: ↑17 Sep 2024, 11:30am Program on TV last night (I was "forced to watch!) about HS2 and it was truly socking how ministers lied to Parliament, didn't listen to updated budget estimates and ignored reports to pursue their own personal madness. We deserve better but pay for rubbish and I'm now seeing the trend continue under this New New Labour.

Possibly the worst decision for HS2 is not to re-hire the guy who gave us HS1 to nearly budget andf on time to deliver the HS2 project again I once heard. Apparently the recruiters ruled him and his team out due to not having enough experience of large scale infratructure builds!

Think it's worth taking the grumbles of someone who's lost a job with a pinch of salt tbh. The use the m40 corridor idea really doesn't apply to hs2 in the way it did for the m20 and hs1 and anyone seriously suggesting it as a viable option exposes a deep lack of understanding of railway engineering. Perhaps they prefer rollercoasters.

The whole BBC program was a biased mess as well, it basically seems to have been Andrew Gilligan back on his anti hs2 soapbox, now in his new job as transport rep in obscurely funded Tory think-tank Policy Exchange. He's been ideologically opposed to it from the start and a significant chunk of the current mess it's in is a result of his meddling as adviser under Johnson/sunak. It's worth noting that Gilligan is a commentator/journalist, he has zero actual transport expertise.

To feature noted opponents like wolmar and no one with any knowledge really speaks volumes about the programs quality.

Psamathe wrote: ↑17 Sep 2024, 11:26am

pete75 wrote: ↑16 Sep 2024, 6:19pm ...
BTW I am a pensioner who thinks it only right the winter fuel allowance should be means tested.

Mw as well. I think most people are happy it be means tested and that the disagreement is about the level the threshold has been set. Too many in (fuel) poverty are excluded.

Ian

They've used that threshold because it's convenient re admin costs.

Which is one of the problems with means testing benefits on the first place.

Better would be just to not means test it and increase taxes on higher income/wealthy pensioners. Eg remove the exemption from NI (or better just combine ni/income tax and rationalise the mess that it is in the process) or deal with the outdated regressive mess that is council tax.

rjb wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 6:23pm Laura Kuenssberg sums up the situation nicely in this article for the BBC.
Starmers ducking some of the big issues putting them in the too difficult box.


Starmer says he'll make tough decisions - but will he say the unsayable on trickiest issues? - BBC News - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87g7vdjqzyo

It’s “much easier when you have the money of Thatcher 1983-87 and Blair 2001-2007”, one former official suggests.

When public finances are in trouble, they continue, “maybe it’s the right call to try to get growth first”, rather than ending up with more stubborn problems in a second term.

Thus goes the treasury brain rot that appears likely to scupper starmer's government before it's started. Where exactly do they think this growth is going to come from?

Not really a fan of the contemporary trend of polling the public about every single little policy usually in isolation. It's at best meaningless, and worst completely unhelpful as it's led to a tendency for short termist governance by polling rather than dealing with the larger picture. It also completely misses two important points:
-An issue's salience about something is rarely considered; something might have very low or high support in polls but is completely irrelevant to overall voting intention if the only time most of the public consider that issue is when they're directly asked about it when answering a poll
-Most people are completely useless in making assessments about their future actions and views. Anyone who's got any experience with stated preference surveys or similar will be very aware of this, particularly if they've ever got to compare outturn change to what the SP survey indicated


That said, my own views on winter fuel allowance:
-First, I've never really quite seen the point in it, it's functionally just a bit more pension, though done per household rather than individual, and with an extra bonus if a certain threshold of cold temps is hit. Given that I'd personally just scrap it entirely and roll it into the pension
-Second, my general view is that benefits should generally be universal and progressive taxation should be used for the appropriate amount of redistribution. Non universal benefits have the following disadvantages:
--Increase the idea of rich subsidising poor and reduce social cohesion
--Create funky/ridiculous marginal tax rate curves, the UK has some truly daft examples of this.
--Cost money to administer.

Of course the way people treat cars is widely accepted as a necessary inconvenience.

Prime example of Walker's motonormativity in action.

Two separate concerns for me over this.

First I'm generally fairly libertarian in outlook (contingent on harm to others). That said, disposable vapes satisfies enough of the latter element for me, complete waste of resources and also a waste hazard (councils have lost bin lorries to the resulting lithium fires), plus forcing people on to refillable alternatives is hardly an onerous ask. But rather less convinced over the outdoor smoking & age restriction.

Secondly, some of this has the distinct feel of a government that's scrabbling around the edges for things to do in much the same way the last years of the tories had. It's got far less of the drama and scandal (though they suddenly seem to be making an effort with Athwal & Hendy!) but seems a bit disappointing from a fresh government with a stonking majority and far more serious problems to be dealing with. Particularly as smoking is a dying habit anyway so the bans seem fairly moot.

I was unsure before the election whether labours fiscal talk was something they we're really signed up to or if it's was just a façade to win the election. Unfortunately all the noises point to the former. They've backed themselves into a corner with needlessly restrictive fiscal rules and impossible promises on taxes which limits the ability to do big serious stuff and so are left to mess with this rubbish. I continue to hope the autumn statement may prove different but talks of departmental cuts and private finance are very troubling.

axel_knutt wrote: ↑1 Sep 2024, 4:03pm You don't need to sample an entire population to get accurate statistics about it.

