Government to urge us all to walk and cycle more | Hacker News Reader

Government to urge us all to walk and cycle more

bbc.com

71 pointsSami_Lehtinen112 comments

Hopefully, that will persist beyond the initial knee-jerk reaction to go back to work after lockdown.

Though they (UK gov, and elsewhere probably) do need to invest a lot more in infrastructure to assist.

* Safe and easy to use separated continuous paths. Not just paint strips but actual physical separation.

* Cut/ban hedges so you can see the car coming round the bend at 60mph on a tiny narrow lane. And so the car overtaking you on a blind corner won't push into the hedge when surprised by another car.

* Wider paths to support both walkers, people with pushchairs, and slow recreational cyclist like me without pushing one into the road or hedge as they pass.

* Paths beyond the towns, so you can actually safely cycle / walk to the next village. Was pretty dangerous to go see a friend when I walked everywhere with a pushcair.

> Safe and easy to use separated continuous paths. Not just paint strips but actual physical separation.

I think this is such a critical point. A lot of people are not interested in getting on a busy road, but would definitely get on a bike only path.

I will also add that I think cities should be creative and try to develop more bike infrastructure that is independent of the roadways altogether. The lakefront trail in Chicago is a good example. Many cities could develop similar infrastructure along rivers, through parks, through repurposed streets, etc. having a separate network is not only safer but if done right can often be faster for commuters than driving or public transport.

We have quite a lot of that in the UK already, the trouble is it isn’t often where people make their daily journeys.

I would not classify it as “a lot” even in the wrong places. And, even when paths do exist they are far from adequate.

Rural driving in England is weird. I feel like cities are relatively safe: cars are typically used to cyclists and look out for them, though they can pass too close. Cycling is also becoming more common in general.

In the countryside (at least the bits I’m used to), driving in general seems pretty dangerous. The roads are old and narrow and windy with tall hedges or walls on either side. The speed limit is usually unrestricted (ie 60mph/do whatever is “safe”) and people tend to drive fast. While it’s obviously bad for a cyclist to surprise a car, it’s also likely for a car to suddenly come across another car coming the other way (and there may not really be enough room to pass) or a horse or a tractor. Hitting any of those would be pretty bad for the car and they aren’t uncommon. It’s somewhat surprising to me that people drive so fast but I guess they are just impatient.

Near where I grew up there was a popular hill climb for cycling but the road was narrow and winding and cars would go up fast (to keep their momentum for the steep bits and the corners). Often wide farm tractors or trailers would go up or down which made things tricky. I’m amazed how popular it was with cyclists as it seemed very perilous. Their only advantage is that it was easier for a car to stop in a short distance (going up) on the steep bits and they were fast on the way down.

Compare that to driving in the Irish countryside (at least the bits I’m used to) where the roads are similar (perhaps you’re more likely to come across a donkey and cart or a hitchhiker) but everyone drives more slowly and patiently.

I'd definitely consider cycling for work if I wasn't certain that doing so on a daily basis would get me run over before retirement.

I'd also consider walking to work if doing so didn't mean walking next to noisy, polluted high-traffic roads most of the time. This could be addressed e.g. by cities progressively forcing a transition to electric cars (e.g. by switching parking spots to electric-only).

There have been quite a few studies with conclusions like this:

"On average, the estimated health benefits of cycling were substantially larger than the risks relative to car driving for individuals shifting their mode of transport."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/

Cycling could be made better, but, it is already safer than getting fat in your car.

I'd bet that that doesn't hold true in SF. Cycling on Market street turned me in to a Veteran with PTSD.

Thankfully the people of SF have voted for some change for the better.

https://sfbike.org/market-street-2020/

It isn't perfect, but, keep hopefully people will keep voting for improvements.

I remember reading a study that looked at life expectancy of cycling vs driving, which I unfortunately can’t find right now, in many cities around the world.

The TL;DR in almost all cities you’ll live longer cycling (even considering extra exposure to pollution and road accidents) than driving. Except in a very small handful of city, none of which were in the US.

