Just stop oil

[evil.soup]

That's the whole concept of the 5 minute city. Nobody is more than 5 minutes from any public service, cutting down the need to drive.
The sprawling conurbations and suburbs where everyone drives an hour or more just to fire off emails when they can do this from home is really unsustainable

This is a silly concept as well. Effectively this sees us all cram as close to the city centre as possible to cut down journeys.

Truth is, this concept is used in 3rd world countries and was widely used in the UK until just over a century ago until personal transport allowed people to escape the inner city slums.

When was the last time you actually drove into a city centre? The cities these days are so large that the centres are often 10mins or more from the outskirts. Imagine adding extra rings of communities attached to the already sprawling cities, they would become monsters of concrete and pollution, not from cars but just from humans living so close together.

Where and how would all these people live...High Rise flats? Not a new concept either and not a good one!

It's just more unrealistic thinking and all based on spending billions on infrastructure, pouring concrete on fields and forcing people close together. How long would all this take? Decades, unless we throw up prefabs like the 1950's, they were a good idea...

Also let's not forget, as others have pointed out here, all this investment and upheaval to take cars off the road when cars are not the main or worst culprit, just the most visual and most used by politicians and activists.

If billions were to be spent on anything, it should be on nuclear international goods transportation, not like we haven't had the tech for 50 years or more is it.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Playing devil's advocate here but those cargo ships are bringing thousands of tonnes of cargo, not nipping down the shop for a 4 pack or whatever. We could go back to sailing ships I suppose? In fact my colleagues husbands coffee company does exactly that, import coffee on sailing ships. Probably why its so ludicrously expensive.

polluter pays would seem to be fairer than bashing the private motorist. cargo vehicles vessels had to be cleaner those increased cost would be spread out amongst the consumers of said cargo. In 2021 25% of co2 in the UK came from transport of which cars are are a portion of that.

Cruise ships I'd argue don't really carry useful cargo although they could be keeping some dodery old folk off the roads

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I would imagine my commute is rather an average one, if my car was a plug in hybrid, I may only end up using petrol once a week, if that.

For those that cannot plug in there is the standard hybrid as the figures below show normal driving will give you 60 - 100 mpg this is what i am buying next as i cannot charge an EV.

Commenting further on this result to a Toyota representative, What Car? editor Steve Huntingford said: “The Yaris Cross averaged 60.1mpg in our real-world True MPG fuel economy test – the best average figure we’ve ever seen and encouragingly close to its official total of 62.7mpg. But even more impressively, it achieved an astonishing 103.3mpg on our True MPG town cycle.”

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Playing devil's advocate here but those cargo ships are bringing thousands of tonnes of cargo, not nipping down the shop for a 4 pack or whatever.

If we stopped buying all out cheap **** from china a lot less ships would need to come here

I dont imaging 5 minutes to the shop and back in your car is going to add too much CO2 to the atmosphere.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

If we stopped buying all out cheap **** from china a lot less ships would need to come here

I dont imaging 5 minutes to the shop and back in your car is going to add too much CO2 to the atmosphere.

Sitting in a jam with the hundreds of others nipping to the shops does tho...

 

[pilgrimhudd]

If we stopped buying all out cheap **** from china a lot less ships would need to come here

Or perhaps make/grow things ourselves rather than just be a service economy.

 

[evil.soup]

Or perhaps make/grow things ourselves rather than just be a service economy.

There is a lot of truth to that one! We are far from an independent country these days, sold out to cheaper exports and crushed our own industry.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Playing devil's advocate here but those cargo ships are bringing thousands of tonnes of cargo, not nipping down the shop for a 4 pack or whatever.

Sitting in a jam with the hundreds of others nipping to the shops does tho...

I assume when he said "nipping down the shop for a 4 pack" he meant the local shop i dont think i have ever been stuck in a jam where my local shop is, not that i would drive there for anything.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

There is a lot of truth to that one! We are far from an independent country these days, sold out to cheaper exports and crushed our own industry.

I remember when we used to make our own stuff but people bought imported stuff because it was cheaper and now we make sod all, we really are our own worst enemy.

