Tag Archives: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

What life will be like under climate lockdowns

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They’re about to completely change our way of life – and most people don’t even realise.

Climate lockdowns are coming. This has already been decided outside democracy at a higher level.

And unless there’s a major change in current power structures, it’s happening whether the public like it or not.

While the term “climate lockdown” is useful shorthand, there are important differences from the lockdowns imposed during the Covid era.

Moving around won’t technically be banned; they’re just going to make it much more expensive, stressful and impractical.

Most importantly, the war on motorists will be ramped up massively – with new charges, red tape and restrictions. The kind of draconian measures seen in London will be rolled out to other cities, and then expanded to towns, perhaps even large villages.

There’s already a big campaign to condition the public to pay-per-mile road charging. This will most likely be added on top of road tax and fuel duty, plus ULEZ-style tolls for entering cities.

The system will be fiendishly complex by design. They want to make drivers fearful of huge fines if they stray into the wrong zone or make a minor mistake, to put them off travelling full stop.

Some councils are planning to force drivers to obtain permits to enter areas of cities or travel down certain routes. Personal carbon allowances are also being discussed (to be reduced in size over time).

There’ll be even more street closures, obstacles, traffic lights, and other reductions in road capacity – all intended to create artificial delays and “nudge” people out of their vehicles. The kind of measures imposed in so-called low traffic neighbourhoods will be scaled up.

Mass surveillance infrastructure is being installed to facilitate these controls. Alarmingly, this will allow the authorities to ban dissidents and non-compliers from travelling to certain locations.

During a future pandemic, they could use the system to stop unvaccinated individuals travelling outside their immediate locality.

As well as tracking and controlling the public, the main objective is a big reduction in car ownership, and for the remaining drivers to travel far less. The plan is for much of the population to be increasingly limited to 15-minute cities (more details here).

In practice this will mean less choice in employment, business, shopping and leisure activities. It will also breed social isolation by making it much harder to visit friends and relatives outside your own area. The impact on the elderly and infirm will be particularly serious. Denied the convenience of door-to-door car travel, more and more people will stay at home waiting for items to be delivered.

Holidays abroad will also become a thing of the past, at least for lower-to-middle income groups. Perhaps they’ll have to sell their carbon allowance to rich people as energy bills and other basic living costs continue to rise. In any case, new anti-tourist taxes and regulations will increasingly make overseas travel prohibitively expensive.

Anti-tourist protests are already being instigated and amplified in order to condition the public ready for the coming crackdown.

The aviation sector, while still a target, is likely to be treated with a relatively light touch however. This is because air travel is critical to many agendas of the transnational “elite”, such as deeper economic, social and political integration across borders.

Accordingly, the focus will be on anti-tourism measures imposed at local level, such as new taxes and restrictions on the supply of accommodation. Tourist-dependent regions will be sold these policies with promises of moving upmarket, as richer long-haul travellers are forced to holiday closer to home by inflated costs.

Finally, it’s worth discussing how governments are going to try to hoodwink the public that they’re not really undermining people’s mobility. They’ll claim it’s still easy to move around using “greener” alternatives, such as trains and buses. (The EU is even promoting the idea that time-consuming and expensive sleeper trains can replace flights).

In reality trains and buses are only practical and viable in areas and corridors with relatively high population densities. In many locations it’s impossible for them to replace a large percentage of car journeys.

Taking the train (or bus) involves at least three stages. You have to travel to the station to catch it, leaving enough time for unforeseen delays, then make the train journey itself. At the other end you have to get from the station to your final destination.

In rural and suburban areas it’s typically far quicker to drive directly to your endpoint. It often takes nearly as long to get to the nearest station as it does to complete the whole journey by car. Moreover, there are huge swathes of the country that can’t be reached by bus or train – at least not in a reasonable time.

So, forcing people to ditch their cars and rely on trains and buses instead is effectively the same as massively reducing their mobility.    

Richard Wellings

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15-minute cities and the new feudal system

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While the power elite will continue to enjoy their jet-set lifestyles, the general public will increasingly be restricted to 15-minute cities as “climate lockdowns” are imposed.

Serfs weren’t allowed to leave their village without their master’s permission. They spent their whole lives restricted to a small area, except perhaps for a rare pilgrimage. As councils start to require permits to drive down certain roads or into certain areas, the parallels with the feudal system are obvious.

15-minute cities are superficially attractive. The basic idea is that employment, retail outlets, health services, schools and various other amenities should be easily accessible to people’s homes – indeed within a short, 15-minute walk or cycle ride. This new urban geography is designed to reduce car dependency and foster “stronger communities.”

Encouraging walking and cycling is a key aspect of the policy, though in practical application this has meant using a big stick rather than a carrot.

The road space available to cars is reduced to make way for cycle lanes or wider pavements. Speed limits are lowered; traffic lights increased; parking restricted; obstacles placed in the road; streets closed.

These measures create delays and impose costs on motorists, reducing their mobility and deterring them from travelling outside their immediate area.     

Indeed, proponents of 15-minute cities admit that mobility is not their priority. Because, they hope, key amenities are accessible locally, they argue mobility is no longer needed to the same extent.