So cycling in SF is probably better for you than driving. But that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be a pleasant experience. (I mean getting injections isn’t fun, but vaccines are definitely good for you).

I'd be surprised if those studies modeled the survivor bias. For example; this link was a standard reference:

http://www.phred.org/~alex/kenkifer/www.kenkifer.com/bikepag...

The author of it died in a bike crash.

The studies looked at predicted life expectancy when you consider the various health benefits of cycling vs increased severity of road accidents and expose to pollution. They don’t need to model for survivor bias, they weren’t tracking individuals, but deriving specific population stats from larger general populations stats.

> The author of it died in a bike crash.

I’m not sure what your point is?

People die that’s not a surprise, the fact the author died in a bike crash doesn’t invalidate their work.

Doctors die of smoking, some scientists studying nutrition are fat. None of that changes the validity of their work.

When I cycle, I dont use same roads as when I go by car. I search for smaller streets parallel to main street etc. Typically they are available.

It's worth noting that that study came to that conclusion for the Netherlands, which is one of the most bike-friendly countries in the world.

Sitting in your car getting fat isn't scary, though. Not in the same way. If you fear cars hitting you while cycling, that is scary. And it is that last one that humans are more likely to pay attention to.

If we are serious about folks walking and cycling, we'd - as a society, both in one's country and not - fix the issues surrounding it.

I grew up in the UK (0-25) and now live in The Netherlands (26-39).

There's no way that you can compare the two countries. Car drivers in the UK are entitled t*ts who think that they own the road.

In the UK the total costs of driving a large car premium car (Mercedes, BMW, Volvo) are lower than the costs of driving a small city car in The Netherlands (Kia Picanto, Renault Clio, VW Up) so you see a lot more SUVs on the road there.

Further the infrastructure for cycling in the UK is poor.

I cycled a lot in the UK but never felt safe doing so. The Netherlands, although far from perfect, is heaven in comparison.

I really hope that they learn from the things the Dutch have done right (having significant infrastructure) and from the things they do wrong (inconsistent right-of-way for cyclists are standard crossings - the cyclist/pedestrians should always have priority).

Here in Norway it is the cyclists that are entitled.

I often use bike myself, even prefer it, but there's a huge difference between using a bike and being one of those people who'll cross into the road right ahead of you and then ride slowly (happened yesterday) or insisting on riding in the middle of the road uphill, even when there was a wide sidewalk next to the road (also happened yesterday).

Is biking on the sidewalk allowed in Norway? Hear arguments like that here too, and am always surprised how cyclists are somehow "entitled" for following the law.

Absolutely, as long as you are careful and there isn't any sign or other markings put up to tell you otherwise.

Walk and bike path (gang og sykkelsti) we often call them. One major disadvantage though if you are biking fast is that everytime you have to cross the road you have to yield or walk as cars (technically) don't have to yield for bikes[0]. That's the reason I pointed out that bike was going uphill, slowly. I get it that when someone is traveling at 30-40 km/t they shouldn't have to stop every 50m.

[0]: Although of course that does not mean you will get away with it. A good friend of mine was more or less run into by a bike crossing. He had right-of-way but police still fined him something along the lines of 6000NOK.

> In the UK the total costs of driving a large car premium car (Mercedes, BMW, Volvo) are lower than the costs of driving a small city car

I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Large engined cars use more fuel and are taxed higher, plus the insurance costs are higher, as are parts etc. Small city cars are cheaper on all fronts AFAICT.

I fudge-fingered "in The Netherlands" out somehow whilst editing my post.

Sadly, that’s not how most people measure risk. Even if the risk of slowly dying due to obesity is technically higher than being run over by a car, people are going to weight the low frequency, high impact scary events more.

In many ways this is like the discussion about road trips vs. the risk of terrorist attacks when flying. Statistically you’re far more likely to die on the highway, but terrorism is very scary, which after 9/11 caused tons of people to revert to road trips.