 

[Rodcx500z]

At the end of the day we Joe public will just sit back and take all this crap like it was our fault while,Mr Exonn, Mr Ford and nissan toyota honda and all the other big wigs who have governments the world over in their pockets pulling the strings will be pissing their sides while counting their billions, i don't 5 minute citys i want to go places see things tour the Scottish Highlands load the car up and bugger off touring Europe for 3 months, no they can shove their plans as far as the sun don't shine but, as long as good people stand idle they will steer your life in the direction they want, food for thought this is were your power goes
In 2017 Forbes calculated that US data centres use more than 90 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year, and the global total power usage for data centres was roughly 416 terawatts per year

 

[The Baron]

apologies for replying randomly to posts on this thread but I've had a busy day, helping family with electrics & plumbing then bottled latest beer , drunk a couple of hb's, then did a 16 mile round trip on the bike stopping half way for a cheeky beer in beerriff. - It doesn't have to be all or nothing. My round trip was 17 miles when working. even with a week of rain free weather I didn't cycle every day. Every other day with a recovery day in-between. I did once do 3 in a row because of weather and the last day was not fun. So cycling can help with emissions. Even more so with e-bikes for those with certain health issues. No way will it work for everyone.

My wife can't ride a bike and if car ownership was impossible to keep up she'd probably give up work.

Exactly my point it can and will not work for enough people to make it viable.
Reference the shower situation I think the real world explanation By DOJ in post 226 says it all only bigger companies and PLC's have the ability to provide full facilities to cater for cyclists.
It is a pipe dream that the real world can not provide.
If you want to cycle by all means do it and I salute you but it is not the solution for all in fact for the majority I would say

 

[Bosch]

Both my workplace and my wife's workplace have showers.
Plenty of her colleague's cycle to work.

I would imagine it depends on what industry you work in tbh

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I can imagine in the not too distant future more people will use electric cycles as they have a decent range are fast and you only have to work up a sweat if you want to.
At today's prices they are still a bit of a luxury although I have noticed them becoming a fairly regular site on our roads i think it'll be a while before they are a common site due to price.

 

[The Baron]

The problem with these cycles will be the cost unless you buy the grey type imports which are cheaper ones with the dodgy battery scenario that is creating the recent press scare mongering of bursting into flames.
I would probably buy one in the future but again my employees employ approx 40 people but do not have any safe storage facilities for them or a shower changing room either and my employers are a very very large company.
They would need in the region of 3 or 4 showers for males and the same for females as they work to shift patterns so people start together or the ability to secure approx 20 bikes.
I know people will say they can build these but most site do not have the room for this type of expansion and the logistics become even more difficult for smaller companies

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I never gave storage a thought and as you say it would have to be fairly secure as they are an easy thing to steal and i imagine worth a fair bit to those that would buy a stolen one.

 

[The Baron]

I never gave storage a thought and as you say it would have to be fairly secure as they are an easy thing to steal and i imagine worth a fair bit to those that would buy a stolen one.

A market has already been created for them Chippy and the mostly illegal scooters too so they would soon be a very easily sold on commodity.
They would probably get stolen to order for the foreign market which is so easily accessible since borders got lifted just like the theft of tractors and farming equipment.
This is the unfortunate life of criminals finding new thing to move on so they can launder drug money etc

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Something like this would do for me 15MPH and 25-43miles on a charge, i haven't anywhere to store it outside so the fact it folds is a huge bonus.

£799.

Shimano 7 speed Transmission System

250W Power rate Gear Motor with 380 r/Min speed

Front fork and saddle tube double Shock-absorption

886 Type HD LCD Display, clearly under the sunshine

Humanization design, like USB Charger/Carrying handle

Keith B.
Verified purchase

26/04/2023
I am almost 70 years old and not in good health so going walking is a problem. I did research on ebikes and decided on a folding bike with 20"wheels I have read a lot of negatives about battery life but I haven't found it a problem and where cycle/footpaths have been busy I have turned off the motor and just peddled so to have full control and found it not too arduous. I am very pleased with the performance of the ebike the ado A20+ is a good fit.

 

[evil.soup]

Yesh, but you would look like a right bell wandering into the office carrying that thing lol! Sorry, nothing to do with climate change of course

 

[jof]

I'm not sure those small plastic wheels would cope with the state of UK roads either

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Yesh, but you would look like a right bell wandering into the office carrying that thing lol!

I meant for storing at home but to play devils advocate why would you give a flying **** what some **** head thinks of your planet friendly means of transport?

BTW this was to demonstrate how low the cost of a folding electric cycle is now at £799 it would pay for itself in no time if you have a "dirty" car and have to pay to travel in the city.