​MP calls out "criminal behaviour" after local councillors receive faeces in their mailbox for implementing LTNs

You've got at least 3 forces fighting against that being effective.

First some or all aspects of people's current daily routine would need to change if they couldn't afford their car trips. Work, care responsibilities, obtaining provisions and social functions - because we have cars we do choose jobs 20+ miles away or live in places with no shops. Often the alternatives for these longer journeys (bus, train) just don't exist, or would be unworkable with their current timetable.

Second - assuming people felt distances *were* cycleable there's a gap between today's volume of motor traffic and the future reduced volume. Most people simply won't cycle on many UK roads where speeds are high and/or there are many vehicles.

Third - motoring generates enormous profits (or influence) for some people. And a lot more people have jobs which are more or less directly dependant on motoring. The first task is persuading politicians to take on all those interests (and force change on the public!) when they know that their opponents (of every party) will immediately say they're on the side of those others.

I agree with the idea - currently motorists are subsidised by the taxpayer when all sums are included. There is also a lot of low-hanging fruit - eg. journeys of a couple of miles or continued "convenience" car use in cities. But unless the fuel suddenly runs out or we're all broke for another reason any politicians seriously pushing up fuel prices will just get run out of office.

We're so car-dependent and it's baked in to our built environment. It will take a lot of time and better provision of alternatives to budge people. They just don't see an alternative. At the least we need a network of adequate cycle infra, improved public transport, changes to how we get our food and provision of amenities AND probably many people moving closer to places they access regularly eg. work.

bugsplatterbeast wrote:

raise the price of petrol/diesel to a tenner a gallon

Well, at 160p per litre it's around £7 a gallon, so it's pretty close, and most people aren't budging. That's probably about £30 per tank extra, which is a bit of a squeeze, but a lot of people will just groan and put up with it, because the alternatives to driving are still worse a lot of the time.

You can't just squeeze motorists and expect that to work; you have to create better infrastructure such as protected cycle lanes and more public transport.

I wholly agree.. whilst we (here) all want people out of cars where at all possible, raising fuel prices just hurts the poorest and puts people into strife. We need to level up other transport options and normalise safe travel and health benefits of cycling and walking with joe public, the recent bus trip cap of £2 per journey is exactly what we need, but unless something changes it's not sustainable in the long term. Train fairs are 5x the price they need to be to get people out of their cars and I can't justify why our trains are so much more expensive then our neighbours (the bad news here is that a lot of trains are at capacity).

As far as making drivists 'pay' for this, I agree, but it need not be at the pump, it should against size, weight and emissions of the vehicle. Reduce the size of cars on our roads and there will be more space for everyone. 

peted76 wrote:

 Train fairs are 5x the price they need to be

Train fares are very variable. I got the train to Newhaven from London for only £6. No one will ever convince me they can drive that Journey for the same price.

Meanwhile £30 for a return to London from home, A journey of only 42km each way. 

I partly agree.  On one hand the issue is clear (to some...) and there is a proven model, working in several other countries that we can import.  The difficult thing is that our infrastructure / amenities, our routines, many jobs and our culture / though processes are shaped by our high level of motor transport (motornormativity).  We're not unique in this regard, but we're still going in the direction of more driving.

Many people think the current UK situation is problematic and some think it's unsustainable.  There seemed to be some vague political agreement on this also - until the Conservatives suddenly saw political capital in saying they'd do the opposite and Labour decided they couldn't afford to risk rocking the boat.

So to remedy the current situation (absent some new technology to kick the can further down the road) unfortuately that does mean we need to decrease motoring, to make it less convenient and to make drivers bear its full costs.  We're human, so any change is likely to seem a "loss" and that is extremely salient.  Also for many people things "work" for them (we're all used to "what is") so doing something different looks both arbitrary and unnecessary.

Merely reducing the size of the cars isn't going to cut it (although that wouldn't hurt anyone, except the manufacturers...).  We need a lot more "pull" (towards other modes / reducing the amount we travel) but because motoring is so ingrained that alone won't work.  We also need quite a lot of "push" (motoring being less convenient / people paying the full costs of this activity).  People aren't voluntarily chosing the other options that we've made less attractive!  But increasing costs too quickly will just increase resistance because people simply don't see they have alternatives, or they feel their lives would be "impossible" without so much driving...

Sadly - if we start this process at all in the UK (I'm not sure we have yet) - it's the work of generations.  They managed a lot in NL in one generation but that is because they started with much higher level of usage of other modes than we have (especially cycling).  Also this happened when the issues were very stark (a rapid increase in motoring, combined with a serious increase in deaths, especially children, plus economics / geopolitics eg. an oil crisis).  They also managed to get support from top to bottom of society.

LordSandwich wrote:

You can't just squeeze motorists and expect that to work; you have to create better infrastructure such as protected cycle lanes and more public transport.

No need to create a better infrastructure for cycling, buses, walking and the like. The already extant roads are very good for these and would be ideal if they weren't infested with millions of badly-driven and polluting cars that most of the drivers can't really afford but currently have to.

Imagine a political will to hand back the roads to far less dangerous, far less expensive and far less polluting transporters - bikes, buses and railways. Is it possible? Certainly - Britain used to be like this around 75 years ago, with far less cars, far more buses and railways and a lot of people using bikes for their everyday transport as well as their leisure.

Is it likely? Not a chance, given the state of today's politics and its ownership by big business, finance capitalism and the New Model Aristocracy of very rich loonies of the intensely self-centred little skinbag variety.

Bladescummers.