Green Routes
CAR FREE CYCLING AND WALKING.
A CARBON FREE NETWORK.
60 to 80% of journeys in London could be done on foot or by cycling.
Co2 level’s now threaten society.
We need a safe alternative to driving.
A car free, carbon free, transport system could provide that and reduce pollutants and car & van use by between 60% to 80%..
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So how do we make this happen?
How do we encourage 60% of people to walk and cycle instead of driving?
INDEX:
OVERVIEW
WHY DON’T MORE PEOPLE CYCLE OR WALK?
WHAT IS THE IDEA?
A CAR FREE NETWORK
WHAT ARE GREEN ROUTES
WHATS THE JOURNEY LIKE?
THESE GREEN VEINS ARE LINEAR PARKS
PRACTICLE IMPLIMENTATION.
WHY DONT MORE PEOPLE WALK OR CYCLE?
ROAD SAFTEY
CARS ARE DANGEROUS
IS CYCLING SAFER IF MORE DO IT? NO!
ARE QUIET-WAY’S SAFE? NO.
POOTLING VERSES WARRIOR MODE
CYCLING AND WALKING
UGLIFICATION
WHY?
ECOLOGY
WHY DO WE NEED A CAR FREE NETWORK?
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE IS SELF DEFENCE.
97% OF CLIMATE SCIENTISTS AGREE.
CO2
ONE DERGRE RISE
TWO DERGRE RISE
THREE DEGREE RISE
AIR
ILLEGAL LEVELS OF AIR POLLUTION
TFLS TEN HEALTHY STREETS INDICATORS
COSTS
TFL SPENDS £15,000,000,000.00 ON FOSSIL FUEL ROADS AND £770M ON CYCLING & WALKING.
HEALTH
HEALTH, NHS COST & THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT.
WALKING
CYCLING
QUALITY OF LIFE
STRESS
NOISE & STRESS
HOW LOUD IS DANGEROUS?
PLANTING
WELLBEING
DESIARABLE LIVING SPACES
ADVANTEGES
OBSTICALS
ROADS LOBBY
VOTERS
SUPPORTING IDEAS
SUMMING UP
OVERVIEW
Why do we need to do this now?
CO2 level’s threaten planetary ecology and thus human society.
97% of the world’s climate scientists tell us that ecology on this planet is at breaking point. Green Healthy streets are carbon Negative, cost very little and are highly effective. UK air pollution ‘linked to 40,000 early deaths a year’ asthma alone costs the NHS an estimated £1bn a year.
Carbon emissions are still rising fast. So far Councils and Government have not responded significantly.
We are faced with the untouchability of cars and the need for climate honesty. The weird thing is though, that at no point does anyone actually challenge the actual polluting culprit. It’s the elephant in the room.
If we dont want people to drive, we must make it safe to cycle and attractive to walk.
The public wont embrace these alternatives because cycling is dangerous and walking is unattractive, and pollution is still rising.
Cycling and walking are the only carbon free transport system we have yet we have no significant infrastructure to support it.
For this to work we need a network of safe, car free routes because without it people simply won’t walk or cycle. If they don’t do that, we are looking at a very bleak future.
There are no carbon free options available to the vast majority of travellers, the “Market” has not stepped in so we need to. The road transport system produces 25% of the carbon so we need a carbon negative transport system to balance that.
We have an opportunity to create a carbon free network and reduce CO2 and other pollutants by up to 80%.
People will not cycle more as long as it is dangerous. Cycling must be actually and demonstrably safe, or it will not be embraced. We need to encourage cycling and walking so that 60% take it up.
Car free routes are inexpensive, linear park routes that contain walking and cycle paths. No cars means children can use them as play streets. CO2 capture rises with every tree planted.
We can walk without noise, danger and pollution.
Health and wellbeing rise significantly and NHS costs drop.
WHAT IS THE IDEA?
A CAR FREE NETWORK
How can we travel without pollution? This question posed by everyone from Sadiq Kahn, to the British Lung Society, from the World Bank, the UK Government, RTF, TFL, Cyclists and Walkers the OECD and the NHS.
TFL, reacting to climate change, in a remarkably understated way, say “there is now a need for even greater ambition and action” Well I propose to solve this and all ten of TFLs Healthy Streets indicators.
