Re: shuttle disaster
On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 08:04:30PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 06:14:11PM -0600, DvB wrote:
> > (advocacy of public transport which I totally agree with)
> > Of course, this isn't necessarily an easy thing to do in many places
> > where most of the growth has happened according to current zoning
> > standards (like the southern US).
>
> I'm so glad that Portland realises it's way behind the game when it
> comes to urban planning. I'd rather be playing catchup with Northern
> European cities than having Portland become another Los Angeles or
> Seattle (a Los Angeles victim itself).
Trouble is British cities, at least, seem to be playing catchup with
American ones. Everything is designed on the assumption that everyone
has a car and will use it for everything. New shopping centres are
built outside the town, so it's a long way there and you have to
drive. And the Government is quite happy to subsidise private
transport to the hilt (expenditure on roads >> revenue from road and
fuel tax) but moans like buggery about subsidising public transport.
There's the "New Town", Milton Keynes, which is totally designed
around the car. It is _huge_ (by British standards). It is possible to
get from one side to the other in about the same time as for a
traditional British city, but that's because it is both legal and
practical to do 70mph most of the way. If you live in Milton Keynes
and you haven't got a car, you're buggered. The fact that everybody
hates the place hasn't stopped lots of other towns building
Milton-Keynes-esque urbomas around the outside.
British town centres are still pretty close to the medieval street
plan, and it's impossible to do anything about that without razing the
place to the ground. As more and more people drive around, the town
centres become gridlocked for several hours a day. It is therefore
much quicker and much less frustrating to ride a bicycle. The trouble
here is (a) you get wet and (b) most car drivers think that the normal
physical rules about two objects not being able to occupy the same
space at the same time cease to apply when the two objects concerned
are a car and a cyclist.
Cycling is also seen as "infra dig" for some reason. It's for kids who
aren't old enough to drive and nerdy types in Lycra shorts and crash
helmets shaped like a Yorkshireman's cap. If you're old enough to
drive, you have to have a car, even if you can't afford it. People
think it's very strange when I turn up to fix their TV with my tools
strapped to the back of my bike.
A bicycle is an ideal accompaniment to a train journey as it provides
a great solution to the problem of the station at the other end being
some distance from where you want to be. Here again, Britain is moving
backwards; as old trains are replaced by new ones which are half the
length and don't have a guard's van to put your bike in, it is
becoming increasingly hard to take a bike on the train.
The American writer Bill Bryson comments that he cannot understand the
British obsession with cars given that there is not a single aspect of
driving in Britain that has anything pleasurable about it. I must say
I rather agree with him.
Pigeon
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