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CS9 and regents park has proved this... khan is already showing much weakness that has allowed an anti east west superhighway to gather momentum and there is serious movement to dig it up. Twats.
Khan has dithered on so many things the whole 'by word for cycling' was a load of bollox. -
Being arrogant, negligent, and lazy might be required to force through change in London where a more conscientious individual would get derailed by consultation and consensus.
No, it only creates lingering resentment and the reaction won't be long in coming (as Trump will find out). Just look at Livingstone and the Western extension. That's not to say that transport policies generally happen through 'consultation and consensus'; rather, they're prepared for years mostly in secret/when nobody's paying attention and then pushed through at convenient times without much involvement by the public. See Silvertown Tunnel, the most recent example.
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It wasn't his idea in any way and instinctively he opposed the whole policy, but he turned his coat on that.
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Interestingly, Christian Wolmar claims that Khan taking on pedestrianising Oxford Street was down to him suggesting it at a hustings:
I think he did him a disservice there. Not pushing it through doesn't necessarily show Khan's weakness, as it really isn't an easy thing to do.
Most cities in the world have learned that pedestrianised areas lead to an improved economy
This is an interesting one. Needless to say, the pedestrianised areas are in town centres, and their economic success depends on that old advantage of cities, concentration of activity. Pedestrianised areas allow more of that, as less space is used for motor traffic immediately around shops--this can free whole city blocks, improves walkability, obviously air quality, frees space up for street traders or markets, etc., leading to further concentration, with more people wanting to travel there to enjoy the advantages.
Needless to say, in Oxford Street, with its extremely good public transport connections (probably the best in the world bar only a few locations), this model would work. However, it would undoubtedly cause motor traffic capacity increases around Oxford Street. There is demand, certainly from wealthy residents who wish to drive, from delivery and servicing traffic (whose volumes would increase following pedestrianisation), the inevitable increase in construction activity, and so forth. TfL have already mooted the daft Roads Task Force underground ring road, and as the history of the 20th century has shown, these plans never really die.
The downside is that it draws economic activity away from other areas, and while it might be nice for some to have a clean and posh Oxford Street instead of what it now is, with some distinctly non-posh elements, other areas would suffer--there's little 'trickle-down' effect from major shopping centres, whether they're outside of town or inside. This means more travel, and indeed in smaller cities where public transport is less well-developed than in London, the main mode of travel to such centres is by car, with many public car parks ringing the pedestrianised city centre.
Obviously, doing nothing is not an option, but Khan would be better advised to pursue interlinked smaller projects towards the same goal than hanging this major project around his neck.
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Obviously, doing nothing is not an option, but Khan would be better advised to pursue interlinked smaller projects towards the same goal than hanging this major project around his neck.
Have you hear of Jaime Lerner's Urban Accupuncture method? Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs but this is a great talk;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haKh9mCk3xk
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I hadn't seen that talk (sponsored by ... oh dear), but I've looked at Curitiba before, and it's not a model I find particularly interesting. Increasing traffic by public transport is easy (in this case, avoiding the high start-up costs of rail and going for cheaper buses, later that system to reduce buses' dwell time), but it creates problems further down the line, as it causes over-concentration (just look at London, New York City, etc.), and hence an unnecessary additional need to travel, like no other transport initiative, which Curitiba has since seen and is now trying to patch up (they won't be successful and additional major road-building projects will undoubtedly follow).
Also, it's all very well for Lerner to claim that it's really easy, but when he started he had unchallenged political power. He benefited from Brazilians then being generally too poor to afford cars and created the city's first and only mass transport system, which people then obviously used.
I don't want to belittle his achievements, but frankly there are too many transport evangelists going round peddling pseudo-solutions that may have worked for a time and on a small scale, without really providing answers to the bigger questions--how will it be sustainable in the face of growth and rising prosperity and the old climate thing? And what is a good way to live--is that constant use of motorised machines good for us or bad for us? I think the latter, which is one of the reasons why I like (unmotorised) cycling. Ultimately, people buy into all this futurist nonsense of more and more speed and mobility--how do you challenge that (quite apart from the social issue of tin box isolation)?
His breathing difficulties sound terrible, almost painful to listen to him talk. I hope he's got better since.
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I see your point, but I would still prefer the 120 people on that bus to be on that bus, rather than in individual cars.
My reason for posting that video was not to draw attention to the RIT however; I was agreeing with you that large scale grand schemes in city centres do little to effect the lives of the majority of city dwellers. Instead we should practice Lerner's Urban Accupuncture and carry out small, cheap(er), effective interventions across the entire city that will compound to have a greater effect.
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in case anyone is interested in an evening discussion on segregated cycle infrastructure - https://www.buildingcentre.co.uk/events/city-conversations-segregation-and-safety
(wasn't sure where else to post) -
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Let's see if they can use the security threat to make some progress on Parliament Square:
Not holding my breath (and I'd expect that the outcome would be yet another 'peninsularisation'), but you never know.
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Westminster's announcement on Oxford Street:
No drawings but from the description it doesn't look too good. I still don't believe that it would be a good idea to reduce buses that much. Removing bus laybys would certainly make it harder to ride along there, unless there was carriageway widening to 9m to make the street more flexible (which won't happen).
It'll be interesting how they expect to get the changes to bus routes agreed with TfL. Despite being the local highway authority, they have very little power over them.
Anyway, too early to tell, what to think of this with such limited information.
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I didn't know where to put this.
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Wish I hadn’t visited the webslight of that lobby group. Much disappoint in such people.
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It would certainly be a terrifying prospect if anyone chose to target Oxford Street, but I'm not sure it's such a good idea to mention it this prominently, whether wanting to criticise Westminster's plan or not.
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So the City appears to have done a volte-face and have produced this consultation, which contains much sense on promoting active travel & reducing vehicle (esp. freight) traffic. Of course this means the Cabbies are up in arms about it and are apparently trying to flood it with negative responses. Is there a catch here? https://www.citystreets.london/proposals/key-proposals
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Apparently the consultation closes this weekend - somehow I missed this when it was announced. Only took me 5 minutes or so to complete.
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Centralised discussion space for TfL plans and cycling in London
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@skydancer
Being arrogant, negligent, and lazy might be required to force through change in London where a more conscientious individual would get derailed by consultation and consensus.