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Comment by sapiogram

3 days ago

Making drivers miserable is part of the intention, they want people to drive less because it's annoying as hell for everyone else.

23 comments

sapiogram

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jmkni  3 days ago

That's fine if the public transport is up to scratch, as well as the cycling infrastructure.

Where I live it's woefully inadequate making driving the only viable option for most journeys.

This has a knock on effect of making cycling down right dangerous in places, because of all the cars + relatively high speed limits, like I wouldn't want to cycle from my house to work, it would be at best unpleasant, and I would be taking my life in my hands on some of the roads.

  • Earw0rm  2 days ago

    Even where public transport and cycling infra is more than adequate, you still have to restrict cars.

    Otherwise some people will choose driving to an extent that it screws up the public transport for everyone else.

    At least that's the lesson from London's buses. Paris built a more extensive metro system (London's tube is equivalent in the areas where it operates, but less than half the city is within 15 minutes walk of a Tube stop) so that part is deconflicted at least.

    But Paris is running into the same issue as they try to build out their cycle network. It can't be done without restricting cars, much to the annoyance of those who've built lifestyles around driving.

    Which really isn't at all necessary in a city like London or Paris, but that doesn't mean people don't do it.

    I'm not ideologically against people driving, especially EVs, but on a practical level it seems to be very difficult to accommodate demand for driving in a dense-enough-to-be-interesting city without screwing everything else up: pedestrian and cycling safety, bus reliability, street space usage, noise and air quality.

    • vladvasiliu  2 days ago

      What do you mean by "Paris"? If it's the City of Paris (Paris intra-muros), then it's not comparable to London in terms of size or density. IMO, for the purposes of this discussion, Paris should mean the whole Paris region, since most of the people live outside the actual city limits. And in those areas, access to public transportation is hit or miss. Some people are close to suburban trains, but many are not.

      Then, another consideration, which is also very important, is what the available transportation actually looks like. By that I mean how often are there trains, how reliable are they? And, in Paris and probably Central London, too, are you actually able to get on board, or do you need to wait 3 trains packed to the brim?

      I don't know about London, but in Paris, the suburban trains have quite poor punctuality.

      Note that most car traffic in Paris is actually people from outside the city proper, so those who are most affected by these transit issues.

      Additionally, a lot of traffic also goes from suburb to suburb, which, currently, is a terribly bad joke transport-wise. When I was in college, the drive from my parents' house was around 20-30 minutes. Public transit was over one hour with multiple changes, one of which had around one minute of leeway before a 30 minute wait. They are building new circular lines around Paris, but they won't be ready for a few years.

      As someone who ever only walks or takes public transit I'm all for limiting car noise and pollution. But what I'd love to see is some form of improvement of the offer (a carrot). Riding around packed like sardines in trains with questionable reliability is a tough sell. I'm lucky enough I can modulate my commute hours to avoid peak times, but not everyone is so lucky. Right now, the city is mostly spending money on making driving hell (all stick).

      And bikes are fine, I guess, if you have where to store them. I wouldn't leave any kind of bike unattended around my office. There's also a bike sharing scheme which used to be nice, but for a few months now it's basically impossible to find a usable bike. And I tend to avoid peak times for those, too.

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scns  2 days ago

The intention is to prevent accidents. Encountering 30kmh zones in strange places means there have been loads of them.

userbinator  3 days ago

And those with that intention are authoritarians that need to be kept out of government.

  • jdiff  2 days ago

    Authoritarian has a definition, it's not just "people who make laws that keep me from doing what I want."

    People in the USA still complain in the same way today about laws mandating seat belt usage, but it's still not authoritarian. It's a net positive for the wearer and everyone around them, and it's incredibly childish to push back on something for no other reason than because someone is telling you to do it.

  • perching_aix  2 days ago

    I don't claim to have the perfect definition for authoritarian behavior, but I would say that intending to consolidate authority is pretty key to it. Which making drivers' life miserable isn't really connected to, or at least I really don't see it.

    Otherwise, the typical government is a central authority made up of people, carrying out lawmaking, adjudication, and enforcement activities [0], and so basically all of them could be characterized this way, with sufficient bad faith. So I'm not sure that's a very meaningful claim.

    It definitely could be a misuse of power regardless though, but there's no evidence that I see in your comment that would suggest it was the officials in question misusing their powers rather than aligning with community sentiment or interests.

    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

    • Ray20  2 days ago

      In my understanding, authoritarianism is not only defined by the desire to strengthen their own power, but also by the desire to bring the way of life of all other people in line with their own moral values.

      For example, the persecution of homosexuals is widely recognized as an authoritarian behavior and has nothing to do with consolidate of authority

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