City roads should be ‘ripped out completely’ to fight pollution, says government adviser
City roads should be ‘ripped out completely’ to fight pollution, says government adviser
Dr Gary Fuller, who reviewed research supporting the Ulez expansion, has suggested turning cities into ‘green spaces’
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Not a horrible idea if you have solid, simple, and actionable plans to replace them with robust, simple, and effective public transport options. Otherwise… yeah, a bit too far.
Uh huh, and what about material delivery to stores, restaurants, &etc in the city? What about postal service?
We should absolutely invest more in public transit, but light rail and buses are not logistics solutions.
Trains carry cargo all the time. I don't think it's too crazy to suggest light rail be adapted to do the same.
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And we're going to build rails to every store, restaurant, and other business that needs cargo pickup & delivery? And run a train to each of them, every day? And you think that would end up being more efficient/environmentally friendly than trucks?
Every store? Obviously not. Running cargo trams through major business or industrial districts, though? More plausible, if the will exists.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CarGoTram
Something like that, but as a public service.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CarGoTram
The main route went from the logistics center in Friedrichstadt via Postplatz and Grunaer Straße to Straßburger Platz and finally on to the factory.
This went from one logistics center to one production facility. It is insane to think that this could be a scalable solution.
Wow, a train line goes defunct in a country that heavily subsidizes car infrastructure and actively works against other modes of transportation. I'm shocked, really. Shocked.
I didn't say anything about it going defunct. That has to be one of stupidest attempts at a straw man I've ever seen.
I pointed out that it only ever carried material from one location to one other location, and that such a system would not be scalable to serving an entire city.
Did you even read my comment?
Mh, why do you think it never grew beyond "one line serving one location"? 🤔
We did have more extensive tram services transporting goods in the past: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Straßenbahn_in_Hannover#Güterstraßenbahn
You know, before this country became the world's largest car exporter and started to dismantle its train network...
such a system would not be scalable to serving an entire city.
Lol, nobody is talking about entire cities, but do go ahead talking about strawmen.
Sorry. Good luck transporting a washing machine or full kitchen on public transport.
Delivery of a full kitchen is not something that makes up the majority of traffic. I don't think anyone is saying you can't use a van for the "last mile" in such edge cases.
Even washing machines can be delivered by cargo bike/trike though.
How would you 'use a van' if the roads are "ripped out completely"?
You do understand nobody is talking about ripping out all roads everywhere, right?
Right?
It's literally the title.
I can't even understand down voting this, unless you're delusional.
Oh, you're basing your opinions on fact-twisting headlines of right-wing "newspapers", instead of, you know, reading the actual article where even they have to paint the picture just a liiittle bit differently.
You do understand the difference between "removing roads completely" and "removing all roads", right?
You do understand the difference between "removing roads completely" and "removing all roads", right?
What do you think the distinction is, in this context?
Yeah, I can help you with that: "removing roads completely" does not specify how many roads are to be removed, only that the ones being removed are removed completely, as opposed to partially.
"Removing all roads" on the other hand means removing all roads, as opposed to, e.g., some, or many.
There, that was easy, wasn't it?
One of the roads near my house was removed completely.
All roads near my house were removed completely.
Two different implications, no?
Yes, the title implies something more extreme than is actually proposed, but that's why I read articles (usually) before commenting.
There is a difference between roads and streets.
And which one is it that you think is being proposed to be "ripped out completely" in this article?
Based on your link, I believe in this context it is 'streets'.
Well, just go back and read my arguments, and then recognize that all of them apply to 'streets', and that making the distinction between 'streets' and 'roads' does not weaken my arguments in any way.
Try a different approach, something besides pedantry.
Have a look at the Netherlands friend. I've seen people towing dishwashers behind their bikes more than once while living there.
A dishwasher isn't that heavy. A washing machine is.
We primarily use small vans. Eg. Utrecht, the example mentioned in the article:
And that's fine. You can have almost no cars, but still use vans when they're required.
Hell, do like the small Swiss town in that Tom Scott video. Abolish cars for private individuals or the able bodied. But you'll still need (small, electric) cars and vans to transport the heavy stuff.
That and tradespeople often use their van as a mobile workplace. Tablesaw, semi-complete inventory of parts they may need, etc.
You joke, but I have done this. Wheelchair accesible trams are awesome for this. Put appliance on hand truck walk it into the tram. No heavy lifting required like when loading it in a car.
A washing machine? That shit's heavy.
A cheap logistics hand truck carries weights up to 250kg. If you need more it become a bit annoying because you need to switch to using OSB Boards with casters.
Source: My life and helping friends move.
Bonus: Hand trucks are really convenient to transport full size kegs and CO2 bottles to parties by tram.
Who said we were abandoning all of them?
Street vs Road.You can totally have delivery vehicles for stores on a street, but no other cars are allowed.
This is different from "ripped out completely", which is what is proposed in the article. So the answer to your question is that Dr. Fuller said that.
Apparently you didnt read past the headline and dont want to understand the content.. welp, cant help ya there.
“We should start changing our cities and actually start thinking about ripping out road infrastructure and turning them into green spaces or green transport corridors."
You mean that 'rest of the article'?