It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that.
We might even be in pocket rather than out of it at the end of the day, especially if you work out the compound interest.
The complete ledger will be very interesting. Has it been published yet?
The net wealth of the UK is £10.7 trn. These hucksters think that every household in the country should be fined twice what they own because of what some people did hundreds of years ago.
There is , as you imply, not a country in the world that would not be paying out vast sums of money on this basis. The Middle East and North Africa would presumably owe a shedload of money to Mediterranean and Balkan Europe.
People disagree on the principle of these matters, personally I think it's distracting from efforts to make changes in the world today and vastly more complicated to assess costs and who it goes to than proponents make out (and no that doesn't mean it was OK to do it or made up for by ending it) notwithstanding some effort to work up 'payment plans' and the like, but I think framing it as some legal obligation as this judge is reportedly doing, is absolute nonsense, a political or moral demand dressed up in legalistic verbiage, which is a silly tactic.
Nations won't comply with that, nor should they, and I'd say it undermines efforts to persuade on a moral basis that it should happen (there's been some success shifting the debate that way) - or at least other attempted redress happens.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Quite a lot of them will need rebuilding in the next few years as the reinforced concrete bridges age. It might be possible to integrate cycling infrastructure properly as part of that.
All it requires is some vision and imagination from our politicians and a willingness to spend money in a useful fash...it's not happening, is it?
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that.
We might even be in pocket rather than out of it at the end of the day, especially if you work out the compound interest.
The complete ledger will be very interesting. Has it been published yet?
The net wealth of the UK is £10.7 trn. These hucksters think that every household in the country should be fined twice what they own because of what some people did hundreds of years ago.
There is , as you imply, not a country in the world that would not be paying out vast sums of money on this basis. The Middle East and North Africa would presumably owe a shedload of money to Mediterranean and Balkan Europe.
I hate to think what Tanzania would owe given Zanzibar's record...
Skim-reading the Brattle Report, there is a strange absence of any claim against African successor states of the various slave-raiding kingdoms and emirates.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
But we haven't.
We have neglected our road infrastructure as a matter of policy for three decades now.
Build new roads and then convert things absolutely, no qualms with that. That's what the Dutch have done and we have failed to do.
England is probably just as densely populated as the Netherlands if you exclude areas in England where it's difficult to build larger-than-village settlements, like the Lake District.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
Whilst I will not support the death penalty, public support has always been fairly high, and its actually pretty surprising it has not been a live issue long before now. Far more fringe issues have become political hot topics.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
Whilst I will not support the death penalty, public support has always been fairly high, and its actually pretty surprising it has not been a live issue long before now. Far more fringe issues have become political hot topics.
I think it's unlikely we'll have British politicians bragging "I'll fry 'em till their eyeballs pop out."
A rather unusual set of local by-elections today. Apart from a Con defence in Dudley there is a Green defence in Bristol and a Vectis defence in Isle of Wight.
My guiltiest of guilty pleasures used to be the US show ‘Cops’ that I checked out after a South Park parody and couldn’t stop watching. Like a literal car crash. One of the funniest moments I have ever seen was a policeman who decided to go Dukes of Hazard and chase some thieves in a pick up across a similar field with exactly the same results as here. Save the hapless plod had a camera crew to record his humiliation as tens of thousands of dollars of Spokane Police Dept property went up in smoke.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
Whilst I will not support the death penalty, public support has always been fairly high, and its actually pretty surprising it has not been a live issue long before now. Far more fringe issues have become political hot topics.
I think it's unlikely we'll have British politicians bragging "I'll fry 'em till their eyeballs pop out."
Only because Braverman would suggest boiling instead.
A rather unusual set of local by-elections today. Apart from a Con defence in Dudley there is a Green defence in Bristol and a Vectis defence in Isle of Wight.
Vectis?
See Sunil's explanation below.
There is no limit to the range and depth of knowledge amongst our posters.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
But we haven't.
We have neglected our road infrastructure as a matter of policy for three decades now.
Build new roads and then convert things absolutely, no qualms with that. That's what the Dutch have done and we have failed to do.
And in places where there's nowhere to put the additional roads, because it's built up as far as the eye can see?
NEW: SNP report a £800k deficit for the last financial year, their accounts show
- Spent more than £5m last year - 'Motor vehicles' now worth just £65k - Still owe Peter Murrell £60,000 - Accounts qualified due to lack of 'cash, cheques, and raffle income' documentation
I quite literally said an uncontrolled shut down is better than a controlled one, and now Rochdale just keeps repeating that if we hadn't had a controlled shut down we'd have had uncontrolled ones as if that's a killer argument. Yes, if we hadn't had a controlled shut down, we'd have had what is better. That's a better choice.
If the choice is scenario (A) shut down all schools, all the time, for months, or scenario (B) shut down individual classes in individual schools for a week if the teacher is off sick and no cover is available that week, then return back afterwards - then I prefer scenario B.
I'm not pretending that you could 'wish away' the pandemic, just live with it. And if the vulnerable choose to isolate, then let them choose that, free choice.
In practice everyone would have self isolated. And there would have been no mechanism for government support so business would have collapsed
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
But we haven't.
We have neglected our road infrastructure as a matter of policy for three decades now.
Build new roads and then convert things absolutely, no qualms with that. That's what the Dutch have done and we have failed to do.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Just near me: the massive A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge road, and the A428 Caxton Gibbett to Black Cat has started. So yes, major new roads.
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that..
The North in particular is owed on that score. Add in the Tudor depredations, and it's time for some serious levelling up.
Though if course if the UK is on the hook for a trillion a year (as claimed) for the next decade, we're all going to be living in grinding poverty.
Is anyone planning autumn/winter breaks in Greece? I need some Greek newspapers for props for a stage production next year so if anyone is heading out there and could bring some back, DM me so I can let you know what I need. Thanks!
I quite literally said an uncontrolled shut down is better than a controlled one, and now Rochdale just keeps repeating that if we hadn't had a controlled shut down we'd have had uncontrolled ones as if that's a killer argument. Yes, if we hadn't had a controlled shut down, we'd have had what is better. That's a better choice.
If the choice is scenario (A) shut down all schools, all the time, for months, or scenario (B) shut down individual classes in individual schools for a week if the teacher is off sick and no cover is available that week, then return back afterwards - then I prefer scenario B.
I'm not pretending that you could 'wish away' the pandemic, just live with it. And if the vulnerable choose to isolate, then let them choose that, free choice.
In practice everyone would have self isolated. And there would have been no mechanism for government support so business would have collapsed
If everyone self-isolated then there'd be no difference, and there would have been a mechanism for support (like the Swedes had) if we did what I suggested and had a voluntary furlough scheme.
So what's the problem? It'd be the same, but voluntary, which is better than the same under compulsion.
In reality it wouldn't be the same as not everyone would have self-isolated and not for as long. A lot of people were itching to return to things before they could.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
Hmmm. I can only speak locally, but the massive A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge upgrade had no cycle path alongside. However it did create a really good cyclepath alongside the old road between Fenstanton and Bar Hill, and then cycle paths along both sides of the road from there to Cambridge.
So even if there is not a path directly alongside the road, there is a massive new provision in the same corridor. And to be honest, it's better there than right beside the road.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Since the 1970s? Bugger all new roads? Are you sure?!
Taking one example, there have been four massive East-West dual carriageway builds across the south Midlands (the A43, the A45, the A14, the A421/A428). Meanwhile the parallel railway (East-West Rail) is still not open.
Taking 1973 as a start date - because that's when the Dutch cycling revolution started with Stop de Kindermoord - you can compare just the motorway network in the UK here:
And that's significantly understating things, because since the 1990s we've generally not called them motorways. But they've happened nonetheless. A417/A419, A465 Heads of the Valleys, A14, A55 Anglesey, A50 (broadly the proposed M64 alignment), those are just off the top of my head. Countless bypasses.
Sure, for some people it will never be enough, and some regions have done better (/worse) than others. But it's hardly "bugger all".
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
But we haven't.
We have neglected our road infrastructure as a matter of policy for three decades now.
Build new roads and then convert things absolutely, no qualms with that. That's what the Dutch have done and we have failed to do.
Not much cycle infrastructure gone in during that period despite all that road building.
So you are naming absolutely nothing between 1989 and 2017.
Kind of proves my point. Had there actually been some road building in that three decade period, there might have been able to be some cycling infrastructure built with it, but due to the lack of any road construction its not been viable.
And it seems that when the Queensferry Crossing was built access to the Forth Road Bridge was restricted for motor vehicles but not for cyclists?
England is probably just as densely populated as the Netherlands if you exclude areas in England where it's difficult to build larger-than-village settlements, like the Lake District.
[narrator: parts of the Netherlands are under sea level and a massive program of land reclamation has enabled the Dutch to build houses]
And in places where there's nowhere to put the additional roads, because it's built up as far as the eye can see?
Build by-passes to remove through traffic from the road so that the road is used for local traffic and not through traffic.
Just as the Dutch have successfully done in their towns and cities too.
This may be a where we live thing, but there are plenty of places where the issue isn't through traffic. It's traffic generated in one part of town going to another. Fairly short journeys, but lots of them. You can't bypass your way out of that.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
Let's hope it's the idea that's left hanging.
I know this sort of thing always polls well, but I'd be shocked if the Tories pulled the trigger on reinstating the death penalty.
In practice, governments that do reintroduce the death penalty, like those of Russia and the Phllippines, don't bother with passing laws to that effect.
On one level, trivial, but on another, more likely to damage MPs' brand than Nadine's no-show.
Something I despise personally:
Person gets rich (however, I don't know) and then gets a bit of a fame profile. Poor people then offer rich person free stuff. Rich person stays rich as he doesn't spend any money anymore, and poor people stay poor because they are giving away stuff for free.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
But we haven't.
We have neglected our road infrastructure as a matter of policy for three decades now.
Build new roads and then convert things absolutely, no qualms with that. That's what the Dutch have done and we have failed to do.
