The dangers of London's streets...
- Thread starter Roadkill
- Start date
Cobbles said:
The notion that building more roads will ease congestion has been proved wrong time after time. Even where new roads don't actually stimulate demand, they're never enough to keep up with it.
And tbh, even when the whole of south-east England is covered in concrete and traffic islands, the car lobby will still be whining that not enough provision is made for them.
To quote myself:
Of course population growth, rising levels of disposable income and the like fuel demand for transport. Who is suggesting otherwise? The point is, that so long as demand carries on rising it is always likely to outstrip road capacity, and since there's a limit to how many roads you can build it's sensible to think in terms of improving public transport to meet some of the demand and cut car use.
That is all sadly true, but it can't go on forever. IMO the big task facing planners is to make cities more attractive places to live, work and shop so as to reduce demand for transport overall. Coupled with that is the need to improve public transport dramatically. Sadly, the direction of current policy is not going to achieve either of those things in the near future.
Of course population growth, rising levels of disposable income and the like fuel demand for transport. Who is suggesting otherwise? The point is, that so long as demand carries on rising it is always likely to outstrip road capacity, and since there's a limit to how many roads you can build it's sensible to think in terms of improving public transport to meet some of the demand and cut car use.
That is all sadly true, but it can't go on forever. IMO the big task facing planners is to make cities more attractive places to live, work and shop so as to reduce demand for transport overall. Coupled with that is the need to improve public transport dramatically. Sadly, the direction of current policy is not going to achieve either of those things in the near future.
roryer said:
Edinburgh Toon Cooncil have plastered the (now commercially dead) centre of town with "bus only" zones.
Result - a massive increase in NO2 and particulate pollution (as predicted in its 2002 Air Quality report) - Edinburgh will no longer be able to reach EU clean air targets which it before when there was a traffic mix and a lesser volume in buses (twice the frequency of buses with no increase in passengers = increased congestion + pollution).
Reduction in City Centre Business Rates as shops and offices relocate - millions in revenue.
Edinburgh Tooon Cooncil also recently squandered £11M on a 2Km section of guided busway along which vehicles can travel at a staggering 20MPH. - Reduction in journey times - nil.
If PT theorists want to play at social engineering, then I suggest that they buy a copy of Transport Tycoon or similar to satisfy their cravings, rather than flushing public funds down the pan.
Roadkill said:
Wrong - the charge was to have been £2.00 and initial proposals were panning out at a collection cost of £1.60 per vehicle, leaving 40P per vehicle to ldribble into the Council's coffers.
They spent 20 Million promoting the scheme so it wouldn't have started to generate any funds for ages. As Ken Livingstone said when he flapped his gob at a (poorly attended) pro charge rally - "if you're doing it to generate revenue then don't bother because it doesn't work that way" - the final nail in the coffin. Result - 3 to 1 against - overwhelming.
Cobbles said:
Your hatred of public transport is so obvious that I can;'t take you seriously. You'll say pretty much anything to discredit any idea that smacks of favouring public transport use over cars.
It is true that £2 was too low a level to set the charge at because, as your figures suggest, it wouldn't raise much revenue, which is part of the point of these schemes. However, congestion charging works and, contrary to all the demonology from the Clarksons of this world (and these boards), the effect in London has been very positive. here are some figures for you to mull over:
Tbh, more fool the people of Edinburgh for voting against the scheme.
roryer
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If you want to talk about waste, the cost of the Aberdeen Western Bypass is estimated at anywhere between £295 million and £395 million probably closer to the higher figure.
As for bus pollution, I agree it is a problem, we need a modern fleet, which could be paid for if as Roadkill says we had suceeded in getting a congestion charge for edinburgh, which would have a double effect of raising money and also reducing auto emissions.
As for bus pollution, I agree it is a problem, we need a modern fleet, which could be paid for if as Roadkill says we had suceeded in getting a congestion charge for edinburgh, which would have a double effect of raising money and also reducing auto emissions.
roryer
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Roadkill said:
Schemes that promote cycling and PT alternatives to cars, like travel awarness marketing, and personalised travel planing are the most successful and cost effective way to reduce congestion. (I wish I could be bothered to look up the figures but the cost benefit ratio beats building a bypass by quite some way).
