Naked road scheme in London

JLB

Trevor Barton wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:37:07 -0000, Ambrose Nankivell wrote:
>
>>In news:slrncu7oij.jfk.tmb@sheep.isotek.co.uk,
>>Trevor Barton <tmb@Xisotek.co.uk> typed:
>>
>>>On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:20:56 +0000, JLB wrote:
>>>
>>>>Trevor Barton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On 11 Jan 2005 01:16:32 -0800, dkahn400 wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Trevor Barton wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>After all, if roads weren't designed and built for motor vehicles
>>>>>>>we'd not have half the threads we do in urc, would we? And, your
>>>>>>>last comment is right, too. If you did gather a sufficient number
>>>>>>>of cyclists on a road then you would ultimately change the intent
>>>>>>>of the road - if planners saw that each day 20,000 cyclists were
>>>>>>>using the road and only 10,000 motorists, then the intent of the
>>>>>>>road would change. Wouldn't it then become a cycle path, though,
>>>>>>>and therefore despised by cyclists who would no longer use it,
>>>>>>>leading to ... :-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>No, even if there were no cars at all and we were back to nothing
>>>>>>more than muscle power we would still have horse drawn vehicles as
>>>>>>well as pedestrians and cyclists. There would still be a need for
>>>>>>properly surfaced roads sufficiently wide to carry the traffic on
>>>>>>them. There wouldn't be the same perceived need though to clutter
>>>>>>them with signs, road markings and complex schemes, which brings
>>>>>>us back to the point of this thread.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Although I suspect that if it ever came to the point where there
>>>>>were no cars at all and we were back to muscle power there'd also
>>>>>be no bicycles, and no means of properly surfacing the roads either;
>>>>
>>>>So how did the development and use of bicycles precede cars and motor
>>>>vehicles? Were they only ridden indoors?
>>>
>>>Well, they were developed in an environment in which there were plenty
>>>of accessible coal, iron ore, tar, oil, and the like sitting round
>>>waiting to be collected. If civilisation were to collapse, which
>>>I pointed out in the bit you snipped, there would be none of that,
>>>because we've taken all the easily accessible stuff.
>>
>>Well, the bridge at Ironbridge was smelted with charcoal. And there's plenty
>>of iron ore or reworkable steel around, and almost limitless aluminium
>>supplies, should someone be able to make electricity. I'd suggest using the
>>first output to make wind turbines.
>
>
> Mmmn, perhaps. If something catastrophic were to happen, though, I
> suspect mankind would be too busy just surviving for long enough
> for most of the existing iron to rust and leach away into the landscape.
> I don't know how concentrated the iron is in iron ore, but presumably
> it's more concentrated in the rusty patch of ground where a car once
> sat! How easy is it to rework steel with hand pumped forges?
>
> On the other hand, I guess, the knowledge that all these things are
> possible would serve as a huge kick start to a new technological
> civilisation, and presumably if enough of mankind survived to start
> a new one some of that knowledge would survive with them. I'd think
> energy would be the biggest problem, though, although given enough
> knowledge coal could be avoided with wood/steam kickstarting wind
> power generation as you suggest.
>
Your too pessimistic about the effect of certain commodities running
down. As they become scarce, the price will rise. Various things will
become expensive, perhaps prohibitively so, but nothing will actually
run out. Anyone prepared to pay enough will still have oil. The lack of
cheap liquid fuel will however have a very big effect on internal
combusion engine users and, most of all, aircraft. Powered flight has no
substitute for the cheap energy density achieved with liquid
hydrocarbons. This will result in many changes as so much at present
depends on very cheap log distance transport.

However, there is not the slightest possibility we will run out of
either engineering metals or coal/oil shales in the foreseeable future
(although prices will vary). There's also renewables and nuclear power,
if you want them. Altogether this will permit as much smelting as we
wish, and the preparation of reasonable road surfaces. Bicycles will be
back in their prime as the costs of powered personal transport rises,
unless perhaps some technological breakthrough with fuel cells makes
them practical for transport. Without that, motor vehicles look likely
to fall back on batteries (obvious problems), Stirling engines or good
old steam; all of which suggests a resurgence in public transport,
trams, trains and trolley buses along with bikes.

