Welsh internal flights

[zog]

and increased car-parking charges in the centre it'd be cool

Fucks sake LLantwit. I got caught for £12.50 for 4 hrs a couple of weeks ago. they're robbin bastards as it is, don't go and encourage them.

As for stopping cars travelling down St Marys St

All it does is shift all the trafic into Riverside and other residential areas. I work on St Mary's St and one of my co-workers who only has one leg has to hop from Westgate St to the office now as they won't even let disabled badge holders access the street.

It's all well and good makeing life more dificult for car drivers, but it really needs to go hand in hand with improved pubilc transport.

 

[zog]

Is that cottage left empty the rest of the week then?

*gets flaming torchMaybe for you if all that endless travelling is your thing. Not so good for others, I'd imagine.

Sometimes people just click. You know what I mean? and I can tell you've just taken to Mr F.

By the way Mr F. Welcome to the boards.

 

[llantwit]

What you doing parking inb town for you lazy fucker!?"!@%£*^& You only live accross the bluddy road.
Totally agree, though. Gotta have public transport too.
As it is the council seem to be leaving it to 'market forces' to sort out the pubic transport while reaping the benefits of increased parking prces themselves.
It's gonna be impossible to commute to Cardiff with a car once they turn over all the voucher parking in the centre to metre parking. It'll be like four times the price or something!
eta: I like the idea of 'pubic transport' - would be an improvement on the smell of Cardiff buses.

 

[Gromit]

Sometimes people just click. You know what I mean? and I can tell you've just taken to Mr F.

By the way Mr F. Welcome to the boards.

I have a feeling thats down to the first impressions generated in his "How do I illegally sneak underage girls into clubs" thread.

 

[llantwit]

I have a feeling thats own to the first impressions generated in his "How do I illegally sneak underage girls into clubs" thread.

That'd do the trick then. Clearly a charmer.

 

[chainsaw cat]

Is that cottage left empty the rest of the week then?

*gets flaming torchMaybe for you if all that endless travelling is your thing. Not so good for others, I'd imagine.

...PMs Editor with alibi.....

 

[Yossarian]

You want to burn his wife and his cat? That’s a little harsh – you haven’t even verified whether they’re English or not yet!

 

[lewislewis]

Cardiff council is a good example of how not to run transport (public or otherwise), I think we can all agree on that- bunch of money grabbers. Why the fuck do residents of Cardiff vote Lib Dem?

 

[Kameron]

Surely a better option would be to call for reopening some of the cross-Wales rail routes trashed in the 60s and the upgrading of current rail services across Wales (and introducing cheaper fares)?

The last thing Wales needs is dirty great big motorways trashing the countryside.

Amen to the last point but my understanding, and the maths isn't all that complex to crunch (it is done quite simplistically here but I've seen more high-brow analyzes), is that rail is no better than air. If you do the numbers it is better in terms of the carbon foot print to travel by car as long as you have four or more people in the car and aren't driving an SUV.

We can't extend that analysis to air travel because what the simplistic analysis done by Lancs Uni engineering department misses is the effect of con-trails but to be fair it isn't that Kemp doesn't know about con-trails it is just that it is a first year lecture and doesn't attempt to go into secondary environmental foot print, it is a strictly carbon foot-print model.

 

[Gromit]

Cardiff council is a good example of how not to run transport (public or otherwise), I think we can all agree on that- bunch of money grabbers. Why the fuck do residents of Cardiff vote Lib Dem?

The buses and trains in Cardiff have been private for years. Long before the Lib Dems got in.

 

[zog]

Cardiff council is a good example of how not to run transport (public or otherwise), I think we can all agree on that- bunch of money grabbers. Why the fuck do residents of Cardiff vote Lib Dem?

cos Labour are a shower of cunts and there ain't enought people living in Pontcanna to get Plaid in.

 

[MrFalafel]

Just thought I post my experience in actually taking one of those internal Wales flights:

The airport in Anglesey is actually just part of RAF Valley. At roughly flight time, a chap with a uniform stands holding a gate open to allow passengers access to the modest parking lot. My taxi dropped us off at the nice new but tiny terminal.

The terminal has one check in desk and another desk for enquiries. The desk clerk takes the job very seriously and quizzes everyone about luggage contents, even the fluids thing. The waiting area has the usual fixed chairs, arrivals /departures screens (all 4 daily flights are listed in real time!) and a couple of vending machines. Everything is new looking. Nice photography artwork on the walls.