I personally think congestion is a very over-emphasised 'problem', but since the aim of building a bypass is to reduce congestion to benefit car drivers in shorter journey times, the ironic thing is that the schemes which Cobbles is against are actually the most effective pro-motorist policies.
Cobbles will almost never give up his/her car, while travel awarness schemes help persuade and aid the less selfish drivers who are willing to try to change for the benefit of soceity at large to drive less, while extra bike lanes better PT get motorists off the road, so Cobbles will be the one to benefit from less congestion.
If the bus companies need less polluting vehicles then they should buy them out of their own capital in the same way that if my car fails its MOT due to emissions, I have to pay to fix the problem rather than going round pouting because there's nobody I can panhandle the cash from.roryer said:
Why on earth should those who have chosen to use a form of transport that they pay for directly have to shell out just so that buses that they don't use can be replaced?
I find this binary opposition between pro- and anti-car very silly and counterproductive.
People like Cobbles seem to see any policy in favour of public transport as a snipe at the motorist, which is daft because congestion benefits no-one, and there's a limit to how many roads we can build. Meanwhile, there are some who see the car as a bad thing per se, and see any attempt to accomodate it as wrong. Both of those positions are ridiculous. The fact is that different means of transport have different strengths and weaknesses, and any effective transport policy would seek to utilise the most effective means of transport for a given journey.
Cars are pretty much essential in rural areas where public transport provision is sparse (although it should go without saying that improving rural public transport is a must) and they offer door-to-door convenience, especially at times and places when and where, with the best will in the world, it will never be economic to operate a comprehensive public transport system. On the othe rhand, cars are space-inefficient and produce a lot of pollution for the number of people they move around, and compared with trains and buses they have a high accident rate. That makes them a pain in the arse in urban areas.
Cycles are wonderful in towns because they're quick, convenient and non-polluting, but they're a bit on the dangerous side when combined with motor traffic, and they're no good on journeys of more than a few miles (except for a minority of super-fit people!).
Buses are a very good way of moving people around cities, but they're not economic to operate in sparsely populated areas and they're fairly slow.
Trains are extremely good at moving large numbers of people or heavy goods over medium to long distances and they're very safe, but they're expensive to run, making them uneconomic in many sparsely populated areas, and not all that flexible.
Any effective transport policy would try to work with these strengths and weaknesses to maximise mobility and minimise pollution and accidents. But any transport policy has to influence, and be influenced by, actual demand for transport. Trying to deal with transport in isolation is a non-starter. IMO, to sort out transport in this country we need to think first about exactly what journeys people are making, and what provision of shops and services can feasibly be made near enough to where people live to reduce demand for transport overall.
<edit>
IMo we also have to start (or return to) seeing transport as a 'public good,' like healthcare and education, which benefits everyone and therefore deserves money from the public purse. A decent public transport infrastructure benefits everyone, whether or not they actually make a great deal of use of it. This squabbling over who should pay for what is counterproductive.
People like Cobbles seem to see any policy in favour of public transport as a snipe at the motorist, which is daft because congestion benefits no-one, and there's a limit to how many roads we can build. Meanwhile, there are some who see the car as a bad thing per se, and see any attempt to accomodate it as wrong. Both of those positions are ridiculous. The fact is that different means of transport have different strengths and weaknesses, and any effective transport policy would seek to utilise the most effective means of transport for a given journey.
Cars are pretty much essential in rural areas where public transport provision is sparse (although it should go without saying that improving rural public transport is a must) and they offer door-to-door convenience, especially at times and places when and where, with the best will in the world, it will never be economic to operate a comprehensive public transport system. On the othe rhand, cars are space-inefficient and produce a lot of pollution for the number of people they move around, and compared with trains and buses they have a high accident rate. That makes them a pain in the arse in urban areas.
