Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
In fact, if you go back to the OP-linked article (in Forbes), it sets the plan in context a little more. The link to Ghent (and Dutch cities such as Groningen before it), is that travelling direct from one suburb to another is no longer possible, as part of the plan. For cars, at least.
That is where the Middleway comes in, as a ring road. Access arrangements for cars in the CBD would be changed, more one-way streets would (presumably, per the Ghent example) be introduced.
So you can continue to drive in, just that routings will be different, no longer direct. However, for cyclists and peds, it’s no change.
The devil really will be in the detail. I personally would hope that Brum leans more towards the Dutch model, rather than unequivocally banning cars (which is what our media has concentrated on).
Before you say it can’t be done, it already has - in cities like Leicester. Maybe it is challenging enough to put off the odd outsider, so they may feel more tempted to use public transport, but parking is still available at reasonable-ish rates.
That is where the Middleway comes in, as a ring road. Access arrangements for cars in the CBD would be changed, more one-way streets would (presumably, per the Ghent example) be introduced.
So you can continue to drive in, just that routings will be different, no longer direct. However, for cyclists and peds, it’s no change.
The devil really will be in the detail. I personally would hope that Brum leans more towards the Dutch model, rather than unequivocally banning cars (which is what our media has concentrated on).
Before you say it can’t be done, it already has - in cities like Leicester. Maybe it is challenging enough to put off the odd outsider, so they may feel more tempted to use public transport, but parking is still available at reasonable-ish rates.
- A42_Sparks
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
This article claims that the plan goes further - by 2041 all petrol & diesel vehicles will be banned from using any road in the West Midlands:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
- chaseracer
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
I should think Glasgow City Council is watching with interest...
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Since De-car-ing cities is something we are going to be seeing more of and will have to get used to, had much thought been given to people who are 'marginal' on the mobility scale and how is this dealt with on other countries that have already tried car restrictions further whan we have?
It would probably be fairly easy to work in exceptions to most car-deterrance restrictions for blue badge holders (and maybe even required under disability-discrimination legislation), and of course, the able-bodied should generally be able to work with walking a bit further and/or using public transport. But what about the 'marginal' ones for whom don't quite qualify for a blue badge, but would not be able to go about their normal business without taking their car closer to their destination than would be allowed under possible future restrictions? (OK in the Birmingham example, they should be able to go back to the ring road, round then back in if they need to go to more than one destination, but who knows what is in the pipeline for other places?)
It would probably be fairly easy to work in exceptions to most car-deterrance restrictions for blue badge holders (and maybe even required under disability-discrimination legislation), and of course, the able-bodied should generally be able to work with walking a bit further and/or using public transport. But what about the 'marginal' ones for whom don't quite qualify for a blue badge, but would not be able to go about their normal business without taking their car closer to their destination than would be allowed under possible future restrictions? (OK in the Birmingham example, they should be able to go back to the ring road, round then back in if they need to go to more than one destination, but who knows what is in the pipeline for other places?)
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Casual experience tells me that not only are a proportion of blue badge holders decidedly marginal, but also a good proportion of those who genuinely need such close-in provision don't have them, being given lifts by friends etc. It's a bureaucrat's approach to an issue.M4 Cardiff wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 23:55 It would probably be fairly easy to work in exceptions to most car-deterrance restrictions for blue badge holders )
- Ruperts Trooper
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Their actual proposal is "A ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2041" - that's one year AFTER the proposed UK ban on the sale of petrol/diesel non-electrified cars.A42_Sparks wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 23:51 This article claims that the plan goes further - by 2041 all petrol & diesel vehicles will be banned from using any road in the West Midlands:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
Lifelong motorhead
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
The next point is a ban on all fossil-fuel powered vehicles on West Midlands roads by 2041.Ruperts Trooper wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 07:37Their actual proposal is "A ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2041" - that's one year AFTER the proposed UK ban on the sale of petrol/diesel non-electrified cars.A42_Sparks wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 23:51 This article claims that the plan goes further - by 2041 all petrol & diesel vehicles will be banned from using any road in the West Midlands:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Hardly an unreasonable goal.
Car manufacturers can't keep business as usual; people are rightly fed up of air pollution and they're also fed up of climate change.
Likewise there are massive safety benefits to not having cars in areas intended as social and recreational areas like most town centres will need to be to survive.
Car manufacturers can't keep business as usual; people are rightly fed up of air pollution and they're also fed up of climate change.
Likewise there are massive safety benefits to not having cars in areas intended as social and recreational areas like most town centres will need to be to survive.
