By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels 4:16PM BST 28 Mar 2011
The European Commission on Monday unveiled a “single European transport area” aimed at enforcing “a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers” by 2050.
The plan also envisages an end to cheap holiday flights from Britain to southern Europe with a target that over 50 per cent of all journeys above 186 miles should be by rail.
Top of the EU’s list to cut climate change emissions is a target of “zero” for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU’s future cities.
Siim Kallas, the EU transport commission, insisted that Brussels directives and new taxation of fuel would be used to force people out of their cars and onto “alternative” means of transport.
“That means no more conventionally fuelled cars in our city centres,” he said. “Action will follow, legislation, real action to change behaviour.”
The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a “crazy” restriction on mobility.
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Gee, ya think? And the greens/labor wonder why they just got booted out of power in Australia and why the American public no longer gives a rodents posterior about global warming.
I think it will the EU that’s banned by 2050, not the automobile. Why? The automobile actually provides a useful function for people.
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Here’s the plan:
A new European transport plan 
aims to increase mobility and further integrate the EU’s transport networks – while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the bloc’s dependence on imported oil.
Measures to encourage major infrastructure investments, change the way freight moves and people travel would boost economic competitiveness and create jobs.
The plan – with goals to be met by 2050 – focuses on travel within cities and between cities, and on long distance journeys. It includes calls for:
- cities to completely phase out petrol cars
- shifting to rail or water 50% of all passenger and freight road transport currently making intercity journeys of more than 300km
- airlines to increase their use of sustainable low-carbon fuels to 40%
- shipping to cut 40% off its carbon emissions.
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UPDATE: Per my comment above:
I think it will the EU that’s banned by 2050, not the automobile. Why? The automobile actually provides a useful function for people.
It seems to mirror the thinking of many:
A MASSIVE wave of public support was last night surging behind the Daily Express’s crusade to liberate Britain from the stranglehold of Brussels.
An exclusive poll conducted on the first day of our crusade showed an astonishing 99 per cent of people agree we should quit the European Union.
In an indication of the strength of public feeling on the issue, the poll saw the biggest ever response to a Daily Express phone survey, with tens of thousands of people swamping our switchboards.
Read more and sign the petition: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/213821/21382199-of-you-say-Get-us-out-of-Europe#ixzz1HztMDhJN
h/t to Fred Berple for the update
I wonder how long it will take all those 20-something activists to work out that it is their generation they are shafting – it is them who will have to walk to the city or queue interminably if they’re lucky enough to live near a rail link when they are 50-something years old. Those of us closer to 50 now won’t want to drive our car into the city by 2050.
This kind of idiot thinking is just the leg-up America needs to scoot ahead of the global pack. I can see hordes of flat-footed Brits late to work, massaging bunions and reaching for the Ben-Gay after hiking half way across London to get to work at the local government office while the Yanks, seizing the opportunity, dance past this nonsense and grab the ring. How do we get Oz to buy into this kind of stupid without tipping our hand? We should probably also hang up a sign: “Brits and other Euro thinking losers need not apply”.
The motto, as always: ‘We’re the government – we’re here to help!
I wonder if I’ll live long enough to witness an EU declaration of independence and a grass roots recovery of their lost liberty. I hope the Chinese are benevolent overlords and tolerant of Sharia law else there will never be peace. Remember when the biggest problem they faced was just a thousand year Reich? Life seemed so simple, then. Now it seems almost preferable.
This being forced upon the UK by their EU masters, I don’t think the UK public will have any of it. But what it does remind me of years ago, in the 80’s, a great British TV show call “Not the 9 O’Clock News” was on once a week. There was a skit where an announcer made a comment about the area of rainforrst burnt in the Amazon every year was the size of Belgium, to which the reply was “Why don’t we just burn Belgium?”
Actually I lived and schooled in Belgium, it was fine apart from the EU.