Cycles are wonderful in towns because they're quick, convenient and non-polluting, but they're a bit on the dangerous side when combined with motor traffic, and they're no good on journeys of more than a few miles (except for a minority of super-fit people!).
Buses are a very good way of moving people around cities, but they're not economic to operate in sparsely populated areas and they're fairly slow.
Trains are extremely good at moving large numbers of people or heavy goods over medium to long distances and they're very safe, but they're expensive to run, making them uneconomic in many sparsely populated areas, and not all that flexible.
Any effective transport policy would try to work with these strengths and weaknesses to maximise mobility and minimise pollution and accidents. But any transport policy has to influence, and be influenced by, actual demand for transport. Trying to deal with transport in isolation is a non-starter. IMO, to sort out transport in this country we need to think first about exactly what journeys people are making, and what provision of shops and services can feasibly be made near enough to where people live to reduce demand for transport overall.
<edit>
IMo we also have to start (or return to) seeing transport as a 'public good,' like healthcare and education, which benefits everyone and therefore deserves money from the public purse. A decent public transport infrastructure benefits everyone, whether or not they actually make a great deal of use of it. This squabbling over who should pay for what is counterproductive.
Roadkill said:
You missed out Taxis and Planes.
Instead of tipping £700,000,000 or £800,000,000 into a concrete mixer and churning out a 19th Century tram system, Edinburgh could use the dosh to subsidise taxis which would provide a flexible point-to-point transport solution.
Planes provide a low infrastructure but high speed means of connecting distant points (e.g. you may need a few new runways every few decades but you don't need thousands of miles at £50M/mile unlike TGV/maglev fantasies.
Cobbles said:
I was referring specifically to transport within Britain, which is why I missed out planes. If we had a decent rail network then internal flights would be much less popular: even now some airlines are cutting services on the London-Manchester/Glasgow route because of the speeded-up Pendolino service on the West Coast Main Line.
Taxis have most of the same problems as cars - space-inefficiency, pollution, danger to non-users. They're a partial solution, but I can't see that there's any better a case for subsidising taxis (I thought you disapproved of subsidies anyway? Or is it just non-road transport you don't agree with...?) than buses or trams.
I'm not familiar with Edinburgh's tram system and it may be that the routes were badly planned. However, tram systems work very well in plenty of cities, Sheffield being a case in point. Provided the routes are good and the service is frequent urban light-rail schemes are a great idea.
Airports are pretty damned expensive things, and rising security problems are steadily reducing the convenience of air travel. Besides, the airline industry is currently in receipt of a massive hidden subsidy in the form of the exemption on fuel duty. Take that away and air travel would suddenly become much less eocnomic.
Meanwhile, high speed trains are far from a fantasy: they work extremely well all over Europe and in many other places, Japan being a case in point. They're expensive to build, but they're well patronised. Again, IMO the best way to reduce air transport over landmasses (which is necessary) is to have a decent high speed train system.
MAGLEV is no fantasy either, though it's still in the development stage.
roryer
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Overall an excellent analysis of the situation, but emphasis on transport spending on any big ticket items is wrong, the biggest thing we need to change is people's attitudes.Roadkill said:
I believe 70% of car trips are under 5 miles, easily cycleable.
Buses are also marvelously flexible, but bus use is in decline in the UK (if London is excluded from the figures)
Improved infrastructure for cycling and buses with increased spend on marketing and PTP are where we need to concentrate budgets.
Maglev is IMO a wonderful thing, but another toy for the boys and ultimately not an efficient use of limited budgets.
roryer said:
What do you mean by 'big ticket' items?
I certainly agree that changing attitudes is a major part of the battle, but I can't see how that's going to help a great deal without providing practical alternatives to car use. IMO there are a lot of people out there who drive because there's no alternative: provide those alternatives and they'll use them. Such is the case in many countries in Europe which have comparable levels of car ownership but lower usage.
Providing those alternatives, especially on long-distance journeys, certainly will involve spending on 'big ticket items,' if by that you mean major infrastructure projects.
Only for keen cyclists, I think. I certainly wouldn't want to cycle five miles to and from work every day.
