Birmingham follows Bruges.

[rmurphy195]

This is getting cause and effect confused. (a common mistake of transport planners)

People make their lifestyle choices depending on the transport infrastructure available not vice versa. A typical commute has been about 40 minutes since the dawn of civilisation. As higher speed transport modes became available people made decisions about where they lived and worked involving greater travel. The victorian railway boom opened up the possibly of living remote from your place of work - they were not built to meet the existing needs of people walking 20 miles to & from work; the commuter towns sprung up around the stations.

The more recent move towards mass motoring has seen the same pattern. People are still constrained by how far they can drive in 40 minutes, they do have a greater but still not-unlimited choices. We should never forget that these are still choices that individuals make (choices that those of us who consider ourselves "cyclists" refrain from making) - not circumstances imposed by the constraints of modern living.

Of course people who have accumulated a series of decisions based on the availability of private motors tend to become car dependent. They see this as the way the world is they; live in A, work at B, marry someone from C, do their shopping at D so they think they need their car, rather than have chosen a lifestyle to take advantage of it.

Not quite.

When I first married I lived on the outskirts of Birmingham (still do) and worked in the city centre - easy to get to. The life changed - the job disappeared.

So I ended up working for a while in Redditch - car commute, no realistic alternative.

Then when that job disappeared I ended up working in Bromsgrove - same thing.

In each case my choice was defined entirely by where I could find work with an employer that would have me (anyone in IT development over the age of 35 looking for work in the 90's will know exactly what I mean)

Then when that disappeared I ended up working somewhere north of Wolverhampton - 60 mile a day round trip commute, or 2.5 hours each way by train/bike. 2 trains each way each day = 40 train journeys per week. The stats at the time were that only 80% of trains were on time, and I had to make a connection! I'll let you all work out the reason I drove there and back each day. (OK on a lucky day, 5 hours travelling plus a typical 9 or so hours working day wouldn't leave me a great deal of time for family life.

Almost everyone I knew who worked at these locations were in the same boat, the time taken to commute (and the costs) took secondary importance to being able to pay the mortgage, uni fees etc. etc.

[Mike Sales]

People make their lifestyle choices depending on the transport infrastructure available not vice versa. A typical commute has been about 40 minutes since the dawn of civilisation. As higher speed transport modes became available people made decisions about where they lived and worked involving greater travel. The victorian railway boom opened up the possibly of living remote from your place of work - they were not built to meet the existing needs of people walking 20 miles to & from work; the commuter towns sprung up around the stations.

True. A well argued post.
Nobody takes a job and then asks themselves how they are going to get to and from work. No, time and cost, which you don't mention, are integral inputs to making the decision. In a world were motoring does not pay its full costs and roads are provided free at the point of use on a predict and provide basis, it is inevitable that more and more motor commuting is the norm.
Perhaps if driving were more expensive there might be more choice of local jobs, or a more fluid house rental market might develop. I believe that other in EU countries more people rent than in the UK.
If the state put public money into helicopter commuting then we would see people travelling even further to work, and then complaining about the impossibility of removing the subsidy on helicopter fuel, and landing pads.
What we cannot do is go on pretending that the present hypermobility is the only possible way of doing things. We need to drive fewer miles, and the change will not be painless. Moving house, or changing jobs, is rather less of an inconvenience than the alternatives.

[Si]

Birmingham has more canals than Venice.
Bruges makes a point of tourism on the canals, like Venice does.

............. just thought I'd chuck that into the mix.

AAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Pedantic bug-bear . Birmingham does not have more canals than Venice. More miles of canal, but not more canals. And given that Birmingham is much bigger, it means that people in Brum are, on average, much further from a canal in their city than the people in Venice are in theirs.

However, as you say, canals can be used for tourism, and in Brum city centre there are is a fair amount of tourism and leisure based around the canal tow paths.

The use of canal for cycle commuting in Brum is very limited. As noted, it's a fair old ride for many people to get to one. For others, on say the Grand Union, well, you wouldn't really want to be there after dark...or in the day time for many. Then there are ones like the B&F up from Erdington to the city centre- OK for moderately confident cyclists at the moment but all those up and over bridges put the less confident off, and it (like many others) just doesn't have the capacity for an increase in cyclist numbers. The stretch of canal between the UoB and city centre gets very very busy at times and there have been issues between cyclists and walkers, and cyclists and other cyclists. On the plus side, BBB have had most of the tow paths in Brum resurfaced to a 'usable' standard, and cycling on canals has increased somewhat.

[Si]

The proposals come in several stages.

The initial one was the so-called congestion charge in the city centre. This one got all the 'hard working, law abiding, tax paying, mail reading' citizens up in arms as it was just another part of the 'war against the motorist'. In reality it was a charge on the most polluting vehicles, e.g. dirty diesels and older petrol cars. It would have little effect on the average car driver. Taxi drivers with diesel were to be given help to change over. Those living within the zone were to be given extra time to transition. However the scheme has been put back...hey what do the lives of a few inner city kids matter eh?

The scheme that has just been mooted is stop travel across the city centre. So you would still be able to drive into the city, you just wouldn't be able to leave in a different direction. So if you live in, say, Kings Heath and you want to go to the Hippodrome (or your place of work in the SW part of the city) you drive in same as normal, park near by, then drive out the same route again after. If you live in, say, Sutton and you want to go to the Hippodrome, you either drive in to a car park on the east side, park and walk through the city centre(20mins?). Or you go round the outer ring road and come in and out via the other side. OR, you might even consider using the train or bus....or, heaven forbid, cycle.

Public transport - this is the bit that hasn't yet been specified. PT into and out of the city at the moment is pretty regular and covers many areas. It's also close to capacity in a number of areas. It needs improving such that you can not only get into and out of the city but around the city better. Alas a lot of money has just been spent on the tram. Trams are good if you either have no trams (then you can spend on cycling or buses) or lots of trams (such that you can catch one near your home and get to where you want to go). Brum has one big fancy tram running through it so most people don't have a use for it. Brums has lots of buses....the issue is, like other places, you have lots of companies working the same profitable routes and fewer ones on the unprofitable routes. The council really needs to control who can run what where and when to form an integrated bus network. And local councillors need to stop closing bus lanes.

Cycling. We've just had our two new Blue Routes (equivalent of cycling super highways). They are pretty good. the one from the Uni to the city gets a fair amount of use (although there are two parallel(ish) routes: canal and NCN5). The other one, towards Newtown is pretty under used. BBB has done a Big Bike Give Away....handing out around 5000 adult bikes and a load of kids bikes. All good stuff but it didn't really coincide with the Blue Routes - e.g. if would have been nice if they could have given out lots of bikes to people living near the outer ends of the Blue Routes. However, the giving out of bikes was one of the factors that allowed the money and political will for the Blue Routes to be built. At the moment I am not aware of any plans for new Blue routes, however, with the Commonwealth Games coming in two years, one would hole that the Newtown route will be expanded up to Alexandra Stadium where mush and the games and athletes village will be. BBB & BCR continue but at a much less enthusiastic pace. British cycling is still very active (HSBC having it's big offices in Brum) but their best project, Ride Active, has had funding cut and is treading water rather than being progressive (note: I'm extremely biased here as I used to run it, other people's MMV). CUK continues to be active, with still more Community Cycle Clubs starting up.

edit....forgot to say....based n my experience working in cycling in Brum I'm not sanguine that Brum will become a continental-style cycling city any time soon. Lots of dedicated people working really hard to promote cycling but but the hurdles are just gigantic.

[jollytiddlywink]

What they are talking about is closing the underpasses that go under all this lot - so through traffic will have to go around the inner ring road - which is already full, and will be busier later this year when the pollution charge comes in. Shame about those who live alongside it who will have theier pollution and danger levels increased.

Unhappily - for those who live or work there - the areas concerned also include areas of social and city centre living homes, student accomodation (note the need to "deliver" students with thier bags and baggage to the accomodation), all the theatres and thier associated car parks, inclidng theatres that put on amateur productions (no, I would not want my daughter to have to find her way home late at night after appearing in a show), hospitals etc. I think one of the HS2 terminals might be in the middle of this lot as well. Did I mention the Children's Hospital?

Those that live in the zone have a period of grace in which to replace thier vehicles - laughable because these are not wealthy people and have no hope of raising the money to do so.

...

All I'm saying is - the whole thing smacks of money raising and knee-jerk politics rather than a proper effort to deal with the problem - I would think differently if the infrastructure was put in place before the bans/charges rather than afterwards - or not at all.

The ring roads may well get busier, but just as the phenomenon of "induced demand" is real--where new roads built to increase capacity and thus reduce gridlock simply invite more traffic and soon thus return to gridlock--so too is the opposite, "traffic evaporation". Cutting the amount of tarmac available for private motor vehicles causes a proportion of trips formerly taken in private cars to disappear.

In terms of suggesting that those in the zone are not wealthy; this strikes me as a dubious assertion, and also as largely irrelevant. Those who have cars and live in the city centre are wealthy enough to do both things, and this tends to place them in the upper income brackets (or, at least, outside of the lowest income brackets]. More broadly, if a limited move to cut down on some of the "external costs" of motoring by asking those that drive to pay a greater proportion (note that this is a long way from asking drivers to pay the full share) of the costs of their choices, I don't see how that could be objectionable, unless you are arguing that motoring deserves large-scale direct and indirect subsidy from the public.

It may strike you as knee-jerk politics, but the reasons for taking action are clear and have been evident for years. The local and national health costs of reliance on private cars, the considerable economic costs imposed on everyone (driver or not) by policies which support and encourage car use, and the crippling environmental costs, are all abundantly clear.

I am in favour of this proposal for Birmingham, as I am in favour of their proposal for congestion charging. My only quibbles with either policy is they are not more ambitious and starting sooner.

[Slowroad]

Something to chuck into the mix is that if you are on benefits and looking for work, you have to (after a certain time) look for jobs 90 minutes commute away. With all the issues re commuting - not many people enjoy it (unless they are cycling!) - we will surely have to have some sort of job-swap system so more people can work nearer to home? But just looking at what I've typed seems totally unrealistic...

[Carlton green]

Something to chuck into the mix is that if you are on benefits and looking for work, you have to (after a certain time) look for jobs 90 minutes commute away. With all the issues re commuting - not many people enjoy it (unless they are cycling!) - we will surely have to have some sort of job-swap system so more people can work nearer to home? But just looking at what I've typed seems totally unrealistic...

I wonder how the 90 minutes is defined (walking, public transport, private car or what?). Whatever, 90 minute commutes are well into personally unsustainable territory and IMV mind daft from an ecological perspective.

Yes a job swop system would be a great idea but the trouble is employers and employees vary so much. One of my relatives has been dumped on by his employer so he’ll be trying to find an alternative income provider and doubtless that will involve a more difficult commute. Sadly buying a home near to where you work sounds like a good idea but in practice it turns sour for many people. Alternatively, if I was an employer then I’d not be too impressed about loosing a good employee in exchange for a duffer. Job swop, great idea and I agree with the concept but it’s soo difficult to implement fairly - though that’s not to say that one shouldn’t attempt improvements.

Further up the thread I read of people from outside of Brum talking about ideals and what ’they’ should do, which is all very nice and worthy if somewhat distant from ordinary folk trying to cover their bills again this month. IMV the experience of Murphy 195 is far from uncommon.