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- Chris Bertram
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Answer to the underlined bit - very much so. A comparable journey under free-flowing conditions (i.e. any time outside peak hours) either way round the ring road will take a *lot* longer as you get stopped at traffic lights or wait at roundabouts, in addition to it being a longer distance. There are now some pedestrian crossing lights on Bristol Street, but apart from that, the throughpass is free-flow from one end to the other, with no junctions that involve crossing at-grade.
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- roadtester
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
TBH, though, I think Birmingham would be well advised to stick to arguments like improving health/local air quality, road safety and quality of life, rather than less immediate or direct stuff like climate change when selling this project.Bryn666 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 08:55 Hardly an unreasonable goal.
Car manufacturers can't keep business as usual; people are rightly fed up of air pollution and they're also fed up of climate change.
Likewise there are massive safety benefits to not having cars in areas intended as social and recreational areas like most town centres will need to be to survive.
Climate change is important and a grave threat to us all but I think it's harder to relate it to highly specific changes to a particular city's one way system or whatever - it requires much more widespread action on an international basis. Of course the smaller local things add up as well, but I think it's a harder sell.
Also, climate change has its (IMHO misinformed) sceptics who will always push back - but almost everyone can agree that not getting run over or not having to breathe in a load of sooty diesel fumes are good things.
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Except on SABRE, it seems.roadtester wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 09:23 ...but almost everyone can agree that not getting run over or not having to breathe in a load of sooty diesel fumes are good things.
Bryn
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She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
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Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Blog - https://showmeasign.online/
X - https://twitter.com/ShowMeASignBryn
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Where's that like button?Bryn666 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 09:51Except on SABRE, it seems.roadtester wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 09:23 ...but almost everyone can agree that not getting run over or not having to breathe in a load of sooty diesel fumes are good things.
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
It is roughly twenty-one years since leaded petrol was banned in the U.K., over a decade after Japan did.A42_Sparks wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 23:51 This article claims that the plan goes further - by 2041 all petrol & diesel vehicles will be banned from using any road in the West Midlands:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
We already have electric vehicles, the idea that in twenty-one years time they will be affordable and usable (range, charging etc.) to make fossil fuel vehicles use unjustifiable seems pretty unambitious.
- Ruperts Trooper
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Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Apples and pears - existing cars could be converted to run on unleaded fuel relatively simply - petrol/diesel cars have been converted to electric but it's far from straightforwardsomeone wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:03It is roughly twenty-one years since leaded petrol was banned in the U.K., over a decade after Japan did.A42_Sparks wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 23:51 This article claims that the plan goes further - by 2041 all petrol & diesel vehicles will be banned from using any road in the West Midlands:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
We already have electric vehicles, the idea that in twenty-one years time they will be affordable and usable (range, charging etc.) to make fossil fuel vehicles use unjustifiable seems pretty unambitious.
Lifelong motorhead
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
The components to create wholly electric cars also come with a raft of environmental issues.Ruperts Trooper wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:39Apples and pears - existing cars could be converted to run on unleaded fuel relatively simply - petrol/diesel cars have been converted to electric but it's far from straightforwardsomeone wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:03It is roughly twenty-one years since leaded petrol was banned in the U.K., over a decade after Japan did.A42_Sparks wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 23:51 This article claims that the plan goes further - by 2041 all petrol & diesel vehicles will be banned from using any road in the West Midlands:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
We already have electric vehicles, the idea that in twenty-one years time they will be affordable and usable (range, charging etc.) to make fossil fuel vehicles use unjustifiable seems pretty unambitious.
Bryn
Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Blog - https://showmeasign.online/
X - https://twitter.com/ShowMeASignBryn
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@BrynBuck
Terminally cynical, unimpressed, and nearly Middle Age already.
She said life was like a motorway; dull, grey, and long.
Blog - https://showmeasign.online/
X - https://twitter.com/ShowMeASignBryn
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@BrynBuck
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
It requires lithium for the lithium mines of Rura Penthe, known throughout the galaxy as the Aliens' Graveyard.Bryn666 wrote:The components to create wholly electric cars also come with a raft of environmental issues.Ruperts Trooper wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:39Apples and pears - existing cars could be converted to run on unleaded fuel relatively simply - petrol/diesel cars have been converted to electric but it's far from straightforwardsomeone wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:03 It is roughly twenty-one years since leaded petrol was banned in the U.K., over a decade after Japan did.
We already have electric vehicles, the idea that in twenty-one years time they will be affordable and usable (range, charging etc.) to make fossil fuel vehicles use unjustifiable seems pretty unambitious.
