Friday Reads – 4 September 2020

On By In Accessibility, Cycles, Friday Reads, Kings Cross, Micromobility, Pollution, Stations

• Consultation begins on banning pavement parking in England (Guardian)

• Great Northern Railway Journey – King’s Cross & the ECML (Great Northern)

• The Four Poster rail station (AnonW)

• 82% want the gov’t to bring forward ban on polluting vehicles (AirQualityNews)

• Bikes are mobility assistive devices for the less abled (StreetsBlog)

• US Mail, transit face the impossible: Succeed as a business & public service (CityLab)

• Tuk-tuks could be a necessity in COVID era (SmartCitiesDive)

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7 comments

  1. Looks like the survey reported Air Quality News survey was not based on a representative sample: “…predominantly drivers or prospective EV drivers”, suggests to me it was skewed towards the present minority who are currently happy about it.

    It is curious when a lot of people say that everyone should be compelled to do something few of them currently choose to do. Do they think the main reason for failing to do it is social pressure or individual weakness? Apply compulsion, those go away, and all would be perfectly fine? Or do they think that, with it becoming compulsory, the more concrete reasons why many currently choose not – greater inconvenience, higher cost – would become issues of such prominence that they would be very quickly fixed?

  2. On four-poster railway stations, the better way to organise a railway station where two lines cross is with island platforms. Then you only need one lift, and much easier to find your way in general, assuming the street exit is on a third level. Or two lifts if one of the lines is 4 track, as at Duivendrecht, a major interchange station near Amsterdam. Needs foresight, though. Rearranging the lines afterwards is probably a lot more expensive than building 4 lifts.

  4. If the cost of buying a car is so insurmountable, then how do so many people have one in the first place?

  5. Bob
    They save up … make the one they have got last as long as possible & hope that they have enough, plus the trade-in for the next one.
    [Personal vehicle details are a non sequitur here. LBM]

  6. @Bob
    It is the transactional cost of replacing a car before it is “due” that is a challenge, especially the “just about managing” where owning a car is borderline affordable (even if necessary for work).

    Add to that the likelihood that ULEZ will badly skew the resale value of second hand cars, creating a glut of pre Euro 6 vehicles (now marginal value in London and some other cities) and a shortage of ULEZ compliant second hand. That will open a chasm in the financial model of second hand vehicle replacement potentially making the change unaffordable (when previously it was just affordable). That’s a bunch of unhappy people created.

    A scrappage scheme is the only way to fix this, partially recognised by the Mayor with the limited scheme offered 18 months ago. A clever approach would be to allow residents to “bank” the ULEZ payments for a couple of years and withdraw the value (maybe with a bonus) when they scrap the vehicle.

  7. MilesT
    Thank you
    There is also the point that environmentally speaking & taking the larger view, building new cars is much more ” ‘orrible” for the environment than keeping an older one running for a year or three longer.
    Wheras Khan’s “intiative” actually & actively encourges the “throw-away” culture & waste that we are supposed to be avoiding, yes?

    [Snide remark snipped. LBM]

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