I am suggesting that we stop cars on a very few roads and thus create our genuinely Health Streets.
A Car Free Network are miles of car free linear parks linking things so that we can cycle in safety and walk without breathing pollution.
Just as Londons parks are considered is lungs, a car free network can be seen as green veins. These Green Veins are car free, carbon negative, linear parks for cyclists and walkers.
WHAT ARE GREEN ROUTES?
Car Free routes are quiet, linear parks that are full of trees and are attractive and pleasant to walk in.
Think of Green Routes as parks. Think of roads with no cars and with children playing in safety.
People extending their gardens into the roads, growing vegetables and fruits. Imagine the buried rivers brought back to the surface.
Imagine benches under trees where people can sit out and enjoy the peace and calm.
All around is green and verdant and rich with life.
The air will become cleaner as plants grow.
People will become healthier physically and mentally.
The streets become, not a conduit for cars, but a space for people to live and thrive in.
This plays into the Healthy Streets, Linear Park and London as National Park ideas.
Picture is from http://content.tfl.gov.uk/healthy-streets-for-london.pdf Roads into parks.
I do recognise that this will take time to achieve, but it is the ultimate goal.
Whats the journey like?
Imagine, if you will, you want to travel to your mother’s house 5 miles away: Your group includes your 85 year old grandparents and 5 year old child. Normally you all go in cars, because gramps doesn’t like the bus. Walking is too far and cycling on those busy roads is simply madness. However, in this story, you all get on bicycles and cycle the whole way along quiet, car free, leafy avenues, only stopping at junctions to let the cross traffic pass. You arrive calm, relaxed, healthy, happier, fitter and unharmed; That is a Car Free Green Route.
The Healthy Streets initiative from Sadiq Khan’s office is basically this, but without stopping cars.
At present here are a lot of road users who can’t use the roads safely; they include cyclists, walkers, whole ranges of disabled people, dog walkers, kids playing, mothers with small children, school kids getting to and from school. Those getting to and from a station.
Anyone half an hours ride from their destination.
There are no carbon free options available to the vast majority of travellers.
We can combine all the various Quiet-Ways, Healthy Streets, Open Streets, cycle routes, unused back streets, parks and abandoned railways and stitch them into a network of calm, green corridors, for non-drivers.
THESE GREEN VEINS ARE LINEAR PARKS
Low investment cost.
A car free, carbon negative, network for walkers and cyclists.
PRACTICAL IMPLIMENTATION
Initially no-one should be stopped from getting to their homes or stopped from parking close to their homes. As car use reduces we can reduce the parking as well.
There are many types of filtering.
Bollards across the road; wheel chairs, walkers and cyclists can pass, but not cars. This simple step allows for green streets.
Access for cars probably must be kept until better public transport is available.
Cul-de-sac’s.
no through roads.
The main thing that would change is that vehicles could only enter and leave from one end of a green street.
This would give us all access.
Where we cannot prevent through traffic, chicanes can be used.
Access for cars must be kept until better public transport is available.
CYCLING AND WALKING
To help cycling become a viable alternative to the car and become the main preferred method of getting from A to B, it needs to be actually and demonstrably safe.
Presently 8% of journeys are by bike, less walking.Most journeys in London are 5 to 15 minute drives, easily achievable by most people on foot or bike.
Cycling and walking are the only viable non-CO2 modes of transport we have.
People won’t cycle because cars make it dangerous, and don’t walk because it is unpleasant.
People will cycle and walk when it’s demonstrably safe and pleasant.So If we want people to cycle, we need to invest in safe, car free networks.
WHY DONT MORE PEOPLE CYCLE OR WALK?
Simply put, its dangerous. Its dirty, noisy, ugly, scary and dangerous.
IF WE WANT PEOPLE TO CYCLE IN MUST BE ACTUALLY AND DEMONSTRABLY SAFE.
ROAD SAFETY
Road space has for centuries been public space but now its exclusively for cars, moving or parked.
Walking and cycling amongst traffic is not healthy, pleasant of safe.
CARS ARE DANGEROUS
Most cyclist are aware that they are whizzing about balanced on two wheels surrounded by steel boxes weighing a ton and that a collision will kill or hospitalise the cyclist and the driver might get not even get a scratch on the car; drivers (and politicians) really don’t understand how dangerous and scary it is to share the space with them.