Bus use is in decline because a) more people have cars, and b) outside London and some other major cities, they're generally expensive and badly run. Rural bus services are usually sparse, slow and expensive. It'd take a lot of investment to provide a half-way comprehensive bus service even to many suburban areas. Tbh I can't forseee a situation ever arising where in remoter areas buses are a viable alternative to cars: you'd just end up with a lot of near-empty buses kicking around, and tbh if there are only a few people to transport each journey, they'd be better off going by car.
Agreed, but over longer distances neither of those are much good: railways are still the best way of moving large numbers of people and heavy freight quickly over long distances.
That remains to be seen, but Maglev services are now operating in Japan and China and they seem to be working so far. As the technology becomes cheaper and more reliable Maglev lines will become a more realistic prospect. I see long-distance high-speed trains as a rival to air travel more than anything else, though.
lighterthief
Well-Known Member
Cycling 5 miles would take, traffic permitting, about 40 mins tops for someone of average fitness.Roadkill said:
lighterthief said:
Perhaps so (I smoke fairly heavily but I used to do a two-mile commute in ten minutes if I was feeling energetic!), but that's not the only barrier to cycling, is it? At the time I lived in Hull, which is very flat: I couldn't be arsed cycling in a hilly area. Then there's the traffic issue: I lost count of the number of times I was nearly hit by apparently-homicidal drivers. I started this now rather-derailed thread in response to two hit-and-runs in SE London in one day...
Better provision for cyclists would encourage more people to cycle, but it's never going to be a total solution.
roryer
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Electric bikes offer a good solution for those who are not so fit, and 5 miles really isn't far. Actually I believe somewhere around 50% of all car trips are of less than 2 miles, hich is easy walking distance.
My point is about priorities of where to spend a finite transport budget, huge infrastructural items like Maglev is a worthy engineering project and one that should be considred but it will not solve the traffic problem.
The chief problem we have is that we have created a car dependent soceity which despite the obvious advantages of a car for an individual, their over use has massive externailties; such as of loss of local services, space inefficiencies, road safety, poor health from lack of exercise, social exclusion particularly for the young, old and poor who do not have access to cars and are unable to use alternative means due to the lack of provision and safety issues, congestion, pollution both noise and air and of course environmental problems from their emissions.
Since proportionally very few trips are made by car between London and Glasgow a Maglev would cost billions to build but have almost no impact on car dependency which is our major problem. I must point out here that am not anti car, cars as I have said have incredible benefits of flexibity and as you rightly point out can be the most efficient form of transport in some circumstances.
The externalities of their improper use such as short journies to the shops, taking the kids to school, or on routes where good alternatives exist actually make up the bulk of the problem; successfully discourage this improper usage and cars become a useful tool.
When a bundle of push and pull measures are implemented in a coordinated way it can have a incredible success, places like Wintertur in Switzerland and Copenhagen have both decreased car usuage while car ownership has continued to rise. I was in Wintertur this weekend, and no-body can seriously go there and not enjoy the peaceful city centre, with bars and cafes, and live music taking the place of cars as the street life.
It can be done here, measures should include; parking restrictions, congestion charging, rising fuel and car tax, park and ride, flexible and improved bus services, bus rapid transit lanes, bicycle lanes, Personalised Travel Planning giving information on local pt services, and marketing campaigns to make taking the bus seem acceptable for the wealthy, which unfortunately many of the less finacially advantaged aspire to be.
None of these seems very sexy for transport planners and engineers, when actually improving buses and making space for safe cycling and marketing them well is where the solution lies. We need many small projects instead of one massive one.
My point is about priorities of where to spend a finite transport budget, huge infrastructural items like Maglev is a worthy engineering project and one that should be considred but it will not solve the traffic problem.
The chief problem we have is that we have created a car dependent soceity which despite the obvious advantages of a car for an individual, their over use has massive externailties; such as of loss of local services, space inefficiencies, road safety, poor health from lack of exercise, social exclusion particularly for the young, old and poor who do not have access to cars and are unable to use alternative means due to the lack of provision and safety issues, congestion, pollution both noise and air and of course environmental problems from their emissions.