If, as you suggest it might, civilisation collapses instead of making
that transition, it will be through greed, hatred, stupidity, fear with
senseless conflict over the limited resources left to go around (e.g.
Iraq). That looks likely to me (politicians, media and public seem
combined in a remarkably successful conspiracy to promote greed, hatred,
stupidity and fear), but the proximate cause of the disaster will be
us, not the lack of resources.

--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap

Richard Bates

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:42:41 +0000, JLB <JLB@bigbad.demon.co.uk>
wrote:

>wish, and the preparation of reasonable road surfaces. Bicycles will be
>back in their prime as the costs of powered personal transport rises,

I'm going to put myself in a freezer - can somebody defrost me when
the above happens please?

--
Amazon: "If you are interested in 'Asimov's I-Robot',
you may also be interested in 'Garfield - The Movie'.
... erm, how do they figure that one out?

JLB

Trevor Barton wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:17:54 +0000, JLB wrote:
>
>>Trevor Barton wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:00:48 +0000, JLB wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Trevor Barton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>On 10 Jan 2005 07:44:34 -0800, lardyninja wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>Most roads in this country precede the invention of the motor vehicle
>>>>>>by many centuries. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the
>>>>>>original reason for tarmaccing the roads was for the benefit of
>>>>>>cyclists. But ICBW.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Yes, of course you're right, but as implied by your crystal ball
>>>>>reference below things change - these days the car is predominant
>>>>>and so nowadays roads are predomianntly intended for use by motor
>>>>>vehicles rather that foot or animal traffic, simply because thet's
>>>>>the vasty majority of their use.
>>>>
>>>>[snip]
>>>>
>>>>If you had instead simply said "nowadays roads are predomianntly used by
>>>>motor vehicles rather that foot or animal traffic" your argument would
>>>>not have been hurt at all and the statement would have been
>>>>uncontentious. However, I agree with lardyninja; it is, at the least,
>>>>odd to claim that something that was put in place by people who had not
>>>>even dreamt of motor vehicles is predominantly intended for the use of
>>>>motor vehicles. The fact of who uses a road most is not evidence of
>>>>anyones intent, or else we could change the intent merely by gathering a
>>>>sufficient number of cyclists on a particular road.
>>>
>>>
>>>Oh come on! You can use that sort of reductionist argument if you want,
>>>but it doesn't have much bearing on what I said. I didn't say anything
>>>about what they *were* intended for when they were first built, but you
>>>can hardly deny that in htis day and age roads are predominantly intended
>>>for motor vehicles. Every aspect of roads as we have them today is
>>>based around the needs of them: they are planned with motor vehicles
>>>predominantly in mind, upgraded and maintained with motor vehicles
>>>in mind, surfaced, kerbed, and signposted with motor vehicles in mind,
>>>and most of the rules of the road are set with motor vehicles in mind,
>>>even those that pertain to pedestrians and cyclists. You name me one
>>>road (in the generally accepted use of the word) outside of the one in
>>>London that started this thread that is not predominantly for the use
>>>of motor vehicles?
>>
>>All the evidence you cite in the above paragraph to argue about the
>>intention of those who provide or maintain roads is quite different to
>>the grounds you used before. The only reason you gave previously for
>>asserting that roads are intended for motor vehicles is that they are
>>mostly used by motor vehicles. That is a non-sequiter. Do you think that
>>hills are intended for hill walkers? The sea intended for ships?
>
>
> I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are you trying to say that
> roads are not intended for anything, or are you just criticising my use
> of the word intended, or are you just making argument because you've
> taken agin me? Roads are an artificial construct, put there by someone for
> a purpose. That means that there must be some intention behind the
> decision to make a road somewhere. That intention was certainly for
> easier foot traffic, rather than hacking your way through virgin forest,
> and later became predominantly for, I dunno, horses, and then carriages
> and perhaps bicycles and now cars. Noone designs a road these days with
> the intent that it will predominately be used by cyclists or pedestrians
> (except in the exception of cycle ways, and footpaths, which are classes
> of road intended intended for bikes and pedestrians, but are a small
> minority).
I'm saying your insistence on a purpose is an unnecessary assumption,
even it is correct, and more important, one not supported by your
argument that because roads are mostly used by motor vehicles, they must
be intended for motor vehicles.

