To think we could make housing estates like Center Parcs re cars

[QuertyGirl]

The USP of Centre Parcs is for many, the fact that they are mostly car free. Kids can play out and ride their bikes like I did when I was kid.

Can't do that now due to the amount of cars, speed and size of cars and, attitude of some car drivers.

People (including myself) pay a small fortune to holiday at CP.

Why can't we make housing estates more like that?

Communal car parks in walking distance, deliveries by small electric vehicles from a hub (like old fashioned milk floats), exemptions for blue badge holders and funding for electric mobility scooters for those that need them.

Yet, if the council suggests a couple of cycle lane and all hell breaks loose.

What?! Where are my parcels going?!
To be fair I get all parcels sent to my mum as living in a flat I don't trust when they will come and if I'm home so depending where it is it could work I guess
What if I get a Tesco home delivery or a taxi?!

Jannier - so you want more cars on our streets to keep women safe? Can the increase in cyclists and pedestrians help keep the place 'busy'? traffic is a far bigger danger than sexual assault.

The problem with OPs idea is our model of how we like to live. Her vision in itself of the small village style development sounds ideal, but it's the infrastructure required to make it work that is the problem. Unfortunately, our planners and builders would just cram as many in as possible without any infrastructure around to maximise profits.

There is a lot of 'whataboutery' on here though. As shown on here people can and do manage.

I liked the Wii village too, on the exercise game.🤣 open green space, lots of exercise space.

Some friends do live on an estate, built on 60s,early 70s when working class council tenants were not really expected to have cars, with small car parks on the periphery, it's rat runs and parking space is too small as the car usage has far outstripped the original provision. There is very little outside house parking. They still have to manage there.

We do rely on cars heavily, but majority car ownership is relatively new. As children, we did walk everywhere, shopping on a Saturday for the week by catching the bus into town was normal. Kids went to the closest school, walking there.
I lived on a out of town estate. Milk was delivered, veg man drove round Saturday afternoon and we bought straight from the van. There was corner shop for odd stuff and post office, chippy, hairdressers.
DGF had a car, it was used for him to go to work only. Only one friends dad had a car.

In our town the opposite happened fewer people walked through shops closed and it became a no go area with drug addicts and dealers hanging around even boots and w h smiths and Iceland closed the only shops left are MC D's and betting shops...that have been robbed several times.
Making pedestrian only areas makes rat runs not safe for anyone....I've never said just women. Most people would not walk down alleys at night making a road width alley is no different. Deserted quiet areas are not safe they are targets.

Jannier - so because of that one area, your entrenched belief is now that pedestrianisation = crime? Also what you seem to be describing is the death of the high street in one area, which is a different issue, although not disconnected. High streets can thrive without cars.

Sleeping on this what strikes me is this sort of proposition is a stick. A lot of people actually really don't like driving and wouldn't do so with the right carrots in place.

Is a load of cars in a car park really better than those same cars on driveways if the cars aren't being used as much because there are decent alternatives that work to replace at least some car journeys? We only really drive if we need to go door to door for logistical reasons or there isn't an alternative.

I've been musing on it overnight as well.

So if disabled people get exemptions to put their cars on their drives. Every house would have to have a drive. Because you've no way to know who is disabled when buying a house, much less who will become disabled in the future.

Then there needs to be additional land for a car park 15 mins walk away. The average person walks 3-4 miles an hour so that's a mile away which is pretty far.

It would only work in very urban areas where everything a family would need on a regular basis would be inside that one mile circle. So. School, shops (and decently priced ones), doctor and pharmacy and play park and outside space for the kids.

The other thing that strikes me is the traffic jams at these car parks given that there will inevitably be peak times with people coming and going from the same location.

Its what is trying to be developed in Oxford, and there are people incandescent with rage about being prisoners. There are conspiracy theories about this action of trying to reduce pollution by keeping everything within 15 minutes walk.

It is how people lived for several hundred years, its only in the last 100 years that this has changed, many of the affects of the change are negative to human life span. Trying to change back is seen as a backward.

I have set up most of my life to be car free, I don't have to use my car for 80% of my life. Its great but it doesn't mean I don't use a car, it seems for many objecting that it has to be an either or.

@ivykaty44 Until about 60 years ago, most streets had their own corner shop. People talk about walking but in the past services were very close to people's houses. That is no longer the case. Lots of villages no longer have their own primary school.

BradfordGirl

supermarkets deliver food, chop chop for smaller delivers, and Amazon delivers food.

Oxford isn't a village, but a city with many primary schools

People talk about walking but in the past services were very close to people's houses.

so why are 50% of car journeys under 2 miles and 25% of journeys in cars are under 1 mile

Wow people are lazy - who knew walking 15 minutes would be such a chore (does nobody here have a dog!)

@jannier

I'm not getting this idea of cars making areas safe for pedestrians.

Real example:

An elderly man is clinging to a railing next to the junction. Many cars stop at the junction and stare at him. To be fair, they look concerned and positively relieved when a pedestrian goes up to help him.

Nobody got out of their car in the ten minutes or so he was there. None.

He was ok in the end, just a bit spooked.

Also, I'd like to see some data on the issue.

I'm disabled. 🤷🏼‍♀️

well presumably you would not look to buy a house in this hypothetical village 🫤

And she'd get a blue badge if she did

Car clubs would work well in this estates - and reduce overall car dependency!

Wow people are lazy - who knew walking 15 minutes would be such a chore

It is not laziness, it is time and lack of local amenities compared to the past.

I live in a village with a primary school, very small newsagent/sweet shop, pub. I & DH both work, DH full time, me 30 hours. kids in school/nursery. We walk to drop kids at school/childcare, local ballet class. DH walks to the train station to travel to work. I wfh, only occasionally travelling to an office, again by train.

Everything else is a minimum of 45 minutes walk, in the nearby town. Thats two adults walking briskly, with our youngish kids its more like 1 hour. Bus services have been cut and only run once per hour or two and take about 30-40 mins taking an indirect route to travel what would be 10 mins in the car.

When are we supposed to fit in a 2 hour round trip to go to:

• doctors/dentists & hospitals
• supermarkets & other shops
• hairdressers, post office etc
• sports/leisure facilities

Add to this that because investment in public facilities in the UK is poor, there is no swimming pool in that town. So to get swimming lessons for our kids we have to go to a private one nearly 6 miles away. It's a 1 hour 40 minute walk according to Google maps. That is in south east commuter belt, not in the sticks.

We have to fit things around our employment. We cannot spend 2 or 3 hours walking to and from everything several times a week. I've already made sacrifices by reducing to 30h per week and to cut travel by getting a wfh job.

Also the problem with car clubs is everybody tends to want the car at the same time!

Also the problem with car clubs is everybody tends to want the car at the same time!

They'll be proposing bus clubs as a solution to that - no fixed routes, just all pile in and shout out if anybody needs to turn left or right for wherever they're heading!

Wouldn't work for us. Ds has a blue badge but we don't and don't have the time for endless wandering about. Ds has never/ will never play outside with other children so nothing to gain for him.

What you are describing here is ideal cycling distances. 45 minutes walk is a 15 minute cycle, even quicker if you have an electric one. With an e-cargo bike you can fit your kids and all their kit.