I live in a small village with narrow streets and rows of terraced cottages that open on to the street. Parking and driving down these streets is an absolute nightmare. In houses all over the uk with grown-up children still living at home it can mean at least 3 if not 4 cars per household. Very difficult for all concerned as everyone wants to park close to their own house.
'Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement' - Helen Keller
I used to live in several places and all had public transport options reasonable for commuting. My parents used to have one car and most families I know as a child was the same... I guess different times. At the moment I live in a small village and even though we have good links to the nearest town and decent grocery shop, I understand the need for two cars per family. What I don't get is why people use them so much. One of my neighbours takes her kids to school, it would be 5 minutes walk, maybe 7 with small kids. Other people take a car to post office - 3 minutes walk. We were surviving without a car for 8 years, we only bought one slightly over a year ago because we were house hunting and that was really impossible without a car. In this society, everyone just assumes you have a car. We were living without any problem without it, walking everywhere, biking in nice weather or using public transport if needed. I still consider anything within half an hour walk (3km) a walking distance.
Never had a car. Learnt to drive but so badly that I never risked driving again after passing my test 37 years ago. I only take jobs or homes where public transport is adequate, simples. My current home has a garage which is crammed with mostly garden related stuff, and I really resent that I have to maintain a long block paved drive for the benefit of whoever lives here when I am dead and gone.
Sign of the times I suppose. I do understand how vital cars are to people in rural areas. I watched a mum load her 3 kids into the people carrier for the school run. Another mum whizzed by on her bike accompanied by her 2 kids scootering along the pavement. A few minutes latrr mum returns on bike with 2 scooters over her shoulder and waves good morning to other mum who is still strapping her kids into people carrier. I suppose I should enjoy the street entertainment value of all this especially when, later this morning, the Yodels and DPD vans arrive to deliver our streets online shopping and can't get past each other. I just wish that people would incorporate some planting into their car parks. There are 7 trees in our street, 6 of them are mine and I still have 2 parking places. Neighbours have complimented us on how nice it looks so hopefully it might rub off. Right I'm off to see if my Amazon orders arrived. Thanks for all your interesting comments!
I live in a new build on a new estate and I think sometimes that there should be regulations in place (if there aren't already!) to ensure that there is both parking and green space (which could take the place of a large protected green area not necessarily front gardens) we do have a front garden and we have planted a small tree but 90% of my effort has gone into the back garden that few people actually see. We do have a few big green areas though where lots of scrub has been planted and mature oak trees left in (thankgod for TPOs!) Which is full of wildlife so even if everyone paved over their front gardens I hope it wouldn't be catastrophic. This is not an option with older areas obviously. I believe that a garage is counted as a parking space but I think most people use it for storage now. So we only have one parking space and one car parked on the narrow street. We have considered gravelling over a part for the other car. Unfortunately we are a car centric society... I believe this needs to change for our health and that of the planet but it is hard to know the solutions. A lack of public transport and cycle/walking infrastructure in our area leaves most people with few other options, tragically.
The Director General of the RHS was quoted in the FT as saying that 1 in 4 front gardens is now paved over. If true, and I find it difficult to believe, that is astonishing - bad for biodiversity, bad for flood risk.
That's a frightening stat. Our property is at the lowest point in the street and the front of the plot is much higher than the back. The road drains are right outside our property and any water that doesn't make the drain runs through our soil. A neighbour showed me a picture of our back garden when she came here for a BBQ in the summer of '76. The grass was completely parched. Most of the houses in the street had gardens then. Last year during the hot summer the lawn was lush and green throughout the summer. I never watered it once. So I presume it is getting watered now by the run off from the neighbours car parks, something that obviously did not happen in 1976.
"Do not judge how a man walks until you have walked a mile in his shoes" occurs to me reading all the posts here. When I had cars i never needed to rip up a garden but I was lucky . and not everyone likes gardening.
This should probably read "don't judge how a man drives until you've driven a mile in his car".
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
My parents used to live in a road that had a grass verge between the pavement and the road. All the houses had garages at the end of the back gardens, accessible from a service road. My dad, a non-driver, used to work himself up into a fury about the neighbours who found it too much trouble to drive round to the garages, and parked on the verge. In winter, they gouged out deep ruts, which would bake hard in summer, causing a tripping hazard. They were invisible because the council mowers skimmed over the top, leaving the grass long in the ruts.
It would be interesting to know how many garages are used for cars rather than as storage and work rooms.
If people need to park in their front gardens, it's a pity more people don't use the rubber or concrete surfaces you can buy that are full of holes to let the rain and grass through. Government and environmental organisations should do more to promote them.
I live in a small col-de-sack I thought after reading this thread I'd take a walk and see who has and who hasn't turned the garden into parking. 17 house in the street of which 3 including mine have front gardens the rest block paved or tarmacked, one has made an effort and put a large flower pot out side but let the plant die. This is the strange thing although we all have room to park two cars most of them park on the road. Whats the point if doing away with the grass/flower beds and still not using it to park. We have no paths to walk on so you have to walk on the road which means walking round their cars, one family has 5 cars all parked on the street leaving their block paved area unused. The emergency services can't get up to the end of the road the same goes for the dustman, delivery vans etc.
Posts
In houses all over the uk with grown-up children still living at home it can mean at least 3 if not 4 cars per household. Very difficult for all concerned as everyone wants to park close to their own house.
We were surviving without a car for 8 years, we only bought one slightly over a year ago because we were house hunting and that was really impossible without a car. In this society, everyone just assumes you have a car. We were living without any problem without it, walking everywhere, biking in nice weather or using public transport if needed. I still consider anything within half an hour walk (3km) a walking distance.
It would be interesting to know how many garages are used for cars rather than as storage and work rooms.
If people need to park in their front gardens, it's a pity more people don't use the rubber or concrete surfaces you can buy that are full of holes to let the rain and grass through. Government and environmental organisations should do more to promote them.