How Nice London Would Look If All Motor Vehicle Traffic Was Underground

Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. Maybe the
PM would appear in a car but that would be it.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.


Bret Cahill

Bret Cahill put finger to keyboard:

Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. Maybe the PM
would appear in a car but that would be it.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.


Bret Cahill

Not quite sure why buses aren't motor vehicles.
And you'd have to allow delivery vehicles up top at some point!
Plus all the road maintenance vehicles...oh, hang on...

On 27/02/2013 15:33, Scion wrote:
Bret Cahill put finger to keyboard:

Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. Maybe the PM
would appear in a car but that would be it.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.


Bret Cahill

Not quite sure why buses aren't motor vehicles.
And you'd have to allow delivery vehicles up top at some point!
Plus all the road maintenance vehicles...oh, hang on...


Plus the emergency services, the vehicles moving the 'Boris Bikes',
utility companies vehicles, building maintenance vehicles,vehicles that
maintain the rail network.

Bret Cahill writes:

Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. Maybe the
PM would appear in a car but that would be it.

The PM often goes by train as it is quicker and to pretend that `we are
all in ``it'' together'. No doubt, he still has the motor car following
behind with his lounge shoes :-/.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.

Sir Patrick Abercrombie proposed, inter alia, underground `special'
roads for motor cars in London town centre in 1943. When the Whitehall
treasury (national finance department) saw how much this would cost,
they told the London county council to `foxtrot oscar'. But the cheaper
ground level and elevated parts of his proposal outside the town centre
were built piecemeal over the next 40-odd years. Indeed, it was only
about 5 years ago when TPTB finally conceded that the remainder of his
planned `E Ring' (later recycled into `Ringway 4 (Northern)') was not
going to be built any time soon and stopped vetoing a toucan crossing on
a 6-lane section which _had_ been built in the 1960s.

--
Mark

On Feb 27, 3:33*pm, Scion wrote:
Bret Cahill put finger to keyboard:

Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. *Maybe the PM
would appear in a car but that would be it.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.

Bret Cahill

Not quite sure why buses aren't motor vehicles.

Because they're accepted by the PC brigade, and thus suddenly and
magically do not cause all of the "safety" and "environmental" and
"noise" problems that cars supposedly do.

It is funny watching Squashme (and others who have an ideological
issue with the freedom cars give people and the fact that only some
people can afford them) desperately trying to explain how cars cause
[whatever problem they're alleging] while buses somehow don't, despite
being the same things, except heavier and more polluting...

In any case, the OP underestimates the sheer spite of many of the car-
haters here. They wouldn't be happy with the cars merely
underground...they want them gone completely. It's the same reason why
they want ever increasing motorway restrictions: it's not about
"cyclist safety", it's about relentlessly hounding car drivers even
when they're affecting no-one. Squashme (for example) doesn't even
cycle.

On Feb 27, 8:35*pm, Tony Dragon wrote:
On 27/02/2013 15:33, Scion wrote:

Bret Cahill put finger to keyboard:

Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. *Maybe the PM
would appear in a car but that would be it.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.

Bret Cahill

Not quite sure why buses aren't motor vehicles.
And you'd have to allow delivery vehicles up top at some point!
Plus all the road maintenance vehicles...oh, hang on...

Plus the emergency services, the vehicles moving the 'Boris Bikes',
utility companies vehicles, building maintenance vehicles,vehicles that
maintain the rail network.

But they're all "good" vehicles which have zero pollution and which
would just go straight through cyclists instead of impacting them if
they collided. At least that must be the case, since they are
mysteriously never implicated by Squashme when it comes to the safety
and environment-related problems that I know he's so concerned about
cars causing.

On Mar 20, 7:56*pm, Mark Williams ] wrote:
Bret Cahill writes:
Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. *Maybe the
PM would appear in a car but that would be it.

The PM often goes by train as it is quicker and to pretend that `we are
all in ``it'' together'. *No doubt, he still has the motor car following
behind with his lounge shoes :-/.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.

Sir Patrick Abercrombie proposed, inter alia, underground `special'
roads for motor cars in London town centre in 1943.

But of course those times were more enlightened in regard to the motor
car, and so the above was proposed in addition to surface roads as a
way of speeding up (!) drivers' journeys, rather than as silly
punitive unworkable nonsense. Would have been interesting to see if it
worked out. I think it would have...the Tube does after all.

Having the roads underground would also head off objections (genuine
and otherwise) regarding "eyesores" and maybe pollution as well. Is it
still possible...?

When the Whitehall
treasury (national finance department) saw how much this would cost,
they told the London county council to `foxtrot oscar'. *But the cheaper
ground level and elevated parts of his proposal outside the town centre
were built piecemeal over the next 40-odd years. *Indeed, it was only
about 5 years ago when TPTB finally conceded that the remainder of his
planned `E Ring' (later recycled into `Ringway 4 (Northern)') was not
going to be built any time soon and stopped vetoing a toucan crossing on
a 6-lane section which _had_ been built in the 1960s.

You may want to check out http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk (and sites
they link to) if you haven't already.

A shame that the Ringways (or the "underground motorways") weren't
completed. Seems much more sensible to accept that people are going to
drive into London, treat that as a positive thing (for the economy
etc), and thus make genuine and innovative efforts to accommodate them
alongside everyone else, by having special roads for long-distance
motor traffic, so that *everyone* can live happily (except those
lovely people who wish to stop others driving when it doesn't even
affect them...)

In the end, we are in a democracy, and so if most of us drive,
shouldn't our elected representatives be finding clever ways to let us
do what we want, rather than just feebly, ineffectually and piously
telling us we shouldn't? If they had such a pragmatic and reasoned
"live and let live" attitude in the 40s then what a shame we've gone
backwards in that regard.

On Mar 20, 8:59*pm, M Wicks wrote:
On Feb 27, 3:33*pm, Scion wrote:

Bret Cahill put finger to keyboard:

Nothing but pedestrians, cyclists and buses on the street. *Maybe the PM
would appear in a car but that would be it.

New York City represented the 20th Century and is _supposed_ to be
scarey looking.

Bret Cahill

Not quite sure why buses aren't motor vehicles.

Because they're accepted by the PC brigade, and thus suddenly and
magically do not cause all of the "safety" and "environmental" and
"noise" problems that cars supposedly do.

It is funny watching Squashme (and others who have an ideological
issue with the freedom cars give people and the fact that only some
people can afford them) desperately trying to explain how cars cause
[whatever problem they're alleging] while buses somehow don't, despite
being the same things, except heavier and more polluting...

In any case, the OP underestimates the sheer spite of many of the car-
haters here. They wouldn't be happy with the cars merely
underground...they want them gone completely. It's the same reason why
they want ever increasing motorway restrictions: it's not about
"cyclist safety", it's about relentlessly hounding car drivers even
when they're affecting no-one. Squashme (for example) doesn't even
cycle.

Can't deny that. As a centenarian, I don't cycle. In fact, I'm very
close to re-cycling.

Squashme writes:

Can't deny that. As a centenarian, I don't cycle. In fact, I'm very
close to re-cycling.

That can't be true. We can tell you cycle just by the consummate ease
with which you wind up the usual suspects ;-).

--
Mark