When called through to the seperate departure lounge you have to put your luggage through a proper xray machine and walk through the metal detector just like in normal airports. Must have been half a dozen people working in the airport that I saw.

Then the airplane (Jetstream 31)http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/Jetstream31.jpg landed and discharged its passengers via the airplane door that folds down and presents stairs to the ground. Perhaps half full. Pre boarding was announced and the little old lady in the wheel chair was wheeled out onto the tarmac and lifted into a seat.

The plane seats 18 passengers in 6 rows of 3 seats: 2 seats together, then a tiny aisle and another seat. Its all quite small but there is sufficient legroom for a 6' person like me.

We all get settled and the stewardess (yes there is a full time stewardess on the flight) goes through the safety stuff and hands out boiled sweets. The twin turbo props are fired up and we taxi to the runway, the same runway used by fighter jets, and we join the queue to take-off/land. Its quite odd to be sitting there waiting to take off with a scary looking fighter aircraft sitting behind you...

Take off is smooth, we bank into the clouds an then above the clouds for an effortless flight down. Coffee/tea & biscuits are served during the 45 minute flight and then we make our descent passing a great view of Cardiff Bay and into Cardiff Airport, which is a bit of a dissapointment as far as transportation links into town.

It was a fun flight but its pretty clear the whole thing was constructed so AMs can fly to and from NoWa to Cardiff and back. The amount of ground crew to passengers and numbers of flights just doesn't add up. I say ride it while you can if you enjoy that kind of thing.

 

[editor]

In Cardiff however public transport is hindered greatly by a city layout that doesn't lend itself to public transport.

A good start might be to join the Coryton railway line up to Radyr to create an inner circle line.

 

[editor]

The terminal has one check in desk and another desk for enquiries. The desk clerk takes the job very seriously and quizzes everyone about luggage contents, even the fluids thing. The waiting area has the usual fixed chairs, arrivals /departures screens (all 4 daily flights are listed in real time!) and a couple of vending machines. Everything is new looking. Nice photography artwork on the walls.

When called through to the seperate departure lounge you have to put your luggage through a proper xray machine and walk through the metal detector just like in normal airports. Must have been half a dozen people working in the airport that I saw.

Compare with: get on train in middle of the city five minutes before departure and get off in the centre of the city of your destination.

No long rides to out of the way airports, no nosey parkers rifling through your bags and asking you personal questions, no metal detectors, no hanging about waiting for hours, no "you can't use your phone now" warnings, no tiny uncomfortable seats, no boring view of clouds and, of course, much less damage to the environment.

 

[editor]

The buses and trains in Cardiff have been private for years.

Not according to the blurb on their buses ("This bus belongs to you").

 

[Col_Buendia]

We're not all up at Heathrow

https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/378962.html

https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/images/2007/08/378964.jpg

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Why the fuck do residents of Cardiff vote Lib Dem?

They used to vote Labour but Labour were crap, now many deceive themselves that LibDems are to the left of Labour.

Many are voting LibDems as a perceived left-alternative to New Labour, For example, my parents are traditional Labour voters. After 1997 they voted SLP, Green & RESPECT, but recently have dangerously moved towards voting LibDem - the yellow tories.

In Cardiff Central where LibDems have their only MP in Cardiff, the student vote is essential.

Students now overwhelmingly vote LibDem. Many would have in the past voted for Labour, but since tuition fees hardly any students would vote Labour. The LibDems are also perceived as being an anti-war party.

Llantwit makes some good points, but I disagree with him over the idea of a congestion charge. As I have discussed extensively in the past, Ken Livingstone's and the GLC policy in the 1980s of radically slashing bus and tube fares was far more effective in lowering congestion than his more recent congestion charge.

It was also a policy that was massively popular with working class people, surveys at the time showed almost three-quarters of Londoners approved.

This is important today because their is a danger of a popular backlash against climate change. Many measures such as abolishing cheap flights and the mainstream parties obsession with green taxes mean that working class people could become quite negative about tackling global warming. In actuality their are many measures to tackle climate change that would be hugely beneficial to working people.

The Scottish Socialist Party and many other left wing groups have been proposing the idea of Free Public Transport:
http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/transport/index.html

This is not as utopian as it might seem. In the 80s, leftwing Labour councils such as the GLC and Sheffield (led by then-left wing, David Blunkett) dramatically slashed fares for local transport.

Some European cities sucessfully implemented genuinely free public transport. One of the most famous cases was in Red Bologna in the 70s. One of the things they would do is set up car parks at the edge of the city, visitors and tourists would have to leave their cars in the parks and get on buses that would take them into the City.