Not much cycle infrastructure gone in during that period despite all that road building.
So you are naming absolutely nothing between 1989 and 2017.
Kind of proves my point. Had there actually been some road building in that three decade period, there might have been able to be some cycling infrastructure built with it, but due to the lack of any road construction its not been viable.
And it seems that when the Queensferry Crossing was built access to the Forth Road Bridge was restricted for motor vehicles but not for cyclists?
Aberdeen bypass?
A9 dualling?
Cycle infrastructure in the Netherlands started in the 1970s
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
Hmmm. I can only speak locally, but the massive A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge upgrade had no cycle path alongside. However it did create a really good cyclepath alongside the old road between Fenstanton and Bar Hill, and then cycle paths along both sides of the road from there to Cambridge.
So even if there is not a path directly alongside the road, there is a massive new provision in the same corridor. And to be honest, it's better there than right beside the road.
Yeah, fully agreed. It's started happening in the past few years, basically. A555 Stockport has one too. The A465 over the Heads of the Valleys has a series of "offline" cycleway improvements much like you describe (some of them are seriously lovely, albeit more for leisure than utility cycling).
Earlier national schemes didn't have them and a lot of local authority ones still don't.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
But we haven't.
We have neglected our road infrastructure as a matter of policy for three decades now.
Build new roads and then convert things absolutely, no qualms with that. That's what the Dutch have done and we have failed to do.
Not much cycle infrastructure gone in during that period despite all that road building.
So you are naming absolutely nothing between 1989 and 2017.
Kind of proves my point. Had there actually been some road building in that three decade period, there might have been able to be some cycling infrastructure built with it, but due to the lack of any road construction its not been viable.
And it seems that when the Queensferry Crossing was built access to the Forth Road Bridge was restricted for motor vehicles but not for cyclists?
I'm by no means an expert on this, but there's been some major upgrading on roads down to the South West, in the past thirty years that I've been driving down there.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Just near me: the massive A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge road, and the A428 Caxton Gibbett to Black Cat has started. So yes, major new roads.
Improving connections for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders Cyclists, walkers and horse riders can now enjoy approximately 24 miles of new routes, which were included in the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme.
This includes:
Approximately 8 miles of new route between Cambridge and Fenstanton, allowing onwards access towards Huntingdon via existing routes. Over 7 miles of connections in and around the upgraded A1 near Brampton and Buckden. And approximately 9 miles of other connections around the scheme. By working with Cambridgeshire County Council we have also secured funding for additional links to join existing routes. The £3.1m programme includes five projects:
Extending a cycle path ending in Girton to provide a cycling and equestrian route into Cambridge. A foot and cycle path along the A1198 (Ermine Street) to improve a popular rural route between Papworth and Cambourne. A pedestrian and cycle path between Bar Hill and Longstanton. A pedestrian and cycle path between Wood Green and Godmanchester. Improved connections between Longstanton and Northstowe. We are still finalising the design for these routes, and work is expected to start this year (2020).
So building a 12 mile bypass of road has unlocked 24 miles of cycling paths. Twice as much new cycling mileage as there is new car mileage.
Sounds fantastic. If only there was much, much, much more of that going on.
On one level, trivial, but on another, more likely to damage MPs' brand than Nadine's no-show.
Something I despise personally:
Person gets rich (however, I don't know) and then gets a bit of a fame profile. Poor people then offer rich person free stuff. Rich person stays rich as he doesn't spend any money anymore, and poor people stay poor because they are giving away stuff for free.
Lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions were “unequivocally” effective in cutting the transmission of Covid-19 globally, according to a review by the Royal Society.
However, the authors of the report, which considered hundreds of studies into the use of masks, stay at home orders, test and trace, and border controls, said that future work should also quantify the social and economic costs of such measures.
The report involving more than 50 scientists from around the world, found that the strongest impact on coronavirus infections came from a full lockdown. Of 151 studies they considered that estimated an effect of stay at home orders, 119 found a substantial benefit, corresponding to a reduction in the “r number” — the rate of spread of the virus — by about 50 per cent.
It was also the wrong thing to do, illiberal, bad for children, bad for education and bad for the economy and the future of the NHS which now operates with a backlog and constrained taxes from a country that is broke.
Yes it would have been so much easier and convenient if there hadn't been a pandemic.
Does it actually occur to you that some of the effects were due to the virus rather than control methods.
Sure we could learn a lot from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc in terms of control. One lesson being that early control measures prevent a total shutdown.
Yes, they shut their borders. We didn't. and we had high volumes of traders coming in and out of Europe where the virus was endemic unlike them.
And no, most of the effects were due to the control methods being worse than the disease, not the virus. Had we kept schools open, then more would have died from the virus perhaps, but education would have been less harmed.
Evading death isn't the be-all and end-all that trumps everything else. Education and other factors matter just as much.
It is bonkers to suggest that the NHS could have continued operating normally. In my Trust at one point 60% of inpatients were covid patients, our ICU had expanded 3 fold, by converting operating theatres and recovery areas to ICU beds. There were neither beds nor operating theatres nor staff to operate normally, even ignoring the fact that General Anaesthesia with covid infection had a high mortality.
I think it worth considering what actions were effective, and which had little effect on disease control, and also the social and economic effects, but wishing away a pandemic doesn't work.
Whereas I think that disease control isn't the be-all and end-all.
"Controlling" the virus did what it was supposed to which was flatten the curve, so that the NHS handled nothing but Covid ICU for longer.
Not controlling the virus would have meant a bigger peak, more deaths, but a faster come down of the peak and return to normal too.
And controlling the virus damaged kids education, which is a price not worth paying.
Yes there's no easy answers. In that situation where there's no easy answers, why is it beyond the pale to suggest the answer with more deaths of the vulnerable and sick might be the better answer than harming the education of the young and healthy?
Not controlling the virus would NOT have led to a “faster come down of the peak and return to normal”. Where did you get that bizarre idea from?
Lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions were “unequivocally” effective in cutting the transmission of Covid-19 globally, according to a review by the Royal Society.
However, the authors of the report, which considered hundreds of studies into the use of masks, stay at home orders, test and trace, and border controls, said that future work should also quantify the social and economic costs of such measures.
The report involving more than 50 scientists from around the world, found that the strongest impact on coronavirus infections came from a full lockdown. Of 151 studies they considered that estimated an effect of stay at home orders, 119 found a substantial benefit, corresponding to a reduction in the “r number” — the rate of spread of the virus — by about 50 per cent.
It was also the wrong thing to do, illiberal, bad for children, bad for education and bad for the economy and the future of the NHS which now operates with a backlog and constrained taxes from a country that is broke.
Yes it would have been so much easier and convenient if there hadn't been a pandemic.
Does it actually occur to you that some of the effects were due to the virus rather than control methods.
Sure we could learn a lot from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc in terms of control. One lesson being that early control measures prevent a total shutdown.
Yes, they shut their borders. We didn't. and we had high volumes of traders coming in and out of Europe where the virus was endemic unlike them.
And no, most of the effects were due to the control methods being worse than the disease, not the virus. Had we kept schools open, then more would have died from the virus perhaps, but education would have been less harmed.
Evading death isn't the be-all and end-all that trumps everything else. Education and other factors matter just as much.
It is bonkers to suggest that the NHS could have continued operating normally. In my Trust at one point 60% of inpatients were covid patients, our ICU had expanded 3 fold, by converting operating theatres and recovery areas to ICU beds. There were neither beds nor operating theatres nor staff to operate normally, even ignoring the fact that General Anaesthesia with covid infection had a high mortality.
I think it worth considering what actions were effective, and which had little effect on disease control, and also the social and economic effects, but wishing away a pandemic doesn't work.
Whereas I think that disease control isn't the be-all and end-all.
"Controlling" the virus did what it was supposed to which was flatten the curve, so that the NHS handled nothing but Covid ICU for longer.
Not controlling the virus would have meant a bigger peak, more deaths, but a faster come down of the peak and return to normal too.
And controlling the virus damaged kids education, which is a price not worth paying.
Yes there's no easy answers. In that situation where there's no easy answers, why is it beyond the pale to suggest the answer with more deaths of the vulnerable and sick might be the better answer than harming the education of the young and healthy?
Not controlling the virus would NOT have led to a “faster come down of the peak and return to normal”. Where did you get that bizarre idea from?
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across the UK in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
May I point out that schools never actually closed.
Neither did the NHS (though the private hospitals did).
The private hospitals were block booked by the government. Elective surgeries were strongly discouraged.
The way you present it is unfair
Block booked, but hardly used. I couldn't even do outpatients.
Dare I suggest that the government wanted to avoid headlines about the rich getting treatment, and the NHS doctors doing it on their days off being anything other than totally committed to dealing with the pandemic?
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Wow
The first bit was easy. Thatbsi stuff I have actually done archaeological work for. The second list is a cheat from Wikipedia with a couple of others thrown in that I am aware of.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Just near me: the massive A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge road, and the A428 Caxton Gibbett to Black Cat has started. So yes, major new roads.
Improving connections for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders Cyclists, walkers and horse riders can now enjoy approximately 24 miles of new routes, which were included in the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme.
This includes:
Approximately 8 miles of new route between Cambridge and Fenstanton, allowing onwards access towards Huntingdon via existing routes. Over 7 miles of connections in and around the upgraded A1 near Brampton and Buckden. And approximately 9 miles of other connections around the scheme. By working with Cambridgeshire County Council we have also secured funding for additional links to join existing routes. The £3.1m programme includes five projects:
Extending a cycle path ending in Girton to provide a cycling and equestrian route into Cambridge. A foot and cycle path along the A1198 (Ermine Street) to improve a popular rural route between Papworth and Cambourne. A pedestrian and cycle path between Bar Hill and Longstanton. A pedestrian and cycle path between Wood Green and Godmanchester. Improved connections between Longstanton and Northstowe. We are still finalising the design for these routes, and work is expected to start this year (2020).
