StreetCowboy

I wasn’t invited either, but that’s no excuse for death threats

My dear old mother forgot that she smoked.

That’s commendable. Most people refuse to give up driving until they don’t know that they need to.

Your doctor, or your tailor?

Do they make you come out in arrows?

I am going to answer the Cemeteries part of the question that was inferred, rather than implied. Some of my favourite cycling routes pass by or through cemeteries. There is one nice ride that passes with the Muslim cemetery to the left, and the crematorium to the right. It is not such a nice ride going up the hill. We went to visit a former colleague - a late colleague - at the crematorium, the day before his ceremony. Near the big Hokkien cemetery on the edge of the city, there is the Nirvana crematorium, with what looks like a residential waiting room adjacent. There was a pack of stray dogs hanging about outside, I’ve never seen them gnawing on bones, and I always struggle not to imagine it. The pub in the middle of the cemetery was not open the first time that we passed by (to be fair, it was 10 am) and now is gone completely. Unlike Diggers (the Athletic Arms) on Ardmillan Terrace, opposite the cemetery, which I have never cycled past.

The OP is lucky to still have a job. With that attitude, he should be planning on early retirement, and keeping his eyes open for voluntary severance opportunities. I guess the 81-year old is winding him up in the hope that a promotion opportunity arises.

Zone-based planning regulations. Minimum parking regulations. Road design that places traffic speed as a higher priority than access for people. Lobbying by construction firms. Planning processes that larger developers can more easily manipulate.

They might be Russians who want no part in a war against their cousins in Ukraine.

Specifically to the question of why and how the wealthy would oppress the poor, from the post I quoted. The “fifteen minute city” allows people to dispense with many of the trappings of wealth - reducing our carbon footprint - and perhaps freeing many people from the rat race treadmill of wage-serfdom. When you provide a service that your neighbours want, and can live on frugal resources, the tax man and Elon Musk can whistle.

Perhaps it was an honest misunderstanding. Perhaps he was a victim of false facts and mid-reporting by others. What is more interesting is the stream of reactionary bile that he untapped.

They increase the divide between rich and poor by driving the working man into gig economy serfdom, and paying minimal wages to young people, preventing them from saving and getting on the asset ladder.

To be fair, "the plan" offered in this thread is only the straw man of a poster on a social chat thread in Thailand, with no links to real proposals by any agency, and linked to a misinterpreation by a third-party web site. There are many people who think that urban planning should be based around people, not cars, and, from what we have seen on this thread, many people who think that urban planning should be based on driving, not residents. It seems that some people think "I'm all right, Jack - it's our grandchildren who will have the problem, let them sort it out". "Yerdedoanthair, bytheway. A millionlemmingscannaebewrang"

Keep making up your stories, if it helps maintain your prejudices. In the meantime, perhaps you might like to educate me by explaining how Waze works?

Waze diverts traffic onto unsuitable roads, causing congestion on roads that cannot cope with it, while doing little to alleviate congestion on trunk roads. It is of limited use for those that know the roads, and less for those that don’t, other than route finding, for which other applications are just as good.

I love making up stories as well. Yerdedoanthairbytheway. Thisfifteenminnit<deleted> is noansense. Howamah supposedtaewalk firfifteenminutes wi' ma gammy hip? The elderly and infirm will probably get dispensation to walk for longer to reach the same places. If you can't walk, i don't understand why you wouldn't just cycle there. SC

I can't really comment as I don't know your neighbourhood. The people I know where I live that are pushing for fifteen minute cities live in the neighbourhood, one of the guys cycles along the highway to work. It's easy to assume that other people are hypocrites, but not so easy when you know them personally. It's easy to work up ill-feeling towards people you don't know. At the moment, there are people saying something like "We need to reduce emissions by a large percentage and at the same time capture carbon", and there are other people saying "Even if I scrapped my car, it would be a tiny fraction of a millionth of the world carbon emissions". Until people can understand that an inch in the right direction is better than a mile in the wrong direction, our grandchildren will have a very hard time of it.

There is talk about pushing for "fifteen minute cities" in the general sphere of public discussion. THis thread addresses a different topic from the topic that is discussed in the wider context of "fifteen minute cities" - (possibly deliberately) misinterpreting it as an affront to people's liberty to form traffic jams. There are those - such as highway builders - who would rather that cities were car-centric rather than people-centric. You and I are lucky to have grown up in places where people could get about the town - I have seen many places since then where the town was built for cars rather than people.

Some PMs know B-all about parties in their house.

Older cities, generally yes. Urban sprawl and suburbia, not so much. The fifteen minutes is measured by foot or pedal, rather than SUV or motorbike, I believe.

When people take a sensible idea - like planning for liveable cities - and then misinterpret it into an oppressive restriction, and use that perverse misinterpretation to lampoon the original idea, then discussion can be difficult. I can explain as best I can, but I can’t understand it for you.

“15 minute cities” is not a movement restriction idea, it is an urban planning idea. Urban developments should be planned to allow people easy and convenient access to daily necessities such as schools, clinics, shops etc. For longer journeys, for example if you have a specialist career that is not suited to distributed working, then transit should allow you convenient access to urban centres, or for universities, hospitals, art galleries and other facilities that benefit from economies of scale.

See if I was pedalling up Guthrie Highway and I came upon a bloke on a roller sled with 6 or 12 yelping huskies? I’d wait patiently behind him until I could see how much the huskies had in reserve, and how they reacted to the passing motorcyclists; and then I’d follow a bloke who looked less fit than me as he passed, and put the hammer down to get beyond him - the first rule of running away from lions is “I don’t need to run faster than the lion, I need to run faster than you”

I know this is not exactly what you were looking for, but I hope you find it interesting, and enjoyable enough to post ride reports afterwards https://primalpooch.com/urban-mushing-solution-high-energy-dogs It had me fantasising about racing up the Guthrie Highway on a Sunday hauled by a yelping team of huskies ”But how would I stop them chasing the cyclists?” ”Dinnae worry aboot that - it’s how ye stop them catchin’ the cyclists ye need tae wurry aboot”

Whitfernofer, like?