OT Traffic Crisis

Proper cycle paths and restricting cars - job done.

Umm, no. Reduce demand instead of supply. Anyone with an office job can work from home. All we need is the old buffer middle managers who want to see people with their heads down "working" to die off.

and it doesn't even work

the best example is Brussels which has multiple tunnels under the city center for use as through routes (mostly paid or by the EU - Opps the EU doesn't have any money of its own, so that's by us then!)

you still get clogged up in jams within them

tim

I worked at home 4 days a week and one in the office for 5 years before I retired.

It was brilliant.

Because their managers are morons, mostly.

F*ck. Right. Off.

The half way option is flexi-time working where there is a core time when you have to be at work but the day start and day end are, say, a 3 hour period. I worked a system where I had to do at total of 148 hours in a 4 week period and could leave at mid-day each Friday. Some of the flexible arrangements could be changed by management for business needs but in my experience this happened less than once a year.

On the trading estate where I worked 90% of the companies had the same fixed start or end times which resulted in near grid lock on some roads for half an hour at going home time. If some of the managers from these companies still wanted fixed working hours they could have arranged them so that they were staggered away from their neighbours.

It adds capacity, then I suppose more houses are allowed to be built until back at gridlock again. But it does at least add capacity. The main problem is the cost.

NT

that seems sensible and could help some, but I'm not convinced it's enough to avoid gridlock. Why don't employers do it?

NT

And ... we're back to utterly incompetent middle management.

Stupid question, you do know that the only time the paper shuffling wage slaves expect to work is 0900 to 1700 Monday to Friday (with an hours lunch) don't you?

Of course some of us left for work at 0630 this morning and got back at 2145. Just so the paper shufflers can sit on their arses watching the footy on telly... And there are many others working to let those paper shufflers slob out in a fast (or not so fast) restraunt, pub, entertainment venue or just to do the weekly shop at 0200.

For those physically making something, be that TV footy coverage or producing springled widgets they have little choice but to go to the relevant place. However I cant't see why the springled widget makers have to keep the same hours as the unrelated flanged wotsit makers next door.

So you have light weight, not so crash resistent "commuter" cars for use in towns and cities. How do you keep them off the dual carriageways/motorways, Darwin?

I want a vehicle that can carry a large load and can also travel long distances in comfort. I only want to own one car, so that sets the requirements.

It is at low speeds that the ability to remove the human reaction time has the greatest effect on stopping distances.

I think it is inevitable that they will.

Parking is already a problem in our little market town, and only going to get worse with all the new housing that is being built. I think we need stronger incentives to discourage people buying Chelsea Tractors when they don't need them, not start making things easier. I'm not against big cars if you need one, I had a couple of 8 seater Citroen CXs, and they were narrower than my current Honda Jazz. (I take your point about side impact protection).

You don't allow mopeds on motorways. And you don't force equivalent protection on motorcyclists. If you speed-limit them to 30 mph people are not going to want to drive long distances on faster roads.

What gives you the right to say what people do and do not "need"?

It is not just what you call Chelsea tractors, although large 4x4s are, for good reason, quite common in rural and semi-rural areas. All cars have got bigger as the result of side impact protection. The DfT minimum size for parking spaces, set back in 1994, was 1.8m. The Triumph 2.5PI I once owned was a big car for its day at 1.7m wide - about the same as your Honda Jazz. My estate car is over 2m wide. The current suggestion for parking bay widths is not less than 2.4m wide, but too many places still use older standards and narrower bays.

You really can't work that out? Lordy.

time lost in traffic jams.

microcars, which are barriered off from larger vehicles. 6-8 microcars can sit in the space of 1 standard car (when still or very slow). They're far cheaper to make & much cheaper to run, and they can be far more fuel effici ent, winning green votes. They won't do everything but are sufficient for a sizeable percentage of town & city journeys. They would only be permitted to do 20 or 30mph max. FWIW I'd get one if they could be used.

for you, yes.

at low speed stopping distance is close to zero anyway.

get solved one day

I hope they are, but it's not inevitable

NT