Cars are pumping out poisons, screaming by at lethal speeds and cluttering every road, pavement and many cycle lanes.
Even the manufacturing of them is an ecological disaster. They are alternately dangerous, poisonous or in the way. All of this puts off potential cyclists.
HYPERLINK “http://www.landscapearchitecture.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cycling_joy_in_chicago.jpg” Urban cycling can be a joy – as in Chicago[/caption]
IS CYCLING SAFER IF MORE DO IT? NO!
The argument that Cycling is safer if more people do it is fallacious, more cyclists get injured but its a lower % of cyclists overall; it’s a statistical trick.
Road Deaths In 2013, 12% of adults said that they had been involved in at least one road accident in the last 3 years.
In 2013, 7% of children had been involved in a road accident in the last 3 years. Department of Transport figures show “a total of 1,775 deaths on UK roads in 2014 – up 4% on 2013. 797 were in cars, 446 pedestrians, 339 motorcyclists and 113 pedal cyclists”.
With 559 walkers and cyclists killed and countless non-fatal & un-reported incidents, it cannot be claimed that our roads are safe. Compare our reaction to the news that many were killed by terrorists, but on the roads it’s considered unfortunate. Cars continue to dominate all roads and continue to squeeze out other road users in 2016 the number of cars in London rose by 170,000. Green routes offer the chance of a safe, life enriching, carbon negative transport system.
ARE QUIET-WAY’S SAFE?
NO! you can still get killed or maimed on them. Is your child safe on a Quiet-Way? Would you let your 5-year-old use a typical UK cycle lane? Would you even think them safe on Cycle Superhighway or Quietway? No? Me neither.
No parent should let their child ride on them, few do. The danger that a car or lorry presents to a human on a bicycle is obvious. The painted lines used to make most UK cycle lanes will not stop drivers whose attention wanders from ploughing through walkers or cyclists. The same applies to raised kerbs. If you fall on them there is a good chance of being run over by a car; its still not safe.
POOTLING VERSES WARRIOR MODE
The joys of cycling include pootling, meandering and taking it easy. This is not something you can do on dangerous cycle routes where you need to be in ‘warrior mode’ all the time. Powered vehicles are a threat to walkers and cyclists. How can one relax and enjoy the scenery when you are constantly at risk of being knocked down? Fear discourages cycling.
CYCLING AND WALKING
To help cycling become a viable alternative to the car and become the main preferred method of getting from A to B, it needs to be actually and demonstrably safe. Presently 8% of journeys are by bike, less walking. Most journeys in London are 5 to 15 minute drives, easily achievable by most people on foot or bike. Cycling and walking are the only viable non-CO2 modes of transport we have. People won’t cycle because cars make it dangerous, and don’t walk because it is unpleasant.People will cycle and walk when it’s demonstrably safe and pleasant. So If we want people to cycle, we need to invest in safe, car free networks.
UGLIFICATION
We have an understandable love affair with cars, but the harm that cars do is massive and accepted as inevitable. The use and manufacture, the sheer clutter on every road, the uglification of our surroundings, an unbroken stream of vehicles running through every scene, bringing noise, clutter and danger at every turn, causing chronic asthma and occasional sudden death.
Its hardly a walk in the park, and thats why people dont walk as much as they could.
WHY?
ECOLOGY
WHY DO WE NEED A CAR FREE NETWORK?
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE IS SELF DEFENCE.
We have overshot the 2 degree increase and are now looking at a 3 degree rise in global temperatures.
Planning for the future is prudent self-defence. Make no mistake, we may not be able to see it yet, but we are fighting for our lives.
CO2 is now 407.2PPM and the global temperature rise is predicted to be 3 degrees. 350 PPM was safe and 2 degrees was survivable.
Two degrees produces violent weather that threatens farming and food security; we have missed that target.
Three degrees may be the “tipping point, where global warming could run out of control, leaving us powerless to intervene”.
The last time Earth was this hot, sea levels were 25 meters higher. http://www.climatecodered.org/2010/09/what-would-3-degrees-mean.html
97% OF CLIMATE SCIENTISTS AGREE.
