On Sun, 8 May 2005 10:13:15 +0100, "JNugent"
<
[email protected]> wrote in message
<
[email protected]>:
>> As stated elsewhere, I was perfectly clear about the distinction you
>> draw, I just think it is bogus. Around here it is hard to tell
>> whether a parked car is a resident or a commuter. The problem is the
>> same either way.
>Of course it is.
I could interpret that as an acknowledgement that it's a bogus
distinction. In fact I think I will
>But if people were *prevented* by law from garaging on-street (with
>appropriately severe penalties for breach or attempts, whether by mere
>non-compliance or by deception), the difference would become clear.
I am not sure what point you are trying to make. In residents parking
zones people are prevented from parking on street without a permit.
There are other roads around here that have 24 hour parking
restrictions: residents may not park outside their houses at all. As
far as I can tell the only distinction between on-street parking at
the two ends of the journey is the purely accidental one that the
destination tends to have more pressure for road space, so is more
likely to have controlled parking. That doesn't mean this is always
absent at the home end of the journey, and around here it is clearly
enthusiastically present (hence the residents' parking schemes)
>> See, there's that word "garaging" again. Why use a word whose meaning
>> is clearly understood by most people to mean something else, when a
>> perfectly good word (parking) already exists, which has no ambiguity
>> about it? Pointless.
>It is far from pointless. Using two distinct terms (with similar but not
>identical meanings) is normal and everyday in discussion. And using the term
>"garaging" is simpler than repeating the phrase "at-home parking".
Up to a point. What you are doing is using distinct terms with
not-particularly-similar meanings where one of the terms is generally
understood to mean something else entirely.
All of which is semantic juggling, and misses the fundamental point
that the distinction you draw is largely false anyway. You can't
empty the roads of cars without getting rid of the cars themselves.
Most of our towns and cities were largely laid out before the age of
mass private motoring, and many areas have no realistic options for
off-street parking. In any case, what goes on in residential streets
is largely a matter for the people who live there. Making life harder
for residents in order to speed the journey of rat-runners is unlikely
ever to be much of a priority.
>>>> The simple truth is, cars are just about the least space-efficient
>>>> form of urban transport available, especially when not being used
>>>> (which is most of the time of course). Bikes are very
>>>> space-efficient.
>That's nothing to do with the issue. But widening the question well beyond
>the scope of the thread, bikes have their own severe limitations which
>render them unsuitable for the real world everyday requirements of most
>people, no matter how useful they undoubtedly are to a minority for everyday
>transport for commuting and to a larger minority for leisure and exercise.
So you say. Every day I pass people in their cars driving to the
station from houses near me. They take at least twice as long to get
to the station, and it costs them a preposterous amount in parking
fees. But they apparently feel, as you do, that the bike has "severe
limitations". Strangely these limitations very often turn out not to
apply, once an effort is made to test the hypothesis.
For everyday urban commuting (which accounts for a very large number
of journeys) it is hard to think of anything more practical than a
bike. And before you start wittering about having to carry stuff with
you, I've just need reading about a guy who transported a desktop PC
and 17" monitor on a Brompton folding bicycle.
Wouldn't your life be better if the quarter or so of all journeys
which are under 1 mile were done on foot or by bike? Or if an
appreciable proportion of the 60% of single occupancy cars converted
into public transport? Of course it would. But you're not going to
be the one to change, and you're not going to allow anyone to advocate
these alternate modes. Instead you require that the nebulous "they"
should do "something" about the problem which you, and others like
you, create.
>There is nothing wrong with riding a bike, and I have never claimed that
>there is. Let's just not run away with the idea that you can run your
>teenage child and their possessions 175 miles to university and back by bike
>(for instance), stopping at Sainsbury's on the way to stock up with
>provisions. There are many examples as telling as that. Horses for courses,
>and more power to the knees of cyclists.
I do like the examples people come up with to excuse car dependence.
How many times a year do you drive your child 175 miles to Uni with
all possessions? Three? Six, counting both ways? 18 journeys total
over a lifetime? Hire a van six times a year and be done with it.
Better still, share the van hire between two or more whose homes are
more or less on the same route and save some serious cash. My mate
Mike did that when he was a student.
So many of the alleged failures of the bicycle turn out on closer
inspection to be failures of the imagination.
Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken