London is once again leading the world in a headlong rush to impoverishing, regressive, idiotic dystopia as it plans to close some 200 streets over the weekend. This will help Londoners experience a world without private transport, which will no doubt highlight just how valuable cars are.
While numerous cities and countries around the world — including locations in the U.S. — have signed onto plans to reduce or entirely phase out private car ownership (except for the elite), England’s leaders have been disturbingly eager to implement these Orwellian policies quickly. From Oxford to London, politicians are trying to paint a car-free world as paradise. Don’t be surprised if this backfires on them; people with cars aren’t stupid enough to fall in love with having to walk or bike or catch public transport everywhere. Previous efforts to restrict car traffic have been extremely and understandably unpopular.
“About 200 streets across the capital will be closed this weekend to mark World Car Free Day,” announced BBC Friday. London Play director and woke loony (okay, so that part isn’t an official title) Fiona Sutherland sounded like a Munchkin reporter from the Oz Telegraph as she said, “Neighbours meet informally and swap stories. Children cycle down their own street for the first time. Laughter rings out.” And fairies and leprechauns dance on the buttercups, no doubt. Good thing no one in London has a weekend job or medical emergency that might require vehicular travel — hopefully, no one will die on the way to the hospital without vehicles to rush them there.
Related: WEF Partner Aimed to ‘End’ ‘Private Car Ownership’ to Save the Planet
Sutherland happily opined, “Even temporarily, seeing what happens when the cars stop can prompt a powerful shift in people’s perceptions about the potential uses of street space.” Yes, it can. It can prompt people to appreciate how wonderful it is to have cars and how stupid the ideologues are who want us to skip through the streets and never go more than a 15-minute walk away (that’s the idea of 15-minute cities).
[BBC] Some of London's roads will be transformed into temporary spaces for play and social gatherings, City Hall says.
Transport for London (TfL) is partnering with the mayor of London and London Play, which seeks to create spaces for children to play in.
Walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman said: "World Car Free Day is an important moment to celebrate the progress we’ve made in building more liveable neigbourhoods, and embracing a different vision for our streets."
Or, to quote the World Economic Forum (a major supporter of phasing out cars for us peasants), you will “own nothing, have no privacy” and be happy about it — or else.
Woke Oxford, England, is already transforming into a 15-minute city, with cars banned from many streets, surveillance cameras every two feet, numerous internet dead zones, and hordes of bicyclists running over anyone and anything (in case you couldn’t tell, I hated it). London has numerous “low emission zones” where drivers must pay a fee and drive slowly to “save the environment.” Also in London, one scans one’s credit card instead of buying tickets for public transport (a prelude to digital IDs), and the Muslim London mayor tried to impose a pay-per-mile tax on cars. The latter effort failed because it was so wildly unpopular with Londoners, which is why I suspect that the idiots claiming “World Car Free Day” will inspire people to a pitch of enthusiasm against automobiles are smoking Parmesan cheese.
The pay-per-mile plan has made its way across the ocean, by the way. The Democrats destroying California want a pay-per-mile tax. An Arizona town already tried to create a 15-minute city. And we know the Biden-Harris administration has been aggressively working to make ownership of gas-powered cars complicated and prohibitively expensive. Don’t be surprised if, in the near future, Democrats latch onto the idea of “car-free” streets — “progressives” always turn out to be regressive leaders.
Cars were invented and rapidly became popular precisely because traveling used to be such an arduous, time-consuming effort. Whether you lived in the city or the country, whether going to work or to the next county or country, most people had to use their own two feet or slow conveyances. Even horses and carriages could not possibly compare with the speed and convenience of automobile travel. I can say from personal experience that walking around cities — including London — is a far more tedious, exhausting, and frustrating endeavor than sitting in an air-conditioned car, even when traffic is bad. But we all know that reality from personal experience.
The elites really know all this, though; that’s why they don’t have the slightest intention of giving up their private cars and planes and limos. Only we commoners are supposed to sacrifice the marvels of modern mechanization to trudge along by foot or ride a packed and badly-run subway. If walking and bicycling and public transport were so marvelous, rich politicians would use them. The fact that the very elites babbling about being “car-free” continue to use cars shows you how little they believe their own Orwellian propaganda.
