Artkansas 

Apparently, cars move no faster than horse-drawn carriages. https://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/804876.london_cars_move_no_faster_than_chickens/

I-Like-To-Bike

...in further late-breaking LCF news there is a report of a bicyclist bitten by a dog!

Ekdog

Shhh! The automobile industry doesn't want potential customers to hear such news.

gerv 

That seems funny, but I have Google news search appear on my gnews every morning. The term is "bicycle" and these are exactly the sort of stories that appear. Meanwhile there is close to 100 people at day who die in auto accidents and not too many of them get to the top of a Google news search.

Smallwheels

Did anybody see the Top Gear TV show from a few years ago where they raced across London? The competitors were Mass Transit, a speed boat, an SUV, and a bicycle. They raced from somewhere in the far side of the city to the airport. The first arrival was the cyclist. The boat arrived fifteen minutes later. Public transportation was a couple of minutes after that. The SUV arrived last. The total journey by land was seven miles.

gerv 

^That's the only Top Gear episode I managed to stay awake through.

I-Like-To-Bike

An appropriately worded search will bring up lots of cute playful cats in the news; which is just as relevant "news" to post on this list.

Ekdog

Should we use your posts as models for keeping things relevant?

B. Carfree

Even in the US, the average speed of cars isn't much more than a fit cyclist can manage. I've seen estimates in the 24 mph range. Add in the extra time spent obtaining/maintaining those things and it gets even worse, down to the speed of granny on a bike.

De Clarke's Personal Opinion (isn't bisque beautiful?)

Roody

I think the story is a propaganda piece by the automobile interests. Their point is that a congestion fee has raised average speeds by "only" 1.5 mph, so the congestion charge is ineffective and should be repealed--making it much cheaper to drive in London.

However, a raise from 8.5 mph to 10 mph is an increase of more than 17 percent. For an average, that is a large and noticeable change.

Very few manipulations yield such a large result, whether in a laboratory or in the real world. The writer of this article was pretty ignorant of mathematics to dismiss the congestion fee as small.

I think the congestion fee has worked quite well. If they want an even larger increase in average speeds, they should raise the fee, not abolish it.

Roody

It's really hard to come up with an average, since so much depends on changing local conditions. For example, it used to take me almost 20 minutes to ride to work, but I could ride home in 13 or 14 minutes. The main reason is that I came home at 11:30 PM, when traffic was much lighter and most traffic lights were on blinking yellow mode.

Overall, measured frequently over the course of several years, my average riding speed in the city has been only 11 mph, door to door. My riding speed on long country rides is about 16 mph. (Although I must admit that I've slowed a little as I've gotten older.)

Machka 

So ... what does any of this have to do with "Living Car Free"?

Ekdog

Your comments are spot on. Higher fees are needed.

I've heard the UK is going to be investing quite a lot of money in cycling infrastructure. If they do this wisely, it should bring some relief to traffic-clogged cities like London.

Ekdog

A lot.

Machka 

Oh OK good. Glad someone thinks so.

Roody

Oh come on! London is trying to cut down on car congestion while dramatically increasing bike usage. The entire carfree world is looking to London to see how their many traffic experiments will work. Most of us are eager to see what might be useful in our own communities to cut down on cars and make life better for cyclists.

London is today one of our largest and densest cities. In 20 or 30 years, more than half of the world's population will be living in cities as large as London. It's very important to figure out how to do this without choking ourselves to death on car fumes and congestion.

I don''t know about you, but this thread interests me enormously as a carfree/carlight person and as a bicyclist.

Ekdog

Methinks this will encourage a lot of people in England to get on their bikes and give the car-free/car-light lifestyle a go:

Cycling gets £94m push in England

cooker

Are you joking? The title of this forum is "Living CAR Free', so anything that compares CARS to alternative forms of transportation is exactly on topic.

I-Like-To-Bike

The "entire carfree world is looking to London"? How do you know what anyone in the so-called "entire carfree world" besides yourself is thinking about anything?

Believe it or not there may be some people without their own motor vehicle, or who wish to use one less, who are not interested in the same things as you. In fact some/many/most may not fit the profile of smug, bicycle-riding, car-bashing, public transport-using zealots.

PaulH

I think it is relevant. The reason I started riding a bike in DC is that congestion made driving too slow and inconvenient except on weekends. Many people are not particularly concerned about health, the environment, and so on, but can be motivated by convenience and speed.

Ekdog

Is it easy to be car-free in DC? I know there's a subway. Are bicycles allowed on it? What about cycling? Are there many bike lanes? Has the Capital Bikeshare system got more people commuting by bike?

I-Like-To-Bike

Has the average speed of traffic in D.C. changed much in the last 30 years that you noticed? Enough that driving is significantly more or less attractive to commute to downtown than when you started bike commuting? Or has your commuting by bicycle been just as advantageous for you as the day you decided to do so many years ago?

In other words, traffic congestion in downtown major cities is not news to anyone but the most obtuse. More than likely it was a slow news day in London to report this news story.

Next up: Cars Cost Money! ?

Ekdog

Why don't you take your rude, trolling comments elsewhere? If you don't like a thread, just ignore it. Is that so difficult?

Grillparzer

I live in Maryland and commute to downtown D.C. During the last few years D.C. has put a lot of effort in to it's bicycle infrastructure. While not always easy to get around, it is much easier than it was in the past. I'm car free and have had no major difficulty getting anywhere in the city using buses, the Metro, my bicycle, or any combination of the three. The Metro permits bicycles except during morning and evening rush hours and the 4th of July. All of the buses have a two bike rack mounted on the front. There are lots of bike lanes and they're still adding more. I think nine or ten miles of them this year and about the same is expected next year. Most of my way in and out of the city is on bike lanes. The Capital Bikeshare program has been a resounding success and now has some 300 stations and, if I remember correctly, 2,500 bikes and has been expanded out in to the suburbs.

Roody

Those people are welcome to post their opinions here, use their own words, and speak without using personal insults. AFAIK, these people aren't paying you to be their spokesman.

Of course, if they're not interested in London, they won't open this thread in the first place--an option that is also available to you.