General Chat

welcome to the brave new world, and the world of the anti-motorist brigade

This is what has been happening in Vancouver for the last 10 years, and now they are looking at closing even more "slow" roads to make room for patios at restaurants, cafes, and bars, as well as more bike lanes.

In some ways, I have to agree with the anti-motorists, the world has gone crazy building more and more roads, highways, flyovers, expressways, etc etc. Everyone and his mother has to have a car.

Over here, hardly anyone walks if they can help, even if the shops or the school are only a block away. Vancouver is better than a lot of North America cities and towns, but it is still horrifying to see cars dropping kids off at school and then driving the 2 blocks home.

EDIT:- I should add that here in Canada, kindergarten and elementary school children have to go to the school which is in the area where they live. There are not the huge differences in "good" and "bad" schools such as you have in the UK. The only ones who do not attend their local school are the ones in private schools. The local school for that age group is well within walking distance. High school kids may cross borders between high schools IF there is room or if a high school has been named as a "speciality" school, catering to pupils who might need a lot of time off school, such as ones training to be hockey players, ski racers,ballet.


The air has got worse and worse because of all the exhausts, and cars rat run down supposedly no traffic side streets trying to avoid the "traffic jam" on the main road. Everyone is in a hurry.

The peace and quiet of the last 10 or 12 weeks has been wonderful .............. but we're getting the rat runners again, even though the "jam" is only 2 blocks long, or less than the distance between 2 traffic lights (it's a built-up area).

There has to be a happy medium .......... but certainly a lot of people use cars when it seems unnecessary.

In our town the pavements were built out so the buses broke up the traffic flow. Somehow they now intend to add a bus lane and a cycle lane. They’ll have to make the road one way to do that. With no alternative for the traffic coming the other way.

I regret to say that once the anti-motorist brigade get a road closed or narrowed it stays that way.

In Ken Livingstone's days as Mayor of London all the bus laybys were filled in so that when a bus stopped so did all the traffic. Designed to slow down and discourage vehicle use.
They have never been re-opened and with more buses traffic speeds have got slower and slower. Hence the need for bus lanes , which also effectively reduce main roads to a single lane..

Is it wise to make some of these new cycle lanes permanent.
Surely, when the weather eventually changes and it gets cold and wet people will resort to their cars.

Will parents continue to cycle to school with their kids, their games kit, their musical instruments, their projects, their art work etc? Or will they pop everything and all their children into their cars and drop them off at their various schools, before continuing on to their workplace?