So building a 12 mile bypass of road has unlocked 24 miles of cycling paths. Twice as much new cycling mileage as there is new car mileage.
Sounds fantastic. If only there was much, much, much more of that going on.
But you said there were bugger all new roads. So a cycle path going one way along bugger all, and coming back the other side to make 2 x bugger all in total, is still bugger all - bugger all being what is known as an infinitesimal for those what have don Maths a levvel.
Can anyone help answer this question - or better yet, these questions?
About a week ago, there was a fascinating, but unsourced, chart someone showed here about changes in home tenure in England over the past more or less century (I think 1918-2021 or 2022). Googling the issue finds lots of rough approximations - but usually starting only around 1980, finishing in 2011, only at ten-year intervals or conflating State-owned and quango-owned social housing.
Can anyone post a link to the PB subject that caused the chart to be posted? And is there any possibility anyone may remember where the data comes from? It's the history of what we'd now call housing associations I'm particularly chasing today.
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that..
The North in particular is owed on that score. Add in the Tudor depredations, and it's time for some serious levelling up.
Though if course if the UK is on the hook for a trillion a year (as claimed) for the next decade, we're all going to be living in grinding poverty.
Not a bit of it, Nigel.
Those wealthy Yanks must owe us a ton for the War of Independence, The French for the Napoleonic Wars, the Germans for u know what, and of course the Japanese.
We'll be quids in, mate, by the time it's all reckoned up. We'll be able to afford a few trillion a year, and then some.
Can't wait to see the figures. When's the UN publishing them?
I quite literally said an uncontrolled shut down is better than a controlled one, and now Rochdale just keeps repeating that if we hadn't had a controlled shut down we'd have had uncontrolled ones as if that's a killer argument. Yes, if we hadn't had a controlled shut down, we'd have had what is better. That's a better choice.
If the choice is scenario (A) shut down all schools, all the time, for months, or scenario (B) shut down individual classes in individual schools for a week if the teacher is off sick and no cover is available that week, then return back afterwards - then I prefer scenario B.
I'm not pretending that you could 'wish away' the pandemic, just live with it. And if the vulnerable choose to isolate, then let them choose that, free choice.
Thanks for the clarification. How does an uncontrolled shut down of education serve kids education better than a controlled one?
The piece you seem to be missing is that (1) it isn't that odd teachers are off for a few weeks then return - its a lot of teachers off an awful lot as the virus tears through schools as super spreader nodes, and (2) kids being off means working parents can't work. And then get sick from their kids anyway. I assume your argument is that business should also have carried on as normal?
We could have let the thing rip through us. Perhaps that would have been a shorter disruption to the economy and education. But the disruption would have been harder and deeper than we had.
At least with "you must stay at home" we had furlough and CBILS and other support. "people die so what" just means empty cinemas and pubs and no support and mass bankruptcies. I know that as a libertarian you support businesses going bankrupt as a sign of a market economy doing its job, but it isn't good when a lot fail within a short space of time. Does tend to have a very negative effect on the economy.
The independent enquiry needs to get into all of this. But the "it would have been fine" scenario still feels like wishful thinking on your part.
Yes a lot of teachers might be off for a few days while they're actually sick.
That does not equate to months of shutdown of all classes in all schools.
You keep saying this thing. It did not happen. Schools remained open throughout.
Remote learning, children trying to share one laptop on the kitchen table between three, if they had laptops. Eton moved seamlessly to remote learning and I'm not sure anyone there noticed the difference (although developmentally I'm sure they suffered like everyone else). Hartlepool High? Less so.
Schools remained open in person.
Only for vulnerable children.
So. They weren't shut then.
Don't be a twat. They were effectively closed to 98% of children. Parents home schooled their offspring.
I think in the winter wave of 2020-21 close to half of pupils were attending in person, at least in England.
So over half not in school and all suffering one way or another.
So you’ve admitted you’re talking utter bollocks oh this as you’ve gone from 2% to 50% in an hour.
I’d stop hiking up Mount Wrong any further.
The only people talking bollocks are those who are saying "but schools never closed what's the big problem".
If that includes you then so be it
No, you’re talking more shite.
No option in March 2020 we had no good options, lockdowns was the least worst option.
I agree we had no good options in Mar 2020. I also remember that period: we were having to come up with ideas on the fly without the time available for detailed analysis of all the implications, while a huge amount was still unknown about the disease. However, with the considerable benefit of hindsight, there were a lot of things we could have been doing better that would have reduced the need for lockdowns.
For the future, if people want to avoid lockdowns, invest now in public health provision and pandemic preparedness.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
'Half the public (49 per cent) would support reinstating the death penalty for ‘any murder’, a figure that has risen by eight points since February. More than half (52 per cent) back capital punishment for anyone who assassinates a Royal, a figure that rises to 54 per cent for those who kill a police officer, 59 per cent for a multiple murderer and 63 per cent for a child murderer. This last figure is up by six points since February. Other crimes have also been affected by this surge in support for the noose, with 59 per cent of the public saying they back the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism or multiple rapes.'
The Tories however despite 13 years in government have not reintroduced the death penalty for any crime and likely will not have a manifesto commitment to restore it either and nor will Labour make a promise to do so in their manifesto.
Just be grateful we have representative not direct democracy, with only RefUK perhaps likely to even consider restoring the death penalty for some crimes. If we went to a referendum on it it certainly would be back for some crimes. Another reason we don't need more referendums
On one level, trivial, but on another, more likely to damage MPs' brand than Nadine's no-show.
Why on earth are MPs accepting these gifts ?
In a few cases, I suppose they may be legitimately connected with the MP's interests - e.g. in gambling or hortoculture on a Committee. Yet they have expenses to claim for that sort of thing. And remember what Which do - they never accept freebies whether washing machines or holidays when they are testing. Independence is all.
There is no way you could claim a ticket to the Chelsea Flower Show on MPs' expenses. I also don't really understand why you think charging such things to the public purse would be better than taking a free ticket.
The comparison with "Which?" magazine is also a bit ludicrous. Nobody is relying on Oliver Dowden for recommendations over whether or not to go to the Chelsea Flower Show.
Independence. Rather than being beholden to the donor.
If you take bribes from everyone you are beholden to no one?
Or none at all. Though come to think of it, I am just reading through my collection of Alfred Duggan historical novels. The hero (? - not sure yet) of The Little Emperors is one Gaius Felix who is the civilian, maybe we'd say Colonial Administrator, of the Home Counties in Britannia in the late Empire. Apart from complaining about such things as lazy British workers, the rain, the difficulty of getting enough builders and so on, the effects of devolution, and the way in which inflation and spending make it impossible to balance the budget, he follows precisely your suggestion - or at least accepting the bribe only after the judgement has been made.
I quite literally said an uncontrolled shut down is better than a controlled one, and now Rochdale just keeps repeating that if we hadn't had a controlled shut down we'd have had uncontrolled ones as if that's a killer argument. Yes, if we hadn't had a controlled shut down, we'd have had what is better. That's a better choice.
If the choice is scenario (A) shut down all schools, all the time, for months, or scenario (B) shut down individual classes in individual schools for a week if the teacher is off sick and no cover is available that week, then return back afterwards - then I prefer scenario B.
I'm not pretending that you could 'wish away' the pandemic, just live with it. And if the vulnerable choose to isolate, then let them choose that, free choice.
Thanks for the clarification. How does an uncontrolled shut down of education serve kids education better than a controlled one?
The piece you seem to be missing is that (1) it isn't that odd teachers are off for a few weeks then return - its a lot of teachers off an awful lot as the virus tears through schools as super spreader nodes, and (2) kids being off means working parents can't work. And then get sick from their kids anyway. I assume your argument is that business should also have carried on as normal?
We could have let the thing rip through us. Perhaps that would have been a shorter disruption to the economy and education. But the disruption would have been harder and deeper than we had.
At least with "you must stay at home" we had furlough and CBILS and other support. "people die so what" just means empty cinemas and pubs and no support and mass bankruptcies. I know that as a libertarian you support businesses going bankrupt as a sign of a market economy doing its job, but it isn't good when a lot fail within a short space of time. Does tend to have a very negative effect on the economy.
The independent enquiry needs to get into all of this. But the "it would have been fine" scenario still feels like wishful thinking on your part.
Yes a lot of teachers might be off for a few days while they're actually sick.
That does not equate to months of shutdown of all classes in all schools.
You keep saying this thing. It did not happen. Schools remained open throughout.
Remote learning, children trying to share one laptop on the kitchen table between three, if they had laptops. Eton moved seamlessly to remote learning and I'm not sure anyone there noticed the difference (although developmentally I'm sure they suffered like everyone else). Hartlepool High? Less so.
Schools remained open in person.
Only for vulnerable children.
So. They weren't shut then.
Don't be a twat. They were effectively closed to 98% of children. Parents home schooled their offspring.
I think in the winter wave of 2020-21 close to half of pupils were attending in person, at least in England.
So over half not in school and all suffering one way or another.
So you’ve admitted you’re talking utter bollocks oh this as you’ve gone from 2% to 50% in an hour.
I’d stop hiking up Mount Wrong any further.
The only people talking bollocks are those who are saying "but schools never closed what's the big problem".
If that includes you then so be it
No, you’re talking more shite.
No option in March 2020 we had no good options, lockdowns was the least worst option.
I agree we had no good options in Mar 2020. I also remember that period: we were having to come up with ideas on the fly without the time available for detailed analysis of all the implications, while a huge amount was still unknown about the disease. However, with the considerable benefit of hindsight, there were a lot of things we could have been doing better that would have reduced the need for lockdowns.
For the future, if people want to avoid lockdowns, invest now in public health provision and pandemic preparedness.
Off the top of my head:
- HEPA ventilation for schools and hospitals at the least and recommended for any other indoor environment. - More research into far-UV treatment of air (any negatives, etc) - Research to disentangle the effects of various NPIs (this one is a good start) - More investment into vaccine research and capability
All of that would help with any respiratory pandemic in future.