Since proportionally very few trips are made by car between London and Glasgow a Maglev would cost billions to build but have almost no impact on car dependency which is our major problem. I must point out here that am not anti car, cars as I have said have incredible benefits of flexibity and as you rightly point out can be the most efficient form of transport in some circumstances.
The externalities of their improper use such as short journies to the shops, taking the kids to school, or on routes where good alternatives exist actually make up the bulk of the problem; successfully discourage this improper usage and cars become a useful tool.
When a bundle of push and pull measures are implemented in a coordinated way it can have a incredible success, places like Wintertur in Switzerland and Copenhagen have both decreased car usuage while car ownership has continued to rise. I was in Wintertur this weekend, and no-body can seriously go there and not enjoy the peaceful city centre, with bars and cafes, and live music taking the place of cars as the street life.
It can be done here, measures should include; parking restrictions, congestion charging, rising fuel and car tax, park and ride, flexible and improved bus services, bus rapid transit lanes, bicycle lanes, Personalised Travel Planning giving information on local pt services, and marketing campaigns to make taking the bus seem acceptable for the wealthy, which unfortunately many of the less finacially advantaged aspire to be.
None of these seems very sexy for transport planners and engineers, when actually improving buses and making space for safe cycling and marketing them well is where the solution lies. We need many small projects instead of one massive one.
Anyone who commutes by bike in london deserves a medal - I have cycled all my life in ireland, dublin and at the weekend in london. though nothing had prepared me for the total assault on the senses that is the london city commute. The pollution, noise, danger. Many of the cycle lanes are a joke. If you are going to build a cycle lane -- build it properly. Or dont bother. the cyclist has to have equal if not more right on the road to the car / bus / trucks. I know there has been alot in the news this week about the meance of cyclists, perhaps we should get some of those politicians out on their bikes to understand what the real issues are
roryer
Good post, and I agree with much of your analysis. In particular:
and
This is a point I hinted at some posts above: it's not about reducing car ownership, so much as reducing car usage and encouraging people who do have a car to use other means of transport when available, especially for shorter trips and in cities. The best ways to achieve this are better co-ordination of bus and rail services, something commonplace in Europe but virtually non-existent here, and improved facilities for cyclists.
That said, I still have more reservations than you about cycling in urban areas. It's not so much the physical effort that puts a lot of people off (and electric bikes can help there) as the danger of sharing the road with cars, taxis and the ubiquitous white van men - a stereotype which, I hate to say, I find a lot of van drivers live up to.
The fact is, though, that urban and extra-urban transport are two quite different issues. The solutions you've flagged up - more cycling provision, better buses - are good for short-distance transport, esepcially urban transport, but won't do anything to address problems of inter-city and rural transportation. It's here that faster rail services come in.
I think you're wrong here. Congestion on the major trunk roads isn't yet as serious as in cities, but it's a growing problem and there will need to be increased provision for long-distance journeys. I'm sure you'd agree that just building more motorways is not a solution to this, so we're left with public transport - either trains or aeroplanes. Of these two, trains are much less environmentally damaging and often more convenient, especially in these days of heightened security, so I would favour putting much more money into the railway system. Before that can happen the system needs a major organisational shake-up (renationalisation is the best solution), but let's set that question aside for the time being.
Maglev is as yet fairly experimental, and I flagged it up more as a possibility than anything else. If it's to happen it's some way off yet. But conventional high-speed lines of the sort seen in mainland Europe (e.g. the French TGV) are far from unrealistic and, indeed, proposals are being taken fairly seriously now. Part of a north-south route even exists, in the form of the old Great Central main line. It'd be mighty expensive, but worth it in the long run.
