Parliament to debate Low Traffic Neighbourhoods this afternoon

eburtthebike wrote:

Personally, I think this is a wonderful sign; if parliament has time to debate this, all the other problems must be solved, including covid, Brexit, child hunger.........

Or is it that this MP only represents drivers, not the rest of her constituents.

No, silly, after those three there's morbid obesity, pollution-related diseases and the climate crisis to solve. Now is not the time to talk about LTNs....

eburtthebike wrote:

Personally, I think this is a wonderful sign; if parliament has time to debate this, all the other problems must be solved, including covid, Brexit, child hunger.....

I like what you did there, sandwiching Brexit with two other world evils, that would never be a policy objective or the subject of a vote.

But there was a vote on Covid today, and they had a vote on keeping poor children hungry a couple of weeks ago.

The tories mostly voted to keep poor children hungry, life lessons I guess.  They seemed more confused on trying to put a stop to Covid though...

ktache wrote:

The tories mostly voted to keep poor children hungry, life lessons I guess.  

Character building

On average a parliamentary session lasts 150 days or roughly 1100 hours,though there are often parallel debates and committees in progress as well as debates in the main chamber, they spent a grand total of 29minutes on this,which didnt result in a vote, or change in policy, in fact they seemed to all be violently agreeing cycling is a good thing,but LTNs should be more joined up,which if you strip away the obvious politics from it,is exactly what most cycling campaigners want.

....in fact they seemed to all be violently agreeing cycling is a good thing,..../quote]

 

Whilst continuing to spend the vast proportion of the transport budget on things which aren't actually beneficial and peanuts on cycling.  But that has been pretty much the case for the last thirty years, with cycling policies and strategies announced with monotonous regularity, nothing much changes at the sharp end.  Fine words butter no parsnips.

but when was the last time someone representing the government of the day in a debate in parliament (even a low key one such as this which really is just glorified AOB) in the last 30 years stood at the dispatch box and talked about the biggest ever investment to get people out of cars, professed even to be a "keen cyclist" themselves, and about taking local communities with us, on this journey effectively to educate about the benefits of walking and cycling, and that would continue as government policy.

none of the MPs were actively against LTNs who spoke in the debate, and believe me there are MPs out there who are campaigning against them who clearly couldnt be bothered to turn up. So the fact the DfT are actually holding their nerve still, not giving up at the first bump or grumbling from members and clearly get what cycling advocates like Chris Boardman have been saying for years, I felt yeah ok fine words, but this actually feels like they are on board for once and there is investment behind it.

it would be interesting to see if any of the local examples of duplication or areas cited needed better planning or were missed opportunities, no-one in a session like that is ever going to be able to say definitively how or why they were done like it or if they were right or wrong.