Active Travel England - Boardman

Nearholmer
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Nearholmer »

The reluctance is manufactured by our elected representatives.
I don’t differ from you on that, but it does well to remember who elects them: we do.

Enough of us have concluded that central planning is a bad thing, and the free hand of the market a good thing, to cause the country to largely elect people who follow that line of thinking.

I don’t like that, I think we’ve collectively made bad decisions time and again, and my best hope is that the error of our ways will eventually dawn on us, but that feels a bit like the triumph of hope over experience most of the time.
ratherbeintobago
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by ratherbeintobago »

Nearholmer wrote: 26 Aug 2022, 9:27am Enough of us have concluded that central planning is a bad thing, and the free hand of the market a good thing, to cause the country to largely elect people who follow that line of thinking.
We’ve digressed here, but I think in reality we’ve elected a load of free marketeers because people were sick of endless Brexit news and voted to ‘get it done’, and feared (rightly or wrongly) what a JC-led Labour government would do in power. Neither of these reasons are due to a widespread belief in the free market as the solution to all ills.
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mjr
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by mjr »

ratherbeintobago wrote: 26 Aug 2022, 9:44am
Nearholmer wrote: 26 Aug 2022, 9:27am Enough of us have concluded that central planning is a bad thing, and the free hand of the market a good thing, to cause the country to largely elect people who follow that line of thinking.
We’ve digressed here, but I think in reality we’ve elected a load of free marketeers because people were sick of endless Brexit news and voted to ‘get it done’, and feared (rightly or wrongly) what a JC-led Labour government would do in power. Neither of these reasons are due to a widespread belief in the free market as the solution to all ills.
The free market might be a solution but we don't have a free market in planning controls. There's various laws and boundary commissions and so on that keep most planning at the borough/district level (at least in England — I've not experienced the other nations' systems), plus the still-strong "localism" vibe from the current ruling party and the near-ubiquitous desire of council leaders to keep or expand their empires.

On the other side, there is a freer market among developers, so what happens is that developers merge until we have regional- and national-scale developers like Barratts (6500 employees), Persimmon (5000) or Bellway (3000) facing off against piddling borough/district council planning departments and committees of under 100 that are, frankly, ill-equipped to resist the race to the bottom, let alone raise standards by rejecting substandard dross and fighting all the appeals which would result, even if the National Planning Policy Framework supported them much more strongly than it does.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Vorpal »

Nearholmer wrote: 26 Aug 2022, 9:27am
The reluctance is manufactured by our elected representatives.
I don’t differ from you on that, but it does well to remember who elects them: we do.

Enough of us have concluded that central planning is a bad thing, and the free hand of the market a good thing, to cause the country to largely elect people who follow that line of thinking.

I don’t like that, I think we’ve collectively made bad decisions time and again, and my best hope is that the error of our ways will eventually dawn on us, but that feels a bit like the triumph of hope over experience most of the time.
Except that first past the post results in a minority rule, so the elected representatives aren't really representative at any but the local level.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Nearholmer
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Nearholmer »

Sort-of true, but we had a referendum on that too, IIRC.
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mjr
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by mjr »

Nearholmer wrote: 26 Aug 2022, 1:51pm Sort-of true, but we had a referendum on that too, IIRC.
UR not C: There has not yet been a UK-wide referendum on proportional representation.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Jdsk
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Active Travel England

Post by Jdsk »

The new Oxfordshire plan: "Central Oxfordshire Travel Plan" and the associated consultation:
https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cen ... b0a351b82d

and the Cyclox response: "New local Travel Plan heralds radical change":
https://www.cyclox.org/index.php/2022/0 ... al-change/

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Nearholmer
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by Nearholmer »

UR not C: There has not yet been a UK-wide referendum on proportional representation.
Wasn’t that what we all had the chance to vote on in May 2011, and said “no” to? Well, Those who voted said “no” to, there not being a huge turnout.

Ah, no, it wasn’t was it? The thing on offer was AV, rather that FPTP, not PR.
ratherbeintobago
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by ratherbeintobago »

Nearholmer wrote: 30 Aug 2022, 9:38pm
UR not C: There has not yet been a UK-wide referendum on proportional representation.
Wasn’t that what we all had the chance to vote on in May 2011, and said “no” to? Well, Those who voted said “no” to, there not being a huge turnout.

Ah, no, it wasn’t was it? The thing on offer was AV, rather that FPTP, not PR.
It was AV. It was a bit of a cluster - apparently the reason the LDs asked for that is because it was in the Lab manifesto and they thought it would sail through, rather than PR. If they’d asked for STV for local elections they might have got it, of course.
Jdsk
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Active Travel England

Post by Jdsk »

"How car culture colonised our thinking – and our language":
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... r-language

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Active Travel England

Post by Jdsk »

mjr wrote: 8 Aug 2022, 6:19pm
Nearholmer wrote: 8 Aug 2022, 6:12pm Does anyone here know of a truly valid analysis of cycle use, which my instinct tells me would need to be split by locality and by use-type to be truly meaningful?
Data sources include:
· Census Travel to Work Questions: pretty complete but only as far as it goes: a snapshot of commuting once each decade;
· National Travel Survey: annual and all-purpose but not a large enough sample size to break down to very local levels, with some quirks hiding cycling as part of multimodal journeys;
· Active People Survey: annual but with a strong sport/leisure spin that some suspect biases the responses;
· Department for Transport traffic counts: at least annual at most count points and it's national but focused on A/B roads and built-up areas, and only counts carriageway cycling;
· various local surveys and counts and various apps that track cyclists.

Most of these are valid. What they aren't is complete.

(All of the above is when I last checked it, subject to errors.)
National Travel Survey 2021:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... urvey-2021

Guardian coverage: "Number of people cycling in England falls a year after £2bn plan":
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... r-2bn-plan

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Active Travel

Post by Jdsk »

Shawlands Bike Bus:
https://techalogic.co.uk/shawlands-bike ... y-council/

"‘It’s a bit of freedom’: traffic-stopping tech helps Glasgow school’s bike bus on its way":
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... pping-tech

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mattheus
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by mattheus »

Jdsk wrote: 2 Sep 2022, 2:36pm Shawlands Bike Bus:
https://techalogic.co.uk/shawlands-bike ... y-council/

"‘It’s a bit of freedom’: traffic-stopping tech helps Glasgow school’s bike bus on its way":
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... pping-tech

Jonathan

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I hope their school has checked their insurance :evil:
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mjr
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Re: Active Travel England - Boardman

Post by mjr »

mattheus wrote: 2 Sep 2022, 3:34pm
Jdsk wrote: 2 Sep 2022, 2:36pm Shawlands Bike Bus:
https://techalogic.co.uk/shawlands-bike ... y-council/

"‘It’s a bit of freedom’: traffic-stopping tech helps Glasgow school’s bike bus on its way":
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... pping-tech

Jonathan

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I hope their school has checked their insurance :evil:
Why else would so many ugly coats and jauntily -angled hats be on show? 🙄
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Jdsk
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Re: Active Travel

Post by Jdsk »

Jdsk wrote: 2 Sep 2022, 2:36pm Shawlands Bike Bus:
https://techalogic.co.uk/shawlands-bike ... y-council/

"‘It’s a bit of freedom’: traffic-stopping tech helps Glasgow school’s bike bus on its way":
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... pping-tech

Image
And the Barcelona bicibús that inspired it:
https://newsforkids.net/articles/2021/1 ... to-school/

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Jonathan
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