Skip to main content

For good neighbours, live in a quiet, car-free street

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/19/ethicalliving.automotive

This is a nice bit of joined-up thinking, a devastating rebuttal to anyone
who believes that we can keep motoring more and more and not harm ourselves
in the process.

Comments

Unknown said…
The Guardian article is very good. It seems hardly anyone around here reads the Guardian as they obviously don't realise it is car free day!

In the past quarter of an hour I have seen around half a dozen cars come up Livingstone Street and down Speke Street to obviously rat-run down Hotblack Road to go onto Waterworks Road.

Earlier today, when walking to the city,the traffic actually appeared worse! I am glad I am not one of those older people who live in the expensive flats at the top of Grapes Hill! Livingstone Street is quiet in comparison!
Unknown said…
After sending my previous comment I remembered reading a book, quite a number of years ago, in the Central Library (pre-1994!)about the fact that, if people are cut off from a location which is only a short distance away by a busy road (such as Grapes Hill/Barn Road) they will deem the place which is just slightly past the busy road to be further than it really is and might decide to drive there as the place seems so far away. If we had a continuous pathway into the city from our part of the city (even though Earlham Road has a footbridge into the city it still doesn't alter the fact the road is still there) people might think the city is nearer and be more prepared to walk.

I wish I could remember what this book was called or even what it was about but it was a small book about how cities are made up - or something. It couldn't have been that long - I don't remember taking it out of the Library so must have read it whilst there!

Popular posts from this blog

More on why 20's plenty -- without need for any further 'trials'...

There are a number of reasons for setting a default speed of 20mph throughout the 'unclassified' road network in residential parts of a city such as Norwich. Most important perhaps is that of driver recognition as to what the speed limit is. If you have 20 mph as the default then you not only establish this limit clearly, but you also adjust the driver's recognition as to what is the "normal" speed in such residential areas. The most important aspect is that drivers set 20 mph as the norm with those 30 mph areas or roads being seen as 50% faster, rather than seeing 30 mph as the norm with 20 mph as 33% slower. The psychological adjustment of normal speeds in residential areas is key to the success of reducing speeds and therefore danger to pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore any trial, pilot or whatever, that only implements 20 mph in a tiny proportion of the city is not modelling 20's Plenty in any realistic manner.   When considering the val...

Stansted: a reflection

The key question, in relation to protsts like that at Stansted last week, is: which side are you on? Are you on the side of big corporations profiteering from completely unsustainable climate-destructive behaviour? Or are you on the side of people with no vested interests just making a non-violent stand, at considerable cost to their own time and money, for the sake of all our futures? It doesn't seem to me a hard judgement to make... Rupert Read Green Party Councillor, Norwich, and Lead Candidate for Eastern Region for the Greens in the 2009 Euro-elections. DID YOU KNOW: A vote of about 10% across Eastern Region on June 4 2009 would be enough to get me elected to the European Parliament... http://rupertsread.blogspot.com