Oh, and decent public education on vaccines. The contemptible shits and grifters doing their best to misinform and scare the public are fortunately not as effective here as they are in the US (that study published the other day was sickening), but they have had some traction.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Just near me: the massive A14 Huntingdon to Cambridge road, and the A428 Caxton Gibbett to Black Cat has started. So yes, major new roads.
Improving connections for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders Cyclists, walkers and horse riders can now enjoy approximately 24 miles of new routes, which were included in the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme.
This includes:
Approximately 8 miles of new route between Cambridge and Fenstanton, allowing onwards access towards Huntingdon via existing routes. Over 7 miles of connections in and around the upgraded A1 near Brampton and Buckden. And approximately 9 miles of other connections around the scheme. By working with Cambridgeshire County Council we have also secured funding for additional links to join existing routes. The £3.1m programme includes five projects:
Extending a cycle path ending in Girton to provide a cycling and equestrian route into Cambridge. A foot and cycle path along the A1198 (Ermine Street) to improve a popular rural route between Papworth and Cambourne. A pedestrian and cycle path between Bar Hill and Longstanton. A pedestrian and cycle path between Wood Green and Godmanchester. Improved connections between Longstanton and Northstowe. We are still finalising the design for these routes, and work is expected to start this year (2020).
So building a 12 mile bypass of road has unlocked 24 miles of cycling paths. Twice as much new cycling mileage as there is new car mileage.
Sounds fantastic. If only there was much, much, much more of that going on.
But you said there were bugger all new roads. So a cycle path going one way along bugger all, and coming back the other side to make 2 x bugger all in total, is still bugger all - bugger all being what is known as an infinitesimal for those what have don Maths a levvel.
*confused*
I don't think the 24 is counting the 12 twice, considering the numbers add up to 24 by going to different locations. Which is the point in building by-passes, it liberates old roads elsewhere on multiple sides not just one.
But yes, our population has grown by nearly 20% in a generation, our road capacity should have grown by 20% too accordingly. Building a 12 mile bypass and a few other piddly things here and there is nothing to shout home about, there should be much more than that done.
Which is what the Dutch have done, which is why they're able to have so much cycling infrastructure, because they have 36% more road mileage than we do.
WINNERS: Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley MIDDLE OF THE PACK: Tim Scott and Chris Christie LOSERS: Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Wow
The first bit was easy. Thatbsi stuff I have actually done archaeological work for. The second list is a cheat from Wikipedia with a couple of others thrown in that I am aware of.
But as I say there are loads more.
RT is obviously a skilled exponent of the Art of Coarse PB Posting. I am duly impressed.
May I point out that schools never actually closed.
Neither did the NHS (though the private hospitals did).
The private hospitals were block booked by the government. Elective surgeries were strongly discouraged.
The way you present it is unfair
Block booked, but hardly used. I couldn't even do outpatients.
Dare I suggest that the government wanted to avoid headlines about the rich getting treatment, and the NHS doctors doing it on their days off being anything other than totally committed to dealing with the pandemic?
No, the idea was to nationalise the Private hospitals to take overflow patients, then shifted to doing "clean work" in a covid free environment for urgent cancers etc. The reality was these were very under used.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
WINNERS: Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley MIDDLE OF THE PACK: Tim Scott and Chris Christie LOSERS: Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum
Lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions were “unequivocally” effective in cutting the transmission of Covid-19 globally, according to a review by the Royal Society.
However, the authors of the report, which considered hundreds of studies into the use of masks, stay at home orders, test and trace, and border controls, said that future work should also quantify the social and economic costs of such measures.
The report involving more than 50 scientists from around the world, found that the strongest impact on coronavirus infections came from a full lockdown. Of 151 studies they considered that estimated an effect of stay at home orders, 119 found a substantial benefit, corresponding to a reduction in the “r number” — the rate of spread of the virus — by about 50 per cent.
It was also the wrong thing to do, illiberal, bad for children, bad for education and bad for the economy and the future of the NHS which now operates with a backlog and constrained taxes from a country that is broke.
Yes it would have been so much easier and convenient if there hadn't been a pandemic.
Does it actually occur to you that some of the effects were due to the virus rather than control methods.
Sure we could learn a lot from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc in terms of control. One lesson being that early control measures prevent a total shutdown.
Yes, they shut their borders. We didn't. and we had high volumes of traders coming in and out of Europe where the virus was endemic unlike them.
And no, most of the effects were due to the control methods being worse than the disease, not the virus. Had we kept schools open, then more would have died from the virus perhaps, but education would have been less harmed.
Evading death isn't the be-all and end-all that trumps everything else. Education and other factors matter just as much.
It is bonkers to suggest that the NHS could have continued operating normally. In my Trust at one point 60% of inpatients were covid patients, our ICU had expanded 3 fold, by converting operating theatres and recovery areas to ICU beds. There were neither beds nor operating theatres nor staff to operate normally, even ignoring the fact that General Anaesthesia with covid infection had a high mortality.
I think it worth considering what actions were effective, and which had little effect on disease control, and also the social and economic effects, but wishing away a pandemic doesn't work.
Whereas I think that disease control isn't the be-all and end-all.
"Controlling" the virus did what it was supposed to which was flatten the curve, so that the NHS handled nothing but Covid ICU for longer.
Not controlling the virus would have meant a bigger peak, more deaths, but a faster come down of the peak and return to normal too.
And controlling the virus damaged kids education, which is a price not worth paying.
Yes there's no easy answers. In that situation where there's no easy answers, why is it beyond the pale to suggest the answer with more deaths of the vulnerable and sick might be the better answer than harming the education of the young and healthy?
Not controlling the virus would NOT have led to a “faster come down of the peak and return to normal”. Where did you get that bizarre idea from?
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
The argument that a x% increase in population warrants a corresponding x% increase in the length of roads in the country is too simplistic. For starters, it assumes all the roads were at capacity to begin with, which clearly isn’t the case.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
'Half the public (49 per cent) would support reinstating the death penalty for ‘any murder’, a figure that has risen by eight points since February. More than half (52 per cent) back capital punishment for anyone who assassinates a Royal, a figure that rises to 54 per cent for those who kill a police officer, 59 per cent for a multiple murderer and 63 per cent for a child murderer. This last figure is up by six points since February. Other crimes have also been affected by this surge in support for the noose, with 59 per cent of the public saying they back the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism or multiple rapes.'
The Tories however despite 13 years in government have not reintroduced the death penalty for any crime and likely will not have a manifesto commitment to restore it either and nor will Labour make a promise to do so in their manifesto.
Just be grateful we have representative not direct democracy, with only RefUK perhaps likely to even consider restoring the death penalty for some crimes. If we went to a referendum on it it certainly would be back for some crimes. Another reason we don't need more referendums
Support for the death penalty usually rises, once some heinous crime gets reported.
Letby deserves to be put to death, but bring back hanging, and you run into all kinds of practical difficulties. The jury spent days poring over the evidence. Would they have given her the benefit of the doubt, had they known she'd be hanged?
It's easy enough to agree that the Letbys of this world deserve to be hanged, but do all murderers deserve to be hanged? In most cases, if we examined the evidence, we would probably say no. Most murders take place in a terrible moment of madness, rather than the kind of ruthless cold-blooded killing that Letby practised. So, we'd be left arguing over which murderers deserved death and which didn't, since we're obviously not going to hang 6-700 people a year.
Then, you get the miscarriages of justice.
Hanging probably lasted a generation longer in this country than it would otherwise, because of the Nuremberg trials. No one disputed that leading Nazis deserved the rope (and most of them got away with their crimes).
Lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions were “unequivocally” effective in cutting the transmission of Covid-19 globally, according to a review by the Royal Society.
However, the authors of the report, which considered hundreds of studies into the use of masks, stay at home orders, test and trace, and border controls, said that future work should also quantify the social and economic costs of such measures.
The report involving more than 50 scientists from around the world, found that the strongest impact on coronavirus infections came from a full lockdown. Of 151 studies they considered that estimated an effect of stay at home orders, 119 found a substantial benefit, corresponding to a reduction in the “r number” — the rate of spread of the virus — by about 50 per cent.
It was also the wrong thing to do, illiberal, bad for children, bad for education and bad for the economy and the future of the NHS which now operates with a backlog and constrained taxes from a country that is broke.
Yes it would have been so much easier and convenient if there hadn't been a pandemic.
Does it actually occur to you that some of the effects were due to the virus rather than control methods.
Sure we could learn a lot from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc in terms of control. One lesson being that early control measures prevent a total shutdown.
Yes, they shut their borders. We didn't. and we had high volumes of traders coming in and out of Europe where the virus was endemic unlike them.
And no, most of the effects were due to the control methods being worse than the disease, not the virus. Had we kept schools open, then more would have died from the virus perhaps, but education would have been less harmed.
Evading death isn't the be-all and end-all that trumps everything else. Education and other factors matter just as much.
It is bonkers to suggest that the NHS could have continued operating normally. In my Trust at one point 60% of inpatients were covid patients, our ICU had expanded 3 fold, by converting operating theatres and recovery areas to ICU beds. There were neither beds nor operating theatres nor staff to operate normally, even ignoring the fact that General Anaesthesia with covid infection had a high mortality.
I think it worth considering what actions were effective, and which had little effect on disease control, and also the social and economic effects, but wishing away a pandemic doesn't work.
Whereas I think that disease control isn't the be-all and end-all.
"Controlling" the virus did what it was supposed to which was flatten the curve, so that the NHS handled nothing but Covid ICU for longer.
Not controlling the virus would have meant a bigger peak, more deaths, but a faster come down of the peak and return to normal too.
And controlling the virus damaged kids education, which is a price not worth paying.
Yes there's no easy answers. In that situation where there's no easy answers, why is it beyond the pale to suggest the answer with more deaths of the vulnerable and sick might be the better answer than harming the education of the young and healthy?
Not controlling the virus would NOT have led to a “faster come down of the peak and return to normal”. Where did you get that bizarre idea from?