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
I agree, just like apples and oranges are both fruits, those two situations are also alike.Ruperts Trooper wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:39Apples and pears - existing cars could be converted to run on unleaded fuel relatively simply - petrol/diesel cars have been converted to electric but it's far from straightforwardsomeone wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:03It is roughly twenty-one years since leaded petrol was banned in the U.K., over a decade after Japan did.A42_Sparks wrote: ↑Mon Jan 13, 2020 23:51 This article claims that the plan goes further - by 2041 all petrol & diesel vehicles will be banned from using any road in the West Midlands:
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/m ... s-17544366
We already have electric vehicles, the idea that in twenty-one years time they will be affordable and usable (range, charging etc.) to make fossil fuel vehicles use unjustifiable seems pretty unambitious.
A quick check, and when leaded petrol was banned there were still around five million cars on the road that needed it, of which around 40% could not be converted.
The key word there is "still," because as I pointed out we are already at the time where electric vehicles are increasing. And we banned leaded petrol a long time after other countries, it was a new technology that had only just become available.
I am not saying that come twenty-one years time we will be in a position to transition from fossil fuels to electrically powered vehicles. I am saying that by that time the technology will have been well established.
The average age of a car on British roads as announced annually is usually up to eight years old, and there is normally a big fall off after fourteen years. So even in a worst case scenario, that would mean there will be few cars from earlier than 2027 on the road in 2041.
And over the next twenty-one years we will continue to see a change to public attitude, increased taxes, pollution charges, scrapage schemes, and other measures to encourage people to switch to zero emission vehicles. There will certainly be a greater number of people replacing vehicles over the next two decades than the past two.
So two harmful technologies that will be banned long after people already have viable alternatives. Much like apples and oranges are made to make juices. Very similar things.
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
The best option is to attempt to rely on cars less, regardless of their propulsion method
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
The "nothing across Birmingham centre" approach is, strangely, not the first time for them. The city tramway system, I think uniquely for Britain, had the usual series of radial routes into the centre, but they would terminate there, and slightly on the periphery, so not quite touching. You can get the idea from this map of their tramways at maximum extent in the 1930s
http://tundria.com/trams/GBR/Birmingham-1930.php
When replaced by buses, they followed a similar "not touching" structure. There doesn't seem to be a reason why Birmingham transport developed in this different manner to other cities.
Regarding comparisons to Ghent, that is really inappropriate, as not only is it a far smaller city but it has not one but two circumferential main roads, the R4 and the R40, the inner R40 one sufficiently close in that you can probably walk to it/see it from much of the centre. It is only within this that a series of no through road cul-de-sacs have been formed, principally by making some canal bridges pedestrian only. Notably, these roads penetrating inside the inner ring seem to lead principally to an array of pleasantly integrated underground car parks. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0530087 ... 312!8i6656
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0537361 ... 312!8i6656
http://tundria.com/trams/GBR/Birmingham-1930.php
When replaced by buses, they followed a similar "not touching" structure. There doesn't seem to be a reason why Birmingham transport developed in this different manner to other cities.
Regarding comparisons to Ghent, that is really inappropriate, as not only is it a far smaller city but it has not one but two circumferential main roads, the R4 and the R40, the inner R40 one sufficiently close in that you can probably walk to it/see it from much of the centre. It is only within this that a series of no through road cul-de-sacs have been formed, principally by making some canal bridges pedestrian only. Notably, these roads penetrating inside the inner ring seem to lead principally to an array of pleasantly integrated underground car parks. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0530087 ... 312!8i6656
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0537361 ... 312!8i6656
Re: Birmingham unveils Ghent-style plan to reduce traffic levels
Absolutely. Ghent is a comparatively very small city and the car parks are all easily reachable from the motorways. Indeed I parked in one a couple of years ago for a weekend stay, affordably and easily.WHBM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:49 Regarding comparisons to Ghent, that is really inappropriate, as not only is it a far smaller city but it has not one but two circumferential main roads, the R4 and the R40, the inner R40 one sufficiently close in that you can probably walk to it/see it from much of the centre. It is only within this that a series of no through road cul-de-sacs have been formed, principally by making some canal bridges pedestrian only. Notably, these roads penetrating inside the inner ring seem to lead principally to an array of pleasantly integrated underground car parks. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0530087 ... 312!8i6656
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.0537361 ... 312!8i6656
Birmingham has in the A38 the kind of underground infrastructure which enables street-level transformative schemes to take place. There is indeed no reason why trips across Birmingham need to traverse city streets when there is the Middleway and the A38. That's not to say there couldn't be improvements in the placement and management of accesses to the A38. Cities with underground infrastructure like this can crack on with reallocating roadspace on the surface to active modes and public transport, and deliveries and servicing, safe in the knowledge that there are reasonable alternatives. This is one of the reasons why London, even a few years ago, looked into spending £billions on cross-city tunnels.