But here the movement hits a major hurdle: economies of scale.

Many services are inefficient or not viable at a micro level. In a relatively free economy, this means they would tend to be driven out of business by more efficient competitors that serve a larger catchment area and population.

An obvious illustration is to compare big edge-of-town supermarkets with the same brands’ “local” iterations, the latter having far less choice and significantly higher prices. Consumers often choose to drive further to a big supermarket in order to do a weekly shop in one go, which may be cheaper and more efficient than making frequent visits on foot or by bike to smaller local stores. (Of course, staying at home, shopping online and waiting for deliveries is another option under the 15-minute-city model – which may explain why the Big Tech elite are promoting it so enthusiastically.)

The 15-minute city concept therefore implies using planning controls and mobility restrictions to hinder the economies of scale associated with larger catchment areas – effectively forcing businesses and consumers to stay local. Accordingly, such policies are now commonplace across the UK, Western Europe and “progressive” US cities, representing a shift to command-and-control economics and a further erosion of private property rights.

There are similar issues with labour markets. If mobility is restricted – for example, by slower journeys or a forced reduction in car ownership – then it becomes harder for potential employees to find jobs that match their skills and talents. The size of the area in which they can access opportunities may shrink dramatically. The same problem applies to many small businesses. Productivity and wages suffer. Welfare dependency may increase.

The 15-minute-city movement seeks to overcome the economies of scale problem through high-density living. If large numbers of people are stacked on top of one another in blocks of small apartments, then a population of tens of thousands can be packed into a square mile. But given current rates of new home construction, it will typically take several decades to densify neighbourhoods in this way. Lost economies of scale will not be replaced in the foreseeable future.

Moreover, high-density districts have disturbing social and political implications. Residents of detached houses on large plots are relatively free to engage in various activities without affecting their neighbours. Their physical environment promotes self-reliance, independence and resilience. They have the space to accumulate possessions, resources and reserves; make repairs; start various businesses; even grow their own food.

By contrast, high-density apartment blocks are characterised by monitoring and surveillance; rules and regulations; permits; conflicts over communal space, repairs and maintenance. Eccentric, offensive or anti-social behaviour may affect a large number of neighbours, providing a rationale for meddling and intervention. This kind of neighbourhood promotes a culture of interfering in other people’s lives.

And residents of small apartments can’t own much. Their possessions and real resources are severely limited by lack of physical space. They have relatively little scope for self reliance and are more vulnerable to becoming dependent on the state in any crisis. They are therefore more controllable.

15-minute cities are an attempt to manipulate the built environment in order to undermine individual freedom. They’re a Trojan horse for big government and top-down control.

Richard Wellings

Political manipulation and the push for climate lockdowns

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The plan is clear. The political elite want to create what amounts to a new feudal system, with the manipulation of the green agenda providing a convenient pretext.

Ordinary people’s mobility will be severely restricted. They will be forced out of their cars and off the roads by a raft of new charges and controls. Their lives will largely be confined to “15-minute cities.”

But the perpetrators have a problem. These measures are deeply unpopular with a large percentage of the public. And they are being imposed in ostensible democracies. So, they need a strategy to overcome resistance.

One element is a relentless propaganda campaign to promote the idea of a “climate emergency.” With clear parallels to the manipulation strategies deployed during the pandemic, they’re trying to persuade the public that a form of lockdown is necessary to stop global warming.

This is why the BBC lectures viewers on climate change every time there’s a heat wave, flooding or forest fires. It’s also why the BBC has effectively banned proper debate on environmental issues, with sceptical voices not welcome on its outlets. The understandable anguish created by images of natural disasters is used to undermine free speech on the issue.

The second element is a focus on local government. There’s a reason why mayors and councils are taking a leading role in the “climate lockdowns” policy, while central government pretends to be more motorist friendly. The establishment is exploiting the different incentives facing members of the public.

The benefits of measures such as “low-traffic neighbourhoods” (LTNs) are highly concentrated and obvious to the relatively small number of beneficiaries. By contrast, the costs, which may be enormous by comparison, are typically dispersed and not always obvious to the losers.

If a through road is closed off by the council, many of its residents will support the new restriction (though some may be against – for example if it means much longer journeys). Their street may be quieter and perhaps safer. This constituency offers a bedrock of support for such measures.

It will be bolstered by locals ideologically wedded to the green agenda, perhaps the result of a lifetime of indoctrination by schools, universities and the media, with no exposure to the counter arguments.

They will be joined by state-funded “sock puppets” – campaign groups paid by government to lobby itself and create a fake impression of wider support for policies that the political elite have already decided to impose.

By focusing on the local level, the instigators can build a sufficient coalition of supporters to at least make the argument that they’re not imposing their agenda despite overwhelming public opposition.

Indeed, many of the losers from such policies will not even live or vote in the borough or city where the new controls are being installed. They may be commuters or businesses now facing prohibitive charges or massive delays to their journeys.