Consider a skip filled with millions of coins, you'll discover, accurately, that the probability of heads/tails is 50/50 after tossing just a small sample without the need to go through the whole skip full, and the same sample size will still be adequate even for a bigger skip load.

Oh I see. I'd have thought the other parts of my post had made it clear I'm aware of that!

Problem here is when it comes to cyclists (<2% mode share by trips) it's usually a fairly small absolute (sub) sample each year so what is a fairly irrelevant standard error on the car mode share is a bit more noisy on the cycling one.

axel_knutt wrote: ↑30 Aug 2024, 12:37pm
Margin of error is dependent on absolute sample size, not relative sample size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

?? Not sure what you're saying here?

there is a degree of sampling noise that may affect year to year results as well so even at national level outputs, small shares like cycling need to be considered with a degree of caution.

NTS uses a stratified design to try to reduce sampling noise but ultimately it's still only 6,000-6,500 'fully co-operating' (as in complete the diary properly) households a year.

Also this is the first post covid year that is really comparable to 2019. I.e. back to full door knocks and face to face interviews as standard and normal sample size. 2020-2022 all had significantly reduced sample sizes (2,822, 4,429 & 3,646) and various methodological compromises due to covid working and lockdowns. All three years had some fairly chunky statistical health warnings attached.

This guy did the same last year didn't he?

Think he's going to be one of those who perennially introduces an anti cyclist debate/private bill into parliament that nearly no-one pays attention to.

Everyone needs their hobbies I guess.

simonineaston wrote: ↑22 Aug 2024, 4:32pm I recall seeing similar repeated coverage of the dreadful submarine sinking a couple years of ago and thinking that you only appear to be terrifically newsworthy if you’re very, very rich. If you're not, nobody - at least in the firm of news editors - gives a monkey’s…

I don't think that's the only factor here.

Certainly, in(famous) and/or wealth is a factor that increases 'newsworthiness', but the other major element here is rarity/novelty. A (possibly not well designed) big yacht sunk by freak storm with waterspouts is fairly rare. Dingy with desperate migrants is not. I do seem to remember those did actually used to make the news at one point when they were rather rarer, but as crossing attempts, and therefore failures, rose it became 'boring' and no longer worthy of the news cycle.

See also road fatalities/motonormativity vs train/plane crashes. Or nearly anything vs terrorism. Clues in the name, it's news, not olds...

Yes the hires in Bristol/bath have had defined park points for years, quite possibly the start.

The local councils effectively dictate where these are. Lambeth actually has a proper kerbside strategy set out as a council policy document which is probably why it's been a bit better things.

Bmblbzzz wrote: ↑21 Aug 2024, 4:03pm OTOH it's the hire ones that are left obstructing pavements.

Though that's an issue of local transport and specifically kerbside/parking strategy. Butting up against the perceived electoral horrors of being 'anti car' again, the obvious place for storing micromobility hire devices is repurposed car parking spots, not pavements/footways. It would only mean the removal of the odd parking space here and there but apparently that's just too much

Construction regulation is an interesting one. we don't for example, regulate skateboard or rollerskate construction (even smaller wheels!) and those have little problem hitting the same speeds and breaking teenagers' faces with a small hill so I do wonder about proportionality there (not to mention a younger fit late teen/adult won't have an issue even sprinting at 12-15mph). Hence why I think minimally so under a certain power/speed limit is fine.

It's notable how when it comes to daring, about the worst you see on the official ones in Bristol now is occasional use by 2 people at the same time. The novelty of doing dafter stuff wore off pretty fast.

Nearholmer wrote: ↑21 Aug 2024, 11:02am For scooters, maybe the legally permitted “human power emulation” needs to be a bit more realistic than it is now though, because few and far between are the people who can leg-scoot at 250W for more than a few moments at a time …… personally I find leg-scooting so inefficient and tiring that 25W, or even 2.5W, sustained could emulate what I achieve!

I think such an arbitrarily low limit would just end up creating a very hard to control grey/black market. Better the limit is aimed more at compatibiltiy with other users of equivalent infrastructure. i.e. more or less where the eapc limit is. And generalise out to just any wheeled device within reasonable size/weight specifications.

EAPCs still end up at a slight advantage since human effort + motor can exceed motor only devices and this can be readily seen in Bristol where the current trial offering is both escooters and ebikes from the same provider on the same price structure, the scooters I overtake without really thinking about it. the ebikes, particularly on the up gradients I usually have to put some effort into keeping up with.

I'd agree with far more point of sale restrictions, though, the 'private land use only' is just a ridiculous loophole that needs plugging which would help deal with the dirtbike/suron issue as well.

pjclinch wrote: ↑21 Aug 2024, 10:12am I'm not counting my chickens yet, but at least we have eggs and we didn't even have those before.

Indeed, £s need to follow the warm words. Plus high standards. I was a little troubled about her words on only the 'good bid writers' getting money previously. Though this is true to some extent under the ATF rounds, for the most part they were reasonably well judged on a technical/quality perspective. If councils weren't getting money it was mostly because they weren't willing to undertake the necessary re-prioritisation of road space away from motor cars.