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Comment by pangolinja | Hacker News Reader

Whenever some mainstream american outlet like Bloomberg says something is a conspiracy theory, I immediately err on the side of caution and assume that it actually IS a criminal conspiracy, and that there will be plenty of evidence within two years that turns this headline into another cautionary tale.

15 minute cities are a great idea if you are building a new city, not partitioning an existing urban landscape into monitored zones.

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Articles like those generally take a very shallow approach to peoples concerns, calling them things like conspiracies. Policies for 15 minute cities and policies for Low Emissions Zone are separate kind of policies, but in a two-party system it is very likely that a political party is in favor of either both or neither. Voters do not have the choice of selecting one but not the other, so the two policies get lumped together.

Looking at other countries in Europe, all (or most of them) seem to require some kind of extra registration and monitoring when it comes to Low Emissions Zone. Again, technically there is nothing that requires low emission zones to implement heavy handed registration and monitoring, but as has been demonstrated they do tend to go together. Even in countries with multi-party system, there is generally no party to vote for which want Low Emissions Zone without the inclusion of extra registration and monitoring.

Promoting 15 minutes cities is a great way to reduce carbon emissions of the general population.

If you want to look at it from a conspiracy perspective it allows humanity to slow down global warming slightly while corporations and wealthy people can still pump out as much carbon as they can afford and require.

But from experience, living in a 15 minute city IS nice IF the infrastructure is good and crime is low. Still a good part of the workforce will need to commute outside of this 15 minute area, which needs further investment into rails and roads to bring blue collar workers quickly to factories and warehouses.

Nobody is objecting to the idea of a walkable city. People object to the part where they won't be allowed to travel without a permit.

I quoted this in another comment but I think it's worth repeating:

"When [the traffic filters] are operating, private cars will not be allowed through the filters without a permit."[1]

"Residents [of the area affected by the traffic filters] will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the traffic filters for up to 100 days per year"[1]

1: https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/sites/default/files/file/road...

But they will be able to travel without a permit, it's just that those journeys may need to be rerouted to take a less direct route to avoid the traffic filters.

Traffic filters are not new to the UK, and plenty have existed for decades in cities like London without controversy or conspiracy. They do not form an impermeable cordon around an area.

They restrict through traffic on certain streets, in order to provide faster and safer routes for either bikes or buses. As far as I can tell the Oxford proposal is less restrictive than traditional filters as permits allow car driver to bypass the restrictions a certain number of times a month.

> those journeys may need to be rerouted to take a less direct route to avoid the traffic filters.

I don't know enough about Oxfordshire to be sure, but it seems unlikely that the goal here is simply to move the traffic to different streets - especially after they said the goal is to eliminate 50% of car traffic.

By making other modes of travel more convenient. They aren't outlawing those trips.

That's about restricting private car access to high traffic shopping streets | parish centres, etc.

People are still allowed to travel, to travel in private cars around those zones, and to travel in those zones on foot, by bus, or in a commercial vehicle delivering goods, etc.

Claiming this equates to people "won't be allowed to travel without a permit" is delibrately misleading.

> That's about restricting private car access to high traffic shopping streets | parish centres, etc.

According to the linked report, it's about:

"Encouraging a change in behaviour to tackle private car use"

The headline targets include replacing or removing 50% of car trips and delivering a net-zero transport network by 2040.

That is great. Private car use is insanely inefficient, and has numerous negative externalities like toxic gas exhaust, increasing the risk of injury to people not in a car, and rubber particulates.

Seems a little fairer than the San Francisco strategy which excludes certain rich neighborhoods from outside car traffic (they can still drive there) but they can drive to anywhere they want. They call it Slow Streets.

> People object to the part where they won't be allowed to travel without a permit.

If you stop and reflect for a few seconds you likely are already aware of this, but you already cannot drive a car anywhere in the city without a permit.

Accepting that restriction doesn't mean we have to accept any and all restrictions.

That said, I'm not familiar with UK driver's licenses - do they normally restrict where and when you can travel?

UK driving licenses are extremely restrictive - the areas where you are allowed to drive are actually quite narrow, though they are quite long and occasionally do connect together.

Wow! You must be against drivers licenses as well I assume, as they permit you to operate a motor vehicle.

If driver's licenses were limited to driving 100 days per year, and used as a tool to eliminate 50% of car trips, I certainly would be against them.

That's fine, you have the right to advocate for a dead city all you want.

Your characterization of this as not being "allowed to travel without a permit" is utter nonsense made to make something rather routine and benign sound like Nazi Germany.

We restrict where, by whom, and how motor vehicles and literally every other form of transportation is used all the time.

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