97% of the world’s climate scientists tell us that ecology on this planet is at breaking point.
Global temperatures now projected to be 3 degrees. The last time we were that warm sea levels were 25 meters higher.
Fossil fuel & CO2 emissions threaten our health and safety. More people are being diagnosed and dying each year from asthma brought on from air pollution. We need a carbon neutral alternative and we need it as soon as possible. That’s why TFL have made walking and cycling 1st and 2nd priority.
CO2
In 2016 we had released 1510 Gigaton’s of CO2 into our atmosphere. That’s 1,510,000,000,000 tons of gas. It continues to rise.
350 Parts per million was high but was considered a safe level. We are now 407PPM
Transport accounts for about 50% of the CO2 we can get control of in our cities, the other 50% is heating.
EFFECTS OF 3 DEGREE RISE ON SEA LEVELS
Now:
ONE DEGREE RISE:
Greenland’s irreversible melting will result in a sea rise of five to seven metres, in as little as a hundred years [Environ. Res. Lett., 2, 024002,].
The chances of drought rise from 5% now (one every 20 years) to 50% by 2030, and to 90% by 2100.
One degree is likely to reduce Queensland highland rainforest by half [Austral Ecology, 26, 590-603].
California and the Great Plains states of Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, northern Texas and Oklahoma will be subject to mega-droughts and desertification, a new and permanent “dust bowl”.
TWO DEGREE RISE:
of warming, seas will be on their way to rising 5 to 7 metres. With a five-metre sea level rise, Miami would disappear, as would most of Manhattan. Central London would be flooded, and Bangkok, Bombay and Shanghai would lose most of their area. Europe likely will be hit every second year by heat waves like the one in 2003 which killed 22-35,000 people, caused $12b of crop losses, reduced glacier mass by 10%, and resulted in a 30% drop in plant growth dropped, adding half a billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere. HYPERLINK “http://www.climatecodered.org/2010/09/what-would-3-degrees-mean.html“http://www.climatecodered.org/2010/09/what-would-3-degrees-mean.htm
During the Pliocene, three million years ago, temperatures were 3 degrees higher. Carbon dioxide levels were 360-400 ppm, We are now 407ppm and rising faster then earth has ever seen.
Changing climate will have a severe impact on world food supplies. Water flow in the Indus is predicted to drop by 90 per cent by 2100. The lives of two billion people will be at stake.
THREE DEGREE RISE:
Sea level rises 25 meters. Drought and mega-fires first destroy the rainforest, turning trees back into carbon dioxide as they burn or rot and decompose [Theor. App. Climatology, 78, 137-56].
CO2
In 2016 we had released 1510 Gigatons of CO2 into our atmosphere. That’s 1,510,000,000,000 tons of gas. It continues to rise.
350 Parts per million was a safe level. We are now 407PPM
Transport accounts for about 50% of the CO2 we can get control of in our cities.
We have overshot the 2 degree increase and are now looking at a 3 degree rise.
AIR
AIR POLLUTION
Cars are fires, millions of fires every day.
Half of the pollution come from their manufacture, the other half comes from their use. There are no fossil free cars.
Air pollution to cause 6-9 million premature deaths and cost 1% GDP by 2060. Pollution is killing 9M a year, http://www.oecd.org/env/air-pollution-to-cause-6-9-million-premature-deaths-and-cost-1-gdp-by-2060.htm
23,000 deaths a year caused by air pollution in London. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35629034
UK air pollution ‘linked to 40,000 early deaths a year’ asthma alone costs the NHS an estimated £1bn a year.
ILLEGAL LEVELS OF AIR POLLUTION
It is actually illegal to ask anyone to breath London’s air! Pollution is appalling and most cycle lanes are right next to busy traffic, that traffic is constantly pumping out poisonous fumes and particulates.
The manufacture of a car produces around 35 tons of CO2 directly into the atmosphere before it is even driven. That much again will be rereleased during its lifetime.
TFLS TEN HEALTHY STREETS INDICATORS
Pedestrians from all walks of life
London’s streets should be welcoming places for everyone to walk, spend time in and engage in community life.
People choose to walk, cycle and use public transport. A successful transport system enables more people to walk and cycle more often.