You say that 'proportionally very few trips are made by car between London and Glasgow,' which is true if you're counting London-Glasgow as a percentage of all car journeys, but IMO not really that relevant. Firstly, a whole load of journeys are being made along parts of that route (e.g. London-Manchester), and a whole load more to places near to it. Moreover, a fair few passenger journeys are made along that route by air. Finally, traffic on the railways is rising. There's already a capacity problem on the West Coast Main Line, but despite that and the fact that it's Vermin Trains who run the service, some of the airlines have lost business to the railways on London-Manchester and London-Glasgow services. In other words, a proper high-speed train service along that and other major trunk routes would take traffic off the roads, and also from the airlines and from the existing low-speed rail network, which would then have more capacity for shorter-distance passenger traffic and for freight - a crucially important subject, but not one we've yet touched on.
There are no two ways about it: all of this will cost, and much of it will have to come from public money. However, I think it's necessary. You say:
I agree with that, but with the proviso that the big and the small projects are not mutually exclusive and we need both.
Good post, and I agree with much of your analysis. In particular:
and
This is a point I hinted at some posts above: it's not about reducing car ownership, so much as reducing car usage and encouraging people who do have a car to use other means of transport when available, especially for shorter trips and in cities. The best ways to achieve this are better co-ordination of bus and rail services, something commonplace in Europe but virtually non-existent here, and improved facilities for cyclists.
That said, I still have more reservations than you about cycling in urban areas. It's not so much the physical effort that puts a lot of people off (and electric bikes can help there) as the danger of sharing the road with cars, taxis and the ubiquitous white van men - a stereotype which, I hate to say, I find a lot of van drivers live up to.
The fact is, though, that urban and extra-urban transport are two quite different issues. The solutions you've flagged up - more cycling provision, better buses - are good for short-distance transport, esepcially urban transport, but won't do anything to address problems of inter-city and rural transportation. It's here that faster rail services come in.
I think you're wrong here. Congestion on the major trunk roads isn't yet as serious as in cities, but it's a growing problem and there will need to be increased provision for long-distance journeys. I'm sure you'd agree that just building more motorways is not a solution to this, so we're left with public transport - either trains or aeroplanes. Of these two, trains are much less environmentally damaging and often more convenient, especially in these days of heightened security, so I would favour putting much more money into the railway system. Before that can happen the system needs a major organisational shake-up (renationalisation is the best solution), but let's set that question aside for the time being.
Maglev is as yet fairly experimental, and I flagged it up more as a possibility than anything else. If it's to happen it's some way off yet. But conventional high-speed lines of the sort seen in mainland Europe (e.g. the French TGV) are far from unrealistic and, indeed, proposals are being taken fairly seriously now. Part of a north-south route even exists, in the form of the old Great Central main line. It'd be mighty expensive, but worth it in the long run.
You say that 'proportionally very few trips are made by car between London and Glasgow,' which is true if you're counting London-Glasgow as a percentage of all car journeys, but IMO not really that relevant. Firstly, a whole load of journeys are being made along parts of that route (e.g. London-Manchester), and a whole load more to places near to it. Moreover, a fair few passenger journeys are made along that route by air. Finally, traffic on the railways is rising. There's already a capacity problem on the West Coast Main Line, but despite that and the fact that it's Vermin Trains who run the service, some of the airlines have lost business to the railways on London-Manchester and London-Glasgow services. In other words, a proper high-speed train service along that and other major trunk routes would take traffic off the roads, and also from the airlines and from the existing low-speed rail network, which would then have more capacity for shorter-distance passenger traffic and for freight - a crucially important subject, but not one we've yet touched on.
There are no two ways about it: all of this will cost, and much of it will have to come from public money. However, I think it's necessary. You say:
I agree with that, but with the proviso that the big and the small projects are not mutually exclusive and we need both.
I've been managing it for years, and I'm a lazy fucker.lighterthief said:
You do need to look at the route options, to make sure you're avoiding the worst car-clogged routes, and you need to wear visible clothing, and you need to sit in a lane like you're a car as much as possible.
And watch out for the usual driver twattery, like "overtake and turn left" and suchlike...
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
Roadkill said:
Edinburgh's CC plan depended on at least 6 years of charging with no significant PT change & a predicted 8 or 9 years before any major improvements even began. This was first & foremost a money-making scheme for the council/bus companies, not a social benifit for people.