9/11 changed the risk of dying in a terrorist attack when flying, and no one knew what the change was at the time.

That said, a lot of the damage done by cars is quality-of-life, not direct physical harm. It really sucks to have to leap off your bike, or even just feeling under pressure from somebody in a car who you have to share road with. Cycling on a dedicated path is relaxing and enjoyable. Cycling in the grit and spray of a bunch of cars, any of which may be driven by somebody on their phone or half-asleep, is no fun at all.

I think that bicycle safely campaigns (like the ones for helmets) greatly exaggerated risks of cycling. Which means that the more people are afraid, the less they cycle and the more they see accidents as being the fault someone being too reckless just for driving bike.

I was just talking about this exact same thing with a friend last night.

We were passing a cement truck at an intersection near my house, when she said "be careful, this corner is dangerous".

When I inquired as to what she meant, she explained that an acquaintance of hers was mowed down by a cement truck a few years earlier while riding his bike.

The truck didn't see him.

We really do need to separate car and bike traffic.

It is accepted that pedestrians cannot intermingle with cars on the road, which is why we have sidewalks.

Why is it so common to have a 50 pound bicycle compete for road space with aggressively driven 5,000 pound vehicles?

Building a bicycle infrastructure parallel and separate from the existing transportation infrastructure is absolutely infeasible. This boils down to "bicycles should not be allowed on the road." If that's your argument, make it.

> Building a bicycle infrastructure parallel and separate from the existing transportation infrastructure is absolutely infeasible.

This just isn’t true, and countries like the Netherlands demonstrate that.

And it doesn’t boil down to “bicycles should not be allowed on the road”. I think the argument GP is making is “car shouldn’t be allowed in the same spaces as bikes”. Just like we don’t allow cars on pavements.

The Netherlands does not have a 1:1 parallel infrastructure that completely separates bicycles from cars.

If a car isn't allowed where a bicycle is, then a bicycle isn't allowed on the road.

> If a car isn't allowed where a bicycle is, then a bicycle isn't allowed on the road.

This again is not a given. Cars aren’t allowed where pedestrians reside. But (in the EU a least) pedestrians are allowed on roads, and have priority.

You should stop considering these relationships as purely exclusive, and consider them as a hierarchy. Pedestrians -> Bike -> Car. Each can use the space of the lower mode of transport but not the higher.

In many European countries this also dictates default liability in accidents. The reason for this is quite simple, pedestrians are more exposed than cyclists, cyclists are more exposed than drivers. So each class of transport should yield to more vulnerable forms of transport.

Rather than attempting to claim that one form of superior to another, we should be aiming to build systems that encourage the cheapest and most efficient forms or transport first, and then find ways to allow more expensive and less efficient forms of transport to co-exist with them.

How privileged can one be?

Not wanting to die is privileged? I walked to work pre-coronavirus, and had been nearly run over on 3 separate occasions. Jumping out of the way, hands on the hood level nearly. Yes, the walk sign was on. I was constantly breathing in pollution from construction and old vehicles/diesel/huge trucks. I live in a major metropolitan city in the southern usa. It was not a pleasant experience.

I may be coming off as too direct. But I feel you are coming off too dramatic.

Either you are not aware of your surroundings or you’re trusting others too much for your own well being due to the egocentric Identity instilled in modern society.

“Walking” and “biking” are basic traits you should be able to manage on your own. If there’s variables elsewhere affecting such actions. You’re not being proactive enough. There’s no excuse with multiple countries in the world having less resources and facilities to manage lifestyles whom go through much worse to make ends meet. Please. All it take is to cross the street for most in the states for instance.

Edit: before we prioritize biking and walking to work. We should prioritize efficiently getting the long distance workforce into hubs with less pollution and min cost.

Your assumptions are ugly. There is no possible way for me to know an Audi 6 cylinder (relevant because quiet and fast) is going to come flying around a blind corner when there are huge red stop lights all around it. The only reason I didn't die was because I always am watching the street for cars that aren't paying attention.