Clean air
Improving air quality delivers benefits for everyone and reduces unfair health inequalities.
People feel safe
The whole community should feel comfortable and safe on our streets at all times. People should not feel worried about road danger.
Not too noisy Reducing the noise impacts of traffic will directly benefit health and improve the ambience of our streets.
Easy to cross Making streets easier to cross is important to encourage more walking and to connect communities.
Places to stop and rest
A lack of resting places can limit mobility for certain groups of people.
Shade and shelter Providing shade and shelter enables everybody to use our streets, whatever the weather.
People feel relaxed. More people will walk or cycle, if our streets are not dominated by motor traffic, and if pavements and cycle paths are not overcrowded, dirty or in disrepair.
Things to see and do. People are more likely to use our streets when their journey is interesting and stimulating, with attractive views, buildings, planting and street art.
All ten of TFLs Healthy streets indicators are addressed by car free networks
None of them are fully addressed at the moment.
COSTS
TFL SPEND IN CONFUSION.
TFL SPENDS £15,000,000,000.00 ON FOSSIL FUEL ROADS AND £770M ON CYCLING & WALKING.
TFLs stated priorities are
1st is walkers,
2nd cycling and
7th private cars.
But the conflict is obvious. TFL know that cars are inefficient polluters killing our world and that 60% of journeys can be done by bike.
Yet
TFL has committed £770M to walking and cycling.
TFL has committed £15B to roads.
TFL has committed £0 to safe car free routes.
TFL has committed no money to any carbon free routes.
If TFL commit to a carbon free transport system, with the appropriate amount of investment, it can make that potential of 60% people cycling, a reality.
Maintenance costs would be very low as cycling does not ware the roads as much as cars and lorries.
Air pollution cost NHS £1B a year in Asthma treatments alone.
HEALTH
HEALTH, NHS COSTS AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT.
It is obvious that we all value our health and that the NHS has to fork out billions to help us when we are sick, but if we did have a greener, car free, cycle network we would walk and cycle more.
How many times have we wanted to go out but don’t because, well where would we go? It’s all a built environment, its brash & dull and isn’t a nice place to walk.
Walking and cycling more will keep us fitter and that means we won’t have to visit our GP’s quite so much. So, there would be a clear cost reduction in healthcare for the State and financial benefit to households.
Walking
Is the humans most perfect form of exorcise and movement, 20 mins three times a week will keep you alive and 20 minutes every day will keep you fit.
People in large towns don’t walk much and a main reason for that is, well it’s not nice out there, it’s not countryside and it’s not calm or clean and crossing any road is taking a life and death risk, It can be a positive elixir.
It is obvious that we all value our health and that the NHS has to fork out billions to help us when we are sick, but if we did have a greener, car free, cycle network we would walk and cycle more.
How many times have we wanted to go out but don’t because, well where would we go? It’s all a built environment, its brash & dull and isn’t a nice place to walk.
Walking and cycling are both excellent heart and lung exorcise, The more we do the fitter we will be. That means we won’t have to visit our GP’s quite so much. So, there would be a clear cost reduction in healthcare for the State and financial benefit to households.
QUALITY OF LIFE
Quality of life rises sharply. This scheme would bring calm, joy, safety and health to so many people, that, that alone should be enough although the real pay back will be in many years’ time when healthy people reduce NHS costs and transport is easy along the linea parks of London (& anywhere else). This scheme will be cheaper and far more effective than the Garden Bridge ever could have been.
STRESS
Noise causes stress, stress is a major killer and causes cancer. Cancer numbers are rising fast. https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/03/24/chronic-stress-cancer.aspx?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=twittermercola_ranart&utm_campaign=20171020_chronic-stress-cancer
NOISE & STRESS
Car free networks are quiet. Planes, helicopters, lorries, cars, boom boxes, bass heads, building construction work, police sirens & TV; it’s all loud. We live in an increasingly noisy world, a non-stop cacophony accompanies every moment of our lives. I measured Streatham High Street and the noise on average was above 70 DB and up over 100 with big noises or vehicles.
