Paul Valentine esq

All valid and I agree, it is a totally stupid idea, for all the reasons stated. I think they may forget about the park and ride and introduce a bicycle and ride with eco friendly tyres on the bikes ….. of course. lol

Comments on these subjects always seem to be from people who aren't aware that what they suggest is already happening.

I heard, and it appears it was on the news last night, the National Grid is installing new cables around 15 floors underground below London to accommodate these new charging systems

its obvious the cables in London wont take too much of these chargers after whats happened because of a water leak that blew into a gas main, this caused all heating to go out of order, so the water board supplied all houses affected with 1 kilowatt heaters

everyone switched these heaters on at night which blew the main transformer due to the current being drawn, so, good example of what may happen if too many chargers are on the same circuit

Trolley buses as they used to have in Bradford years ago. No charging needed and no emissions, just the bloke with the long pole putting the prongs back on the wires when they came off.

Although as a Yorkie I remember Bradford's trolley buses as last in UK my only ride on one was c1967 on a SELNEC example in Stalybridge. Acceleration, for those of us accustomed to the Bristol Lodekka, was incredible.

Answer to today's issues may be a trolleybus with batteries and/or a donkey engine so it could range beyond the wires.

Edited by Bromptonaut on 30/01/2020 at 19:50

"minimal carbon emissions in favour of allowing more than 170 domestic flights between Scotland and England each day"

It's all about the assumptions used to come up with the generality of the statement that aircraft pollute more than cars. It depends on how many people in each car and how many people in the plane.

For example, a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute states the energy intensity of car transportation is on average 57% higher than air transports. In other words, a car emits more CO2 than the average planes because they consume more energy to transport the same amount of passengers.

Proof that statistics get used in the same manner as a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination!

<< Environmentalists say scrap HS2, invest in local trains. Easy said, in practice a nightmare. You can only provide more local trains by removing the express trains and to achieve that you need HS2 and later HS3. >>

I suppose I am an 'environmentalist' in your terms, and I appreciate the points you make here. I would only ask that instead of banging on about the problems HS2 might solve, say more about those it will create. I don't just mean the destruction of large tracts of countryside (an irreversible problem), but the changed travel patterns which will result. People will probably commute from even further out from The Smoke than they do now, so business will become still more London-centric - unless there is a big price premium on HS2 ?

It's just like Brexit - the pro-lobby kept on about why it had to happen, without saying anything about disbenefits which might accrue. An important problem which rail might alleviate is trans-Pennine traffic - the M62 can be pretty bad, and impossible in winter. The HS2 lobby thinks that can wait. Is anyone surprised ? It's actually a vanity project to show the French.

Ref the 'marginalised'.. their decision to be/feel incapable. I am in my late 60s, use Internet banking, Twitter, like high tech, and just taught a friend of 40 years to use a Mac computer. And have they no friends, neighbours or family to help with comparison sites?

If only it were that simple.

Edited by Bromptonaut on 31/01/2020 at 12:12

Agreed. Part of the reason for the decline of high street shops and the growth of internet shopping is that town centre streets are full of buses and vans (even more vans although the shops are declining), and the car parks are full of all-day parkers working in town centre offices.

I was born in 1953 - not vastly different from many that post on here. Then there were around 4m cars on the road, today there are 34m. Had car ownership increased at the same rate as population there would be less than 6m on the roads today.

So in the space of 67 years:

• we do a main shop once a week/month, not every other day
• we have built retail parks and motorways where none existed before
• today 36% commute by car, and 3% walk - a complete reversal
• there were proper local shops (butcher, baker, greengrocer etc)
• we didn't have internet, on-line shopping, smartphones, double glazing etc
• leisure air travel was mostly the preserve of the truly wealthy

The freedom allowed by the car has enabled huge changes in the way live, shop, socialise, entertain, interact with family and friends. Many of these changes I'm happy to embrace, but they come at a cost and cannot be extended infinitely.

The "can't possibly do it" or similiar responses are understandable, but frankly pointless. It is abundantly clear that the way we lived etc was very different for all but the last 50- 60 years. Like it or not, change will be forced on us by events - and alternative societal structures are entirely feasible.

The only real issue is how engage to make those changes as painless as possible and preserve those aspects we value most. Failure to engage will ensure your views are not considered.