Stop comparing to other countries. The usa (especially the south) actively legislates to keep car as king. All of those resources you speak of don't go towards this country's public transportation or self transportation options. Bike lanes are a joke in most big cities. I've watched cars actively try to mess with bikers, run them off the road and such. I won't try to guess their motives. You are naive.

I apologize for my assumptions. And incorrect comparables.

Your personal implications for such necessities are valid. I personally feel if change in commute were to be made I would not want bike lanes, walking restrictions and traffic control of the immediate realm be first but rather out of city commutes to be innovated upon beforehand.

For me it’s a matter of prioritization and This sense of dread of “death” via biking and walking to work doesn’t seem on par with most whom have 1hr+ commutes out of city

Was the car turning right, by chance? I only ask cause I was almost hit once while out walking in a similar situation. All because cars turning right often don't actually stop at red lights, feeling that can keep going as normal, especially if no traffic is coming the other way. I wish the US would do away with that law, and strictly enforce it for a while. It'd make things a little bit safer, at least.

That not wanting to walk or cycle in high pollution areas in close proximity to traffic is a mark of privilege is a sad commentary

Living close enough to your job in an urban enter to the point where walking or cycling is an option is the epitome of privilege, and so is arguing that you deserve your own private roads to move around during your few minutes commuting.

Next, please educate us all on the immense virtues of eating cake.

I know people who use public transit to get into the city (NYC, not London) and then walk or use bike share to finish the trip. If we're really going to decide transit policy by building a hierarchy of privilege, it seems unfair to consider them more privileged than someone who can afford to take a car and pay for downtown parking.

HOnestly, that is both privilege and poverty.

You may be stuck in your small town because you walk everywhere. Or stuck paying more for housing because you cannot trust your car. Or decline a promotion because the gas station with the available assistant manager position is too far for you to walk before you can get a car - payraise be damned.

Only in some areas can someone take public transport, which does mean that the less privileged live further from workplaces.

You’re right that the ability to easily control where you live requires more resources. But that’s also an extremely poor (possibly bad faith) counter argument to the suggestion that we improve the infrastructure for non-polluting modes of traffic.

I've been cycling into central London for about 20 years now. During that time, community every day I've day 4 accidents.

1 x pedestrian walking off the pavement and into me without looking

2x objects in the road that I hit

1 x Car cutting me up turning left.

As long as you keep your wits about you, I really don't think its that dangerous. However when you start out it can feel very very dangerous. I would suggest aclimatising yourself with regular short rides.

It's funny how air quality has improved both visibly and measurably during the UK's lockdown, and yet the proposals for limiting car traffic and encouraging cycling through segregated safer paths within London are always met with howls of derision.

> and yet the proposals for limiting car traffic (...) are always met with howls of derision.

You honestly don't understand why?

Sure - because some rich people think they're better than the rest of us and polluting the city we're supposed to be sharing so they can be more properly segregated from us is fine.

> because some rich people think they're better than the rest of us

Lol let me break it down for you, but it isn't "the rich" who need cars to drive to the city center. It's the low/lower middle class workers who can't afford to live in the city center but still need to get to work to pay their modest apartment in the outskirts of the city.

And by the way, those who can afford the luxury of living so close to their job that they can just walk or cycle to work in the city center are not "the poor" either.

I'm genuinely curious as to where all these middle class workers allegedly coming into London are parking, how much they pay for that, and whether it's faster to drive at average 12mph vs the Tube.

There's these things called the trains and the tube in London, which are significantly cheaper than driving a car into work in the middle of London every day. The middle class car owner in London is a myth.

> There's these things called the trains

Those things called the trains connect only consolidated urban centers where, due to their convenience and higher quality of living driving up demand, the cost of living is considerably higher.

If you cannot afford to live in one of those places, the only options on the table is a) get a car and endure the obstacle course packed with life-degrading inconveniences to actually hold a decent job, or b) waste even more scarce time of your waking life driving to other mass transit services.

