OT Traffic Crisis

[tabbypurr]

If sense is involved, microcars will not be permitted to share roadspace with large fast vehicles. Obviously tin cans with a top speed of 30 aren't going to be permitted on motorways etc.

NT

[newshound]

I'm expressing an opinion. Or are you in favour of suppressing that right?

The fact that some people chose to drive, for example, the large BMW or Porsche 4x4 cars means that they consume a disproportionate amount of resource (in terms of road space), which affects all the rest of us. They may pay slightly more VED, excise duty, and VAT, but I am just suggesting that if they had to pay more for the privilege, fewer would do it (freeing up a "good"); and the rest of us might pay slightly less tax.

[newshound]

I was using shorthand. As it happens, I know quite a lot of farmers, agricultural contractors, and horse owners who, for good reason, have some of the larger pickups and 4x4's. Curiously, though, none of them drive X5's or Cayennes. BMW advertising says the X-series is "at home in the city" suggesting, to my mind, a lack of familiarity with some of my favourite older cities.

I don't dispute the side protection factor, but that's not the only reason for the extra width. European manufacturers are making wider cars because the regulations and taxation regimes don't seek to constrain them, I guess perhaps they are building them to the dimensions of the

3.5 tonne van.

Urban space is finite, so if you increase the size of parking bays, you reduce their number which reduces the number of people who can use them. Unless you build multi story car parks, and that has a capital cost which has to be repaid. There's good reason to allow 3.5 tonne vans access to city centres, but less justification when the space is being used for a single person or even a British Standard family.

I don't have a problem with big estate cars, especially if they are mainly used for long distance travel. I was in Oxford this weekend, and the way that the planners have almost eliminated cars from the centre makes it a far more pleasant place. I just think we could manage things better in many towns and cities.

[RJH]

Mmmm. Not much to go on there.

[alan_m]

Oxford city centre has a lot going for it and will attract lots of visitors, students and maybe shoppers irrespective of what it does with traffic[1].

Most town centres have virtually nothing going for them that cannot be obtained elsewhere out-of-town, or these days by way of the Internet. When planners make it difficult to get to the centre it often starts dying very quickly. I doubt if anyone would bother visiting a traffic free street with boarded up shops and tumble weed rolling past.

[1] I haven't been to the centre of Oxford for a decade or more but the last time I was there they seemed to be a bus war with so many rival companies operating near empty buses and jamming up some of the roads in the centre of the city. I assume sanity has now regained a foothold.

[The Natural Philosopher]

A 220mph formula 1 car weighs about 3/4 tonne

[Nightjar]

At 20mph, the thinking distance is half the overall stopping distance.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I will never visit it or worjk there ver again. It was a total nightmare because of anti-car policy.

If Oxford wants to become a giant outdoor cafe, fine. But thats not what used to be appealing.

[Nightjar]

Unlikely. If you can afford to splash out £50k+ on a car, you don't worry too much about the incidental costs. I changed to a diesel estate, not because the 19 mpg of my 5 litre 4x4 was costing too much money, but because it needed too many refuelling stops on a long trip.

[Huge]

Good answer.

Stupid answer.

Authoritarian answer.

[Bill Wright]

So you're a communist?

Bill

[Steve Walker]

Do they really take up so much more space? Width-wise, a classic Mini and an HGV take up one lane. I'll admit that longer cars occupy a little more road space, but allowing for the distance people should be leaving between vehicles, it is a tiny difference. Any typical family sized car is now wider and has thicker doors (that need opening further to leave the same width to get in and out) due to safety requirements and parking spaces have simply not kept up with that.

SteveW

[Nightjar]

...

In terms of parking spaces, they do, but that is because large vehicles have always been wider than small ones. It is just that today, *all* vehicles are wider, due to side impact protection, and parking spaces deigned for older vehicles are too narrow for modern vehicles. As I pointed out elsewhere in the thread, his Honda Jazz is the same width as a luxury saloon car of half a century ago.

[charles]

just look at "real" mini. there are a few about.

[newshound]

I am very well aware of that. I am also aware that in the *new* multi story car park at Gloucester Royal, a pair of the "status" (as opposed to utility) 4x4s can take up three parking spaces without actually touching the lines. So I don't see why they should not pay 50% extra for parking.

[newshound]

It seems to be doing fine without you.

[NY]

As with so many cities with park and ride schemes, they suffer from two big disadvantages: buses/parking are too expensive (*), and the out-of-town termini are too far from the centre, so it takes ages for the bus to get in and out, especially as buses stop at any bus stop along the route, not just a few in the city centre. York is the same as regards cost, distance from centre and stopping all over the place.

I used to drive from Abingdon via Peartree (long but quick route) and then park in one of the various streets just north of St Giles, between the Woodstock and Banbury roads (Bevington/Winchester/Canterbury/St Margarets, or else just north of the university park around Norham Road, where there were free spaces - finding one was sometimes hard but if you did it was free and a nice walk into the centre from there. Also on some of the side streets off Walton Road towards the canal.

Parking is one of those commodities which I attach a very small value to and bitterly resent paying, not so much the cost to me but the fact that the money is going to someone else. I'm not quite as bad as my old neighbour who said "I'd rather burn a £5 note than pay it to park anywhere" :-)

(*) Relative to what I think is a fair price. They may be cheaper than multi-storey car parks, but they are still too expensive.

[Nightjar]

I suspect that, if the car park operators could find a way to do that, they would. After all, they have obviously made the parking bays too narrow, in order to maximise income. If they had made them to the modern recommendations, your Honda Jazz would have 70cm spare between the lines

- easily enough to park and to get out one side.

[charles]

Don't you think it depends on when the car parks were built? Recently I visited the Westfield car park at White City. Great big bays.

[bert]

The footprint of the 4X4 versions you quote are exactly the same as the

4x2 versions. The LR Defender 110 is actually shorter than a Ford Mondeo.