Yup, meet Siim Kallas, hero of the Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the great Soviet Estonian Socialist Finance Ministry in the glory days of the ’70’s and NOW, WAIT FOR IT, in charge of the EU’s transport system. No, really, you can’t make this up. They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. THEY’RE ACTUALLY PROUD OF IT AND BOASTING OF IT ON THEIR WEBSITE’S AND THEIR RESUMES.
EUSSR is no longer a term of abuse, it’s a badge of honor to be worn with PRIDE.
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kallas/about/profile/index_en.htm
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100081610/the-eu%E2%80%99s-tyrannical-transport-plan-will-stifle-economic-growth-and-cost-british-and-european-taxpayers-trillions/
Everyone, here’s the new vehicles, please chose a model you like:
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/10d-8/uppsala-bicycles.jpg
America has already seen this future. Nobody in their right mind works in downtown Houston or downtown Los Angeles. It’s all about satellite office districts and shopping centers. A few US cities have the confined geography necessary to funnel rail traffic to points of interest, but not many. London is already distributed despite the handy rail systems. Paris is growing away from city center with La Defense and the move of the newer museums to the suburbs. In many cases, the best place to be is near the airports.
This is likely the biggest boon to the law of unintended consequences ever conceived by any politician. Ban away. Be prepared for the rail systems to fall into disrepair for lack of riders.
I suggest that this idea needs a pilot study to thrash out the detail prior to implementation. How about Brussels take the lead to ban all carbon sourced forms of transport by 2020, no chauferred limousines, no short haul flights and all EU ministers to have reduced their personal carbon budget by 60%. That is if they would like to lead by example!
If one believes the folks that hang out at the Oildrum ( http://www.theoildrum.com ), no government intervention will be needed. Very high petroleum costs caused by running out of cheap oil will do all the things the EU desires and more. While I think TOD is a bit single minded and often premature, I expect they are basically correct on this. (They have outstanding technical articles on various aspects of energy production and use BTW)
Cities to phase out petrol cars. Problem is that when you make it impossible for the productive people to get to and from their jobs, customers, suppliers, entertainment, restaurants… They (and the tourists too) just go somewhere else. Pretty soon all you’ve got left is a city emptied of productive people and businesses and “urban decay” left behind. Let the hand wringing begin. How can we solve urban decay and renew our failed cities? I know! Relax tax laws, allows cars back in, attract some businesses to build here and bring jobs with them…
And can someone tell me what kind of jet fuel is “low carbon”? and renewable to boot?
As far as we Brits are concerned, we, the people of Britain have never signed up for this quango, and so the EU is an unconstitutional and therefore illegal union.
So no British Jury will ever convict under these stupid rules.
Which is why the EU’s next target for “reform” is to “harmonise” courts across Europe doing away with what I think it was Jefferson said: “I think of no other institution other than a jury by which a government can be held to its constitution”. (From memory)
David Cameron keeps telling us he has his reasons for keeping the UK in the EU so he isn’t going to give us the chance to decide the issue for ourselves. When I see proposals like this I have to question not only his competence as a Prime Minister but also his sanity.
Yeah, no more lorries in out cities.
No more food suppliers in cities, no more DHL, UPS and other suppliers in the cities.
I gonna love that thoughts, when EU ar*es cry for their daily breakfast eggs, while there is none available.
EU is clearly devil’s work and absolutely hyperfluid.
The EU should be disbanded… NOW.
Gotta love these pointy-headed bureaucratic nincompoops: enthralled with their own superior intelligence. The brainiacs in Berkeley concocted a traffic management scheme decades ago that blocks most streets in an attempt to funnel all traffic to major thoroughfares; what they created are huge labyrinths that force angry motorists to wander all over town trying to find the way out – oh bytheway…wasting time, money, serenity – and FUEL, thereby causing MORE pollution than necessary. This type of thinker finds the reliable laws of unintended consequences to be ever beyond their grasps.
“John Tofflemire says:
March 28, 2011 at 10:47 pm
“Backwards to the future . . .”
I wish. Backwards to a time when progress was not a dirty word, when we had supersonic passenger jets, fewer restrictive laws and lower overall taxes? Hell yeah!
