tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post7385018228188534829..comments2024-03-28T18:25:51.357+00:00Comments on The Ranty Highwayman: When You Are Right, It Is Easy To Be ConsistentThe Ranty Highwaymanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17361350433158148025noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-29557498723951239102018-06-05T20:48:46.199+01:002018-06-05T20:48:46.199+01:00Excellent idea to re-map motor speeding prohibitio...Excellent idea to <a href="http://metricviews.org.uk/2016/07/the-ins-and-outs-of-government/comment-page-1/#comment-49287" rel="nofollow">re-map motor speeding prohibitions</a> MPH → km/h. Hasn't the past two years taught you that frothers, especially the imperial 2.0 types, shall have to be faced down when an important principle is at stake? Filtering doesn't just make cycling more pleasant, it also makes it shorter and quicker than motoring—or the same distance and <strong>much</strong> faster than walking.<br /><br />You can massively further reduce clutter via legislative fiat by requiring <strong>all</strong> highways to be categorised, compulsorily against a strict deadline to prevent a repeat of <a href="https://pedestrianliberation.org/2011/08/07/the-sorry-tale-of-the-road-traffic-act-1974/" rel="nofollow">s.7 Road Traffic Act 1974</a>, with implied (and obvious from context) largely self-enforcing motor speeding limits, without explicit signage or copious repeaters:<br /><br /> | Urban | Rural | Directions/ nameplates<br /><br>------------+----------------+----------+-----------------------<br /><br>Access | 30 km/h | 60 km/h | Black on white<br /><br>Distributor | 60 km/h | 90 km/h | White on <a href="https://showmeasignblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/04/dynamic-traffic-signs/comment-page-1/#comment-46" rel="nofollow">racing green</a><br /><br /> | Expressway (†) | Motorway | Directions/ DL markers<br /><br>------------+----------------+----------+-----------------------<br /><br>Through | 90 km/h | 120 km/h | White on blue<br /><br />† :- Albeit not in the sense that the frothers mean. Note absence of differential limits beyond those imposed by tachograph/ class VNE device.<br /><br />The Amsterdam motor cars in your picture probably do not belong to immediate locals. It's possible that they are all property of disabled motorists living within a couple of hundred metres or able-bodied motorists who live further away and have been on the waiting list for several decades. Everyone else who insists on owning a motor car without anywhere to store it just has to jump on the tram to the park'n'ride at the city limits. This is not conceptually difficult to achieve; you and your permanent civil service colleagues merely need to develop the testicular fortitude to point out that <strong>you</strong> administer highway land and that every whining motorist or amateur [salaried] politician does not have a veto over where (and if) the public storage of private motor vehicles is provided.<br /><br />The <a href="https://katsdekker.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/cracks-in-a-paradigm/comment-page-1/#comment-150" rel="nofollow">motorisation paradigm</a> isn't even fiscally sustainable. If it ever was, what happened to the proceeds of the supposed growth? More funding for an alternative is not the answer, spending your existing budgets vastly more sensibly than you do now is. Simply stop public subsidies for private motoring, for a start.<br /><br />‘When you are right, it is easy to be consistent’ means that this absolutely <strong>should</strong> be rolled out to every GB/ UK highway—not everywhere being choked with highways, of course. But this is not as onerous as you seem to assume through your townie blinkers: lightly populated areas might only require at-grade 3.75 m wide 45 km/h red ashphalt cycle tracks across the hedge from the cobbled or unsealed [& filtered/ one-way] rural access carriageway!Mark Williamsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-34268175764034999912018-06-05T08:26:29.021+01:002018-06-05T08:26:29.021+01:00Agree with most of this: make urban areas more liv...Agree with most of this: make urban areas more liveable by cutting out through traffic, improve public transport and of course cycle routes, and any new housing estates should be designed to make them similar. But let’s not pretend we don’t need new roads. We need to route that through traffic around towns and cities, so we can close them to through traffic. Even in new housing areas let’s not pretend people will do without cars: levels of car ownership are the same, if not higher in Netherlands and Germany compared to UK. But car owners only use their cars if they NEED to. If the distance and route is more easily covered by walking, cycling, or taking public transport, that’s what they will do. Roger Inkpennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-74896570479183179652018-06-04T11:54:30.125+01:002018-06-04T11:54:30.125+01:00Interesting to see you state that "rat run &q...Interesting to see you state that "rat run " is a standard term. In my city there was recently effort to make some residential roads more pleasant for residents and safer for children but using the term "rat run" was characterised as the pro-quiet and pro-safety people attacking and insulting the pro-drive-where-we-like-when-we-like people. <br /><br />In my country there are a few very vocal elected representatives who are claiming that we need to relax our drink driving laws. The idea seems to be that rural people have to go to the pub to socialise and they can't do that without drinking. They can't walk to the pub because the roads have no footpaths. They can't take public transport because there is none, and when it's offered it doesn't suit them as well as driving. They can't cycle because it's too dangerous (possibly because of all the drunk drivers? Better not look in to that). The obvious solution, for me, is to stop building roads with no footpaths. Absolutely no road should be built that doesn't fully account for pedestrians and cyclists. No road should be upgraded without the same. That the solution to roads being too dangerous to walk or cycle on is to allow more drink driving is truly bizarre.<br /><br />You can build new roads if, and only if, you also ensure they are pedestrian and cyclst friendly. If you claim that's not possible (we can barely fit in the four lane 100kph road, there's just no space for a footpath!) then you can't have the road at all.<br /><br />It's very frustrating how people can claim they'd like to support sustainable transport but there's no way to do it with the current infrastructure, who then turn around and commission new infrastructure that also will never support sustainable transport.HivemindXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12906064858068138640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-64638131404566428502018-06-02T20:22:51.558+01:002018-06-02T20:22:51.558+01:00Very good summary. On street parking should be re...Very good summary. On street parking should be removed wholesale. A few individuals parking their vehicles should not take precedence over the far higher number of users who could use this road space for active travel or public transport.Seannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828166865647185633.post-8552170712408365812018-06-02T12:41:20.030+01:002018-06-02T12:41:20.030+01:00I'm not convinced that a rural '40' is...I'm not convinced that a rural '40' is achievable, but with minimal signs and lines a compromise is practicable: Make default 50 with a centre lines and 40 on roads without. Most roads that currently lack a centre line are clearly unsuited to higher than 40 anyway. In many areas we have '50' on busy A roads with wide verges and sometimes footways, but turn onto a narrow C road with sharp bends,limited visibility and without verges and the limit goes UP to 60! Those roads were 60 is safe can be so posted.JimChishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00811818864797673999noreply@blogger.com