To think we could close some roads for one hour a week?

[StScholastica]

To let people who want to get fit by cycling or families with younger children, cycle in safety. I think it would also build community cohesion.
Obviously there would have to be concessions for emergency vehicles?

Am I mad?

Your reaction seems a little OTT given you admit it would for only an hour.

Many people in urban and suburban areas manage without cars. Life is possible without a car. If you mean - as I think you do? - drivers getting access to make deliveries to shops etc., or accessible parking for blue badge holders then, yes, of course that should be available.

But for everyone else, nope, we should encourage non-car ownership as a default alongside improving the pavements/walking areas and public transport. Imagine it - clean air, kids free to wander, less noise, less pollution, people actually mixing with other people.

Impossible? Plenty of towns/cities on the continent have managed this shift and have taken the public along with them. In the UK we seem to have a peculiar addiction to cars. But I am hopeful that we can move on from this and prise people out of their car addiction.

Have your food delivered a different day

Where does one get fined for stepping out of an area?

You can get fined for doing all sorts of things... driving into a particular zone without paying a toll, driving down a road if you don't have the correct permit? Haven't you heard of this? Have you heard of fifteen minute cities or pay per mile?

It's the drip drip effect....it can't be brought in overnight so it's done very slowly....it's started. More fool you for not realising

Did you get your tinfoil hat delivered during the road closures, or

I mean you can mock...but its literally happening. I'm sorry you have drunk the kool aid....do you think fifteen minute cities are a myth? Do you think pay per mile won't be happening?

Yes - if you live somewhere that HAS them. I know of only one cycle path within a 10 minute driving radius of my house. A bit useless.

I can’t believe you don’t have cycle lanes everywhere has them. There must be fields or parks you can use, pavements for the kids

Nope, I can confirm that where I live does not have cycle lanes. I've lived in 4 major cities in the UK, and cycle lanes are far from the norm, and virtually non existent in the countryside.

on a day when I am in the office? Yes, that will help 😂

Wake up, sheeple

We had our street closed on the first Sunday of every month between 1 and 4 . The council arranged it, we had barriers to block the road at both ends, they needed to be manned to let in ambulances and residents et c but it worked really well apart from the children who were learning to ride bikes scraping the odd car but then a business at the top of the road offered to let the residents use their car park. The children loved it it only came to an end when they became teenagers

So beyond mockery...you have absolutely no argument to put forward as to why this won't happen

15-minute cities are a good thing. Try the Kool-Aid! It’s delicious!

Until you can't leave them without a permit? Until you're charged to leave them? Until you're fined when you don't pay the charge? Until they bring in facial recognition so you can't leave without them knowing? But yep...great!

And do you know about them introducing tourist taxes in the UK...so you are actually going to be charged when you visit somewhere in your own country? Drip drip

AIBU to think that disabled people and those with mobility issues should be effectively put under house arrest for 'just' one hour every week?

And that those entitled people who need carers at that time should just do without and stop moaning about it?

So many 'great' ideas are put forward without the slightest thought for people who simply don't have the choice.

And if you allow disabled people and others in genuine need of their cars through, what's the actual point in supposedly closing off the road - as children can hardly safely play in 'probably not all that busy roads'.

What's worse, you'd have angry busybodies causing grief to them - like with the nasty self-appointed blue badge police - demanding to know what your disability is and why you should have what they can't.

I remember a thread from a while back, where the OP had 'acquired' some official council 'road closed' signs and she just put them out on her street whenever she decided that her kids should have priority to play in the road, instead of in gardens, parks or even on pavements

I don't recall most people on the thread being very sympathetic to her, even though she clearly 'knew best'.

Roads are roads for a reason. Paths and parks exist

@StScholastica i was going to ask if you drove yourself but see you have answered that question already…

do you think those who drive just go out for a spin for the sake of it?

as other PP said we can work around going out at certain days/times it really doesn’t work like that

i have to take someone to hospital, how am I classed as an emergency vehicle without getting mobbed

is there really nowhere within 3 miles your kids can’t play?

As someone who lives rurally (I'm assuming from your comments about country roads), you should surely be able to see how impractical that idea is. If you close the road through my village then people are stuck. There is no alternative route. And just going out an hour later would rarely be a solution. Life works to a timetable. I happen to live a 2 minute walk from work but everything else I do is a 15, 30 or 50 minute drive away. And it starts when it starts, not when I show up. I can't just be an hour late!

I lived in Mexico for a while and they used to do this in Guadalajara sometimes on a Sunday.

Except those pesky shift workers.

We have a charity run once a year and people lose their minds over the road closures. Volunteers and runners get consent abuse, drivers rave around trying to beat the closures, everyone gets rage. I can't imagine them daring to do a weekly thing!

This is amazing. I'm so sick of the constant power tools all day everyday. I'm moving to Germany!