At 67 I could just bury head in the sand and assume that my inevitable shuffle from the mortal coil will occur before I am forced to change, but I would also like to leave the place in good order for my children and grandchildren!

They cannot be cheaper to run if they are buying the hydrogen at a realistic market price.

Hydrogen is at least roughly twice the price of petrol and has a low energy density so the range on a tank is not great.

Only when the modern polluting timewasting habit of 'commuting' is kicked.

How?

<< No easy answer. Sea change in human behaviour. More home work and home school - like rural Australia? >>

'Authority' doesn't help, making cost savings by steadily centralising communal services such as schools - which get merged putting more kids out of walking range, requiring buses, and more often parents' cars - and hospitals, which to provide the increasingly expensive treatments have to concentrate, making patients travel further. There used to be 'cottage hospitals', but they have mostly gone long ago.

But I don't think Brits like the idea of living over the shop like Parisians do.

Only when the modern polluting timewasting habit of 'commuting' is kicked. In the typical English town where I worked for 40yrs, factories were within walking distance of home and shopkeepers lived above the shop. Professionals and factory owners lived in 'residential areas' which were usually within walking or cycling distance of their offices. (That's why my TR7 has only done 70,000 miles in 40yrs). Children and teachers walked to school. No-one knew what 'obesity' meant. Only large cities had 'commuters' because they built outwards, not upwards. It always amazes me how low rise London still is compared with other cities.

I completely agree with you JohnF, but sadly that vision of the Britain, nay Jerusalem that you and i grew up in, would have the snowflakes weeping in the ailes, charges of 'isms, phobias and white supremacy :-) being hurled around with gay abandon, do you remember people when gay was such a nice word?

During the 70's and 80's especially as i travelled the country every day, factories would be closing at an alarming rate, a few months later a shopping centre or flats would go up on the site, the new industry is warehousing where rows of gigantic buildings have gone up, almost all on green sites, placed on the outskirts of previous small industrial towns that everyone except for a few on the wrong side of town have to drive there, public transport almost never covers these places...i know this warehouse blight isn't an issue at Chipping Norton by the way.

The irony of course is these places rammed to the rafters with foreign made tat all handled by foreign made forklifts and parcel handling conveyors require few workers compared to factories, a deskilled workforce at that, the great increase has been in pen pushers jobs, which apparently computers were going to do away with the need, almost all requiring commuting into large cities for millions of people and these are the very jobs which could be home based or set up in small satellite offices throughout the country.

The changing of our previously quite self sufficient localities has led not just to a transient workforce, but the massive movements of goods, from abroad in ships via containers almost all by road to warehouse, from whence they will be redistributed over the entire country to buyers RDC's and then redistributed again to shops and supermarkets, all by road, and all of this for products we no longer make to begin with and which will be either broken or obsolete, being unrepairable, in a few short years at best, even if the consumer isn't one of those who must have the latest and dumps or sells on the still functioning previous item...cars being a prime example of this,

Edited by gordonbennet on 03/02/2020 at 11:42

Had jobs that existed in 1970 (50 years ago) been lost and not replaced, unemployment would likely be 30%+. Jobs lost include coal mining 0.3m, steel industry 0.3m, manufacturing 5.0m, agriculture and fishing 0.25m + typists, secretaries, milkmen, lollipop men, librarians, meter readers, bank clerks, etc etc.

This happened as overall employment rose from 24m to 33m (mostly due to increases in female empoyment) with unemployment at about current levels.

New jobs that never existed before + large increases in other industries has balanced the lost employment - IT, systems analysts, education, pharmaceuticals, legal, financial, banking, media etc etc.

This really illustrates that things change radically as time passes - some aspects are good, some ok, and some unwelcome. But there is no good reason for the current status quo to persist indefinitely - personal transport included. King Canute thought he could hold back the tide - he was wrong.

The only question is how fast change happens, and what the consequence of being left behind is!

Maybe the answer is that the public, if not more numerous, are generally more demanding, and more inclined to be litigious.

That's because we follow America. Sue someone if they look at you. Drive ever bigger cars, but on a medieval infrastructure that was never designed for it. And soon it'll be vaste swathes of monoculture crops devoid of any wildlife, feeding the endless overbreeding millions.