Ministers prioritised driving in England partly due to conspiracy theories
Exclusive: Documents show shift in transport policy influenced by unfounded fears about loss of freedom of movement in ‘15-minute cities’
Predictably it’s the 15-minute-city conspiracy crap.
The inside of the right-wing brain must be a fearful place; ripe for radicalisation and manipulation.
This annoyed me so much.
I live in a city that is, effectively, 15 minute accessible. It's fucking awesome.
And because of the way the roads are laid out, yes, anything within 15 mins walk is going to be quicker to walk to than drive to...Which is probably how it should be.
I honestly wonder who was pushing this nonsense. People who don't want to walk to the shops?
I honestly wonder who was pushing this nonsense.
So, there's this pair of cunts called the Koch brothers. They have a business that extracts shale gas by fracking and then turns it into plastics for the US domestic market. They've done very well out of this business and out of fossil fuels in general.
Somewhat predictably they're right wing shitheads. They seem to be behind a lot of the bollocks in the Anglosphere at the minute. The distribution network seems to be that they fund various think tanks including a few of the Tufton Street metastasis and also fund Steve Bannon, Turning Point USA and Turning Point UK.
The goal is to keep them and their dynasty on top.
Once the money gets to the UK, usually through Turning Point UK, it funds efforts to distort people's thinking using social media.
Fifteen minute cities encourage walking and so if people can leave their cars behind that's one of the major use cases for fossil fuels reduced. Can't be having that.
It's very weird. I would have thought walking would feel more free than being stuck in traffic all day.
[astronaut meme]
Always has been.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ministers began considering curbs on cycling and walking schemes in March this year, one document said, “in response to concerns about 15-minute cities”, an urban planning concept that Rishi Sunak’s government has repeatedly mischaracterised.
Devised by the French-based urbanist, Carlos Moreno, 15-minute cities are a broad planning concept based on people living within easy reach of workplaces and schools, as well as local amenities, gradually reducing the need for short car trips.
TAN, which is being assisted by Dale Vince, the green energy magnate and campaigner, has sought a judicial review of the decision to scrap government guidance to councils introduced during Covid to help more people walk and cycle.
The DfT documents also show that officials repeatedly warned ministers that other aspects of the plan for motorists, notably the idea of potentially forcing councils to remove LTNs, were unlikely to succeed.
A DfT briefing paper for Downing Street in August warned that a full review of existing LTNs “could entail a very large piece of analytical work”, adding that “there is an expectation among media” that the plan for motorists would nonetheless target them.
However, the adoption of the idea, even as a long-term aspiration, by cities as varied as Paris, Bogotá and Oxford has prompted a wave of conspiracies about a supposed transnational plot to block people from travelling beyond their local neighbourhood.
The original article contains 914 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
