Forum Topic

Hellscape future

This is the dystopian future the cycle lobby wants to force on innocent drivers depicted in one handy collage of 32 streetscape changes from cities around the world. 
How can they be stopped?

Paul Campbell ● 13d39 Comments

And jet packs when do we get them?

Russell Pearson ● 3d

But not a monorail in sight. Do you remember when one was proposed to link Heathrow to Central London via the M4. Whoever proposed it has obviously never heard of the Picadilly Line!

N V Brooks ● 12d

Reminds me of Truffaut’s vision of Fahrenheit 451.

Russell Pearson ● 12d

Yep. Santa Monica, Barcelona, Miami, Athens, Valencia, Berlin, London, Edinburgh.Bleak radioactive wastelands the lot of them. Cars are an indicator species for healthy happy and free communities and their absence, even if only from one street,  can only mean totalitarianism.

Paul Campbell ● 12d

Some of those photos are very bleak ... I wouldn't want to cycle there without a geiger counter.

Chris Blackwell ● 12d

All that's missing are the uniform grey tunics and any sight of slim red volumes.

N V Brooks ● 12d

They do look Dystopian. Isolated, alienated individuals in bleak Brutalist landscapes. Like a postmodern Hopper, but without the coffee bar.

Russell Pearson ● 12d

Yes. And?

Paul Campbell ● 12d

Cycling becomes impractical when you have to transport a drum kit into town for a session at 10am.

Chris Blackwell ● 12d

Well even less reason for you to be so fixated on the impossibility of cycling in inclement weather when so many of us are actually doing it here and many more are every day just over the North Sea.

Paul Campbell ● 12d

But I am NOT a fair weather cyclist, out in all weathers I am as are both my boys. Ollie (16) even cycled to Barnes during the recent storms, said he spent longer going backwards than forward due to the wind but he got there eventually. I would have given him a lift but I could hear your reproachful voice at the back of my mind and decided to save the planet instead so I stayed at home by the fire while he struggled in the cold and dark and wind. I'm sure Ollie understood and anyway my selfless action probably inspired half of India to give up using fossil fuels..

Chris Blackwell ● 12d

There are no leaves on the trees in the very first photo - London.Anyway so what? Just because you are a fair-weather cyclist doesn't mean everyone is.

Paul Campbell ● 12d

Yes some of the photos were taken in the UK but NOT during Winter.

Chris Blackwell ● 12d

No you are correct on that one, hate travelling, don't like crowds, don't like heat, he goes to Africa with friends.

Janice Evans ● 12d

You don't get out of the country much do you Janice?

Paul Campbell ● 12d

I'm happy with cycle lanes on a normal road or high street, those places don't look inviting to me, people look like they are wandering aimlesslyprobably looking for something other than a cafe.

Janice Evans ● 12d

It does make me wonder where these people go on holiday. Service stations on British motorways most likely.

Paul Campbell ● 12d

Wish you were here.

Mark Frost ● 12d

There is no photo of Croydon. Westminster, Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh all in there. Horrible places along with the other warmer climates where the platitudes stop shown in these photos like Paris, Antwerp, New York, Bratislava, Vienna, Luxembourg, Ghent, Berlin, Budapest, Lodz, Krakow, Vilnius. The Little Englanders who don’t like trams, pedestrianised shopping streets and cycle lanes don’t travel very much!

Paul Campbell ● 12d

Yeh,i spotted car free CroydonEmpty shops,homeless galore and plenty of crime thats a no go after dark. Ok,its croydon but it does prove paving streets does not bring what one wants all the time😁

Julian Pavey ● 13d

Uh oh Chris. Several of them are in England. Whoops

Paul Campbell ● 13d

It's interesting to note that pretty much every photo in that Hellscape was taken somewhere that enjoys a warmer climate and that not ONE of those photos features rain or wind. Cycling is fantastic, fabulous, wonderful (as we all surely agree) but the platitudes stop fairly abruptly when the weather turns.

Chris Blackwell ● 13d

Off for another drive in my SUV tomorrow, just for fun if the weather is better than today. May well go to the cinema or practice my drumming if not.It's nice to have more to do with my life than sit at home obsessing with others' life choices.

N V Brooks ● 13d

I do. We need to get more happy people in SUVs driving all over those pedestrianised spaces, cycle lanes and tram lines for a happier future for humanity. But who is going to stop the evil cycle lobby Janice? Is it you? Could you club together with Francis and Nigel and Steve maybe? Please somebody help the world.

Paul Campbell ● 13d

Glad you agree.

Janice Evans ● 13d

I know. It just all looks so awful. Bloody evil cycle lobby.

Paul Campbell ● 13d

If you are trying to sell something you have to present it to look inviting,miserable faces don't do that.

Janice Evans ● 13d

I know. It's so sad. The only way a human can be happy is when they are in a car.

Paul Campbell ● 13d

Not one of them look happy.

Janice Evans ● 13d

Finally some support from the local car lobby for pedestrianising shopping streets in Chiswick.Who has objected to being fined for cycling in a pedestrian only street Justin. Just signal if you can't say because they are in the room with you now.

Paul Campbell ● 13d

At least a couple of the pictures appear to be pedestrian only high streets, not a new idea, but one which the pro-cycling zealots have had problems with this year, for some reasons they object to being fined for riding their bikes in a pedestrian only street to save a few minutes off their journey - a without any sense of irony either

Justin Stephenson ● 13d

The tram scheme was a poorly planned project from the start Peter.Trams need to co-exist with other road users and the are simply too many pinch points where a breakdown would have rendered the network useless. Southall Broadway, Iron Bridge, Hanwell Bridge, Ecclestone Road juction, Acton Market Place to name but a few.

N V Brooks ● 13d

Quite bewildering.

Mark Frost ● 13d

You think 60 is the cut off point for cycling in cold weather? Snowflake!

Paul Campbell ● 13d

What like all those schoolchildren in a Paris school street? They walked there I imagine.Are you really so car-centric that you imagine that all those people walking in pedestrianised streets in city centres got there by car? Is that what you imagine is happening in Oxford St or Bank Junction? What a world you live in!

Paul Campbell ● 13d

It must be nice cycling in 2 deg c especially if you are 60 yrs plus. The trams seemed a really good idea.

Nicholas Beard ● 13d

I like the trams.  We could have had trams all along the Uxbridge Road if people had listened to that nice Mr Livingstone and not made such a fuss, but it never happened. We could have another tram all along CHR and onwards and inwards, but what's the chance of that now.  I wonder from the pictures of all those mobs of people walking all over the road how they got there in the first place and how they get what they've bought back home.  Maybe there's a giant cargo bike storage building just round the corner.

Peter Evans ● 13d

Well done Paul, driving it home for Christmas.

Mark Frost ● 13d

you should make an advent calendar out of this

Simon Pedley ● 13d