Local authorities are under a duty to maintain the roads for all road users.
>
> Hills and the sea are not artificial, so excluding the spiritual there
> is no intent on their being there. I suppose you could make a sea
> intended for use by ships if you had a big enough digger.
All right, I was being unfair using hills and seas as examples. A better
example would another artificial human construction that displays
evidence of design: my garden. By your methods, I deduce it is intended,
somewhat, as a cat toilet, but, above all, as an incubator for aphids.
>
> Nothing I said as far as I'm concerned changes what I said in the
> original "crystal ball" paragraph quoted above. I'm not sure what
> you believe roads are predmoniantly intended for, these days, or
> are you saying that the're not intended for anything? Or are you
> operating under a differnet understanding of "intent" than I?
I am just pointing out that you cannot demonstrate the intent of whoever
provides or maintains something by showing who mostly uses it.


--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap

Ambrose Nankivell

In news:slrncu80hq.jq3.tmb@sheep.isotek.co.uk,
Trevor Barton <tmb@Xisotek.co.uk> typed:
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:37:07 -0000, Ambrose Nankivell wrote:
>> In news:slrncu7oij.jfk.tmb@sheep.isotek.co.uk,
>> Trevor Barton <tmb@Xisotek.co.uk> typed:
>>> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:20:56 +0000, JLB wrote:
>>>> Trevor Barton wrote:
>>>>> On 11 Jan 2005 01:16:32 -0800, dkahn400 wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Trevor Barton wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> After all, if roads weren't designed and built for motor
>>>>>>> vehicles we'd not have half the threads we do in urc, would we?
>>>>>>> And, your last comment is right, too. If you did gather a
>>>>>>> sufficient number of cyclists on a road then you would
>>>>>>> ultimately change the intent of the road - if planners saw that
>>>>>>> each day 20,000 cyclists were using the road and only 10,000
>>>>>>> motorists, then the intent of the road would change. Wouldn't
>>>>>>> it then become a cycle path, though, and therefore despised by
>>>>>>> cyclists who would no longer use it, leading to ... :-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> No, even if there were no cars at all and we were back to nothing
>>>>>> more than muscle power we would still have horse drawn vehicles
>>>>>> as well as pedestrians and cyclists. There would still be a need
>>>>>> for properly surfaced roads sufficiently wide to carry the
>>>>>> traffic on them. There wouldn't be the same perceived need
>>>>>> though to clutter them with signs, road markings and complex
>>>>>> schemes, which brings us back to the point of this thread.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Although I suspect that if it ever came to the point where there
>>>>> were no cars at all and we were back to muscle power there'd also
>>>>> be no bicycles, and no means of properly surfacing the roads
>>>>> either;
>>>>
>>>> So how did the development and use of bicycles precede cars and
>>>> motor vehicles? Were they only ridden indoors?
>>>
>>> Well, they were developed in an environment in which there were
>>> plenty of accessible coal, iron ore, tar, oil, and the like sitting
>>> round waiting to be collected. If civilisation were to collapse,
>>> which
>>> I pointed out in the bit you snipped, there would be none of that,
>>> because we've taken all the easily accessible stuff.
>>
>> Well, the bridge at Ironbridge was smelted with charcoal. And
>> there's plenty of iron ore or reworkable steel around, and almost
>> limitless aluminium supplies, should someone be able to make
>> electricity. I'd suggest using the first output to make wind
>> turbines.
>
> Mmmn, perhaps. If something catastrophic were to happen, though, I
> suspect mankind would be too busy just surviving for long enough
> for most of the existing iron to rust and leach away into the
> landscape. I don't know how concentrated the iron is in iron ore, but
> presumably it's more concentrated in the rusty patch of ground where
> a car once sat! How easy is it to rework steel with hand pumped
> forges?

Iron makes up 6% of the earth's crust, and aluminium 7% (they're 4th & 3rd
most common elements after oxygen (50%) and silicon (25%)). Pure haematite
(Fe2O3) is quite common, as is pure bauxite (Al2O3).

Obviously it's no trivial task making a good blast furnace, but maybe it
wouldn't be too hard. If any encyclopedias survived, the job would be
simplified to something feasible for a largish community.

> On the other hand, I guess, the knowledge that all these things are
> possible would serve as a huge kick start to a new technological
> civilisation, and presumably if enough of mankind survived to start
> a new one some of that knowledge would survive with them. I'd think
> energy would be the biggest problem, though, although given enough
> knowledge coal could be avoided with wood/steam kickstarting wind
> power generation as you suggest.

