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London has already proven, during the month of restrictions around the Olympic Games, that it is possible to massively reduce motorised vehicle traffic within z
by buro9 9y ago
London has already proven, during the month of restrictions around the Olympic Games, that it is possible to massively reduce motorised vehicle traffic within zone 1 and zone 2 during the workday without causing harm to businesses and the functioning of the city. Most people felt that the quality of life in London dramatically improved during the games, and one of the major reasons cited is reduced traffic, cleaner air, pedestrianised zones, increase in cycling, smoother traffic flow for public transport, out of hour deliveries, etc.
It's already been successfully done, there is just a lack of political will to make such measures permanent.
- zimpenfish 9y ago> cleaner air Ride 100 provides an excellent demonstration of this even just by closing -some- roads for -one- day. cf this graph of pollution on Putney High Street: https://twitter.com/jwoLondon/status/892004529545379840 https://twitter.com/jwoLondon/status/892004529545379840
- barrkel 9y agoPeople simply do business on a different day to cycle takeovers.
- zimpenfish 9y agoI can't really fathom what your point is here? No cars means no pollution -> reducing the amount of cars reduces the pollution. Is that disputed?
- wlesieutre 9y agoTheir point is that the closing a road once doesn't just make all the pollution not happen, it time-shifts some of it to other days when people are driving again. I expect there are some people who do make other arrangements and take a bus, so it's a net gain, but there are also those who take their car on Monday since they couldn't on Sunday. EDIT: I looked up how RideLondon works, map at the end of this PDF shows road closures https://d1ffaecguugkl4.cloudfront.net/ridelondon/live/uploads/cms_page_media/19/Central-Road-Closures-2017.pdf https://d1ffaecguugkl4.cloudfront.net/ridelondon/live/upload... So it's not even time-shifting necessarily. People can drive around that and just move the pollution from one street to the next. But yes, the pollution measurements on one of the closed roads would look better that day.
- zimpenfish 9y ago> closing a road once doesn't just make all the pollution not happen Yes, I know, it was an illustration of how much pollution is caused by traffic in London and how much could be gained by reducing those traffic levels overall. I am baffled that this is causing confusion to people.
- barrkel 9y agoYou're not considering how much activity was displaced by the Olympics. Many people just went on holiday. Traffic is already lower in summer because of holidays, as well as reduced school runs. My own commute times nearly doubled with the Olympic lanes. It would have been intolerable permanently.