Within half a century the motor car has changed from magic carpet to big bad wolf. The private wheels that at first brought unimaginable freedom of private travel have produced a monster that is destroying civilization, and must be curbed.
In cities it is almost quicker to walk, or in London to travel by the appalling Underground, than to drive a car through the rush-hour. Yesterday Cambridge introduced an experimental ban on all vehicles in its golden central triangle of narrow streets, which cannot be widened without pulling down King's College Chapel, and other buildings that are worth more than all the internal combustion engines put together.
Bicycles, which can be almost more dangerous than cars in those old streets made for medieval pedestrians because they are silent, are included in the ban. This will spoil a picturesque feature of the town, with undergraduates no longer flying by, late for lectures on ancient boneshakers, but it will make life bearable again. Cyclists have been involved in more than 2/3 of the accidents in central Cambridge in the past five years.
There is going to be no room for the private motor car in the city of the future. As often, Cambridge is showing the rest of the world the route. The change needs to be made in a planned and ( 6 ) rather than a haphazard way, before the traffic seizes up in one gigantic gridlock. Areas in London such as Soho and ConventGarden should be turned into traffic-free pedestrian precincts, with essential services allowed only in emergency or at unsocial hours.
Large, cheap parking sites need to be opened around the peripheries of cities, with frequent fast public transport into the centres.
If there is to be room for bicycles in this brave new urban world, cyclists like those in Cambridge are going to have to study the road discipline and good manners of bicycling nations such as the Dutch and Danes. Urban man of the next century is going to have to learn to use his legs again.
In cities it is almost quicker to walk, or in London to travel by the appalling Underground, than to drive a car through the rush-hour. Yesterday Cambridge introduced an experimental ban on all vehicles in its golden central triangle of narrow streets, which cannot be widened without pulling down King's College Chapel, and other buildings that are worth more than all the internal combustion engines put together.
Bicycles, which can be almost more dangerous than cars in those old streets made for medieval pedestrians because they are silent, are included in the ban. This will spoil a picturesque feature of the town, with undergraduates no longer flying by, late for lectures on ancient boneshakers, but it will make life bearable again. Cyclists have been involved in more than 2/3 of the accidents in central Cambridge in the past five years.
There is going to be no room for the private motor car in the city of the future. As often, Cambridge is showing the rest of the world the route. The change needs to be made in a planned and ( 6 ) rather than a haphazard way, before the traffic seizes up in one gigantic gridlock. Areas in London such as Soho and ConventGarden should be turned into traffic-free pedestrian precincts, with essential services allowed only in emergency or at unsocial hours.
Large, cheap parking sites need to be opened around the peripheries of cities, with frequent fast public transport into the centres.
If there is to be room for bicycles in this brave new urban world, cyclists like those in Cambridge are going to have to study the road discipline and good manners of bicycling nations such as the Dutch and Danes. Urban man of the next century is going to have to learn to use his legs again.