The reason it got voted out was partly this & Edinburgh's long-term record of not following-through on promised PT improvements.
pogofish said:
I read up on it a little following my exchange with Cobbles last week, and tbh the more I read the dafter the scheme seemed.
Congestion charging is a good idea in principle, and it works in London, but the Edinburgh scheme seemed pretty ill-thought-out. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of point in congestion charging, and it could be actively harmful, if the money doesn't go into providing workable alternatives to car use.
Tbh one wonders if it would have got through the referendum even if it did promise major benefits for public transport though. There are a lot of car drivers who do tend to vote en bloc against anything that's going to cost them money.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
roryer said:
I would suggest there might be certain other factors that are equally pertinent - Especially the port & its associated industrial/corporate facillities. Also there is the possibility that having better infrastructure might disperse some of this overconcentration to the other towns & ports in the area. Remember that a very large part of the workforce now lives in the hinterland.
Comparing it to Switzerland also fails on several levels - For one, the economy of the cities you compare are quite different but especially the integration & versatility of transport options. I've lived there, in Central & suburban Geneva & there is absolutely no comparison between the management of transport systems here & there.
roryer
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pogofish said:
My point entirely, the Swiss are in a different league when it comes to integrated transport policy and implementation. But what we often forget is that it was not always like this. We are maybe 20 years behind, but there are positives too. London cycling is growing at a faster rate than Copenhagen when they began their planning for a sustainable city transport.
Implementation of a basket of traffic demand management measures that include land use and urban planning, will be successful in the long run, it will take decades but since we have no choice, we might as well start now and stop harking on about bypasses which are the last gasps of the failed transport policy in the UK in the 80's.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
roryer said:
London might be & regions might have been 20 years behind 20 years ago. Now I'd guess most places are further back still.
Integrated policy in London also tends to be way ahead of anywhere else in this country too. Here, integration means a near-total monopoly for First, Stagecoach & their non-competing chums. Rail is no alternative to speak-of, bikes will be banned/severely restricted in most of the centre of town - which hampers their use for getting anywhere else. Parking is now not being restricted decause of congestion, instead it is to "force" more people on to shite private buses on routes that don't reflect peoples needs.
Also, I'm concerned about the social-restrictiveness of it all. I'd bet plenty of employers are looking forward to being able to hold-back pay & conditions because "transport restrictions" give them a virtually captive workforce again. I'm only one generation away from that in my family & frankly nobody thinks going back to those days is a good idea.
Also, in the meantime, this area's economy still depends on moving goods & equipment around. Whilst yes, there are plenty of opportunities to put Grain, booze, root crops, manufactured goods etc on trains & boats, rather than trucks, we still have to get them to the ports/railheads & the 1920s-planned road system we currently use is quite unable to cope.
roryer
道可道非常道，名可名非常名
Roadkill said:
Thanks Roadkill, agreed both are needed.
I am a city cyclist and a long distance train fanatic, I love both modes of transport but ocassionally also fly and use cars both of which I hate, but have to admit are sometimes so convenient that it is almost necessary to use them.
However IMO the crux of the issue is reducing unnecessary car trips in our towns and cities.
The UK is mainly an urban population 81%, and a further 15% are rural town and village dwellers in urban hinterlands. The majority of all the trips made by 96% of the UK's population could be easily replaced by sustainable modes. Buses, bikes and walking are the cheapest and most flexible modes with the biggest potential to replace unneeded car trips.
Although I agree we also need to look at improving the intercity routes, these make a very low proportion of total trips. Walking for instance is one of the chief modes by trip numbers and is extremely healthy and efficient, and yet attracts one of the lowest budgets. This must be reversed.
Having said that I am also attracted by the major engineering feats like the Eurostar and maglev and enjoyed my 9mins into Shanghai. But surley we must recognise that clawing our way up from the disaster of the 1980's transport policy of predict and provide road building we must concentrate our efforts and budgets now on improving the image and provision of facilities for cyclists, bus riders and pedestrians.
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