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.

I think lots of people are missing the point of the OP. It's not a suggestion to retrofit enormous carparks to current estates, leaving private driveways unused. It's an idea about designing new estates in such a way that cars can be parked on the outskirts. Lots of the objections here could easily be overcome - eg shelters in front gardens for bikes, trolleys, mobility scooters. And I don't think the OP was suggesting that every single person in the country would have to live in such an estate. We have designed our lives about car ownership in many cases, which is understandable, so our current lives wouldn't work without our cars.

We live in a big city where we often can't park my car where we can see it, so parking it in a car park out of sight isn't an issue for us. Now our children are young adults we rarely use our car, and use public transport or walk almost all the time. We constantly question whether we still need the car and whether we would be better off with a mixture of taxis and car clubs.

Lol no. As a single parent I love CP and it's an easy-ish holiday for us but the only downside is having to drag the kids out early on leaving morning to walk 20 minutes, sometimes longer, to get the car. While everyone else is sensible enough to bring another adult so they can leave the kids behind 😂

It was particularly annoying when we went a month ago because it was absolutely freezing.

I am 1000% in favour of designing housing developments to prioritise active travel over cars. But I recently brought my husband home from hospital after major surgery and he could barely make it from the street into our flat. A few days later I had to drive him the 5 minute walk to the GP surgery. We wouldn't get a blue badge as his "disability" is (hopefully) very temporary but he will be in no fit state to walk any real distance for several more weeks. Am I supposed to carry him on my back, in this post-car utopia? We need to allow for some car use, while providing more and better and safer alternatives.

If it meant kids could play out in the street I’d be up for it, but there would be so many exemptions for elderly / disabled / builders / deliveries that it still wouldn’t be safe enough for kids so would be pointless.

🤣 I know a couple of people like that too!

The car free estate i was on was built back when people didn’t drive.
Thankfully since then it’s been torn down and rebuilt.

Wouldn't it be great if you could do the nursery run/school run without a car?

Surely the point is that people would change how they do things, though? Get a fold-down trolley that goes in your car's boot for shopping. Buy less at a time. Those who are able to, shop at smaller shops within the communities (10-minute neighbourhood style). Get it delivered. Demand would be there for more and better shopping delivery to communities set up like this, where there could be set slots each week for a particular 'estate' to minimise environmental impact and ensure delivery slots. Prices at smaller local shops would have to compete with these delivery services from big supermarkets, so the price difference wouldn't be huge and those unable to get deliveries for whatever reason could shop locally.

It's not like it's hard to imagine ways round it - I find it so strange that you couldn't think of a single alternative to 'have giant carful of shopping'. How do you think people who don't have cars or can't park close to their house do their big shop now!? I used to take a little old person shopping trolley (or hiking rucksack) on the bus to Lidl when I was a student. My mum, who has limited physical mobility and no car, gets hers delivered with next door's, so they share delivery costs between them.

Electric vehicles with 5mph speed limits.

Yeah good point here. When I had surgery I had to be driven home by husband and then crawl from the car into the house (then stay lying down for 3 days). Back in the good old days perhaps an ambulance would have given me a ride home or even 😱 a hospital bed but ha good luck with that in 2023.

I have often thought this and completely agree, with the caveat that you could drive to your house to drop your shopping off or stuff too heavy to carry.

The main issue is where would these car parks be? I live in a built up area and there isn't the land for cars to be parked

I drive my car to the local shop.

Before I became quite so disabled I looked fine. I suppose people judged me too. Oh well

I think a good compromise would be for people to always be allowed to pick up and drop off things from home, as long as the car is then returned to the parking area.

It would take a way a lot of the concerns people have.

So what? Why do you care what they think?

One of my closest relatives does this and also has a Blue Badge.

Car free streets would be safer for many.

Weaponising the idea of people with disabilities against active travel is ableism.

There’s loads of people, especially in towns and cities who have disabilities and do not use cars.
There’s people who walk, cycle, other use wheeling for transport or exercise or both.

Meanwhile people who can't safely pilot (or afford) a 2-ton vehicle but could use an e-bike, e-scooter or speed-restricted micro-car if safe infrastructure existed for it - guess they're shit out of luck.

It's all the judging of
"Drove the merc to the shop"
And the laughing.

It's ableist and very unpleasant.

I work in more than one garden.

So no. It isn't

I'd really struggle. Not eligible for blue badge (used to be but then suddenly I wasn't, despite nothing changing). Getting to and from the car would take me ages though I'd probably manage eventually as long as I hadn't dared to go shopping or try to carry anything. I'd probably end up cut off and stuck alone indoors in reality as it all became too difficult.

The car culture hurts people with disabilities too, example being my FIL who is stuck in the house now he has lost his ability to drive.

Wouldn't it be great if you could do the nursery run/school run without a car?

I already do.

There's a big difference between walking 20 minutes to school, dropping kids off and walking home again, to walking 20 minutes just to get in the car so you can go somewhere else.

Because people regularly need the convenience of their car being outside their home - carrying in shopping, avoiding walking a long way in pouring rain, getting babies and young children to/from the vehicle. Most working people do not have time to add 10 or 15 mins to their commute to walk to a car park, its exactly why many people don't use public transport.

There’s a development that does this in Dubai - Sustainable City

www.thesustainablecity.ae

@user1468656818

Agree with everything you just said.

Interesting that so many have taken my OP and run with to an absolute extreme- banning ambulances and people with Blue Badges for example.

The assumption that disabled people are all driving everywhere is interesting. Those of us who can't drive should just wait for a lift I suppose?

This was tried in the past. It just leads to more car crime - vandalism and car theft. Also hard for parents with small children and babies and anyone with limited mobility.

Works great if you get your first preference closest school. Not so great when it's oversubscribed and you get the next village and there are rural roads without pavements and it's dark and not well lit