Nuxx:1e90f22f-7bb9-4938-bc2a-87c2a7795982@k3g2000prl.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!k3g2000prl.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <1e90f22f-7bb9-4938-bc2a-87c2a7795982@k3g2000prl.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Drivers lose 3 days a year stuck in traffic jams. Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 14:46:36 -0700 (PDT) References:  Lines: 39 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.71.49.124 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1306532797 4008 127.0.0.1 (27 May 2011 21:46:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 21:46:37 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: k3g2000prl.googlegroups.com; posting-host=82.71.49.124; posting-account=WrLs9woAAAD151hWKA9yknAtxFHW4kE4 User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-Google-Web-Client: true X-Google-Header-Order: HUALESNKRC X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.7; rv:2.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0.1,gzip(gfe) Bytes: 3528 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:810909

On May 26, 10:05=A0am, Simon Mason  wrote: > Congestion costs the economy billions a year and wastes shedloads of > time. Plus drivers say that they jump red lights and exceed the speed > limit to try and get the wasted time back.

So you accept that congestion has negative consequences all round. Yet you also accept that bus lanes are put in at least partly to supposedly "deter" motoring, by removing roadspace from cars and so causing, err, congestion. And you support that (ab)use of bus lanes. So are you actually against congestion or not?

It seems to me that congestion is bad for motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, the environment and the economy. Everyone, basically, except car-haters. Yet we get councils trying to deliberately cause congestion with measures such as unnecessary traffic lights and removal of roadspace. Such mean-spirited, negative meddling cannot possibly have the support of the majority of the public, even in nutcase constituencies like Cambridge. I refuse to believe that anywhere, Chapman-like "thinking" is anything like the norm.

I think the whole council system is fundamentally broken, as we far too often get councils doing as they please and merrily working against the public who they are supposed to be there to serve. Useful services like rubbish collection are relentlessly scaled back while parking enforcement is flagrantly abused to raise revenue which is then misspent. Too many councils have gone rogue and become self- serving, out-of-control, money-grabbing parasites. Accountability and public control needs to be massively increased, and those council employees who have no respect for, or wish to serve, the public need to be shown the door. If that can't be done then perhaps we need to get rid of councils altogether, and with the one or two useful things which they still do, either privatise them or let central government handle them.

"Something must be done" as they say. Until every last double yellow line, CCTV camera and housing development is there purely because it's in the public interest for it to be there, there is still work to be done. Councils don't act as though they and the public are ultimately one and the same, and they absolutely should.