What's wrong with Car Free Day?

[andygates]

From our intranet:

[Car Free Day aims] to encourage us all to leave our cars at home and explore other options for getting to work. Organisations across Devon have previously participated in the day, with staff using tandems, space-hoppers, wheel-barrows, rowing boats, skateboards and piggy-backs to get to work, as well as more ‘normal’ sustainable travel options. This is a fun day with a serious underlying message as transport is one of the biggest contributors to our carbon footprint.

Space hoppers.  That's what's wrong with car bloody free day.  It's a one-off, a silly smug novelty that does nothing to apply pressure where pressure needs applying.  You want to cut driving to work?  Cut parking spaces.  The Unions will whine that it unfairly hits the lower-paid staff, well, tough: driving to work is a luxury.  If you can't afford to drive forty miles to work on your modest salary, move closer or get a bus or change your damn job.

You want to boost cycling?  Covered bike racks where staff can see them.  A memo to managers not to be shirty to people who turn up in weatherproofs.  Our bike racks fill in a delicious parody of predict-and-provide.

You want to boost bus travel?  Tickets at a reasonable price from where people live to where they work.  It's not hard (it just may not be as profitable but hey, you did sell the bus companies).  Call 'em sub-prime or social routes and insist that the companies serve them or take away their licences.

You do not have a right to drive cheaply to work.  You have a responsibility to get to work on time and a responsibility to not squander your wages on tat when you've mouths to feed.

Entitlement culture, it's the thing that will kill the west (if hurricanes and bird flu don't get to it first).

Comments

Re: Curious.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Just wait for the Colombia water war with Mexico... or the Canuckistan/Russia Arctic oil war, in which you guys play proxy...

Re: Curious.

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

Aw, but I thought we'd start off with a Native American uprising triggered by fishing rights!

Seriously, though, there are some things I could wait an eternity for and not mind a bit.

What will the UK equivalent be, do you suppose?

Re: Curious.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Energy spats over Russian control of natural gas, probably, or some sort of horrible scrappy police action along the northern Mediterranean as north Africa gets uninhabitable and a wave of people try to migrate north. That one's going to be nasty.

Re: Curious.

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

I can see how a police action might occur. Seems to me that we could face a similar issue as more Latin Americans attempt to flee desperate conditions in their own nations.

We're just a bit screwed in the future, aren't we?

Re: Curious.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Only if we try to play Canute and resist the tide. If we manage migration sensibly (defuse the old-guard bigots and scared masses somehow) it could be no big deal. But there will be a thread of politicians who will go on about walls (like you now have with Mexico).