How would you clear congestion [1]..?

geography

That will be the south moaning about Scotland again. As soon as yo umake
exceptions it becomes unfair and unworkable IMO

Everyone has access to it, it just depends on *ease* of access. Bit like
the old school bus passes. You had to live 3 miles from the school, but
your nearest bus stop may have been the required 3 miles and your house
not as it was deemed you could walk to the further stop.

of
Slight difference in gradient.

Bollocks !
How would removing a saftey check help !

Hard to argue there, but while you are at it make a distinction between
faired and unfaired bikes as that also makes significant difference to
fuel consumption.

Which half ?

 

I wouldn't, so the question doesn't arise. People will stop driving
anyway once the roads are full enough.

I would stop building roads.

 

Champ scribbled on the back of a napkin:

Yebbut, some of us are using bikes to commute into Central London. It
wasn't mentioned anywhere that bikes would be exempt...

 

I wouldn't, but I'd try and move the goalposts.

Here's four ideas just off the top of my head.

Offer tax breaks to companies that based themselves outside of city
centres and recruit 50% of their staff within a 2 mile radius, offer
further incentives if those companies that set up in areas with high
unemployment and recruit 50% of their employees locally.

Create a zero taxable mechanism for companies to run shuttle bus
services to nearby districts, removing the need for high numbers of
cars, and car parking spaces.

Stagger school start times, so that young children (that cause most
parents to drive them to school) start their schoolday at 7:45 AM before
the rush hour kicks off. Older childern then start at 8:15.

Bring in a flexible working hours legislation that offers preferential
hours for single parents, and those directly caring for children so that
their working say is shifted forward to miss the 9AM / 5:30PM rush
hours.

 

Easy. The fundamental problem is that there are so *many* of us
crammed into this land, all wanting to travel in our personal
vehicles.

If we *really* want to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles, homes,
and factories and reduce crowds on the roads then the obvious way is
to control the population.

Clearly not a short-term fix or likely to be popular. Probably costly,
too.

The alternative seems to be ever stricter controls on what we do and
how we do it.

 

Pete M said...

There might be a solution here but I can't quite put my finger on it
....

 

But time machines don't exist.

 

You're not wrong

I think you're on to something.

You're clearly not thinking laterally - by 'control' I presume you're
talking about reducing birth rates and/or immigration, but what about
population movement? Ultimately, there is enough space, and road, to
go round - it's just the distribution that's the problem.

And 'population control' is different how, exactly?

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3
`\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2
`\|/`
`

 

In

There's bugger all chance of me cycling to work, before you say it.

--
Pete M

Mercedes 260E, Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2
Ford Capri (ressurection started)
VW Golf Clipper Cabriolet

COSOC #5
Scouse Git extraordinaire. Liverpool, Great Britain

 

Damn right: Drifter (silly unfaired bike) 50mpg, R80RT (sensible
fully-faired bike) 35mpg. Power, acceleration and performance pretty
similar.

 

They wouldn't be. Bet you all you have.

 

Fair point. But are the places we could expand to actually places
people want to or can afford to be?

On a slightly different note, if the same sized population was spread
out, the problems of energy use and pollution would still be the same.

Aah, Umm. I guess I see it as a single strict control as opposed to
lots of other controls. You know, consolidate you debts in one big
loan that costs an arm and a leg.... all right, it needs slight
tweaking.

I suppose that I personally have less of a problem with limiting
family size than many would.

 

Afford, well, generally it gets cheaper as you move away from the major
cities. Small towns in the north are about as cheap as it gets.

Want to is a more interesting concept, particularly in this day and age
where many towns and cities offer the same generic products from the
same generic retailers. Suburban sprawl is the home of average, the
locations are interchangable.. That's a huge chunk of population
covered. Niche be it city or countryside will always attract a
premium, but most people don't do niche... where they do they can
probably afford it already... they wouldn't be interested in any of
this.

So, a life less south-easterly... You want a nice dinner, easy.. You
want the arts, you'll need a day out.

 

Well, it's a bigger fairing, so obviously a bigger improvement in the
aerodynamics.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

Topbox?

Of course, the unsuppressed spark plug caps should sort the matter out
very nicely.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Manufacturer of the "Champion-105" range of rearsets
and Ducati Race Engineer.

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
ZZR1100, Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"

 

Does use of unsuppressed plug caps improve the spark?

 

Probably, but the parameter was to reduce congestion, so basically if
you're not in the ring around greater London you get the rebate (look if
you're going to change behaviour it's going to be unfair to someone),
fundamentally that's the core of the congestion problem, yes ?

Besides, you're not making exceptions, everyone pays the same fuel price
(high) including the foreigners visiting. If you live in an area that
doesn't have a congestion problem, then you get paid something for it.
It's a positive inducement for businesses and hence people to look at
moving away from the congested areas (labour becomes cheaper/ more
willing to relocate).

...snip
Sorry but the parameter was "not penalise someone who lives without the
benefit of public transport" there's going to be some level of argy
bargy about what point inconvenient becomes not readily accessible, but
you can work out a reasonable rule set.

True, hmm, but even still,makes it better exercise, hey ?

Bugger ! Got the term wrong then, whats the UK equivalent for cost of
being allowed to drive your car/bike on the road legally (road tax ?)

Naah too bloody complicated for sod all benefit(1).

Easier to just bracket it, say 125 and below, 125 -400, 400-750, 750 and
above.If you want to be nice make an exemption available if the
manufacturer can show it fits a certain fuel consumption rate then it
can drop a bracket (or even 2), adds to complexity though which may
remove any actual benefit.

You choose

JL
1 Be curious for an apples to apples comparison on your assumption about
fuel economy too - I've been told/read somewhere that a fairing can
actually increase fuel consumption over the naked version. Dunno either
way myself

 

I spent 3 minutes stopped on a 110 mile trip to my grans house in
Abingdon so my GPS told me. This was because of a traffic light or two,
so it could have been much less.

Charge the bloaters!

 

You're obviously not thrashing the bike hard enough then !

JL
(Most big bore sports and sports tourers I know of (B/bird, hayabusa, R1
etc) get considerably worse mileage than most <1.5L cars if you ride
them hard. Not surprising given one's tuned for economy and one for HP.)

 

The Older Gentleman scribbled on the back of a napkin:

Well, *I* wasn't expecting them to be although some people here
appearantly were...