SAGE.
Show me a quotation.
See the "flatten the curve" charts that were routinely shown as a justification for lockdown. Controlling the virus means dragging it out for longer.
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that.
We might even be in pocket rather than out of it at the end of the day, especially if you work out the compound interest.
The complete ledger will be very interesting. Has it been published yet?
The net wealth of the UK is £10.7 trn. These hucksters think that every household in the country should be fined twice what they own because of what some people did hundreds of years ago.
There is , as you imply, not a country in the world that would not be paying out vast sums of money on this basis. The Middle East and North Africa would presumably owe a shedload of money to Mediterranean and Balkan Europe.
Maybe we could just sell the population into slavery ?
May I point out that schools never actually closed.
Neither did the NHS (though the private hospitals did).
The private hospitals were block booked by the government. Elective surgeries were strongly discouraged.
The way you present it is unfair
Block booked, but hardly used. I couldn't even do outpatients.
Dare I suggest that the government wanted to avoid headlines about the rich getting treatment, and the NHS doctors doing it on their days off being anything other than totally committed to dealing with the pandemic?
No, the idea was to nationalise the Private hospitals to take overflow patients, then shifted to doing "clean work" in a covid free environment for urgent cancers etc. The reality was these were very under used.
Oh indeed, I was simply suggesting how a tabloid newspaper might frame a story negatively, were they to be so inclined.
Obviously a pandemic is a sh!tty time to be a doctor, and from what I observed doctors in the UK did very well.
Especially compared to the US, where the famous TV doctors had a very bad pandemic indeed, and everything was over-politicised.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
Why? We build and upgrade roads where there is a need and where it is possible. Sadly the places where we most ned to build more roads - on the approaches to and in the centre of towns and cities - it usually isn't practical. Outside of cities I very rarely if ever run into traffic jams and those which I did all now seem to be the subject of planned or completed upgrades.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
The argument that a x% increase in population warrants a corresponding x% increase in the length of roads in the country is too simplistic. For starters, it assumes all the roads were at capacity to begin with, which clearly isn’t the case.
Well it generally scales with population density, which is why comparing UK to Netherlands (they have double the road density we do) is unreasonable, but comparing England to Netherlands (they have 36% more road density) seems more reasonable.
A 20% increase in population does roughly equate to a 20% increase in demand. But we've fallen well short of boosting either roads of housing supply by 20% to match the population growth.
Netting for population, our road capacity is going backwards not forwards. Just like our housing capacity.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
The argument that a x% increase in population warrants a corresponding x% increase in the length of roads in the country is too simplistic. For starters, it assumes all the roads were at capacity to begin with, which clearly isn’t the case.
Well it generally scales with population density, which is why comparing UK to Netherlands (they have double the road density we do) is unreasonable, but comparing England to Netherlands (they have 36% more road density) seems more reasonable.
A 20% increase in population does roughly equate to a 20% increase in demand. But we've fallen well short of boosting either roads of housing supply by 20% to match the population growth.
Netting for population, our road capacity is going backwards not forwards. Just like our housing capacity.
Again, unless demand was already at 100% of road capacity, an increase in demand doesn’t necessarily require a one-to-one increase in capacity.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
'Half the public (49 per cent) would support reinstating the death penalty for ‘any murder’, a figure that has risen by eight points since February. More than half (52 per cent) back capital punishment for anyone who assassinates a Royal, a figure that rises to 54 per cent for those who kill a police officer, 59 per cent for a multiple murderer and 63 per cent for a child murderer. This last figure is up by six points since February. Other crimes have also been affected by this surge in support for the noose, with 59 per cent of the public saying they back the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism or multiple rapes.'
The Tories however despite 13 years in government have not reintroduced the death penalty for any crime and likely will not have a manifesto commitment to restore it either and nor will Labour make a promise to do so in their manifesto.
Just be grateful we have representative not direct democracy, with only RefUK perhaps likely to even consider restoring the death penalty for some crimes. If we went to a referendum on it it certainly would be back for some crimes. Another reason we don't need more referendums
Support for the death penalty usually rises, once some heinous crime gets reported.
Letby deserves to be put to death, but bring back hanging, and you run into all kinds of practical difficulties. The jury spent days poring over the evidence. Would they have given her the benefit of the doubt, had they known she'd be hanged?
It's easy enough to agree that the Letbys of this world deserve to be hanged, but do all murderers deserve to be hanged? In most cases, if we examined the evidence, we would probably say no. Most murders take place in a terrible moment of madness, rather than the kind of ruthless cold-blooded killing that Letby practised. So, we'd be left arguing over which murderers deserved death and which didn't, since we're obviously not going to hang 6-700 people a year.
Then, you get the miscarriages of justice.
Hanging probably lasted a generation longer in this country than it would otherwise, because of the Nuremberg trials. No one disputed that leading Nazis deserved the rope (and most of them got away with their crimes).
The start point of 6-700 can be immediately discounted, as people currently receiving a whole life tariff might get the death penalty. That's 68 people right now.
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that..
The North in particular is owed on that score. Add in the Tudor depredations, and it's time for some serious levelling up.
Though if course if the UK is on the hook for a trillion a year (as claimed) for the next decade, we're all going to be living in grinding poverty.
Not a bit of it, Nigel.
Those wealthy Yanks must owe us a ton for the War of Independence, The French for the Napoleonic Wars, the Germans for u know what, and of course the Japanese.
We'll be quids in, mate, by the time it's all reckoned up. We'll be able to afford a few trillion a year, and then some.
Can't wait to see the figures. When's the UN publishing them?
Plus the Turks and Moroccans for the slaves taken by the Barbary Corsairs, the Danes for the slaves the Vikings took and the Italians for the slaves the Romans took
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
Several points arise.
Most people apparently want us to stay in the ECHR; this bans the death penalty, so actually no real debate will occur.
The Tories may send out useful idiots (Lee Anderson etc) to make noises, securing a couple of million centrist Tory votes (including mine) for Labour/LD, but this will not become policy.
And, being practical, take a case like Letby where there was no smoking gun and the evidence kept the jury out for a month, after which they acquitted or were undecided on several counts.
Letby would get off if on both a trial and retrial only 3 of the jury were unprepared to convict in the light of the possibility of the death penalty. The chance of this would be high.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
'Half the public (49 per cent) would support reinstating the death penalty for ‘any murder’, a figure that has risen by eight points since February. More than half (52 per cent) back capital punishment for anyone who assassinates a Royal, a figure that rises to 54 per cent for those who kill a police officer, 59 per cent for a multiple murderer and 63 per cent for a child murderer. This last figure is up by six points since February. Other crimes have also been affected by this surge in support for the noose, with 59 per cent of the public saying they back the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism or multiple rapes.'
The Tories however despite 13 years in government have not reintroduced the death penalty for any crime and likely will not have a manifesto commitment to restore it either and nor will Labour make a promise to do so in their manifesto.
Just be grateful we have representative not direct democracy, with only RefUK perhaps likely to even consider restoring the death penalty for some crimes. If we went to a referendum on it it certainly would be back for some crimes. Another reason we don't need more referendums
Support for the death penalty usually rises, once some heinous crime gets reported.
Letby deserves to be put to death, but bring back hanging, and you run into all kinds of practical difficulties. The jury spent days poring over the evidence. Would they have given her the benefit of the doubt, had they known she'd be hanged?
It's easy enough to agree that the Letbys of this world deserve to be hanged, but do all murderers deserve to be hanged? In most cases, if we examined the evidence, we would probably say no. Most murders take place in a terrible moment of madness, rather than the kind of ruthless cold-blooded killing that Letby practised. So, we'd be left arguing over which murderers deserved death and which didn't, since we're obviously not going to hang 6-700 people a year.
That is a very high figure, MrF. IIRC, when we abolished the death penalty a long time ago now, the rate was only 100 murders per annum, and most of these were within the family.
I assume Starmer will also renationalise the railways and utility companies and massively increase tax on the rich as most voters want too? No, seems not either
Lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions were “unequivocally” effective in cutting the transmission of Covid-19 globally, according to a review by the Royal Society.
However, the authors of the report, which considered hundreds of studies into the use of masks, stay at home orders, test and trace, and border controls, said that future work should also quantify the social and economic costs of such measures.
The report involving more than 50 scientists from around the world, found that the strongest impact on coronavirus infections came from a full lockdown. Of 151 studies they considered that estimated an effect of stay at home orders, 119 found a substantial benefit, corresponding to a reduction in the “r number” — the rate of spread of the virus — by about 50 per cent.
It was also the wrong thing to do, illiberal, bad for children, bad for education and bad for the economy and the future of the NHS which now operates with a backlog and constrained taxes from a country that is broke.
Yes it would have been so much easier and convenient if there hadn't been a pandemic.
Does it actually occur to you that some of the effects were due to the virus rather than control methods.
Sure we could learn a lot from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc in terms of control. One lesson being that early control measures prevent a total shutdown.
Yes, they shut their borders. We didn't. and we had high volumes of traders coming in and out of Europe where the virus was endemic unlike them.
And no, most of the effects were due to the control methods being worse than the disease, not the virus. Had we kept schools open, then more would have died from the virus perhaps, but education would have been less harmed.
Evading death isn't the be-all and end-all that trumps everything else. Education and other factors matter just as much.
It is bonkers to suggest that the NHS could have continued operating normally. In my Trust at one point 60% of inpatients were covid patients, our ICU had expanded 3 fold, by converting operating theatres and recovery areas to ICU beds. There were neither beds nor operating theatres nor staff to operate normally, even ignoring the fact that General Anaesthesia with covid infection had a high mortality.
I think it worth considering what actions were effective, and which had little effect on disease control, and also the social and economic effects, but wishing away a pandemic doesn't work.
Whereas I think that disease control isn't the be-all and end-all.
"Controlling" the virus did what it was supposed to which was flatten the curve, so that the NHS handled nothing but Covid ICU for longer.