Even in England today some local councils run limited free bus services in the city centre area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCityBus
There's no reason why Cardiff couldn't run a similar service to those in Leeds and Huddersfield.

The SSP website quotes an example from Belgium where free public transport dramatically reduced congestion:

In the Belgian city of Hasselt, which covers an area double the size of Dundee, congestion was eliminated in the late 1980s after the introduction of a totally free public transport system. Within a year, bus passenger journeys rose by 870 per cent and have now increased by over 1000 per cent

They still run free public transport, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport_in_Hasselt

What ended cheap fares and free public transport was not unfeasibility but hostility from corporations and right wing politicians. In Britain, backed by the Tories, the Law Lords took the GLC to court.

Some examples of zero-fares:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-fare_public_transport

 

[Gromit]

Not according to the blurb on their buses ("This bus belongs to you").

Don't blame me

 

[meurig]

Didn't the Tories privatise Cardiff buses back in the early 80s? Or did they just deregulate them?

 

[ddraig]

thought it was owned by the council...
from the wiki

Cardiff Bus (Welsh: Bws Caerdydd) is the dominant bus operator in the Welsh capital Cardiff and the surrounding area, including Barry and Penarth. The company is wholly owned by Cardiff Council and is one of the few municipal bus companies to survive the effects of UK bus deregulation in the late 1980s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Bus

 

[MrFalafel]

Compare with: get on train in middle of the city five minutes before departure and get off in the centre of the city of your destination.

No long rides to out of the way airports, no nosey parkers rifling through your bags and asking you personal questions, no metal detectors, no hanging about waiting for hours, no "you can't use your phone now" warnings, no tiny uncomfortable seats, no boring view of clouds and, of course, much less damage to the environment.

Well I did do the train back ot NoWa after taking the flight down to Cardiff so I can compare and contrast.

Walking through Cardiff bus station to the train terminal past the bums and drunks leftover from the following evening certainly wasn't the same as arriving at the clean and remote airport. And the bilingual warnings to watch for pickpockets and to keep an eye on your bags in Cardiff train station did add an air of magic for our journey home.

On the 3 hour train to Crewe (the first leg of the journey) I certainly enjoy stepping ito the bygone era of 1970s rolling stock, the graffitti hacked train tables shortened our journey as we marked the passage of the ages through the scratchings of passengers. Paying 90p for a packet of crisps wasn't as nice as getting a couple of free boiled sweets and a coffee on the plane, but it was certainly more substantial.

And the chaos at Crewe where the train split sending the first half to Manchester and the second half to NoWa was a great way to stretch ones legs, especially as the second half was now completely full and no seats were remaining. Imagine the jolly conversations had by the 12 people crammed into a veistible along with their luggage, all bound for Butlins in Prestatyn and static caravans in Rhyl. Wasn't it interesting to trade stories and views of current events with grimy fathers of 4 who were already on their 3rd can of Carling by 2pm? Isn't it great to run shoulders with all of Gods children in this manner?

And the elongated stops at Prestatyn and Rhyl while northwestern sub proletariat unloaded huge amounts of luggage and tranlsucent and/or obese children or the one week holiday among the soggy dunes allowed us a closer view of the center of these towns and the extent of their decay. Anthropology in action!

So what exactly is the carbon footprint of a fully laden twin turbo prop airplane running for 45 minutes vs an aging diesel train running for 4 hours while spewing its lavatory accumulation along the train tracks?

 

[llantwit]

Llantwit makes some good points, but I disagree with him over the idea of a congestion charge. As I have discussed extensively in the past, Ken Livingstone's and the GLC policy in the 1980s of radically slashing bus and tube fares was far more effective in lowering congestion than his more recent congestion charge.

To be fair, I did say we needed both.

 

[llantwit]

Well I did do the train back ot NoWa after taking the flight down to Cardiff so I can compare and contrast.

Walking through Cardiff bus station to the train terminal past the bums and drunks leftover from the following evening certainly wasn't the same as arriving at the clean and remote airport. And the bilingual warnings to watch for pickpockets and to keep an eye on your bags in Cardiff train station did add an air of magic for our journey home.

On the 3 hour train to Crewe (the first leg of the journey) I certainly enjoy stepping ito the bygone era of 1970s rolling stock, the graffitti hacked train tables shortened our journey as we marked the passage of the ages through the scratchings of passengers. Paying 90p for a packet of crisps wasn't as nice as getting a couple of free boiled sweets and a coffee on the plane, but it was certainly more substantial.