So your wage is the same whether you drive to work or drive to a bus or train stop. Great. But public transportation adds easily over 20 minutes each trip to your commute. But that's not a problem, innit? I mean, poor people don't need to spend time with their kids and loved ones. What really matters is if a conceited hipster can ride is bike for 10min eah day to get to work and gloat about how much he is woke and is saving the environment, right? And heavens forbid if that hipster is inconvenienced by having to ride his bicycle on a public road, because that's so unfair to him to the point that it must be a conspiracy by The Man to keep him down.

None of this changes the fact that there’s a limit to the number of cars you can physically pack into London, and that limit isn’t very high.

Putting more cars in increases pollution, and makes it harder to walk and cycle, and reduces the number of people who can safely move around the city.

Ultimately if keep adding cars you end up with a situation where cars are the only viable method of moving around the city, and of all the options available to us it’s objectively the worse.

Boosting walking and cycling in the centre creates extra capacity on public transport, and non-intuitively creates extra space for people driving into the city as locals won’t be occupying space on the roads.

Where I’m living in London household car ownership is about 30%, and the roads already struggle. It’s not like we can build more roads (which would just increase traffic), there’s no physical space to put the damn things in. To top it all off the population is still increasing.

So either we can encourage people to use alternative forms of transport, and we build the infrastructure to support it like bike lanes, or what? We just sit in traffic for the rest of our lives?

What’s you’re solution to a growing population and in a fixed space?

> Those things called the trains connect only consolidated urban centers...

This thread is about London, which has extensive train, bus and underground systems throughout. Driving into London for work is a fool's game.

I am not talking about random other places, I'm talking about London, which is what this thread is about. I even mentioned it three times in the comment you replied to!

This is a rant. Driving in London is cripplingly slow, you need to pay £11.50 a day to drive in the centre, and parking spaces sell for as much as entire houses in provincial towns. https://www.foxtons.co.uk/search?location_ids=290&prop_type=...

London isn’t an American city. It a dense European city with a large and effective public transport system.

It also has tiny roads, and almost no parking capacity. Parking capacity is so low that it’s not unusual for people to drive to the outer reaches of the public transport system, park up and then take the tube for another 40mins into the centre.

> it isn't "the rich" who need cars to drive to the city center.

What sort of data would convince you this statement is true or false? As expected, car ownership rate increases with income [1,2]. But not sure if this is the right thing to look at. The first reference also says that only 50% of the poorest people (income<25K and ~50% of population) own cars even if they have children, but 85%+ of higher incomes own cars, irrespective of whether they have children.

[1] http://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-note-12-how-many-cars-ar... [2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...

In London that's exactly wrong. Low/lower middle class people in London use public transport. It's much cheaper and faster to do so, usually.

There is already a congestion charge in London that makes driving prohibitive for people on lower incomes.

I still haven't found convincing data on this. There is this very weird guardian article that makes claims about large effects but contains a series of figures that seem to show very small effects:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/27/coronavi...

Am I interpreting it wrong?

how is 20 to 50 % reduction "very small effects"?

As I interpret it, the charts show a comparison of the change between two periods in 2020, compared to the average change over the same two periods in the previous five years. I can't see much difference between the trends this year and the five-year-average (I suppose the average difference is due to seasonality).

I realise this anecdotal, but as a Londoner living in Zone2, I can actually see and feel the difference in air quality. The skyline is far clearer on average, and I definitely notice myself breathing easier, and I do not have asthma or any other respiratory or even allergy issues.

I don't think the data has been published properly, as far as I can tell. A article [1] by York University itself is clearer on what they are saying. Look at the second figure here and note

> In the graphs below, the blue bars show the average level of pollution from late February through to late March, taken from 2015 and 2019. The red bars show the average level of pollution between the same dates this year.

You can easily see that PM2.5 has roughly halved in London.

[1] https://ncas.ac.uk/en/18-news/3057-air-pollution-falling-acr...

It's badly presented, but it seems to show the difference of the current values to two different baselines (earlier this year, and a long-term average).

