Life Without Cars

How the fuck are they going to move stuff about?

one word: Stone Henge

yeah, quite--thats resoursefulness we have forgotten...

I think distinctions between trade commercial vehicles and private passenger cars should be made.

I see hundreds of four/five seater cars every day, occupied only by the driver, I doubt very much the boot areas are full, what's needed is an alternative method of independent personal transport in towns. Something small that takes up little road space but will easily carry a person and their belongings...

how about a bicycle?

I think distinctions between trade commercial vehicles and private passenger cars should be made.

I see hundreds of four/five seater cars every day, occupied only by the driver, I doubt very much the boot areas are full, what's needed is an alternative method of independent personal transport in towns. Something small that takes up little road space but will easily carry a person and their belongings...

how about a bicycle?

Too right. Commercial vehicles are the mainstay of nearly all commercial industry in this country.
What really fucks things up is the omnipresent private vehicle, getting in everyone's way, often for no good reason whatsoever.
If private vehicle use was heavily restricted I doubt anyone but the fucking idle and useless would notice (disclaimer: the less able-bodied not included in this spiel), as your goods would still get to your shops, and if necessary, from your shops to your homes.
How you'd stop loads of people from illegitimately going out and buying themselves a Renault Master is another matter.

good to have you on this thread mr cheese,
have all read 'Traffic' Tom Vanderbilt?
Explains lots of these paradoxes in a metanalysis that takes studies from all over the globe and features the best of them.

Sounds interesting - may well give it a read when I've some time. Will it stop me getting exasperated at the daftness of the road and distribution system in this country?

some designs adapt or fit in with changes over the years, bicycles are one of these things, so are shoes, pens, trains, houses and chairs.

Cars haven't adapted well, the traditional design of something 2 seats wide is now outmoded and unnecessary in the world's crowded towns and cities, they don't hover like the futuristic ideals, and even if they did would you trust those mobile-phone enslaved pilots to safely negotiate airspace when they can barely keep a wheeled vehicle within legal confines?

no, because those things (distribution/roads) are predicated on increased growth and expansion, the absolute be all and end all of governments agendas, regardless of colour.

What it will do is show the utter ridiculousness of most of our 'road safety' campaigns, put actual risks into context, and just give loads of top nuggets, eg.on parking:-
"Every car on the road needs a place where it can begin and end, and mostly just sit there:cars spend about 95 per cent of their time parked"

I don't even understand what you guys are talking about now

I think the thing is I am arguing from a point of a non standard background and a non standard life. I am also arguing not just from a transport point of view but an entire social point of view, I know they are connected but ...

RPM and RC you are correct about private vehicle vs commercial vehicle however this pigeonhole everyone into a, you do this for a job so you can have a car / van you don't so you don't need one. A job or your main job for alot of people is only one part of their life. Many people do several things. I do if I was not able to I would not be able to survive.

People are inheritantly lazy, god I am an example of it.

You will never get a significant amount of people using sustainable transport without cash incentives.

EDIT: I would like to add this is for motorised transport when it isn't necessary.

one word: Stone Henge

Then why do you make two words out of it? ;)

How the fuck are they going to move stuff about?

Are you suggesting that the people of Vauban never call out a plumber or an electrician or never have contruction work done? Rather unsurprisingly this issue has already been addressed. If you take a look at the Vauban website, you will see that vehicles are only allowed into the residential areas for pick up and delivery and shouldn't driver faster than walking speed.

Simpls as smoking jacket meercats might say.

The fact is it would reduce the scope of people to live there. Even if you ignore all the points I have bought up it still only allows for people with this very standardized, average (modal) lifestyle, who just operate within this narrow band go to a middling work for 8hr a day, go to the cinema and walk the dogs on w/e. It's just not flexable enough, this really would just result in a narrowed band of people. People need to travel, they like to go visit relatives e.t.c

I fail to see how this 8hr a day thing works. If you work longer or shorter hours, you can still commute without driving. Quite a few people do this in London already. It also doesn't lack flexibility either. Cars are perfectly accessible on the edge of the suburb. This isn't a gated community that you can't leave ever. If you want to go to visit some relatives you either walk/cycle the relatively short distance to the parking area and drive from there. On top of that, you never have to get stressed because your neighbours are throwing a party and you can't get your car out because you're boxed in. I'm not sure how you picture Vauban but it is just a small suburb on the edge of a medium sized city, not some vast, car free connurbation.

Cars make people lazy.
I live 5 minutes from the local school and the amount of parents loading there kids up in 4x4's at 8-45 am is ridiculous, then the same at 3.15 for collecting them.
Not only is this extremely lazy but it also puts in my view the school area a hazard for the children crossing the road.

commercial vehicles are only necessary on a local level.

Everything should be carried by train, far more fuel efficient and far less impact to communities, the network is there (massively under-used) local hubs should be built for local deliveries, probably no more than 20 miles by truck...

what about life without the car appreciation thread?
a couple of members would have no reason to post anymore, think of the bandwidth saved.

Are you suggesting that the people of Vauban never call out a plumber or an electrician or never have contruction work done?.

No I never said that I was reffering to moving of tools and supplies.