Not controlling the virus would have meant a bigger peak, more deaths, but a faster come down of the peak and return to normal too.
And controlling the virus damaged kids education, which is a price not worth paying.
Yes there's no easy answers. In that situation where there's no easy answers, why is it beyond the pale to suggest the answer with more deaths of the vulnerable and sick might be the better answer than harming the education of the young and healthy?
Not controlling the virus would NOT have led to a “faster come down of the peak and return to normal”. Where did you get that bizarre idea from?
SAGE.
Show me a quotation.
See the "flatten the curve" charts that were routinely shown as a justification for lockdown. Controlling the virus means dragging it out for longer.
Bear in mind that we barely got over the rim of that sombrero. Back of an LFT estimate is that Wave 1 (March 2020) infected about 5 million people and killed about 50000 of them. That's a tiny fraction of what would have been needed.
There's a brilliant dystopia to be written about the world where we had to get immunity by infection, but it would have been the sort of trauma that I don't want to imagine.
Fortunately, vaccine scientists meant that we didn't need to do that. And the vibes were hopeful from pretty early on. It's also the big thing that the Swedes got wrong- their model was all about having to wait several years for a vaccine to be widely available and working out what social restrictions could be sustained for that long.
I quite literally said an uncontrolled shut down is better than a controlled one, and now Rochdale just keeps repeating that if we hadn't had a controlled shut down we'd have had uncontrolled ones as if that's a killer argument. Yes, if we hadn't had a controlled shut down, we'd have had what is better. That's a better choice.
If the choice is scenario (A) shut down all schools, all the time, for months, or scenario (B) shut down individual classes in individual schools for a week if the teacher is off sick and no cover is available that week, then return back afterwards - then I prefer scenario B.
I'm not pretending that you could 'wish away' the pandemic, just live with it. And if the vulnerable choose to isolate, then let them choose that, free choice.
Thanks for the clarification. How does an uncontrolled shut down of education serve kids education better than a controlled one?
The piece you seem to be missing is that (1) it isn't that odd teachers are off for a few weeks then return - its a lot of teachers off an awful lot as the virus tears through schools as super spreader nodes, and (2) kids being off means working parents can't work. And then get sick from their kids anyway. I assume your argument is that business should also have carried on as normal?
We could have let the thing rip through us. Perhaps that would have been a shorter disruption to the economy and education. But the disruption would have been harder and deeper than we had.
At least with "you must stay at home" we had furlough and CBILS and other support. "people die so what" just means empty cinemas and pubs and no support and mass bankruptcies. I know that as a libertarian you support businesses going bankrupt as a sign of a market economy doing its job, but it isn't good when a lot fail within a short space of time. Does tend to have a very negative effect on the economy.
The independent enquiry needs to get into all of this. But the "it would have been fine" scenario still feels like wishful thinking on your part.
Yes a lot of teachers might be off for a few days while they're actually sick.
That does not equate to months of shutdown of all classes in all schools.
You keep saying this thing. It did not happen. Schools remained open throughout.
Remote learning, children trying to share one laptop on the kitchen table between three, if they had laptops. Eton moved seamlessly to remote learning and I'm not sure anyone there noticed the difference (although developmentally I'm sure they suffered like everyone else). Hartlepool High? Less so.
Schools remained open in person.
Only for vulnerable children.
So. They weren't shut then.
Don't be a twat. They were effectively closed to 98% of children. Parents home schooled their offspring.
I think in the winter wave of 2020-21 close to half of pupils were attending in person, at least in England.
So over half not in school and all suffering one way or another.
So you’ve admitted you’re talking utter bollocks oh this as you’ve gone from 2% to 50% in an hour.
I’d stop hiking up Mount Wrong any further.
The only people talking bollocks are those who are saying "but schools never closed what's the big problem".
If that includes you then so be it
No, you’re talking more shite.
No option in March 2020 we had no good options, lockdowns was the least worst option.
Now you're changing the subject. I said I understand the first lockdown. Not that it was right or wrong but I understand it.
You said "lockdowns" were the least worst option. Which is bollocks squared. After the first one there should have been no more mandated lockdowns.
But of course you are part of the doing very comfortably PB group who can't imagine what hell lockdowns inflicted upon those less fortunate.
So your response is no surprise whatsoever. Tell us about your last and next bonus again why don't you.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
Why? We build and upgrade roads where there is a need and where it is possible. Sadly the places where we most ned to build more roads - on the approaches to and in the centre of towns and cities - it usually isn't practical. Outside of cities I very rarely if ever run into traffic jams and those which I did all now seem to be the subject of planned or completed upgrades.
Of course it's practical, it's just not done as a matter of policy and because investment is expensive.
A lot of traffic in cities is because of throughout being driven there rather than it needing to be there. Most of the North West motorways converge in Manchester meaning even if you don't want to go to Manchester, realistically you have to drive through Manchester as there's no alternative.
Take the M62/M60 for instance. If you want to go from North Liverpool to Rochdale (which is further North) the route is start by going South, the complete wrong direction, then East on the M62, North through Manchester at the M60, then East again.
Build an "M580" motorway and a lot of cars currently on the M62 or M60 would no longer need to be on that route.
And that's just one random example. And of course the terrible lack of redundancy and alternative routes on our roads means in the event that the M62 is closed due to an accident then there is no alternative motorway to be used and people use towns as rat runs.
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that..
The North in particular is owed on that score. Add in the Tudor depredations, and it's time for some serious levelling up.
Though if course if the UK is on the hook for a trillion a year (as claimed) for the next decade, we're all going to be living in grinding poverty.
Not a bit of it, Nigel.
Those wealthy Yanks must owe us a ton for the War of Independence, The French for the Napoleonic Wars, the Germans for u know what, and of course the Japanese.
We'll be quids in, mate, by the time it's all reckoned up. We'll be able to afford a few trillion a year, and then some.
Can't wait to see the figures. When's the UN publishing them?
Be fair to the UN Judge, he is prepared to kindly allow us between 10 and 25 years to pay our dues.
Most reasonable.
All of the charities and NGO's will be very supportive of these spurious claims as they will be the ones to administer it. There is alot of grift around.
We can add it to the trillions in climate reparations we owe too.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
'Half the public (49 per cent) would support reinstating the death penalty for ‘any murder’, a figure that has risen by eight points since February. More than half (52 per cent) back capital punishment for anyone who assassinates a Royal, a figure that rises to 54 per cent for those who kill a police officer, 59 per cent for a multiple murderer and 63 per cent for a child murderer. This last figure is up by six points since February. Other crimes have also been affected by this surge in support for the noose, with 59 per cent of the public saying they back the death penalty for those convicted of terrorism or multiple rapes.'
The Tories however despite 13 years in government have not reintroduced the death penalty for any crime and likely will not have a manifesto commitment to restore it either and nor will Labour make a promise to do so in their manifesto.
Just be grateful we have representative not direct democracy, with only RefUK perhaps likely to even consider restoring the death penalty for some crimes. If we went to a referendum on it it certainly would be back for some crimes. Another reason we don't need more referendums
Support for the death penalty usually rises, once some heinous crime gets reported.
Letby deserves to be put to death, but bring back hanging, and you run into all kinds of practical difficulties. The jury spent days poring over the evidence. Would they have given her the benefit of the doubt, had they known she'd be hanged?
It's easy enough to agree that the Letbys of this world deserve to be hanged, but do all murderers deserve to be hanged? In most cases, if we examined the evidence, we would probably say no. Most murders take place in a terrible moment of madness, rather than the kind of ruthless cold-blooded killing that Letby practised. So, we'd be left arguing over which murderers deserved death and which didn't, since we're obviously not going to hang 6-700 people a year.
Then, you get the miscarriages of justice.
Hanging probably lasted a generation longer in this country than it would otherwise, because of the Nuremberg trials. No one disputed that leading Nazis deserved the rope (and most of them got away with their crimes).
The start point of 6-700 can be immediately discounted, as people currently receiving a whole life tariff might get the death penalty. That's 68 people right now.
I quite like that there’s only 68 people who will never get out of prison. I suspect that this forum can probably name most of them pretty quickly as well. They’re generally terrorists, child murderers, and serial killers. And Wayne Couzens.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
The argument that a x% increase in population warrants a corresponding x% increase in the length of roads in the country is too simplistic. For starters, it assumes all the roads were at capacity to begin with, which clearly isn’t the case.
Well it generally scales with population density, which is why comparing UK to Netherlands (they have double the road density we do) is unreasonable, but comparing England to Netherlands (they have 36% more road density) seems more reasonable.
A 20% increase in population does roughly equate to a 20% increase in demand. But we've fallen well short of boosting either roads of housing supply by 20% to match the population growth.
Netting for population, our road capacity is going backwards not forwards. Just like our housing capacity.
Again, unless demand was already at 100% of road capacity, an increase in demand doesn’t necessarily require a one-to-one increase in capacity.
Then why does the Netherlands have 36% more road density than England?
Building roads works. Simply cramming more people into the same infrastructure doesn't. Either way, quite patiently I was right and road construction (like housing) has been totally neglected relative to population growth.
We need mass construction of houses, roads and cycle paths, all of the above not either or to handle our population growth.
And as long as we keep getting population growth in the hundreds of thousands per annum, that will continue to remain true.
Lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions were “unequivocally” effective in cutting the transmission of Covid-19 globally, according to a review by the Royal Society.
However, the authors of the report, which considered hundreds of studies into the use of masks, stay at home orders, test and trace, and border controls, said that future work should also quantify the social and economic costs of such measures.
The report involving more than 50 scientists from around the world, found that the strongest impact on coronavirus infections came from a full lockdown. Of 151 studies they considered that estimated an effect of stay at home orders, 119 found a substantial benefit, corresponding to a reduction in the “r number” — the rate of spread of the virus — by about 50 per cent.
It was also the wrong thing to do, illiberal, bad for children, bad for education and bad for the economy and the future of the NHS which now operates with a backlog and constrained taxes from a country that is broke.
