Knockdown college

[ewx]

A common response to complaints about a shortage of road space in Cambridge is “which college do you want to knock down?”.

[Poll #459884]

Comments

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Something else: The university, of course.

[naath.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem to have a building...

I think that we could lose land economy.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Scorpio: "Ha, Ha! Nobody ever says Italy"

(Shouldn't we be donating money to somewhere to buy the cheapest college and knock it down? I'm happy to keep the kitty.)

[fanf]

You missed out the theological colleges.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I used this page (http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/colleges.html). I didn't list APU either...

[wendym.livejournal.com]

I don't really want to knock down Peterhouse itself, but some of the "chaps" in it would make good speedbumps. Also the dons at Trinity who refused to put in lighting on their bit of the backs as it would "spoil the view". Despite their students getting repeatedly mugged.

And the UL (once all the lovely books are out of course), it's evil! </ranty ex-student>

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

If you knock down the UL, the evil bound into the fabric of the building will leak out all over Cambridge rather than being safely confined.
Do you really want shoggoths spontaneously instantiating in the Guildhall?

[sparrowsion]

Peterhouse could actually be a good choice, because you could put a new river crossing in in its place and relieve the pressure on Fen Causeway. (Although what's really needed there is a link from Newnham village to Brooklands Avenue.)

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

I don't really want to knock down Peterhouse itself, but some of the "chaps" in it would make good speedbumps

I'll see your Peterhouse and raise you Robinson (except with some of the 'chaps'at Robinson, just making them speedbumps would be too kind - I'd go for spreadeagling, in the original Roman army sense of the word).

[velvetpurrs.livejournal.com]

Knocking down just one college won't make an iota of difference to the congestion problem though, so I'd vote to keep them all :-)

The answer is clearly to ban all traffic from the most central part of cambridge town and then offer a park-and-rickshaw scheme. Park the car for a reasonable fee (as now) and walk, or park and pay a little more for a rickshaw pass - hail a rickshaw to get zipped around the city for those places that are a little further away.

At the end of the day, people are basically lazy, and whilst cycling is good and many do it, transporting shopping on a bike can get a bit more problematical, especially with the daft anti-motorbike/cycle-with-panniers barriers up at the ends of many off-the-road cycle paths.

Park-and-rickshaw seems to make more sense in that respect. Those that walk, will walk, and those that can't/won't have an option that would see the centre of the city free of the numpties circulating from one side to the other to get to a car park close to where they want to shop - and stop the ones that park somewhere, shop, go back, park somewhere else, shop more, drive back across the city to go home...

[gerald_duck]

Ah, but some of us buy big heavy things from central Cambridge shops on occasion, the kind of thing a rickshaw couldn't really carry. And then there are delivery lorries, and at least twice a term people importing and exporting students' wordly possessions.

I think Cambridge has been a functioning community for many centuries, and has an impeccable balance between roads, colleges, shops, private houses, student lodging, and so on. All that's needed is to stop accumulating ever more people, dammit!

Yes, I know that'e easier said than done, especially with all these silly people who keep having children…

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Trishaws!

[armb.livejournal.com]

> park-and-rickshaw

Park for free at the Park and Ride and get the bike out of the back of the car works for me, mostly.

[emperor]

[not that I'm bitter kings stole our chaplain, oh no.]

[sheffers.livejournal.com]

To be fair to them, I hardly think they coshed him over the back of the head and bundled him into an unmarked black van. I suspect Ian had a large part in moving there.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Taking a few meters off the front of Magdelene could widen a notoriously conflict-prone stretch of road, actually. (So would knocking down the buildings the other side of the road but they're much prettier...)

[kjaneway.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure knocking down any of the colleges would actually help the traffic/roads issue one iota.

However, Fitzwilliam is just TOO DAMNED UGLY to stay.

[rillaith.livejournal.com]

Only the old front (the carpark-like bit). It's actually incredibly lovely inside especially in pring/summer, and the (new) front (what I still call the back, mind) is surprisingly pretty decent.

New Hall, OTOH, has approximately zero redeeming features. Unless its big white dome having had a cat face painted on it once counts. And jeeez, you have seen the Typwriter at Christs, right? And you call Fitz ugly! ;)

[3c66b.livejournal.com]

I'm astonished how many people think Churchill should go ahead of, say, Robinson or Fitz.

Can we knock down bits of colleges?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'm possibly biased regarding Churchill but I don't think it's as bad as many people seem to; it's not beautiful but there are far uglier buildings in Cambridge.

Robinson I always thought was visually quite nice.

[neilh.livejournal.com]

Theres got to be a better way - how about we shoot tourists? We'd only have to take out, say, one in ten, enough to get a reputation as potentially dangerous, and they'll stop coming. Problem solved.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I suspect that people travelling in to Cambridge to work or shop here make up the bulk of the traffic, rather than tourists.

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Top of the list of what has to go is all Cripps buildings. That'd free up quite a lot of room....

[rillaith.livejournal.com]

I demand everyone who ticked Fitz goes a) inside (preferaby when the vegatation is more interesting than Winter) and b) round the new-front. Feel free to trash the old front that looks like a car park, though.

[sweh.livejournal.com]

All of the above; who needs Cambridge when there's the far superior Oxford?

[meirion.livejournal.com]

yuk.

i increasingly think my life would be immeasurably better if i didn't have to live in oxford during the working week ...

-m-

[sheffers.livejournal.com]

Ok, in order to make road space, it makes no sense to bulldoze Girton, as it's a well-known fact Girton is 15674687465468746546 (approx.) light years away from Cambridge (ho ho ho, that joke never gets tired or old at all). So, to get more road space, pull down Trinity. All of it. It has the most buildings, ergo you will free up the most space.
As for a College to pull down because it deserves it - Caius, because they pronounce the name of their College in a silly fashion.
Oh, and not strictly speaking limited to one College - any and all Cripps buildings on the grounds that they are hideous.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Knock down 10 Downing St.