On 18/09/2007, at 1:47 AM, Dan Minettte wrote: > > Calculations show that a car-free inner London scenario equates to > a 49% > reduction in emissions7. Because most London car trips are within > outer > London, changes in inner London boroughs alone were not found to be > sufficient to meet the GLA emissions target. The car-free inner and > outer > London model was found to bring about a 72% reduction in emissions, > with > active transport making up 53% of all trips. > <end quote> > > This definitely includes all of London.
Fair enough. That doesn't really change my points though. > I realize that public > transportation within the circle line is very good, and folks would > only > have to walk a couple of blocks or so...as they do now. When I > worked in > London, the folks I worked with typically used public > transportation when > going within the loop. But, since their office was on the > outskirts of > London, and customers were scattered in outer London, as well as > within the > loop, they did use their cars. So? Most people work in one location. For those like tradesmen or consultants, sales reps, or others who need to visit multiple sites, company vehicles. They're talking of banning private cars. > >> When you have lived in a city like London with bus routes every two >> blocks, and the Underground and train lines connecting lots of those >> up too, > > Huh? Looking at > > http://www.busmap.org/downloads/No28Page%202.pdf > > I see much larger gaps than that in greater London. I've seen a > number of > areas where there are > 1 km gaps between bus lines. Of course there are, but for most of London, you're still no more than a couple of blocks from a bus route. Even your 1km separation means that you're around 500m from a bus route, and that's 2.5 blocks. The vast majority of the population can make it 500m to the bus stop on their own feet. For the rest, scooters, wheelchairs, so on. > > And, my experience with going between areas on the periphery is > that there > are direct lines downtown, but a number of transfers and a great > deal of > time is needed to go from one place to another if neither place is > in the > central city. Two places that are only 20 minutes by car are often > hours > apart by bus. "Hours apart" compared to a twenty minute car journey? Go on, give me an actual example. Please. And bear in mind I've lived 2/3 of my life "on the periphery" of London, and have bussed, cycled, trained and driven all over the city. Besides, most people are going in and out, not radially, and if they're seriously considering banning or seriously restricting private car use, they'll add bus routes and possibly a new train line or tube line to assist those radial journeys, as they have to link the Docklands to the rest of the city with the DLR and Jubilee Line extension. > > Finally, are you arguing that those people who do drive in greater > London > are just a bunch of idiots who could do much better if only they > used public > transportation instead? I tend to believe that folks do things > that cost > significant amounts of money (as driving does in GB) because they > see a > benefit. I've dealt with this, but to reiterate - I owned a car in London. I still used my bike or public transport a lot more. Of course I'm not saying all car drivers are "a bunch of idiots", but a lot of them would have a far better time if they gave up the frustrating commute by car, and reduced substantially the number of short trips they take by car. Most people don't need a car most of the time. Charlie. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