Yes it would have been so much easier and convenient if there hadn't been a pandemic.
Does it actually occur to you that some of the effects were due to the virus rather than control methods.
Sure we could learn a lot from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan etc in terms of control. One lesson being that early control measures prevent a total shutdown.
Yes, they shut their borders. We didn't. and we had high volumes of traders coming in and out of Europe where the virus was endemic unlike them.
And no, most of the effects were due to the control methods being worse than the disease, not the virus. Had we kept schools open, then more would have died from the virus perhaps, but education would have been less harmed.
Evading death isn't the be-all and end-all that trumps everything else. Education and other factors matter just as much.
It is bonkers to suggest that the NHS could have continued operating normally. In my Trust at one point 60% of inpatients were covid patients, our ICU had expanded 3 fold, by converting operating theatres and recovery areas to ICU beds. There were neither beds nor operating theatres nor staff to operate normally, even ignoring the fact that General Anaesthesia with covid infection had a high mortality.
I think it worth considering what actions were effective, and which had little effect on disease control, and also the social and economic effects, but wishing away a pandemic doesn't work.
Whereas I think that disease control isn't the be-all and end-all.
"Controlling" the virus did what it was supposed to which was flatten the curve, so that the NHS handled nothing but Covid ICU for longer.
Not controlling the virus would have meant a bigger peak, more deaths, but a faster come down of the peak and return to normal too.
And controlling the virus damaged kids education, which is a price not worth paying.
Yes there's no easy answers. In that situation where there's no easy answers, why is it beyond the pale to suggest the answer with more deaths of the vulnerable and sick might be the better answer than harming the education of the young and healthy?
Not controlling the virus would NOT have led to a “faster come down of the peak and return to normal”. Where did you get that bizarre idea from?
SAGE.
Show me a quotation.
See the "flatten the curve" charts that were routinely shown as a justification for lockdown. Controlling the virus means dragging it out for longer.
That doesn’t support what you’re saying. Firstly, those early curves weren’t including vaccination coming in (as they didn’t know when that would be possible). It matters hugely that we prevented a lot of cases until vaccination was available.
The virus wouldn’t have disappeared without any measures. It would have shot up higher, more people would have been infected (and that means more long COVID), then you’d see a crash in numbers, but that’s not back to normal, that’s a respite before another wave from a new variant. With no measures, cases yo-yo. Those curves weren’t predicting a return to normal. They were a communication device to explain the strategy in the absence of the certainty of a successful vaccine.
The return to normal (or a new normal) came from widespread vaccination. There was a lot of talk about herd immunity early on, but herd immunity without vaccination is now seen as impossible with COVID.
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that..
The North in particular is owed on that score. Add in the Tudor depredations, and it's time for some serious levelling up.
Though if course if the UK is on the hook for a trillion a year (as claimed) for the next decade, we're all going to be living in grinding poverty.
Not a bit of it, Nigel.
Those wealthy Yanks must owe us a ton for the War of Independence, The French for the Napoleonic Wars, the Germans for u know what, and of course the Japanese.
We'll be quids in, mate, by the time it's all reckoned up. We'll be able to afford a few trillion a year, and then some.
Can't wait to see the figures. When's the UN publishing them?
Plus the Turks and Moroccans for the slaves taken by the Barbary Corsairs, the Danes for the slaves the Vikings took and the Italians for the slaves the Romans took
I think I can safely say that whoever thought up the reparations wheeze which inspires exactly the same defensive, lazy banalities every time from the same people has created the perfect pwning the rightards vehicle. Sir (or madam), I salute you.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
The argument that a x% increase in population warrants a corresponding x% increase in the length of roads in the country is too simplistic. For starters, it assumes all the roads were at capacity to begin with, which clearly isn’t the case.
Well it generally scales with population density, which is why comparing UK to Netherlands (they have double the road density we do) is unreasonable, but comparing England to Netherlands (they have 36% more road density) seems more reasonable.
A 20% increase in population does roughly equate to a 20% increase in demand. But we've fallen well short of boosting either roads of housing supply by 20% to match the population growth.
Netting for population, our road capacity is going backwards not forwards. Just like our housing capacity.
Again, unless demand was already at 100% of road capacity, an increase in demand doesn’t necessarily require a one-to-one increase in capacity.
One reason is that we live in a much more 24 hour world. Do we need a rush hour anymore? Staggered office times and flexible working offer potential to absorb traffic in existing infrastructure.
The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.
We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.
Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.
Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.
We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.
Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.
You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.
What are you talking about?
I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.
On this page alone
Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.
Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.
Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.
I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.
The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.
But we've already built the new roads?
Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
What new roads?
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Not so.
There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark A6 to Manchester Airport relief road Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass Congleton Link road Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link Silvertown Tunnel Stubbington bypass A585 Little Singleton bypass A120 Little Hadham bypass Preston Western Distributor Road Heyhouses Link Road Wichelstowe Southern Access Grantham Southern Bypass Etruria Valley Link Road North Northallerton Link Road Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link Larne Distributor (South) Ballyclare Western Relief Road M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
The argument that a x% increase in population warrants a corresponding x% increase in the length of roads in the country is too simplistic. For starters, it assumes all the roads were at capacity to begin with, which clearly isn’t the case.
Well it generally scales with population density, which is why comparing UK to Netherlands (they have double the road density we do) is unreasonable, but comparing England to Netherlands (they have 36% more road density) seems more reasonable.
A 20% increase in population does roughly equate to a 20% increase in demand. But we've fallen well short of boosting either roads of housing supply by 20% to match the population growth.
Netting for population, our road capacity is going backwards not forwards. Just like our housing capacity.
Again, unless demand was already at 100% of road capacity, an increase in demand doesn’t necessarily require a one-to-one increase in capacity.
Then why does the Netherlands have 36% more road density than England?
Building roads works. Simply cramming more people into the same infrastructure doesn't. Either way, quite patiently I was right and road construction (like housing) has been totally neglected relative to population growth.
We need mass construction of houses, roads and cycle paths, all of the above not either or to handle our population growth.
And as long as we keep getting population growth in the hundreds of thousands per annum, that will continue to remain true.
I don’t know, but it has nothing to do with the point I am making unless their policy is to expand their road capacity at exactly the same rate as their population is increasing.
In reference to your point “ Simply cramming more people into the same infrastructure doesn't [work].”, I was saying your argument earlier that a 20% increase in population requires a 20% increase in road capacity is too simplistic. I wasn’t saying there should be no new road capacity added.
It was a speech at City Hall, not "Sadiq Khan's Office". His office is in the building admittedly but I somehow doubt they could fit a speech in.
Presumably this was just a small part of the speech in which he ran through all the injustices in history, starting with what the Macedonians did under that sod Alexander, and putting a monetary value on the reparations necessary to square things up.
In some cases there would of course be a netting out. We could use the money the Romans owe us for their invasion to set off against our colonial bill. The Normans must owe us a few quid for 1066 and all that..
The North in particular is owed on that score. Add in the Tudor depredations, and it's time for some serious levelling up.
Though if course if the UK is on the hook for a trillion a year (as claimed) for the next decade, we're all going to be living in grinding poverty.
Not a bit of it, Nigel.
Those wealthy Yanks must owe us a ton for the War of Independence, The French for the Napoleonic Wars, the Germans for u know what, and of course the Japanese.
We'll be quids in, mate, by the time it's all reckoned up. We'll be able to afford a few trillion a year, and then some.
Can't wait to see the figures. When's the UN publishing them?
Be fair to the UN Judge, he is prepared to kindly allow us between 10 and 25 years to pay our dues.
Most reasonable.
All of the charities and NGO's will be very supportive of these spurious claims as they will be the ones to administer it. There is alot of grift around.
We can add it to the trillions in climate reparations we owe too.
The only grifter we should be concerned about here is the judge himself.
He should be sacked, debarred, and made to pay reparations for all the harm done whilst in office.
Comments
Nations won't comply with that, nor should they, and I'd say it undermines efforts to persuade on a moral basis that it should happen (there's been some success shifting the debate that way) - or at least other attempted redress happens.
Poll: two thirds of public back death penalty for Letby
So we know where the Tories will go next. Utterly despicable.
All it requires is some vision and imagination from our politicians and a willingness to spend money in a useful fash...it's not happening, is it?
We have neglected our road infrastructure as a matter of policy for three decades now.
Build new roads and then convert things absolutely, no qualms with that. That's what the Dutch have done and we have failed to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNMOI9mZGko
The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.
There is no limit to the range and depth of knowledge amongst our posters.
We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.
The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.
Just as the Dutch have successfully done in their towns and cities too.
- Spent more than £5m last year
- 'Motor vehicles' now worth just £65k
- Still owe Peter Murrell £60,000
- Accounts qualified due to lack of 'cash, cheques, and raffle income' documentation
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/snp-record-ps800000-deficit-during-2022-accounts-show-during-nicola-sturgeon-and-peter-murrells-final-full-year-in-charge-4266924
Aberdeen bypass 2019
Glasgow M8 1980
Queensferry Crossing 2017
Inverness link (ongoing)
Not much cycle infrastructure gone in during that period despite all that road building.
Dare I suggest it, but the Letby case would be a particularly difficult one for the ultimate punishment, a lot of the evidence being circumstantial.
Add in the Tudor depredations, and it's time for some serious levelling up.
Though if course if the UK is on the hook for a trillion a year (as claimed) for the next decade, we're all going to be living in grinding poverty.
I need some Greek newspapers for props for a stage production next year so if anyone is heading out there and could bring some back, DM me so I can let you know what I need.
Thanks!
So what's the problem? It'd be the same, but voluntary, which is better than the same under compulsion.
In reality it wouldn't be the same as not everyone would have self-isolated and not for as long. A lot of people were itching to return to things before they could.
So even if there is not a path directly alongside the road, there is a massive new provision in the same corridor. And to be honest, it's better there than right beside the road.
Taking one example, there have been four massive East-West dual carriageway builds across the south Midlands (the A43, the A45, the A14, the A421/A428). Meanwhile the parallel railway (East-West Rail) is still not open.