I live in Los Angeles; it’s been glorious how clean our air is. We’ve been able to see the Hollywood sign miles further away than you typically can, because of the haze.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-04-28/coronav...

> “It is possible that this was partially due to reduced emissions, but meteorology likely played a much larger role.”

Here in OC over the past couple weeks the haze has returned, while traffic is only slightly up.

Where are the howls of derision of which you speak?

Myself and the Mrs. took free cycling lessons from the council a few years back with the idea we wanted to start cycling to work etc more. We decided it was too risky due to the terrible traffic. As a regular pedestrian, I've almost been run over multiple times in the last few years. I think the city really needs to look at banning non delivery vehicles from zones 1 and 2, or something to that effect.

Or modify the roads; driver and cyclist behavior are heavily influenced by road design. Protected lanes actually protect cyclists, and narrower roads naturally cause drivers to slow down.

Cycle facilities in countries without a strong cycling tradition are generally dangerous, illogical, and awful. Cycle facilities in countries with a strong cycling tradition are usually better-engineered but mostly exist to get cyclists "out of the way" of motor vehicle traffic.

The solution is low speed limits in urban areas.

It’s also a chicken and egg problem; it’s hard to build strong cycling traditions while cycling is poorly supported and dangerous.

It’s more than needing to reduce speed. Many countries need to completely invert their mode of thinking; an hypothetical space alien in some cities would be forgiven for assuming that cars actually rule and humans serve. We’ve come to act like the fast movement of cars is the highest social good, and anything that slows traffic is heresy. We need to get back to a point about asking what the people of a city need, not just the commuters.

Re-engineering cities, even if there was a popular will to do so and it served the right business interests, would in the US be a multi-generational project.

I'm not going to outright reject "it needs to be more than reduced speed limits," but speed limits are a change that can be made in the short-term that would lower noise levels, lower pollution, lower traffic fatalities, and increase tax revenue.

I disagree. Most of America’s car-first city infrastructure was set up remarkably quickly during short bursts in the 1930s and 1940s, depending on which city you’re talking about. We just don’t think about how remarkably fast it happened, because it’s outside of living memory.

Undoing some of this infrastructure should be an easier process than setting it up; bikes take less space, asphalt, and steel than cars do.

I should have said "the US, today?"

In the 1940s the United States was able to mobilize into a war economy in months. Today we are incapable of manufacturing medicine and surgical masks.

It absolutely happened quickly back then. There was money to be made and a capable leadership class. We are now led by their incapable grandchildren. The smart money is seeing strong returns in Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and has no interest in long-turnaround you-need-to-know-what-you're-doing stuff like concrete, asphalt, and steel.

Just as a medieval peasant had no hope of figuring out how to build a coliseum or an aqueduct, a modern American neoliberal technocrat is entirely un-equipped to engineer, build, or plan much of anything.

That’s fair. It’s certainly possible, but the political will does not exist.

Your comment is spot on, however I'd go further: cycle facilities in countries with a strong cycling tradition don't exist to move cyclists out of the way from motorists — it is the other way around: motorists are moved out of the way from cyclists and the points were both intersect are carefully chosen.

This makes things easier for both sides..

...and high speed limits are maintained. The poor still wind up with highways through their neighborhoods, and a blanket of noise covers the country. Everyone breathes vehicle exhaust, asbestos particulates from brake pads, and ground-up tire dust.

As someone who lived at a main crossroads for a while: don't forget the mind numbing effect of constant noise

> non delivery vehicles from zones 1 and 2,

Look out the window in z1 and you will see that it mostly is already.

What will you do regarding the person's who live in those zones? Will they not be allowed to drive?

That's one option of course, though I prefer a cap and trade system on permits to operate a vehicle in those zones, reducing the cap as much as possible. People in city centers are less likely to own cars as it is. Often, road infrastructure (especially parking infrastructure) exists to benefit the suburbanites at the expense of the city dweller.