And the chaos at Crewe where the train split sending the first half to Manchester and the second half to NoWa was a great way to stretch ones legs, especially as the second half was now completely full and no seats were remaining. Imagine the jolly conversations had by the 12 people crammed into a veistible along with their luggage, all bound for Butlins in Prestatyn and static caravans in Rhyl. Wasn't it interesting to trade stories and views of current events with grimy fathers of 4 who were already on their 3rd can of Carling by 2pm? Isn't it great to run shoulders with all of Gods children in this manner?

And the elongated stops at Prestatyn and Rhyl while northwestern sub proletariat unloaded huge amounts of luggage and tranlsucent and/or obese children or the one week holiday among the soggy dunes allowed us a closer view of the center of these towns and the extent of their decay. Anthropology in action!

So what exactly is the carbon footprint of a fully laden twin turbo prop airplane running for 45 minutes vs an aging diesel train running for 4 hours while spewing its lavatory accumulation along the train tracks?

Yes, I can see why you'd prefer a form of publicly subsidised non-sustainable transport appartheid. You don't have to mix with those ghastly proles as it is. You can exist in a nice clean middle class bubble between your city job, your country pad, and the odd jet down to Cardiff. Hurrah!
PS: Fuck off.

 

[editor]

Walking through Cardiff bus station to the train terminal past the bums and drunks leftover from the following evening certainly wasn't the same as arriving at the clean and remote airport.

Gosh. It must have been so awful for you having to pass a handful of dreadful poor people on your way to the station.

Stupid snob.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

On the congestion charge I oppose it, I will dig out the thread where I documented extensively the flaws and problems in it. It is also a regressive tax.

I think Falafel does have one point that proponents of public transport have to answer.

There is an issue on evening trains of drunken and disorderly conduct.

In Cardiff, some women I know are afraid to travel on some of the late night buses, some drivers are too. The late bus services into areas such as Llanrumney and Fairwater are often cancelled for long periods of time due to violence from passengers sometimes towards the drivers.

One solution might be to re-introduce conductors and employ more Guards. Certainly that would create jobs.

 

[editor]

I think Falafel does have one point that proponents of public transport have to answer.

Err, he wasn't complaining about that - he was whining that his long suffering eyes had to merely gaze upon these "bums and drunks" as he hurried past on his way to his country pad.

He then went on to slag off the "northwestern sub proletariat" and their "tranlsucent and/or obese children," deriding them for only being able to afford a "one week holiday among the soggy dunes."

The guy's an insufferable snob. And that's just about the politest way I can word it.

 

[MrFalafel]

Yes, I can see why you'd prefer a form of publicly subsidised non-sustainable transport appartheid. You don't have to mix with those ghastly proles as it is. You can exist in a nice clean middle class bubble between your city job, your country pad, and the odd jet down to Cardiff. Hurrah!
PS: Fuck off.

I ride the train from NoWa to London twice a week, son. Been doing it for years now. I know what I'm talking about.

Hop a weekend train from Chester to Rhyl sometime and tell me its a pleasant experience. Go ahead.

 

[MrFalafel]

Err, he wasn't complaining about that - he was whining that his long suffering eyes had to merely gaze upon these "bums and drunks" as he hurried past on his way to his country pad.

He then went on to slag off the "northwestern sub proletariat" and their "tranlsucent and/or obese children," deriding them for only being able to afford a "one week holiday among the soggy dunes."

The guy's an insufferable snob. And that's just about the politest way I can word it.

Hmm, my home is in NoWa and my country pad is in Camberwell, but some aren't interested in reality as myths are so much easier to cling to, especially for the unimaginative.

As I've pointed out before there is only £6 difference between riding a train and an airplane but some people would rather spend that £6 on a few cans of lager, I guess.

And another poster is correct: the trains into NoWa at night are downright scary. I've had Virgin train conductors announce on the tannoy for everyone to 'watch their bags' as we travelled between Prestatyn and Colwyn Bay on more than one occaison because of unsavoury characters on the train.

One can sit back and judge based on unreality or one can listen to those who live the life and learn from it. But then again, ignorance is such bliss for so many

 

[King Biscuit Time]

The buses and trains in Cardiff have been private for years. Long before the Lib Dems got in.

Cardiff bus is still owed by Cardiff City Council is it not?

 

[Gromit]

Cardiff bus is still owed by Cardiff City Council is it not?

According to other posters it is. Which has me as I was certain it was privatised yonks ago.