Perhaps the most serious problem created by sound pollution is the impact it has on our health. Because sound pollution can trigger the body’s stress response, one of its major health effects is chronic stress and the high levels of stress hormones that go with it. As a result, noise pollution has also been linked with health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke. It’s also been linked with musculoskeletal problems, as a Cornell University study on office noise found that those working in noisy office environments can also be less likely to ergonomically adjust their workstations for comfort, which can contribute to physical problems. Noise pollution can also impact sleep quality by preventing sleep and disrupting sleep cycles also produce debenture. And, perhaps most significantly, because chronic stress can lower your immunity to all disease, noise pollution is a general threat to health and wellness.
HOW LOUD IS DANGEROUS?
If you need to raise your voice to be heard 3 feet away, the noise level is damaging your hearing; in a factory you would, by law, have to wear noise suppressing ear protectors. Yet every road is louder than that. It has been shown to be stressful to the point where it produces cancers, poor memory and dementia. Cars are a major part of that noise. Greenery soaks up noise, the more greenery, the less noise, the less noise the less cancers etc. Also people don’t walk, because there are few places to go that are nice and quiet. So faced with horrible exteriors we stay inside.
PARKING
We ought to be working towards a car free environment, but it’ll take time.
Green Cycling Routes would not all be totally car free. Although “no cars’ is the goal, presently we still need parking space.
GCNs could accommodate substantial and convenient car parking.
Providing more car clubs and secure cycle pods would reduce the need to own a car.
Councils and Governments can offer inducements.
Emergency access. What if we need to get an ambulance to your home? On many roads, this won’t be a problem. For places where there is a risk all accident & emergency services vehicles already have the standard key.
ROAD SPACE EFFICIENCY
Cars are highly inefficient users of road space especially when compared to walking and cycling.
Traffic jams are caused by cars.
Cycle only routes reduce congestion because up to 60% of the car drivers are on bicycles instead.
Bicycles in comparison to cars are highly efficient users of the road.
Bicycles don’t burn fossil fuel.
CAR OCCUPANCY
- Occupancy rates is normally 1.6 occupants per car driver stage.
- lowest for commuting and business (1.2 in 2013)
- Higher for holidays/day trips and education (2.0 persons per vehicle).
ADVANTAGES
It’s safe for our children.
It’s inexpensive.
Can carry many more “passengers” than a road filled with cars
Easily achievable.
Cuts NHS costs
Achieves CO2 targets
Reduces pollution
Carbon negative
Increases biomass
Produces calm
increases health
reduces NHS costs
usable by everyone
Traffic jams reduce because cars are inefficient users of road space, walkers and cyclists take up less space and would be on separate roads.
This scheme would bring calm, joy, safety and health to so many people, that, that alone should be enough although the real pay back will be in many years’ time when healthy people reduce NHS costs and transport is easy along the linea parks of London (& anywhere else). This scheme will be cheaper and far more effective than the Garden Bridge ever could have been.
PLANTING
Plants Can Reduce Air Pollution in Cities by 60%,
The study reports that levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, both hazardous to humans, were lowered by 40 and 60 percent, respectively [by planting].
WELLBEING
Wellbeing studies carried out by the NHS have shown that living near green spaces has a definite, positive and measurable impact on our health even if we dont actually visit the green space.
Green walking & cycle networks would bring green space closer to all of us and we would all benefit from this.
This also will reduce NHS costs significantly.
DESIARABLE LIVING SPACES
People would like to live on these new cycle routes. Indeed, it could actually make the houses on those roads worth a lot more than those on the infernal combustion routes.
The quieter, greener roads would be lovely places to live and work as well as places for walkers and cyclists to travel through.
HOUSE PRICES
Most of us would opt for those homes in quieter streets, instead of those on busy routes, it would certainly increase the value of those homes.
CRIME DROPS
Several studies nationwide suggest that gardens and green space might help to lower crime rates. In San Francisco’s Mission District, crimes dropped 28 percent after a community garden led to the formation of a neighbourhood watch group. In Chicago, professors Frances Kuo and William Sullivan compared crime rates among 98 apartment buildings in a public housing project. They found buildings with high levels of vegetation had 52 percent fewer crimes than buildings with low levels.
INDUCEMENTS
Free Oyster cards for those living on Healthy Streets
Free secure cycle parking
Guaranteed zip car type club provision.
Boris Cars, like Boris bikes but cars.