The UK is a largely rural country. Living in z1 and owning a car in order to get out of the city and travel freely is perfectly reasonable. There are also many pursuits and personal and familial reasons to make use of a vehicle.

It is also not reasonable in any way to charge persons to leave their homes (currently the case anyway). That's morally repugnant.

The infrastructure to connect your house to the public street network has to built and paid for by someone. It is the same for other types of infrastructure such as gas and electricity. Do you think it morally repugnant to charge people to connect their house to those networks?

> The infrastructure to connect your house to the public street network has to built and paid for by someone.

Yes. Me. I pay for it

Care to expand on your comment, it currently doesnt seem to have a purpose that I can discern.

I am saying that I cannot see how it is morally repugnant to have to pay for the infrastructure that you use.

I have paid for it already?

The UK is a largely rural country.

No it isn't.

83% urban: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rural-population-...

The same could be said for keeping a helicopter in z1, but obviously that would be silly.

I live in a far more rural country than your own (Ireland) and Dublin city centre is choking on suburbanites' cars and hgv's. Those same suburbanites vote down any cycling improvements in the council. I think it's morally repugnant that I'd be terrified to let my kid ride a bike to school so you can have easier motoring, and expect me to pay for it to boot!

I ended up leaving Dublin in the end, bitter at its catastrophically weak approach to cycling and tired of drivers being jerks on the quays.

When you're unable to provide safe public transport, you demand people move on foot. Thanks for all the lack of cycling paths and constant tax refund to car buyers I guess?

Do they not tax cars in your country?

UK VED is a polution tax (not a road tax) and cycles don't pay it because they don't pollute. VED is a very small proportion of the UK general tax take and not ringfenced to funding roads.

UK roads are funded from the general tax pot and regular cyclists in the UK – those who cycle at least once a week – are disproportionately likely to have a household income of at least £50,000 per year which means they almost certainly pay more towards road maintainance than the general population (1).

In addition to this this, 83% of UK cyclists live in a household that pays VED in some form (2) anyway.

The argument that cyclists pay no tax and therefore don't deserve to use the roads is rubbish.

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/aug/10/cyc...

(2) https://www.eta.co.uk/2013/05/24/more-cyclists-pay-road-tax-...

Fuel is heavily taxed - 75%

> Thanks for all the lack of cycling paths and constant tax refund to car buyers I guess?

I mean, given all of the specific taxes in the UK and its municipalities on automobile ownership and operation, I don't find it credible that "car buyers" benefit from a "constant tax refund".

Also, as an outsider, I remember people chiding and undermining Boris Johnson as mayor of London when he tried investing in cycling in London, I literally heard expats making fun of it.

> When you're unable to provide safe public transport

Nobody manufactures any mass-market HVAC system for buildings or vehicles that can do continuous air sterilization at a rate that would reliably prevent the spread of this virus. I know how I would build this, but it isn't a standard component of any vehicle as of yet.

They should demand vehicles like this now, but given that nobody has experienced this sort of thing since public transit was invented, I'm not that let down that public transport isn't safe during a pandemic.

If they want to limit cars usage there is no need of cycling paths. Two ways streets become one way on one lane, the other lane is for bicycles. It must be designed to let cars reach all destinations but there is plenty of space out there in our cities (UK and everywhere else) when cars don't take it away.

>Thanks for all the lack of cycling paths and constant tax refund to car buyers I guess?

Well - the lack of safe public transport is due to this thing called "global pandemic". The scandal of public transport in the UK is not London. It is Birmingham and also some elements of the North West (connection of towns to greater Manchester in particular).

BTW - car's pay big taxes in the UK via fuel duty - 75% of the cost of petrol is tax.

Cycle more, until the end of summer 2020, then the bad weather hits, and people are back in their cars and 2020 is a distant memory.

And in the UK cycling is horrifically bad.

Car drivers that don't accept that cyclists have identical rights to use the road.

Awful tarmac and pot holes.

Drain covers and manhole covers in the road, by the gutter where cyclists are expected to cycle.

