London Thinks Big
- Thread starter kernals12
- Start date
In the 1930s? No. Social mobility in the UK was static until the late 1940s (remember when those "state schools" you don't like started) and improved until the late 1970s. Then it worsened until today it's as bad as the '30s again.
For example in the late '30s the UK educationalists were congratulating themselves on how restricted access to tertiary education was. That was the era when those who started at public primary schools say rather less than 1% make it to university.
In the '30s vast sections of the working classes, those dependent upon the crafts of the old heavy 'industries', faced intermittent or permanent unemployment. Entire communities lived at or below the breadline, facing unemployment and other supports decreasing year on year.
Have you heard of "Hunger Marches", and the hostile response to them?
May I suggest you start doing some research; Carol Dyhouse's 'Family Patterns of Social Mobility through Higher Education in England in the 1930s' and Chris Renwick's ‘Eugenics, population research and social mobility studies in early and mid-twentieth century Britain' would be good places to start
As I pointed out diphtheria, tuberculosis and other 'poverty' diseases were rife in 1930s London.
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You're the one who said it couldn't be done.
OTOH, I've never seen anyone commuting by highwire. Not even the Wallenas.
ObWI ziplines, chairlifts, etc. as urban transit between skyscrapers
Conceded. Not what I think was meant in the first place, so my remark stands.
[ It would be nifty to have Art Deco skyscrapers connected by ziplines and chairlifts tho. And airship masts. ]
Give me skyways. A 20th floor charilift would scare the bejezus out of me.
(Even tramcars up a mountain.) Can't fall off a closed bridge.Give me skyways. A 20th floor charilift would scare the bejezus out of me.
Fine, I guess commuters not falling to their death takes precedence over retropunk aesthetics. We'll have to go with slightly bulkier gondola lifts.
kernals12
Banned
9 million people live in London, so 600,000 cycle rides over 4 months in not that impressive.
Much as we hate to admit it, sometimes cool has to bow to reality.
I have to say, even a gondola strikes me as lawsuit bait. IDK how New York City gets away with it...Devvy
Donor
Without accounting for continued growth, that's 1.8 million rides per annum, along a cycle route approx 2.5 miles in length.
London, with it's 8.5 million residents, is 607 sq miles. That's a fair amount of people using the route, along a short route, in one of the lesser inhabited areas as it's a business/political area.
Your point was that "nobody cycles to work", which is demonstrably completely false, as shown with data. Whether you think it's low or high, the point is that plenty of people do cycle in London which is the opposite of your original point.
kernals12
Banned
I never said "nobody cycles to work". It's just that the percent who do is so low that there's no reason to build dedicated infrastructure from them that takes away lanes of traffic from people who travel by bus and car.
Devvy
Donor
It may well do. Registration/Import taxes on cars is already going up, because fuel taxes are yielding less and less money for the treasury due to cars becoming more efficient and switching to electric traction.
And to point out; there are other factors at work besides those taxes why the Netherlands and Denmark like cycling. Both are very flat countries, with high density cities, and both are somewhat ecologically minded.
Devvy
Donor
Just to be clear, I was saying the taxes in the UK for registration of cars may well go up significantly. Apologies for not being clear.
As far as I know, import taxes of cars are rarely used as an argument for cycling by the cyclists. Often people complain about traffic jams and want to improve their fitness when they decide to switch to bikes.