Council Tax reductions for Green Roads
Council tax increase for car carrying roads
CPZs
Charging for not having passengers.
Cycle scheme bicycles and parking stations on every Green Route.
Lifetime driving ban introduced for bad driving.
Integrated transport hubs.
Space on busses and trains for bicycles like Cuba has.
Taxi parking on end of every Rd connected to main rd
Tax decreeing as passengers increase
Singapore style metering, like congestion charge but totally automatic, just put your credit card into the dashboard machine.
Mayors toxic charge.
METHOD
PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS
Be honest, start by telling the idea and why. The public may not like it but they are not foolish. If we support the public properly during the change over, the public will support us. Ask all residents if they would like to be pilot schemes.
FILTERING
There are many types of filtering.
Bollards across the road; wheel chairs, walkers and cyclists can pass, but not cars.
This simple first step allows for green streets to begin.
Access for cars probably must be kept until better public transport is available.
Cul-de-sac’s.
no through roads.
No one should be stopped from getting to their homes or stopped from parking close to their homes. As car use reduces we can reduce the parking as well.
The main thing that would change is that vehicles could only enter and leave from one end of a green street.
This would give us all access.
Where we cannot prevent through traffic, chicanes can be used.
Access for cars must be kept until better public transport is available.
OBSTICALS AND OBJECTIONS
OUR LOVE AFFAIR WITH CAR
We have an understandable love affair with cars. Our society has embraced them and they are now considered essential and a right, but using and manufacturing them causes more than 25% of the CO2 releases.
They clutter on every road and uglify our surroundings. An unbroken stream of vehicles run through every moment of our lives, bringing noise and danger at every turn. They produce everything from chronic asthma to occasional sudden death, not to mention all the greenhouse gases, CO1, CO2, NO2, habitat destruction & climate change!
For all the convenience they bring, the negatives are long term and overwhelming.
CARS & TAX
Having spent money on cars drivers expect preferential treatment when it comes to road use, but is that claim justifiable?
Drivers do not pay for the roads, though having paid a lot of money for their cars, seek to be treated with special privilege when it comes to road use. Road tax doesn’t exist. It’s emissions tax, a tax on vehicles, not a tax on roads or a fee to use them. In 1926, Winston Churchill started the process to abolish road tax. It was finally culled in 1937. So, who does pay for the roads? We all do. Roads are paid for out of general taxation; thus a child buying a sweet somewhere along the line, is paying for the roads. Yet it is the car that makes roads dangerous and unusable for everyone else.
ROADS TRANSPORT LOBBY
Achieving this is actually quite easy, but it’s scary for government and councils, because it’s a big change in the accepted way of doing things and because the car lobby is strong and organised. Drivers will object, lorry drivers more-so.
Politicians fear voters will not vote for those who threaten car use.
We have no choice in this, human society must change so we need to provide viable alternatives for people and freight.
SUPPORTING IDEAS
- There is wide agreement that a Carbon low transport system has to include a vastly improved public transport system.
- A public transport system so good that people prefer it to driving and owning a car.
- The new system must be clean, efficient and FLEXIBLE and it must include a transport service for tradesmen, their tools and maybe even materials. Maybe a pod based traders transport system for workers who need to bring and store work tools.
- A “Boris” bike type system for electric vehicles.
- An Electric parcel delivery.
- PUBLIC TRANSPORT FOR TRADESMEN
- Plumbers, electricians, builders etc would have new pod based system so that they can get to and from jobs
- Pods are to store their tools.
- Works like a taxi system
CONCLUSION
Something has to change. If we don’t act we are looking at a very bleak future.
London pollution levels are going through the roof, people are dying. The planet is in trouble because of our CO2 etc.
Needed alternatives are not available or pursued.
Walking and cycling are not safe and until they are they will never be a serious alternative to driving.
London can have a network of ecologically sound, healthy streets, not unhealthy, ecologically unsound, car conduits.
Car Free Routes are Sadiq Khan’s Healthy Streets, without the cars.
Quality of life would rise and CO2 emissions would drop.
Low cost and high payback.
All of this is not only necessary but entirely possible.
Don’t ask the cost of doing it, ask the cost of not doing it.
Sensible Politics 