Rather unsurprisingly this issue has already been addressed. If you take a look at the Vauban website, you will see that vehicles are only allowed into the residential areas for pick up and delivery and shouldn't driver faster than walking speed.

Simpls as smoking jacket meercats might say.

I am on about people who have a job like this full or part time, then need a vehicle and really need it at their house.

I fail to see how this 8hr a day thing works. If you work longer or shorter hours, you can still commute without driving. Quite a few people do this in London already. It also doesn't lack flexibility either. Cars are perfectly accessible on the edge of the suburb. This isn't a gated community that you can't leave ever. If you want to go to visit some relatives you either walk/cycle the relatively short distance to the parking area and drive from there. On top of that, you never have to get stressed because your neighbours are throwing a party and you can't get your car out because you're boxed in. I'm not sure how you picture Vauban but it is just a small suburb on the edge of a medium sized city, not some vast, car free connurbation.

I think you seem to have misunderstood me. I was referring to people having many and or different jobs. Maybe one is part time and requires is too unrealistic a car. As I've said I can only see this setup suiting people who are office and retail workers and all they do is their basic job and maybe hobby, it's encouraging the increased specialization of people and their jobs, a narrowing of minds, resulting in people having to buy in everything increasing the consumerist society. I can't be arsed to explain why and how I think all these things are linked by typing them up but would be happy to meet and talk about it sometime.

One of the other problems I have with this setup is not the reduce car use in the small town, as I've said before I'm all for reduced car use, it's the make owning a car difficult, it's the not allowing you to have a garage or park even one car at your house, a restriction of one car per household I could buy but not zero. Cars are not a inherently bad form of transport, it's misuse of cars that is the bad point, like wise car ownership is not inherently bad by the same token.

The design of the suburb can make it extremely difficult to to get around by car and hence push people to use bikes walking and public transport without putting the cars in out of the way car parks. The cars will still have to be driven back to people houses anyway to pack before they go on any long journey. Why not just allow one car out side / on each property and a edge of town car park for any extra cars? It makes no sense you double traffic flow down residential streets by having external parking. The idea behind this setup is basically good but the execution is not quite there.

I'm not understanding some of your points tommy. Mostly why does the plumber NEED the van at their home? Each home has a garage, just not located next to their home. If you allow the one parking space by the home then you need to design mixed use (reduced safety) space for the cars and people to use, isn't that one of the major problems that this town is designed to eliminate? Then you also reduce the incentive not to use your vehicle for a short journey, I think a previous post gave facts for this but regardless I think we can all see that many people seem to have a problem not using their car for unecassarily short journeys.
In a way I can see an interpretation of this, if applied nationally, as a bad thing because it is forcing them not to do something by making it physically impossible rather than educating and them not doing it because it is bad/wrong/unacceptable to society. This is an opt in town though.

Tommy that's ok you're not going to live there and it is not going to happen in London. People can relax and continue to develop their empathy by driving to work and supermakets and complain when there is no parking on their street for their builders, petrol prices, parking space and the bloody cyclists.
:)

I'm not understanding some of your points tommy. Mostly why does the plumber NEED the van at their home? Each home has a garage, just not located next to their home. If you allow the one parking space by the home then you need to design mixed use (reduced safety) space for the cars and people to use, isn't that one of the major problems that this town is designed to eliminate? Then you also reduce the incentive not to use your vehicle for a short journey, I think a previous post gave facts for this but regardless I think we can all see that many people seem to have a problem not using their car for unecassarily short journeys.
In a way I can see an interpretation of this, if applied nationally, as a bad thing because it is forcing them not to do something by making it physically impossible rather than educating and them not doing it because it is bad/wrong/unacceptable to society. This is an opt in town though.

Your not understanding because I can't really be bothered to write down everything I need to, I'd be better of explaining in person.

I don't think parking at your house does encourage local car use, it depends on the road structure if it encourage local car use. You can have lots of nice easy cut through routes to get places locally by bike / walk e.t.c. but to drive those same places you could make all residential car routes join up to a main road that has restricted and awkward access to anywhere than on the main road out of town. All the local routes have lots of traffic lights applicable to car only to slow / make local travel very slow and awkward by car. There are so many different means to make local travel difficult and slow by car. You would still need vehicular access to houses in any case so the restriction of no parking would actually increase residential traffic flow.

I think they just had car parking spaces away from the house not garages but I may have missed that one. Even without a car you still would need a garage for all the bikes per household. I think you need access to the house with a car to be able to load and unload things by having the parking out on the edge of town you double the journeys down a residential road. This load / unload would be alot more frequent if you used a van / car for work.

Tommy that's ok you're not going to live there and it is not going to happen in London. People can relax and continue to develop their empathy by driving to work and supermakets and complain when there is no parking on their street for their builders, petrol prices, parking space and the bloody cyclists.
:)

Don't quit understand what your trying to get at here vee vee, I'm not against trying to make local and unnecessary car use down, I just don't think this is a particle way of doing so.

You say that a car-free environment would create a narrow band of society. You say that living together creates understanding and empathy.

Do you then think that cars have contributed to make our society a happy, balanced and compassionate one? I see the opposite. You interact much more with people if you are on foot, public transport, bicycles etc..

People will always congregate. That has nothing to do with their transport choices.

ironic on here