What do you want in the place of cars?

[I like Skol]

An end to the super-commute and shops within a few miles would be a good start?

Just simple planning of meals and shopping requirements would reduce the seemingly daily supermarket visits that some families seem to be dependent on!

Journeys on a whim are a luxury we need to end. Journeys should be essential only, not just because you are bored or failed to plan ahead....

 

[Drago]

...or can't be arrissed to walk 400 metres to collect your fat offspring from school.

 

[november4]

Not in the place of, but barriers between cycle lanes and traffic lanes in cities would eliminate a lot of risk.

I will always need a vehicle

 

[Joffey]

...or can't be arrissed to walk 400 metres to collect your fat offspring from school.

This. Cars should be banned from schools unless children are disabled.

 

[KnittyNorah]

This. Cars should be banned from schools unless children are disabled.

Yes and no. I don't think you can be quite so absolute.

How about if the parents, or whoever is picking the fully-abled child up, themselves have a disability, or care for someone else with a disability?

There would be many, perfectly legitimate and neccessary, exceptions to such an
absolute rule, and then every Tom, Dick and Harriet would be flouting it so that little Jonquil, Oscar or Ruby-Mae doesn't have to walk on that nasty dirty pavement with all the other mini-petri-dishes they've ben swapping germs with all day at school ....

 

[mjr]

Yes and no. I don't think you can be quite so absolute.

How about if [...]

Fine, set up a permit process. Should howaboutery stop us from even trying?

 

[Badger_Boom]

Why do so many motorists think that any government is trying to stop them from driving their own vehicles? All the evidence suggests that the only change being driven is to end the manufacture (and eventually use) of internal combustion engine powered vehicles.



*This post isn't a dig at the OP, but at their four-wheeled inquisitor.

 

[Andy in Germany]

One of the problems is that through decades of car reliance things have got too spread out, theres a lot of places that its impossible or nearly impossible to get to without a car, we need to start to move away from putting stuff on the outskirts of town.

True

In some places local services have withered away. People we dog sit for (or did, when the dog was alive) live in a small village. No shops, no pub. Life without a car would be very difficult. So it wouldn't be a case of just waving a wand and making the cars disappear. There's about 50+ years of societal change to compensate for.

This was/is a process, which means it can be reversed; cars became the main form of transport because governments paid for the infrastructure and then let car owners use it essentially for nothing; if you change wher ethe investment and infrastructure is, then you can change the way people use the town or landscape.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Yes and no. I don't think you can be quite so absolute.

How about if the parents, or whoever is picking the fully-abled child up, themselves have a disability, or care for someone else with a disability?

There would be many, perfectly legitimate and neccessary, exceptions to such an
absolute rule, and then every Tom, Dick and Harriet would be flouting it so that little Jonquil, Oscar or Ruby-Mae doesn't have to walk on that nasty dirty pavement with all the other mini-petri-dishes they've ben swapping germs with all day at school ....

We have already disabled badges for people who need them; 100m from the school can be Disabled Badge holders only for the dropoff and pickup times.

Also allow buses in, and automatically public transport users have an advantage.

A similar system is in use at my kids old school: No motor vehicles except those with special permission which have to display this.

 

[Gillstay]

This was/is a process, which means it can be reversed; cars became the main form of transport because governments paid for the infrastructure and then let car owners use it essentially for nothing; if you change wher ethe investment and infrastructure is, then you can change the way people use the town or landscape.

Yes, the village next to us we cannot easily reach as it is a fast main road with no foot path. A simple bit of pavement and a small foot bridge over the river would change journeys around here.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

We need to de normalise the car being the default choice for journeys less than 5 miles.

 

[palinurus]

Dodgems.

 

[tom73]

We have already disabled badges for people who need them; 100m from the school can be Disabled Badge holders only for the dropoff and pickup times.

Also allow buses in, and automatically public transport users have an advantage.

A similar system is in use at my kids old school: No motor vehicles except those with special permission which have to display this.

That's similar to how access in areas that have brought in school streets work only ones who need access have it. Big issue is too often the anti lot win or councils bottle it and do let's try it and then make out it never worked. In our case they do them as a one off for one day but set up to fail. The day they did do it around our street it was bliss.

 

[united4ever]

In addition to lots of the above:

Cycle lanes with segregation: wands, armadillos to prevent cars parking in them. Make it illegal to park in cycle lanes and enforce.

Schools to have CCTV covering the Keep Clear/no parking zones outside schools and report every car that stops there for drop off. Schools get to keep some of the money to cover CCTV infrastructure and promote active travel/bike ability etc.

 

[Daninplymouth]

Need much better public transport especially outside the big cities. Where I live quite close to the city centre my commute is just about 4miles. 10minute drive or 45-65minutes by public transport and bloody expensive. I’d personally like to use an E bike as I can cycle it in 15-20mins but have a really a busy road and being on the coast the headwinds can be a killer sometimes, an ‘illegal’ ebike that would hold 20-25mph with modest effort would be ideal for me and I reckon many others the 16mph limit is just a bit low I think for sharing the main roads with the commuters