Taking 1973 as a start date - because that's when the Dutch cycling revolution started with Stop de Kindermoord - you can compare just the motorway network in the UK here:
https://www.roads.org.uk/motorway/chronology?year=1973
https://www.roads.org.uk/motorway/chronology?year=2023
And that's significantly understating things, because since the 1990s we've generally not called them motorways. But they've happened nonetheless. A417/A419, A465 Heads of the Valleys, A14, A55 Anglesey, A50 (broadly the proposed M64 alignment), those are just off the top of my head. Countless bypasses.
Sure, for some people it will never be enough, and some regions have done better (/worse) than others. But it's hardly "bugger all".
Kind of proves my point. Had there actually been some road building in that three decade period, there might have been able to be some cycling infrastructure built with it, but due to the lack of any road construction its not been viable.
And it seems that when the Queensferry Crossing was built access to the Forth Road Bridge was restricted for motor vehicles but not for cyclists?
Person gets rich (however, I don't know) and then gets a bit of a fame profile.
Poor people then offer rich person free stuff.
Rich person stays rich as he doesn't spend any money anymore, and poor people stay poor because they are giving away stuff for free.
A9 dualling?
Cycle infrastructure in the Netherlands started in the 1970s
Earlier national schemes didn't have them and a lot of local authority ones still don't.
Improving connections for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders
Cyclists, walkers and horse riders can now enjoy approximately 24 miles of new routes, which were included in the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme.
This includes:
Approximately 8 miles of new route between Cambridge and Fenstanton, allowing onwards access towards Huntingdon via existing routes.
Over 7 miles of connections in and around the upgraded A1 near Brampton and Buckden.
And approximately 9 miles of other connections around the scheme.
By working with Cambridgeshire County Council we have also secured funding for additional links to join existing routes. The £3.1m programme includes five projects:
Extending a cycle path ending in Girton to provide a cycling and equestrian route into Cambridge.
A foot and cycle path along the A1198 (Ermine Street) to improve a popular rural route between Papworth and Cambourne.
A pedestrian and cycle path between Bar Hill and Longstanton.
A pedestrian and cycle path between Wood Green and Godmanchester.
Improved connections between Longstanton and Northstowe.
We are still finalising the design for these routes, and work is expected to start this year (2020).
So building a 12 mile bypass of road has unlocked 24 miles of cycling paths. Twice as much new cycling mileage as there is new car mileage.
Sounds fantastic. If only there was much, much, much more of that going on.
The way you present it is unfair
There has been major road building all across the UK in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.
Lincoln Eastern ring road
A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass
A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark
A6 to Manchester Airport relief road
Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass
Congleton Link road
Norwich Northern Distributor Road
And being built at the moment
Inverness Trunk Road Link
Silvertown Tunnel
Stubbington bypass
A585 Little Singleton bypass
A120 Little Hadham bypass
Preston Western Distributor Road
Heyhouses Link Road
Wichelstowe Southern Access
Grantham Southern Bypass
Etruria Valley Link Road
North Northallerton Link Road
Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link
Larne Distributor (South)
Ballyclare Western Relief Road
M6-M54 Link road
This is by no means an exhaustive list.
But as I say there are loads more.
For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.
And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.
*confused*
That's it precisely. Many thanks
https://twitter.com/Pulpstar/status/1694672888547205386?t=vn0_5_QuRLhyboJ8ecM0pg&s=19
Those wealthy Yanks must owe us a ton for the War of Independence, The French for the Napoleonic Wars, the Germans for u know what, and of course the Japanese.
We'll be quids in, mate, by the time it's all reckoned up. We'll be able to afford a few trillion a year, and then some.
Can't wait to see the figures. When's the UN publishing them?
For the future, if people want to avoid lockdowns, invest now in public health provision and pandemic preparedness.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/poll-two-thirds-of-public-back-death-penalty-for-letby/
The Tories however despite 13 years in government have not reintroduced the death penalty for any crime and likely will not have a manifesto commitment to restore it either and nor will Labour make a promise to do so in their manifesto.
Just be grateful we have representative not direct democracy, with only RefUK perhaps likely to even consider restoring the death penalty for some crimes. If we went to a referendum on it it certainly would be back for some crimes. Another reason we don't need more referendums
- HEPA ventilation for schools and hospitals at the least and recommended for any other indoor environment.
- More research into far-UV treatment of air (any negatives, etc)
- Research to disentangle the effects of various NPIs (this one is a good start)
- More investment into vaccine research and capability
All of that would help with any respiratory pandemic in future.
Oh, and decent public education on vaccines. The contemptible shits and grifters doing their best to misinform and scare the public are fortunately not as effective here as they are in the US (that study published the other day was sickening), but they have had some traction.
But yes, our population has grown by nearly 20% in a generation, our road capacity should have grown by 20% too accordingly. Building a 12 mile bypass and a few other piddly things here and there is nothing to shout home about, there should be much more than that done.
Which is what the Dutch have done, which is why they're able to have so much cycling infrastructure, because they have 36% more road mileage than we do.
WINNERS: Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley
MIDDLE OF THE PACK: Tim Scott and Chris Christie
LOSERS: Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66601291
Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.
You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1694513603251241143
Especially when the “Libyan Coastguard” has been using armed force to board and capture ships they suspect of being immigrant carriers.
We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.
We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.
Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.
Letby deserves to be put to death, but bring back hanging, and you run into all kinds of practical difficulties. The jury spent days poring over the evidence. Would they have given her the benefit of the doubt, had they known she'd be hanged?
It's easy enough to agree that the Letbys of this world deserve to be hanged, but do all murderers deserve to be hanged? In most cases, if we examined the evidence, we would probably say no. Most murders take place in a terrible moment of madness, rather than the kind of ruthless cold-blooded killing that Letby practised. So, we'd be left arguing over which murderers deserved death and which didn't, since we're obviously not going to hang 6-700 people a year.
Then, you get the miscarriages of justice.
Hanging probably lasted a generation longer in this country than it would otherwise, because of the Nuremberg trials. No one disputed that leading Nazis deserved the rope (and most of them got away with their crimes).
Obviously a pandemic is a sh!tty time to be a doctor, and from what I observed doctors in the UK did very well.
Especially compared to the US, where the famous TV doctors had a very bad pandemic indeed, and everything was over-politicised.
A 20% increase in population does roughly equate to a 20% increase in demand. But we've fallen well short of boosting either roads of housing supply by 20% to match the population growth.
Netting for population, our road capacity is going backwards not forwards. Just like our housing capacity.
Most people apparently want us to stay in the ECHR; this bans the death penalty, so actually no real debate will occur.
The Tories may send out useful idiots (Lee Anderson etc) to make noises, securing a couple of million centrist Tory votes (including mine) for Labour/LD, but this will not become policy.
And, being practical, take a case like Letby where there was no smoking gun and the evidence kept the jury out for a month, after which they acquitted or were undecided on several counts.
Letby would get off if on both a trial and retrial only 3 of the jury were unprepared to convict in the light of the possibility of the death penalty. The chance of this would be high.
https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-rejects-calls-to-reinstate-death-penalty-after-new-deputy-tory-chairman-lee-anderson-backs-its-return-12806715
I assume Starmer will also renationalise the railways and utility companies and massively increase tax on the rich as most voters want too? No, seems not either
There's a brilliant dystopia to be written about the world where we had to get immunity by infection, but it would have been the sort of trauma that I don't want to imagine.
Fortunately, vaccine scientists meant that we didn't need to do that. And the vibes were hopeful from pretty early on. It's also the big thing that the Swedes got wrong- their model was all about having to wait several years for a vaccine to be widely available and working out what social restrictions could be sustained for that long.
A lot of traffic in cities is because of throughout being driven there rather than it needing to be there. Most of the North West motorways converge in Manchester meaning even if you don't want to go to Manchester, realistically you have to drive through Manchester as there's no alternative.
Take the M62/M60 for instance. If you want to go from North Liverpool to Rochdale (which is further North) the route is start by going South, the complete wrong direction, then East on the M62, North through Manchester at the M60, then East again.
Build an "M580" motorway and a lot of cars currently on the M62 or M60 would no longer need to be on that route.
And that's just one random example. And of course the terrible lack of redundancy and alternative routes on our roads means in the event that the M62 is closed due to an accident then there is no alternative motorway to be used and people use towns as rat runs.
Most reasonable.
All of the charities and NGO's will be very supportive of these spurious claims as they will be the ones to administer it. There is alot of grift around.
We can add it to the trillions in climate reparations we owe too.
Deciding what someone or a party thinks and then savaging them for it.
Building roads works. Simply cramming more people into the same infrastructure doesn't. Either way, quite patiently I was right and road construction (like housing) has been totally neglected relative to population growth.
We need mass construction of houses, roads and cycle paths, all of the above not either or to handle our population growth.
And as long as we keep getting population growth in the hundreds of thousands per annum, that will continue to remain true.
The virus wouldn’t have disappeared without any measures. It would have shot up higher, more people would have been infected (and that means more long COVID), then you’d see a crash in numbers, but that’s not back to normal, that’s a respite before another wave from a new variant. With no measures, cases yo-yo. Those curves weren’t predicting a return to normal. They were a communication device to explain the strategy in the absence of the certainty of a successful vaccine.
The return to normal (or a new normal) came from widespread vaccination. There was a lot of talk about herd immunity early on, but herd immunity without vaccination is now seen as impossible with COVID.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/24/andrew-malkinson-independent-inquiry-announced-into-wrongful-conviction
In reference to your point “ Simply cramming more people into the same infrastructure doesn't [work].”, I was saying your argument earlier that a 20% increase in population requires a 20% increase in road capacity is too simplistic. I wasn’t saying there should be no new road capacity added.
https://patterico.com/2023/08/23/pre-analysis-and-gop-debate-open-thread/
He should be sacked, debarred, and made to pay reparations for all the harm done whilst in office.