Coal would be unavailable in large quantities, I reckon. One of the most
memorable sights of my life is being in an opencast pit and looking across
and up and seeing the remains of a 17th century bell pit, high above in the
rockface and smaller than the tyres of the trucks moving the modern coal
about. Amazing. There is some coal near the surface in muddy seams, though.

My guess is that it'd be easier to make things out of plywood and then
graduate upwards.

Maybe if a few chemists survived it'd be possible to go straight to carbon
fibre instead, but it doesn't look easy to make.

A

Ambrose Nankivell

In news:cs136g$qq4$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk,
JLB <JLB@bigbad.demon.co.uk> typed:
> You're too pessimistic about the effect of certain commodities running
> down. As they become scarce, the price will rise. Various things will
> become expensive, perhaps prohibitively so, but nothing will actually
> run out. Anyone prepared to pay enough will still have oil. The lack
> of cheap liquid fuel will however have a very big effect on internal
> combusion engine users and, most of all, aircraft. Powered flight has
> no substitute for the cheap energy density achieved with liquid
> hydrocarbons. This will result in many changes as so much at present
> depends on very cheap log distance transport.

Not that much depends on very cheap energy intensive long distance
transport, though. Life would go on if people couldn't fly places.

A

Trevor Barton

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:42:41 +0000, JLB wrote:
> Trevor Barton wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:37:07 -0000, Ambrose Nankivell wrote:
>>
>>>In news:slrncu7oij.jfk.tmb@sheep.isotek.co.uk,
>>>Trevor Barton <tmb@Xisotek.co.uk> typed:
>>>
>>>>On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:20:56 +0000, JLB wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Trevor Barton wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On 11 Jan 2005 01:16:32 -0800, dkahn400 wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Trevor Barton wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>After all, if roads weren't designed and built for motor vehicles
>>>>>>>>we'd not have half the threads we do in urc, would we? And, your
>>>>>>>>last comment is right, too. If you did gather a sufficient number
>>>>>>>>of cyclists on a road then you would ultimately change the intent
>>>>>>>>of the road - if planners saw that each day 20,000 cyclists were
>>>>>>>>using the road and only 10,000 motorists, then the intent of the
>>>>>>>>road would change. Wouldn't it then become a cycle path, though,
>>>>>>>>and therefore despised by cyclists who would no longer use it,
>>>>>>>>leading to ... :-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No, even if there were no cars at all and we were back to nothing
>>>>>>>more than muscle power we would still have horse drawn vehicles as
>>>>>>>well as pedestrians and cyclists. There would still be a need for
>>>>>>>properly surfaced roads sufficiently wide to carry the traffic on
>>>>>>>them. There wouldn't be the same perceived need though to clutter
>>>>>>>them with signs, road markings and complex schemes, which brings
>>>>>>>us back to the point of this thread.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Although I suspect that if it ever came to the point where there
>>>>>>were no cars at all and we were back to muscle power there'd also
>>>>>>be no bicycles, and no means of properly surfacing the roads either;
>>>>>
>>>>>So how did the development and use of bicycles precede cars and motor
>>>>>vehicles? Were they only ridden indoors?
>>>>
>>>>Well, they were developed in an environment in which there were plenty
>>>>of accessible coal, iron ore, tar, oil, and the like sitting round
>>>>waiting to be collected. If civilisation were to collapse, which
>>>>I pointed out in the bit you snipped, there would be none of that,
>>>>because we've taken all the easily accessible stuff.
>>>
>>>Well, the bridge at Ironbridge was smelted with charcoal. And there's plenty
>>>of iron ore or reworkable steel around, and almost limitless aluminium
>>>supplies, should someone be able to make electricity. I'd suggest using the
>>>first output to make wind turbines.
>>
>>
>> Mmmn, perhaps. If something catastrophic were to happen, though, I
>> suspect mankind would be too busy just surviving for long enough
>> for most of the existing iron to rust and leach away into the landscape.
>> I don't know how concentrated the iron is in iron ore, but presumably
>> it's more concentrated in the rusty patch of ground where a car once
>> sat! How easy is it to rework steel with hand pumped forges?
>>
>> On the other hand, I guess, the knowledge that all these things are
>> possible would serve as a huge kick start to a new technological
>> civilisation, and presumably if enough of mankind survived to start
>> a new one some of that knowledge would survive with them. I'd think
>> energy would be the biggest problem, though, although given enough
>> knowledge coal could be avoided with wood/steam kickstarting wind
>> power generation as you suggest.
>>
> Your too pessimistic about the effect of certain commodities running
> down. As they become scarce, the price will rise. Various things will
> become expensive, perhaps prohibitively so, but nothing will actually
> run out. Anyone prepared to pay enough will still have oil. The lack of
> cheap liquid fuel will however have a very big effect on internal
> combusion engine users and, most of all, aircraft. Powered flight has no
> substitute for the cheap energy density achieved with liquid
> hydrocarbons. This will result in many changes as so much at present
> depends on very cheap log distance transport.
>
> However, there is not the slightest possibility we will run out of
> either engineering metals or coal/oil shales in the foreseeable future
> (although prices will vary). There's also renewables and nuclear power,
> if you want them. Altogether this will permit as much smelting as we
> wish, and the preparation of reasonable road surfaces. Bicycles will be
> back in their prime as the costs of powered personal transport rises,
> unless perhaps some technological breakthrough with fuel cells makes
> them practical for transport. Without that, motor vehicles look likely
> to fall back on batteries (obvious problems), Stirling engines or good
> old steam; all of which suggests a resurgence in public transport,
> trams, trains and trolley buses along with bikes.
>
> If, as you suggest it might, civilisation collapses instead of making
> that transition, it will be through greed, hatred, stupidity, fear with
> senseless conflict over the limited resources left to go around (e.g.
> Iraq). That looks likely to me (politicians, media and public seem
> combined in a remarkably successful conspiracy to promote greed, hatred,
> stupidity and fear), but the proximate cause of the disaster will be
> us, not the lack of resources.

