Cities are responsible for directing the flow of traffic. Traffic sucks and cars suck. I really don't see the problem with dissuading their use.
Again, manufactured outrage.
Having everything around you is great, it's why people live in cities. There's no dystopian undertone to having a grocery store and other amenities around the corner and easily accessible, lol. Why would you intentionally want things further away from you?
Absolutely, the idea of having everything within 15 minutes walking distance is great. But actively restricting people's movements in this way is not, at least to me.
Public highways are really the people's property. In a democratic society if the majority of the public dislike the roadblocks, the local government should remove them.
I think it's valid for the public to get upset about attempts by the government to micromanage their lives in this way. Such micromanagement may sound trivial, but the underlying motivation for doing so is not. As it is an attempt to exercise power and control over the population. Often it starts with very trivial matters, and later expands to greater ones, as we have seen over the years.
And it's not just this particular issue, it's many other things which are restricting our freedoms in general, all together. Which are increasing the level of outrage against the state.
That's good because at least the public is pushing back against it. There may be a point where people can't take it anymore and might start protesting en masse.
I'm really waiting for that to happen, we might find ourselves getting our civil liberties back eventually.
If the majority of the public want to drive through towns not built for ever widening roads to accomoadte what the public wants, we should knock down the historic town centres for wide streets for larger traffic jams, remove pedestrian crossings so we don;t slow the crawling traffic, remove bus lanes so we can fill them up with crawling cars close down the railways and force everyone to buy a car
The majority of us don't dislike them. That's a right wing narrative that ties to conspiracy theories. (Speaking as someone who doesn't have a block on my road, but have had to adjust my driving habits when visiting local family).
It's a public safety issue as well, so far 240 ambulances have been delayed due to the blockades. I wonder if a local authority can be successfully prosecuted if a patient were to die as a result of the delay?
Same if someone were to die in a house fire, because the fire brigade could not get there on time? I personally believe that those responsible for implementing this scheme should see time behind bars, possibly for criminal negligence, should that happen.
By the way, in the comments section of that Daily Mail article, the majority of the readers disagree with the blockades. I'm not sure if that's representative of the whole of the general public or not.
Daily Mail readers appear to place the blame on the World Economic Forum as the cause, I'm not sure if that's conspiracy theory terrority or not?
However it's likely to be the work of environmental pressure groups, who generally do not represent the will of the people. They are a minority dictating the rules to the majority.
Note Google search is biased heavily in favor of these schemes, I had to use Bing to get any results that were against them.
No conspiracy here, just people in power trying to increase their control over people's lives, as usual. It's a distributed phenomenon that arises from human nature.
" Pundits continue to sneer, dismissing critics of 15 minute cities (a critique, as the great Simon Cooke points out, that it’s perfectly reasonable to make) as “conspiracy theorists”. "
"In this explanation we begin to see just how authoritarian the urban green agenda has become - not a surprise given that Moreno is an advocate of ‘smart cities’ and literally profits from authoritarian smart city technology:"
Yes, polling indicates the majority would like to live in a 15 minute city, however that poll does not mention restricting vehicles. And of course I agree with it personally, minus the roadblocks.
People are not opposed to the concept, they are opposed to the vehicle restrictions, and the latter is what's riling up conspiracy theorists.
> Yes, polling indicates the majority would like to live in a 15 minute city, however that poll does not mention restricting vehicles.
So what? That's what cities do. They balance needs.
They weren't told that it would expand the quantity, scope or role vehicles either, so there's nothing deceptive here.
They're selling the vision, people like the vision, so they'll execute on it assuming conspiratorial nuts don't get in the way :)
The future doesn't need to involve having exactly the same role and scope for personal-use vehicles. Change is okay! We've way over-indexed towards the needs of cars and under-indexed on the needs of human beings. It's time to revisit that contract. And look, if people don't like it, the roadblocks can come down after we give it the ol' college try. Remember the status quo is the result of arbitrary decisions and compromise, it doesn't represent a local or global optima.
Why don't you consider an alternate option - allow people to stay in a 15-minute city if they want and walk to shops etc as they desire but allow others to take a vehicle and go elsewhere if they want?
The problem only arises if you remove that option or if you penalise that action in some way.
People are still free to drive to other areas, just not on all roads.
You could just as well be saying "why not let people drive drunk and at 100mph on residential roads, and let others can choose not to?"
Sure we could say that... or we could say it's legal to drive your car onto historically pedestrian-only paths.
But we elect people to try to make decisions that benefit the most people as best as possible, and it turns out that most people don't think that "any road that currently allows cars must always allow cars" is an inalienable rule that must be followed.
Yes we should debate these things - I assume very few people would support removing all speed limits or lowering speed limits to 2mph on all roads, though there's bound to be some variance in views about what goes too far or not enough.
But in this topic of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, you've got one side saying "wouldn't it be nice if residential side roads stopped being hugely used (thanks to GPS routing apps) by through-traffic, and therefore made much better for the people living there, and for pedestrians and cyclists" while the other side instead of engaging on that actual debate instead jumps to "they want to lock us into 15min areas we won't ever be allowed to leave! It's climate fascism!"
Your comparison makes no sense. A person is banned from driving drunk because it can result in people getting killed.
There is nothing preventing 15-minute cities from having both pedestrian walkways as well as roads.. as most cities ALREADY do.
And oh, by the way, even a 15-minute city will have to make space for roads for vehicles. When you change houses, you aren't carrying your furniture on foot between houses, are you? or for that matter, when you call emergency (911), the cops and emergency workers are not arriving by foot. Or when you make a house, the construction equipment, material etc are not being carried in by foot either. Also, the shops in your neighbourhood are not been replenished by suppliers carrying in products on their back.
So this idea that you can suddenly replace all roads with pedestrian paths is just completely unworkable.
Please find one example of roads being replaced by pedestrian paths? LTNs put a block at one point in the road, so people who live there can drive from whichever side of the block they live on if they're moving house (or even if they want to use their car for any reason!) They're Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, not Zero traffic.
The block is to prevent people using the small residential street as a through-path for motorists from other areas, not to prevent any vehicle from ever using the roads.
Because you know it doesn't work already - if you live in a city that is trying this.
And because you know the reality is no new stores/shops etc are being "created" to facilitate any such goal. The reality is people simply order everything on Amazon instead.
Perhaps you can point to how these schemes are funding shops?
Again, manufactured outrage.
Having everything around you is great, it's why people live in cities. There's no dystopian undertone to having a grocery store and other amenities around the corner and easily accessible, lol. Why would you intentionally want things further away from you?
There's plenty of real things to be angry about.