Residents in areas beyond the schemes may see a big increase in congestion as traffic is displaced. The emergency services might become less efficient as they can no longer take a direct route, or because cycle lanes mean motorists can no longer get out of their way to let them pass. Labour mobility, productivity and wages may decline because potential employees can’t reach jobs that match their skills, and economies of scale may be lost as the populations that can be profitably or efficiently served shrink (click here for a more detailed discussion).

It will not always be obvious to people that the “war on motorists” is to blame for these negative economic impacts, which in turn dilutes political resistance to the new restrictions. And these effects are spread over a much wider geographical area than the benefits (that accrue to a small, concentrated group), which means opposition is harder to coordinate.  

Note that the purported non-local environmental gains are quite tenuous. The costs and benefits of any future climate change are impossible to calculate accurately. And the impact of the new controls will be negligible in terms of global emissions. In any case, anti-car policies are often counterproductive. Artificially created congestion can actually increase pollution.

Rather than restricting ordinary people’s mobility – and effectively creating a new feudal system in the process – policymakers should focus on win-win policies that both cut emissions and benefit the economy. This means ending the vast subsidies pumped into various polluting activities.

It speaks volumes that governments are so reluctant to take this obvious step. The green agenda is really about giving even more power to the elite and their institutions rather than saving the planet.  

Richard Wellings

Why the war on motorists is wrecking the economy

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The government used the pandemic as a pretext to intensify the “war on motorists”, a key element of the elite’s Build Back Better agenda.

Councils were paid to close vast numbers of streets to through traffic, often as part of so-called Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes. Main roads were narrowed and cycle lanes expanded. Punitive new charges were imposed, in particular London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone levy, and there are now plans to roll out similar schemes to other cities.

These draconian measures made little sense in terms of the Covid-19 narrative. If anything, car travel should have been encouraged to reduce the spread of the disease. Instead, these policies almost certainly forced more people to use public transport than otherwise would have been the case – despite the apparent infection risks.

Government mismanagement of the pandemic also had a devastating impact on the economy. A massive state spending binge, combined with central bank money-printing on a huge scale, contributed to a cocktail of soaring inflation, a cost-of-living crisis and ballooning public debt.

The obvious way out of this predicament is to adopt policies that facilitate robust economic growth. This would increase tax revenues without a harmful rise in tax rates, thereby mitigating the government debt issue. It would also tend to increase real wages, addressing the cost-of-living problem.

The key to generating growth is rising productivity. But today many government policies seem to be deliberately designed to reduce productivity and undermine improvements in living standards. The war on motorists is a prime example.

A series of measures seem deliberately designed to increase congestion. These include a big rise in the number of traffic lights; the narrowing of junctions to reduce flows; the reduction of road space to make way for bus and cycle lanes; the widening of pavements; and the closure of through routes.

The resulting traffic jams lead to major productivity losses, with drivers wasting time sitting in their vehicles and burning fuel while stopping and starting repeatedly. While it is hard to put a precise figure on the resulting costs to the economy, estimates for losses from congestion in the UK are as high as £40 billion a year.

But the negative impact of anti-car measures goes far beyond this. Journeys are delayed even when there is no congestion. Motorists are stopped by traffic lights even in the middle of the night when the streets are empty. They have to crawl along at 20mph in boroughs where speed limits have been slashed. They have to take long diversions where through roads have been blocked off in so-called low-traffic neighbourhoods. And they have to drive around finding somewhere convenient to park because the council has restricted the number of spaces.

The impact of all this on productivity is especially obvious in the cases of delivery drivers and tradesmen. A delivery driver can make fewer deliveries in a given amount of time due to the artificial delays and diversions. A plumber or electrician can make fewer repairs due to the additional time required to travel between jobs.

In addition, the productivity of the retail sector is negatively affected. Because it takes longer to travel to a given outlet, shops will tend to be smaller, serving a lower population, thereby reducing economies of scale and efficiency. The delays will have a similar impact on distribution, favouring smaller and less efficient warehouses rather than larger, more efficient ones a greater distance apart.

Employment opportunities are also harmed. If a potential worker is prepared to commute for an hour each way, then the delays will reduce the size of the area in which he or she is prepared to take a job. With fewer options available, workers are less likely to find employment that is a good match for their skills – an outcome that again will tend to reduce productivity.

Similarly, businesses will have a smaller pool of potential workers available. They may struggle to find the right people. An entrepreneur might decide to build a smaller and less-efficient factory because the number of suitable workers within its catchment area is lower than otherwise would be the case. And clusters of expertise, together with associated competition and innovation, will tend to be negatively affected due to the shrinkage of the talent available in any given location.  

The negative effects on labour mobility will of course be multiplied if the war on the motorist leads workers to abandon car ownership entirely. Vast swathes of the country are poorly served by public transport, which typically isn’t viable outside urban areas with a high population density and core routes between cities. Commuting by public transport is often completely impractical in the outer suburbs, yet alone in rural areas.

This article has only scratched the surface in terms of the damage being done. The enormous impact of anti-car policies on ambulances and the other emergency services hasn’t been discussed, for example.

The big question is whether our politicians understand the scale of the harm they’re inflicting.  Perhaps they think the ends of this draconian top-down agenda justify the means.

Richard Wellings