Twenty Minute Neighbourhood

Went along to the drop-in session at Portobello Library looking for views on the local neighbourhood. Some great ideas about making the local area more pleasant to live in but also saddened to see how much the car lobby were pushing back - someone had written the same thing - "I want to live in a car friendly city' - on a post-it disagreeing with just about every new proposal - bike-lanes, converting parking spaces into seating areas with plants, widening pavements for seating and planters etc. And there was at least one conversation in which someone raised concerns about the twenty-minute neighbourhoods stopping them from travelling across the city to care for their elderly relatives. It's a popular conspiracy theory online, which crops up every time the 20/15 minute neighbourhood idea is mentioned. I'm not sure what prompts it - are there vested interests - car manufacturers and the like - seeding these ideas? Which are then taken up by people who have bought into a particular narrative and have been encouraged not to tolerate losing absolutely anything they currently have, however much that choice impacts others. Or do people like the status of 'knowing better', not being 'fooled' by those who are telling them what to do? Oxford was mentioned as an example and sadly the council person wasn't able to shut down the discussion - a quick Google shows that there are two things proposed in Oxford which the conspiracy theorists have combined (you have to assume disingenuously) - fifteen minute neighbourhoods and traffic restrictions. The former is about being able to access all the services you need locally and the latter is trying to reduce cross-city journeys by introducing charges for certain journeys. There are proposed exceptions for blue badge holders and people with caring responsibilities and you can get a permit to allow you to cross the boundaries a limited number of times a year - something like twice a week, so you couldn't make a daily commute but you could visit your family every weekend. But I suspect even if they had the facts at their fingertips the person wouldn't have been persuaded. They also claimed that people had died because of ambulances being unable to get through new traffic restrictions. Another common conspiracy theory as there is no evidence that the traffic calming schemes have been a significant cause of delays and both the fire and ambulance services in London (where most schemes have been introduced and therefore where most of what little research there is has been done) are both in favour of the principles of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and the like and only want to be involved in the process for setting up LTNs, not to stop them altogether. Much like the bottle recycling scheme and the proposals to limit alcohol advertising I suspect there is a lot of invisible lobbying going on on social media, defending the status quo.