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Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 10:04am
by The utility cyclist
Mr Grayling wants to have electric charging points on every lampost, every new home, basically everywhere that cars are parked up at a cost of tens if not hundreds of billions of pounds. https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... s-grayling
Given that the space taken up by parked cars is already a massive issue having charging ports along roads everywhere means the death knell for any thoughts on segregated cycle lanes in residential/built up areas.
This insistence that large EVs are the solution to the transport problem is utterly contemptible, yes it will remove local pollution but with 3/4 of all car journeys less than 5 miles (and most of them single occupant) there simply isn't the need for cars in cities/built up areas in the numbers at present levels (unless you have a disability).

Forcing through the charging ports on every street (how they are going to get 6kw cables into a street light is anyone's guess!) will ensure that segregated cycle lanes will be pushed yet further down the list (if they were ever on it!) and indeed make it nigh on impossible to install due to yet more space taken away by people's personal conveyances, as if they don't hog enough of the landscape as it is! :twisted:

As i've said before, there's no way in my lifetime that we will see anything remotely like Dutch style cycling infra, this pretty much puts the nail in the coffin for it on any proper scale if it went ahead.

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 12:14pm
by Phil Fouracre
Sad, but true!!
On the other hand, is it really going to happen?

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 1:03pm
by Cosmicbike
It's 20 years away. In real terms the electrical network, particularly in London, is not designed for that kind of demand. The DNO's will need to be paid to upgrade, perhaps it would be a better use of public funds than the rather pointless smart meters...

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 1:34pm
by PH
Regardless of what it'll do to our residential streets, it seems foolish to over invest in what is still an experimental technology. I read a while ago that the future development might take it in the direction of lower capacity batteries and faster charging, We don't know.
Where I live, having posts that people have to park next to might be a good thing, it might at least stop everyone parking on the footway.

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 2:01pm
by Cyril Haearn
It is a bit of speculation cos there are not many electric vehicles yet
Back then there were many more petrol pumps, outside village shops and the like

One wonders whether futurologists were so active when railways were being built, anyone know about the history of futurology?

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 5:41pm
by Cunobelin
One of the downside to electric vehicles has always been the charging time.

With ICE you can visit a central source and top up fuel in a few minutes, but with an electric vehicle, that topping up takes hours as opposed to minutes - hence the need to have a longer parking period

Which comes to the next problem..... if you wish to encourage these vehicles then you need to offer that facility

I had a friend who bought an early Electric Car, and he was adept at charging in bizarre places.

I remember particular night out where we were in a pub......

He asked the Landlord whether for a donation to the Pub's charity, he could plug his car through the window into theirr mains supply, the Landlord had no problem at all

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 5:57pm
by Wanlock Dod
The utility cyclist wrote:...there's no way in my lifetime that we will see anything remotely like Dutch style cycling infra...

I really don't think that the Dutch would have segregated infrastructure in the kinds of (residential/urban) areas where cars are being parked. They would probably have a more constrained road system for cars, largely relying on making streets one way for motor traffic. Cycling infrastructure is for big and busty roads with fast traffic, whereas a lot of urban situations simply require some practical constraints on car use (which we obviously aren't going to see over here either).

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 6:18pm
by The utility cyclist
I wonder if there will be sockets for electric bikes on these charging stations, highly doubtful
I never quite understand why ev users get the energy free or extremely cheap on top of the huge subsidies. Surely the fact the bludgers don't pay 'road tax' should be enough of an incentive.

It's all going to get utterly messy (and costly) and the thinking that we'll be ahead of game ignores the massive problems starting with charge points and having enough energy to go round.
Maybe if they weren't so heavy and didn't have 10" media screens the range would be massively greater. Why not simply do more with respect to single/multi person EVs in the shape of cycles (still restricted for license and insurance free use)

That government are ignoring what we know are better solutions at a much lower cost, less actual change to the landscape, less emissions in terms of building infra, the vehicles themselves and not having to build more power stations is beyond ignorant.
When you think about cross rail, they could have used the East to West tunnel simply for bikes and it would have had a greater capacity by far than the trains and at a hugely lower cost.
Narrow minded thinking that ends up not solving problems at all and millions of charging points across the country taking up even more space would be a disaster for cycle infra IMHO.

