{"id":269085,"date":"2023-07-24T11:57:56","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T09:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=269085"},"modified":"2023-07-24T11:57:59","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T09:57:59","slug":"cars-are-winning-against-the-uks-15-minute-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=269085","title":{"rendered":"Cars are winning against the UK\u2019s 15 Minute cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0From CFACT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Joanne Nova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to believe someone thought that adding artificial blockages to roads would free people from their vehicle-addiction. As if making car trips artificially long, circuitous and inconvenient would teach people to love walking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s part of the\u00a015 minute city plan,<\/a>\u00a0where everything was supposed to be within a heavenly short walk from home, so we could give up cars, save the planet, change the atmosphere and get fit too. But the Deplorables didn\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of a Low Traffic Network (LTN) sounded so apple-pie. Everyone wants fewer cars on the road. So when pollsters asked deliberately ambiguous questions, people would say \u201cyes\u201d they liked the idea. But living with LTN\u2019s wasn\u2019t much fun when it turned out it was\u00a0their<\/em>\u00a0car the overlords wanted to get rid of. And so the protests and petitions began. Under the cover of darkness, people set\u00a0bollards on fire<\/a>, attacked them with chainsaws, and even\u00a0poured concrete in the anchor holes<\/a>\u00a0so it was harder to replace them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what really seems to have got the attention of politicians is when their own party splits and the renegades win. As Tim Abrahams at\u00a0UnHerd\u00a0<\/em>describes it, politicians are backing away quickly now after a couple of safe Labor council seats went to Labor rebels who left the party and ran on \u201cpro-motorist\u201d platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revenge of Britain\u2019s motorists<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Tim Abrahams at\u00a0UnHerd<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a sense that politicians are increasingly waging a \u201cwar on cars\u201d. Measures include road filtering, to give priority to low-carbon methods of transport, and placing extra charges on polluting vehicles, in a push towards net zero. The shift is prompting anguished debate and splits within parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, Labour\u00a0lost one of its safest council seats in the country<\/a>\u00a0to a former party member-turned-independent who stood opposed to the imposition of LTNs across Newham, in East London. Last autumn, former Labour politician Lutfur Rahman was returned as mayor of Tower Hamlets, also in East London, deposing the party\u2019s chosen incumbent, on a pro-motorist platform; one of his first acts was to axe a newly installed LTN and demand a review of the others across his borough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Oxford City, large swathes of Labour\u2019s local party have defected to an independent group fighting the LTNs and the traffic schemes that will supersede them; in March,\u00a0its official candidate in the Littlemore ward<\/a>\u00a0came within an inch of being beaten by such an independent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea is gathering a bad smell so fast one Liberal Democrat in Oxford (the \u201cCabinet Member for Highway Management<\/a>\u201c) is now telling Tim Abrahams that the LTN\u2019s weren\u2019t his idea and it\u2019s \u201cnot a core scheme\u201d. As Abrahams tells it, the Liberal Democrats are part of the \u201crainbow coalition of progressive parties\u201d who are in charge at Oxford \u2014 and it was something they once promoted. It\u2019s quite the backflip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the best news is that bollards are going at Oxford:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years after traffic filtering was trialled, the bollards and planters are to be replaced by other forms of traffic calming, such as\u00a0bus gates monitored by traffic cameras<\/a>\u00a0and a workplace car parking levy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message has got through to the top. On a Federal level the Transport Secretary even called last week for councils to \u201creview unpopular anti-car schemes<\/a>\u201c. Mark Harper said he had stopped government funding for project\u00a0\u201cthat are about\u2026 banning cars or making it difficult for motorists\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Higher costs, less spare time, more gridlock and less equity: Who could have seen that coming?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

What seems the most astonishing is that the whole plan worked like organised government-vandalism \u2014 the tyrants were Building Back Worse. They weren\u2019t building new infrastructure, they were ruining perfectly good roads. They\u00a0 reduced options, curtailed freedoms, and somehow our lives were supposed to get better? But people could always have walked from point A to B, they just preferred to drive. There were no efficiency gains, no better choices or new rail lines, there was just\u00a0less<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not surprisingly, longer trips meant more gridlock not less, more emissions, and the costs of extra travel meant even getting a tradie to do a house-call became much more expensive:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a political level, there is some irony in the fact that europhile supporters of LTNs have not heeded the lesson of the\u00a0gilets jaunes<\/em>\u00a0protests in France \u2014 namely, that blue-collar workers will not be made sacrificial lambs to environmental policies. Idrees Mohammed, managing director of Oxford Lettings, a property management agency,\u00a0told me that electricians now charge 60% more for a call-out into the Cowley LTN<\/strong>\u00a0because it takes so long to get to it. Amir Steve Ali, who works in a takeaway in East Oxford, recently delivered a petition against LTNs to Downing Street with more than 30,000 signatures. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to keep some of the roads clean-air, pollution-free \u2014 but you\u2019ve just chucked your rubbish next door, where others are now facing gridlock,\u201d he says. \u201cWhere\u2019s the justice in this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s almost like the aim was never to serve, nor to change the weather, just to keep the riff-raff off the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle is far from over, but it\u2019s nice to get a win. It is worth protesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it all at\u00a0UnHerd<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article originally appeared at\u00a0JoNova<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n


Joanne Nova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A prize-winning science graduate in molecular biology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has given keynotes about the medical revolution, gene technology and aging at conferences. She hosted a children\u2019s TV series on Channel Nine, and has done over 200 radio interviews, many on the Australian ABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was formerly an associate lecturer in Science Communication at the ANU. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s author of The Skeptics Handbook which has been translated into 15 languages. Each day 5,000 people read joannenova.com.au<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s part of the\u00a015 minute city plan,\u00a0where everything was supposed to be within a heavenly short walk from home, so we could give up cars, save the planet, change the atmosphere and get fit too. But the Deplorables didn\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":269095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691821315,691821316,691818154,691818248],"class_list":{"0":"post-269085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-15-minute-cities","9":"tag-low-traffic-network-ltn","10":"tag-net-zero","11":"tag-uk","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/0A5181-What-is-a-15-minute-city.jpg?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1805","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":424118,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=424118","url_meta":{"origin":269085,"position":0},"title":"Starmer Government Greenlights 15 Minute City Legal Enforcement","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/02\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"First published\u00a0JoNova; Ordinary residents of trial cities will only be permitted 100 days per year outside their 15-minute region. 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