The cost of utility cycling

[Cudzoziemiec]

A while back I read this book: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/25808/ partly because I vaguely know the author, partly because I happened to spot it on the library shelf(!) but also for interest. He cites a couple of studies showing that restricting access to parking in residential areas is the most effective way of reducing car use (in urban areas) because it dissuades people from owning cars in the first place. Once people have cars they will tend to use them in preference to other forms of transport simply because it's there.

[whosatthewheel]

Cars will die... it's a very slow process, but it is happening.

Car sales have been trending down for quite some time... add the fact that fewer teenagers bother with a driving license these days and you see that in 10 years time there will be much fewer of them on the roads.
I would have got rid of our car years ago, but my wife still sees the car as an essential (grew up in Canada, where you drive two blocks to see your neighbour).
We probably use it once or twice a week... typically to head somewhere and then go for a walk or to head somewhere for breakfast at the weekend. We also use it to go on holiday, as an alternative to flying...

I can't see a cargo bike being of much use for us, as we walk to the supermarket and shops. The car is a rather expensive to maintain luxury in our case, but at least it's one of those little cars that does 60 mpg and pays no road tax

[Kim]

Tax private parking spaces, say at offices, get rid of as much free parking as you can. Basically you want to make it such that public transport (spell cheque this time), cycling, and walking, are the most cost effective, and fastest forms of travel. The revenue from taxing the parking spaces, you can use to subsidise the buses and trains. [...]

I realise none of this will happen, but there's a reason I'm a quixotic geek...

It's exactly what they've done in Nottingham.  They've now got a tram network, electric buses, cycle infrastructure (some of which is actually worth using), park&rides and a reduction in congestion that makes it easier to drive into the city centre and pay a fortune for parking if you really want to.  Not up to Dutch standards (it's still a city full of motor vehicles), but it's a decent start.

It's politically viable because a tax on employers providing commuter parking is abstract enough that it doesn't feel like a 'war on the motorist', and people see the investment in public transport.


Meanwhile in Birmingham, they're trying to fit more cars in, while desperately trying not to impose a clean air zone.

[grams]

The irony is that they also build new estates without sufficient car parking provision, even though they really know no-one will use the infrequent buses.  Sometimes they chuck in a couple of bike stands* at the request of the planners to compensate for the lack of even one-car per-dwelling parking (common for blocks of flats).  The bike stand remains empty and unused and the cars go on the pavement.

In some parts of the country, residents of new developments aren't eligible for residents' parking permits, which solves this problem.

(Though I know in other parts of the country, the very idea of residents parking permits is full on war-on-the-motorist, even while they complain about lack of parking in their neighbourhood...)

[Cudzoziemiec]

So the million dollar question is how do you normalise cycling?

Take the cars away.

So we wake up tomorrow under Queen Kim the First. Squads of Yacfers roam the country on narwhals rounding up all the cars for melting down into bikes, ploughshares and frickin lasers. Motorists of the world do not rise up in arms because everyone loves a narwhal and you've given them all laughing gas. And free CAEK. Some people will start cycling because you've removed their fear of traffic, their fear of being laughed at and their convenience crutch, and you've given them the need to look afresh at how they get to wherever they're getting (as well as at where they're getting to). But I reckon most will probably be walking or on the bus, and some will simply change or abandon their journeys. All of which are still positive results (along with the cleaner air, the public space, the reduced noise, the increased micro-mobility, and of course the CAEK).

[Kim]

To be fair, that stuff would have to wait until at least Monday.  Rounding up a sufficiency of narwhals isn't something you can rush, and I'll be busy LARTing the current parliament...

[Cudzoziemiec]

David Attenborough to be Secretary of State for Narwhals, of course. (He's a non-driver, by the way.)

[The Family Cyclist]

Let's hope we can do this before the Japanese eat all our narwhales!

[whosatthewheel]

Meanwhile in Birmingham, they're trying to fit more cars in, while desperately trying not to impose a clean air zone.

True, public transport is shocking. Solihull and Coventry are separated by 12 miles of generic "Midlands" with only one bus service every hour to connect them for 6 days a week (last bus around 6:30 PM).
It just defies belief that public transport can be so poor.

[quixoticgeek]

Meanwhile in Birmingham, they're trying to fit more cars in, while desperately trying not to impose a clean air zone.

True, public transport is shocking. Solihull and Coventry are separated by 12 miles of generic "Midlands" with only one bus service every hour to connect them for 6 days a week (last bus around 6:30 PM).
It just defies belief that public transport can be so poor.

Just took a bus from Utrecht University to Utrecht Centraal. I let the first bus that arrived go, it was full, not even space for any more standing passengers. I then let the next one, as that was packed too. At this point I was getting cold and impatient. I'd already had to wait 3 whole minutes for these two buses, and the prospect of waiting another 1 minute for the next, or 2 minutes for the one after, meh. I got on the 3rd bus. Total wait: 4 minutes. These buses are extra long double bendy buses. And full. Running along side the bus route is a separated bi directional bike path, wide enough to drive a fire engine down. Crossing this fietspad was hard, the traffic a constant stream..

My bus journey took 15 mins, and cost me €1.76.

J

[Cudzoziemiec]

Cars will die... it's a very slow process, but it is happening.

Car sales have been trending down for quite some time... add the fact that fewer teenagers bother with a driving license these days and you see that in 10 years time there will be much fewer of them on the roads.
I would have got rid of our car years ago, but my wife still sees the car as an essential (grew up in Canada, where you drive two blocks to see your neighbour).
We probably use it once or twice a week... typically to head somewhere and then go for a walk or to head somewhere for breakfast at the weekend. We also use it to go on holiday, as an alternative to flying...

I can't see a cargo bike being of much use for us, as we walk to the supermarket and shops. The car is a rather expensive to maintain luxury in our case, but at least it's one of those little cars that does 60 mpg and pays no road tax

Car ownership might be slowly dying, but cars are not. In fact there are ever more of them all around the world. The downward trend in sales is due to various factors, may of which will reverse at some point (the economic ones) but coincides with the growth of car clubs and car sharing. Plus, cars are now mainstream in parts of the world where they were still a minor thing only a decade or two ago. And in the next decade or electric cars will make the fuel costs a comparatively minor thing. They might become cleaner and not be sitting in front of our houses, they might even be driving themselves, but we'll still be using lots of cars.