Reducing our reliance on cars
I know this has come up before, but it's worth raising again because cutting fossil fuel use is absolutely essential if we're ever to tackle global warming. Since the government has feebly passed the buck to local authorities on dealing with the closely linked issue of air pollution, we have to turn to our own borough, but its record is not strong. It has pressed for hybrid buses to be introduced in Putney, and that has had a definite effect (and anyway credit for that should go to TfL), though Putney High Street is still well over the legal limit for NO2, but otherwise its record is lacklustre.Now Robert Molteno of Wandsworth Living Streets has produced an interesting analysis (on which I've drawn: thank you, Robert) of the latest planned increases in parking charges in the borough - for example, increasing an annual resident's parking charge from £146 to £161, an increase running at twice the rate of inflation; the charge for a second car is only £35 more than for a resident's first car. This would have been a great opportunity to further improve air quality (by, for example, introduce higher Parking Permit charges for dirty diesels, to discourage car ownership or to raIse funds to build pedestrian and cycle-friendly infrastructure. What a missed opportunity!The paper does have a goal for reducing the number of cars owned in the borough - but the aimed reduction is only 9,218 by 2041. This is a decrease of only 11% over 27 years – or an average of 341 fewer cars (less than half a per cent of the total number) in our borough each year.So unless we can press the borough to attempt something stronger, it's down to all of us to act. One way is to walk and cycle more, thus reducing our car use. No doubt the usual suspects will complain about cycling on the pavement or people wearing lycra, but I hope this will be received more positively.One weak reason people use to argue against cycling (apart from the obvious one of the real danger from heedless - or worse - drivers, is the complaint that you can't take your shopping home on a bike. That is a particularly weak argument: for example, I've just brought home 10 kilos (22 lbs) of shopping in two panniers, and before someone says it's all right for me, I'm a youngster, I can assure you that I am very far from that.With effects of dirty air and global warming becoming ever more serious, it's past time we pressed our borough (and the government) to act, and also to act ourselves. We cannot go on as things are.
Richard Carter ● 2831d38 Comments ● 2809d