Cycle paths shared with pedestrians and dog walkers.

Cycle paths that are badly laid out, incomplete, badly signed, switch sides, full of obstructions and just don't join up.

And then there's the law. If a cyclist is killed by a motorist, the motorist rarely gets more than a slap on the wrist. If a cyclist collides with an idiot on their mobile phone that hasn't looked before they stepped off the kerb, it's the cyclist's fault.

Can someone enlightenment why opening your windows or just general walking in the public, observing social distancing, is safe from lingering viruses in the air?

Wouldn't we just breathe those virus in the air if we kept our windows opened or walking by a person who was infected?

Yes. But it lessens your chances of contracting the virus I suspect. And should you contract it via those means the viral load is likely to be reduced.

It seems that infectious people mostly don't expel it in small enough drops for it to linger.

Of course it isn't settled, but this is what all the discussion about droplet (doesn't linger) and aerosol (lingers) transmission is about.

Statistics and probability.

Sitting next to an infected person at work, cinema or bus for a long time will expose to a large probability of being infected several times with a high viral load.

Walking past an infected person the probability is low, the viral load hopefully quite dispersed.

Though getting too close to heavy breathing and sweating jogger is not recommended.

I wondered this to, and heard it explained by our radio doctor (Dr Karl in Australia). Coronavirus needs a lot of virus to get an infection - around 100,000 virus particles, whereas some others can cause an infection with just 20, so walking past isn't enough, transmission requires prolonged contact with someone infected. (not a doctor)

See "it's less infectious than airborne viruses, like measles" at https://bestlifeonline.com/coronavirus-facts/

It seems like the primary transmission mode is through droplets, not air

The evidence we have so far shows that the vast majority of cases are transmitted indoors:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v...

In practice, a transmission event happens through a certain amount of virus particles entering the body, and this doesn't seem to happen very often for Covid.

Assuming you mean COVID-19 it's because the virus is not airborne, confusing since it can infect you "through the air".

The virus lives in droplets of bodily fluid, when you're closer than 2m just speaking with someone else is enough to exchange droplets and spread infection.

It's of course possible that someone walking by your window will cough out some droplets and they might be carried through in the air and infect you but the aim of the social distancing precautions is to reduce the infection rate and spread, not to prevent anyone from ever getting the virus.

There are I believe 0 confirmed cases of virus transmission taking place outdoors, of the almost 4 million cases.

Edit - does anyone have data to contrary?

That's such an unlikely claim that the onus to show proof lies on you.

Well I heard this on Brett Weinstein's podcast where he reviewed literature showing this to be the case, a couple weeks ago at least. No doubt related to UV which has shown to kill the virus.

I'm sure you're aware that positive news about the virus is generally being censoring by mainstream outlets, if you're wondering why you didn't hear about it.

Gravity tends to with against having viruses lingering in the air.

And there is as minimal viral load you need to be exposed to, to actually get you infected.

So there is a low chance to get in contact with the virus, a even lower getting in contact with enough viral load to cause you harm.

The distance (and potentially masks) serve the purpose to get the density down to point, where it doesn't matter.

According to the DHS (I’m struggling to find a source that isn’t the White House slides, which I loath to link too) COVID-19 has a half life of about 2 minutes in sunlight on a warm day (21C).

So we’re safe from lingering viruses because COVID-19 doesn’t linger that long outside.

As viruses go COVID-19 is pretty easy to break down, and doesn’t last that long in the wild (especially compared to things like bacteria). But it’s still virulent enough to cause a pandemic, despite being pretty easy to destroy using light and alcohol.

That's all very well, but to buy a family-sized home within a half hour walk of my office, I would need a salary north of £250k. Renting an appropriately sized home is not cheap either.

Should also help the general population with circulation and vitamin D, which appear to be key factors in COVID outcomes

The government isn't a person. It can't 'urge', even if the BBC says it can.

If only they had the ability to make it easier to do so beyond mere urging. Alas

What an impoverished sense of statehood the U.K. has

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