I guess now we are going future to the backwards!
Russell says:
March 28, 2011 at 11:43 pm
I wonder how long it will take all those 20-something activists to work out that it is their generation they are shafting
20-something? Isn’t it rather 60-something? I.e. all those “68-ers” whose value set and political attitudes are still deeply rooted in the Malthusian miserable world view of the early seventies? As more of a “gen x” I used to admire them and share their views – but fortunately I didn’t share their complete inability to change.
Why does Brussels have some of the finest restaurants in the world? Because we pay for our Euro MPs to dine in utter luxury while they work out how to claim expenses for their ‘work’ they do on our behalf!
Oakden Wolf says:
March 28, 2011 at 10:29 pm
Excellent!
Commie scumbags. Vote UKIP. Watch Nigel Farage on youtube as he demolishes the commie scumbags.
I did hear that traffic in London moved faster when it was horsedrawn at the turn of the last century but one so there is a sense that the wheel has turned a full circle.
However, the emissions from horse digestion, faeces as well as the coal fired heating systems can’t have been markedly different in terms of contribution to climate change to what they are today.
Even when you add it all up, I think more hot air comes from Brussels…….
I suspect that I may be preaching to the converted here, but if you live in the UK, then please sign the pledge to only vote for a candidate which promises to grant a referendum on EU membership.
This is the only way we can peaceably extract ourselves from this EU climate fascism. We have up to four years to recruit as many people as possible to this cause. The cause being democratic accountability and self-determination. Please tell your friends and family about this too.
http://www.peoplespledge.org/
@the_Butcher
More bitterly ironic than you know. Dear old Siim Kallas, new hero of the EUSSR, was President of the Estonian Cyclists Union for nearly a decade in the Nineties and Noughties.
No wonder we Brits are emigrating in droves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1569400/Emigration-soars-as-Britons-desert-the-UK.html
Maybe the politicians can show us how it will be done, let them park their cars at the city limits and catch public transport to the House of Parliament or whatever you have in your city. The local council could do the same thing. In Brisbane Australia our Mayor introduced a bike hire scheme that no one uses, I suggested the council workers had to use it for a week to get to work. That will show them for backing Campbell Newman who is now trying to run Queensland.
I guess these predictions will be trotted out as support on the precautionary principle
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12881779
Roger: “OK lets go to Bill in the Rabobank Chopper for a traffic report.”
Bill: “All roads leading into London are clear at the moment, there is only some pushbikes slowly making their way in. Public transport is at a standstill but Roads Management Authority said they will be up and running as soon as the wind starts blowing. This has been another traffic report thanks to Rabobank, your green bank with the cheapest electricity loans in the market.”
Roger: “And here is Jenny with the weather report. Jenny can we expect the wind to pick up so the windmills can start cranking up the power supply?”
Jenny: “Thanks Mike, well the Met Office says there is a 30% chance that the wind will pick up, a 30% chance that it will die down further still and a 40% chance of the status quo for much of the day.”
Roger: “Thanks Jenny. On the economic front, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said today that the british Economy had taken a further hit with growth expected to shrink by a further 1.5% for the quarter and unemployment up to 19%. He said though the tiger economies of China and India were doing very very well, Britain is unable to trade with these monster economies because we have nothing to sell them and no money to buy anything from them.”
“On a bright note, the endangered yellow bellied three toed mouse, a creature about the size of a penny, has been saved with the announcement that the 5 billion euro gas fired power plant has been axed by the developers Xiang Zi Power. Minister for the environment Redman Myass said this was a wonderful example of Britain leading the world in environmental management. “This has been a win for everybody” said Myass.”
Not for nothing is the EU becoming known as the Fourth Reich.
Oh, and Brian Johnson uk (The UK must … disengage from the EU as soon as David Cameron has the guts to allow us a referendum on the subject), that’ll be no time soon then. The moron is as closely wedded to the concept of EU superiority over every aspect of British life as any EU Commissioner. With every major party firmly captivated by the EU (and CAGW) we have little choice over most aspects of our lives nowadays.