But he voted Trump in 2016. I think that’s what @Chuymatt@beehaw.org meant by a ‘historical conservative’.

Yeah, it’s not exactly a fun walk even now. I normally go through Soho if I’m in the area even if it takes longer.

I read a while back that the average speed of a bus in central London is 3 (three!) miles per hour.

You are right that they can’t compete directly with online shopping, but that’s not why people go there. Studies have consistently shown that closing shopping areas to through-traffic is good for businesses, precisely because it makes them easier, not harder, to access. Shops don’t benefit in any way from hundreds of cars (or, in this case, buses and taxis) driving past them!

EDIT: Thought I should link to a specific study rather than just vaguely waving at them. There are many to choose from but this one is particularly interesting because it’s from the US, where they generally don’t have good cycling and public transport infrastructure, but it still shows benefits for businesses:

While we observed some mixed results, we generally found that street improvements have either positive impacts on corridor economic and business performance or non-significant impacts.

It’s important to note that nothing always works everywhere (‘some mixed results’, here), but the balance of evidence is in favour of at least trialling traffic reduction schemes in commercial districts.

Yeah, it’s a fair point. I think the downside of caps is that it feels like the article is screaming at you!

The Greens very much do run on nimby platforms, including their co-leader, mentioned in the article. And it is just deeply aggravating when they oppose green infrastructure for nimby reasons, whether it wins them votes or not.

Also, lots of words start off as acronyms and then lose that status. ‘Laser’ is a good example: originally ‘Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’, but now always written in lowercase.

What about this one person I heard about who’s old and also blind and she needs to take her cat to the vet and if she can’t drive at 30mph past a primary school her cat will die? What about her?

Rough sleeping is a specific category of homelessness, meaning people who are sleeping actually outside, on the street. Homelessness can refer more generally to people who are shuttling between different temporary accommodation or couch surfing. Obviously there’s some overlap and people often go from one to the other.

Next they’ll realise giving people food stops them being hungry!

Definitely the right decision. I criticise the Greens a lot for letting their nimbyism trump their environmentalism, so it’s only fair that I praise them embracing their yimby side!