I wasn't suggesting civilisation *would* collapse at all and
I agree with all you said there. I was really hypothesising about
civilisation rebuilding itself after something catastrophic, like
a meteor impact or a nuclear war. There's really not much chance
that civilisation would collapse for anything less, although I guess
the Greeks and Romans might have something to say about that. Of
course, their downfalls were bought about by their own decadence
which was taken advantage of by people external to their civilisations,
and there's noone external that we know of to global civilisation (if
you can call it that, which is somewhat debatable sometimes).

Of course, the "west" as a power, and the US, could be hurt by
external global events, but short of a nuclear war nothing's going to affect
them in any fundamental, long term manner. A bit of levelling of
the playing field might well be in order, though.

--
Trevor Barton

Trevor Barton

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:54:10 +0000, JLB wrote:
> Trevor Barton wrote:
>>
>> Nothing I said as far as I'm concerned changes what I said in the
>> original "crystal ball" paragraph quoted above. I'm not sure what
>> you believe roads are predmoniantly intended for, these days, or
>> are you saying that the're not intended for anything? Or are you
>> operating under a differnet understanding of "intent" than I?
> I am just pointing out that you cannot demonstrate the intent of whoever
> provides or maintains something by showing who mostly uses it.

I wasn't really trying to do that, perhaps the sentence structure could
have been more clear, because I now see what you're misunderstanding
about my original statement.

I wasn't deducing that the intent was for cars as a direct result of
the observation that most of the users are motor vehicles. What I was
trying to say is a three-step link, which goes: Most of the users
are motor vehicles, therefore it is likely that planners base most
of their planning decisions with primary regard to the requirements of
motor vehicles (lane width, road and junction placement, signage, whatever).
Because they do that, I am inferring that it must be the planner's intent
that the road be used mainly by motor vehicles, because if it wasn't,
they'd do things differently. So, therefore, the road is mainly intended
for motor vehicles, becuase (through an intermediate reasoning step)
they are the primary users.

All I did was shorten it all be omitting the intermediate steps in my
reasoning. And here I spent all the night before last trying to
impress on my daughter the importance of writing her intermediate
workings on her maths homework, and not just write a magic answer,
so that the teacher would understand how she got where she got, and
she'd hopefully get some marks even if the end result was wrong. :-)

--
Trevor Barton

Trevor Barton

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:42:48 +0000, Richard Bates wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:42:41 +0000, JLB <JLB@bigbad.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>>wish, and the preparation of reasonable road surfaces. Bicycles will be
>>back in their prime as the costs of powered personal transport rises,
>
> I'm going to put myself in a freezer - can somebody defrost me when
> the above happens please?

Well, porobably not, because hell will probablt freeze over before that
happens!

--
Trevor Barton