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 8:53pm
by Steady rider
Should conventional car parks provide the charging points? Public roads are not private car parking spaces for individuals because we all pay for public roads and should have full access to the full road.
One example of taking part of the road for private parking
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.02328 ... 6656?hl=en

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 3 Aug 2018, 11:22pm
by the snail
The utility cyclist wrote:Forcing through the charging ports on every street

I don't think this is what he's saying, probably more of an aspiration than a plan. There won't be money from the government for it, just encouraging councils and private sector to do it. And this is Grayling talking, the most useless waste of oxygen polititian ever, so if he's organising it, it'll never happen.

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 4 Aug 2018, 3:16am
by PH
Cunobelin wrote:One of the downside to electric vehicles has always been the charging time.

Why assume that'll always be the case?
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/19033/new- ... ctric-cars

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 4 Aug 2018, 9:04am
by reohn2
This idea is Grayling la,la,land rightwing tripe.
If anyone has the remotest idea this will become reality,think again.
The UK is about to enter the most unstable time since WW2,to think that any politrickian could think that far ahead is laughable,to think any rightwing neoliberalist Tory politrickian can is beyond silly.
These people throw out their ideas of utopian tosh like people throw out the garbage,which this proposed "vision" is as much use as :?
Forget it,next week it'll be another revision of the rail timetables.........

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 4 Aug 2018, 9:24am
by Cugel
reohn2 wrote:This idea is Grayling la,la,land rightwing tripe.
If anyone has the remotest idea this will become reality,think again.
The UK is about to enter the most unstable time since WW2,to think that any politrickian could think that far ahead is laughable,to think any rightwing neoliberalist Tory politrickian can is beyond silly.
These people throw out their ideas of utopian tosh like people throw out the garbage,which this proposed "vision" is as much use as :?
Forget it,next week it'll be another revision of the rail timetables.........


Quite.

Anyway, I don't want segregated cycling facilities since those we already have seem to be lethal - inviting you into an alley where you can be car-doored, lorry-crushed or pedestrian-dunshed, as you negotiate the bits of sharp car detritus. Moreover, those cycling lanes that are truly segregated will be used as a "reason" to ban cyclists from the roads. And as a jousting ground between cyclists and pedestrians, who will also be regarded as unfit to be let near the shiny cars.

No, better to enforce draconian laws agin' the evil that is the car, applied by policemen-martinets of the most avid ilk. .....

Wot's that!? No chance when a Graything's in charge!? Well, I suppose not. But how long will that last? On the other hand, his successor is likely to be even more stupid, since there seems to be a factory churning out stupid Tory boys & girls, apparently supplied with the brains that Dr Frankenstein rejected as too degraded and queer for even his crude purposes.

Cugel

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 4 Aug 2018, 10:50am
by Cunobelin
PH wrote:
Cunobelin wrote:One of the downside to electric vehicles has always been the charging time.

Why assume that'll always be the case?
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/19033/new- ... ctric-cars



I didn't ..... my exact phrase was deliberately in the past tense

However looking at the future there will always be new technologies, and new options, but those at the moment and in the foreseeable future are neither predictable or a real tangible option

One of the biggest problems with electric vehicles is that because of the batteries they are considerably heavier than their ICE counterparts, and as a result the particulate pollution that arises from their use is the same as if not greater.

The article you linked clearly points out that the technology they are suggesting that more and heavier batteries would be needed, increasing the pollution problem

The other problem with the "future" is that it is exactly that "in the future" so any design of infrastructure will be planned on current technology, not the dreams of the future

Re: Electric car charging to kill off segregated cycle lanes

Posted: 4 Aug 2018, 11:27am
by Pete Owens
Well we can always hope.

Pointing out that segregated farcilities endanger cyclists seems to do nothing to dent the enthusiasm of the highway engineers to install the things.