Friday Reads – 13 December 2019

1. On the pollution map, there’s a clear gap between the subsurface lines and the deep tubes. Is this as a result of their depth, or their small tunnels, or their poor ventilation? Will Crossrail also have pollution problems? The central core is quite deep, but the tunnels are large, and I assume decent ventilation was planned from the outset.

2. It would be interesting to see the data for the rest of the lines, or at least the tunnelled sections and those immediately beyond the tunnels. In particular, the JLE with its PEDs but inner location, and the suburban parts of the Victoria line with the lower outside pollution, could be interesting.

3. I do find the prevelence of free parking in NYC amazing. I wonder what the closest free parking space to central london is… I’m guessing a good 7 miles from Tottenham court road

4. The closest I am aware of is a few spaces in Highgate Village, which is indeed about 7.5 miles from Westminster. I last used that a few years ago; it may have gone already. (There are a few 15-minute areas further in, but they’re not much use).

5. There are a few streets without parking restrictions in the industrial area just to the west of Star Lane DLR station. I reckon that’s under 7 mile from Trafalgar Square. That said, I wouldn’t leave any vehicle there that was worth much more than scrap value.

6. There are still some CPZ-free streets in the Herne Hill, Camberwell and Bermondsey areas, but perhaps I ought not to let on more exactly where!

7. I don’t see how the middle seat thing is meant to work. It would be very difficult to get out.

   What proportion of NYC parking is taken up by residents as opposed to visitors or for business reasons?

8. @John

   I also think that the staggered middle seat would make moving into the seats behind even more difficult.

9. @NICKBXN

   There are three ore so free two-hour parking bays in East Village, E20, but that’s 9.5km (Zone 2) from Charing Cross.

10. There are quite a few roads within that circle which only have two-hour restrictions (usu. 10am-noon) but ‘all day’ is, I think, far gone. Highgate btw is just over four miles from ‘London’ according to the mile post.

    ps. Still hate having to scroll upwards to find the comment box.

11. Implicit victim-blaming of vulnerable road users by journalistic choice of words in describing road accidents is common, indeed practically universal, here in the UK as well as the US. It is already unfortunate that the univerally used word “accident” has another meaning of a blameless unlucky outcome, as in “just an accident”, or “accident of fate”. What does infuriate me is reading repeatedly that a vulnerable road user was “in collision” with a motor vehicle, which to me is barely consistent with the common situation where negligently operated motor vehicle struck people proceeding in careful and legal fashion.

    It seems to me no accident (that older meaning) that it is so difficult to get juries in this country to convict plainly negligent motorists of being responsible for the result of their negligence – and lawyers knowing often select trial by jury in such cases. There is a website somewhere that collates some of the worst cases of this phenomenon, but I’ve forgotten what it is.

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