| Topic: | Re:Re:Car free day | |
| Posted by: | Paul Corcoran | |
| Date/Time: | 12/07/18 08:11:00 |
| Not sure where you have seen this discussed online but it won't have been proposed by anyone with an ounce of common sense. On the presumption that the proposal would be to shut the central stretch of Chiswick High Road it would only take a short pause for reflection to realise this would be a very bad idea. The first thing to remember is that there is no such thing as a 'Car Free Day' - what it actually would be is a 'Cars Somewhere Else Day'. In this case the likely diversion would take traffic north of the High Road along Acton Lane, South Parade, Bath Road and Goldhawk Road. South of the High Road traffic would probably seek to utilise roads like Barrowgate and Wavendon to make progress. Although a proportion of journeys may be postponed so there may be fewer vehicles on the road there will still be a substantial proportion that have to take place regardless of the closure. Also TfL tends to be terrible at publicising anything at a local level so many people will be taken by surprise by the road being shut. What this means is that traffic will be diverted onto roads that have much less capacity and they will quickly become log jammed. This will result in rat running in nearby adjacent roads which won't take long to clog up. Hence the net effect of closure will be to move traffic to a road next to which people might spend an hour or so a day shopping to near where they live or where their children go to school. It is not clear whether the idea is for a car free or vehicle free day. If the idea is to reduce pollution then a car only free day doesn't make much sense. The latest report from Hounslow Council shows that they only account for 22% of emissions on Chiswick High Road. However, nobody in their right mind would suggest diverting buses and HGVs up unsuitable residential streets so the air quality on the High Road would not improve dramatically. Certainly not enough to compensate for the deterioration elsewhere. The real question is why these daft ideas ever get proposed in the first place. I would guess that it is because, despite all the cuts that we have seen elsewhere bureaucracies remain overstaffed. People are employed to come up with initiatives and they feel they have to come up with something attention grabbing. A car free day might cause misery to thousands of local people but it will get its proponents applause from those on social media who don't need to drive to get to work or as part of their job and gain a sense of moral superiority over those that do as a result. This would really just be about spending money for those in government to feel good about themselves and giving them an excuse for not dealing with the harder transport issues locally that need addressing such as the situation at Gunnersbury and Turnham Green tube stations. |