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Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

forbes.com

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Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#561

Post by gambiting »

novok wrote: post #548
gambiting wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything. How exactly would you change London to be more like tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese housing? Alternatively, if you're going to build wide, how would you connect those areas with the centre, if building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons? "London's…

You adopt the housing law of japan, which is set at the federal level and not the local level, where zoning is set in large regional areas, where if something is zoned for a 'high nuisance level' you can build anything of a lower nuisance level inside of those zones. You don't need your neighbors permission to build, everything is basically by-right where you follow well a well defined housing code vs. needing specia…

Mate there is no other group campaigning harder to relax building requirements in London than the elites. There are so many rich people complaining they can't add another conservatory or floor or dig up a basement in their Victorian mansion in London. If you made it easier to build you'd basically hand a giant fat present to the hands of the elite. The idea that the elites keep the status quo by making bureocracy complex in London is almost naive.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#562

Post by chroma »

f_devd wrote: post #463
lacker wrote: post #417

I'm worried about riding my bike in the city. A friend of mine died on her bike when hit by a truck in Seattle a few years ago and since then I just don't feel okay biking alongside cars any more, especially with kids. I know this is fundamentally born of emotion rather than rationalism, but still, it does seem like riding a bike is much more dangerous than driving. Bicycles are somewhere from 3x to 11x more dangerou…

> Bicycles are somewhere from 3x to 11x more dangerous than cars. In the US, where there is effectively no bicycle infrastructure. In the Netherlands it seems to be about 1.18x (or 1.1x if you include trucks) [0]. [0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/523310/netherlands-numbe...

The important metric is fatalities per distance traveled, not absolute numbers. In the Netherlands, bicycles have 11 fatalities per billion kilometers traveled. Cars have 1.6.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#563

Post by nradov »

rickydroll wrote: post #383
KptMarchewa wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's _very_ american assumption. All good schools are "inner" city in my country.

A bit of refinement on that thought. In America, inner-city schools are mixed bag. If you live in someplace like Cambridge, schools tend to be good. Boston is a mixed bag. Same is true for other adjacent cities. However if you go to places like Westford, Newton, Wellesley which are very high earner high value properties, the schools tend to be consistently very good. Then you start moving into more rural places in Ma…

For better or worse the quality of public schools depends far more on crime rates and income levels of the surrounding community than on school funding levels. There's very little that schools can do to to help pupils who are growing up in a difficult environment. By all means let's fund schools appropriately, but that's only going to make a marginal difference in outcomes.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#564

Post by pledg »

zarzavat wrote: post #119
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #3

Note that the "City of London" is not the whole of the London built-up area, but just the financial services district, slightly more than one square mile in area. Still, it's a remarkable statistic even then.

The City of London is notable for allowing businesses to vote because so few people live there. There is one residential district inside the City in the Barbican estate, the rest is commercial.

There's also the Golden Lane estate, and various other individual residential buildings.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#565

Post by mjevans »

KPLS wrote: post #560
gambiting wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace t…

In terms of regulations, I'd propose we bring back bigger down payment requirements (20%) and end the infinite availability of artificially low-interest debt. The absurdly cheap debt has driven speculation by bigger entities on housing, driving up the prices, and eased lending standards have just attempted to give individuals and families a fighting chance at competing for homes, also driving up the prices. I'm not s…

Tax the undesired behavior. Using housing as an _investment_ should be heavily taxed based on the behavior's negative impact to society.

Live somewhere for at least 35% of a year (more than 1/3rd), then most of that tax goes away since it's a 'primary residence'. (35% to allow for moving as well as possible 'sunbird' / 'winter/summer homes', while still catching anyone who treats housing as an 'investment' (a tax upon the poor))

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#566

Post by maigret »

gambiting wrote: post #506
novok wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol Tokyo and many other mega cities in the world are great examples how none of those things are actual barriers. London's issue is political will, because too many wealthy and politically connected people currently profit from the current status quo at the expense of the exploited supermajority.

Just saying "look at Tokyo" doesn't mean anything. How exactly would you change London to be more like tokyo? As the simplest question - which areas of London would you demolish to make room for high density Japanese housing? Alternatively, if you're going to build wide, how would you connect those areas with the centre, if building new metro lines is pretty much impossible in London for historical reasons? "London's…

Thinking out loud:

- Ask for 90% of the buildings to be less than 120% of the average price.

- Have lottery system for lot allocation

- Make it easy for groups and communities to buy lots

- Cap the lot prices per sqf

- Evaluate the projects on the community impacts vs $$$

See also this to understand how capitalist architecture makes everyone miserable: https://youtu.be/VoYZlyBHyQM

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#567

Post by nradov »

CalRobert wrote: post #473
rickydroll wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the rural/city better for the environment is a bit of cherry picking of statistics. It's important however to respect what's good for each of us. For me, living in the city meant shitty health outcomes, spending way too much money on rent and food, way too many people trying to stick a hand in my pocket for entertainment etc. For me a good life means dark skies, green trees, a chance of dying every time I go…

Cities aren't loud. Cars are loud.

Sirens and garbage trucks going all night are loud.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#568

Post by opless »

CydeWeys wrote: post #40
opless wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Cars kill way more people than bicycles do though. Regardless of your perceptions here, this mode shift is overall safer.

Yes, and looking at the number of flags my comments have, quite a lot of you wonderful cyclists really don't have a steady grasp on reality either!

But again, I already knew this

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#569

Post by 13of40 »

nradov wrote: post #542
hnlmorg wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London has really good public transportation and, as this article mentions, lots of people in London do cycle to work (half of all the offices I’ve had in London has had an on-premises bicycle “shed”). In fact I’ve met so many Londoners who never even bothered to learn to drive. In my experience, it’s generally American cities that require a car rather than European cities. Generally speaking of course, you get good…

It seems so bizarre that an adult would never learn to drive. Like you might not need to drive for daily city life but it really limits your options if you ever want to travel.

I agree. I know it's complete herecy, but I've done Europe-by-train and Europe-by-rental-car each many times, and I much prefer the latter. If you're talking about travel in America it's not even a question. You learn how to drive or you're going to be stuck in the same 10 mile redius for the rest of your life.

Re: Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London

#570

Post by isaacremuant »

This is mostly not for the right reasons of benefits and incentives but cost of public transport, unreliability of public transport (we've had strikes all year so far) and absolutely terrible traffic (urban planning is non existent).

They simply gentrify car ownership in the city due to different taxes and it ends up being something that is only for the wealthier segments.

Everything seems to be about profit in London, while trying to coat it with a nice messaging about environment or some other thing most of us agree on but the implementations usually are simply money making or money saving schemes that very gladly screw over those less socioeconomically able.

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