town is gridlocked between 330 and 630 every weekday

[badtraffic]

The answer is to build more homes.

I could cry.

Overpopulation. 24,000 more people are born every day, net. Not only do they live most of their lives not 'replacing' their parents and/or grandparents, but living alongside them, multiple generations of families all needing resources and consuming. They need housing, job, transport, education and healthcare, they consume clothing (plastic from shitty clothes ends up in our water and the aquatic animals we eat), contribute hugely to climate change, pollution, noise, electricity, fossil fuel consumption, if they eat meat, huge amounts of land and resources are needed to feed and breed the animals they want to eat. The soil has enough nutrients for 60more years of harvests...
By 2050 the Middle East will be too hot for human habitation (Guardian article from August 2016) so there will be billions of climate refugees. Enjoy this shitty gridlock while we still can, the future is going to be a living nightmare.

Don't worry, nature will provide a mass cull at some point like the black death or we will all kill each other over religion

Fleshy

Totally agreed. Article is probably right about the outcome of all of our abuse of the earth. I’m no angel but I agree with things like 5p bag charges etc when most of my customers complain and don’t agree with it. This is just a tiny step compared to changes that need to be done

Why is the fact that immigration has contributed to population growth so contentious on this thread? Why are people being called knobs for raising it?
www.theguardian.com/news/2015/mar/24/how-immigration-came-to-haunt-labour-inside-story
Are we incapable of dealing in facts any more?

woollyminded, I wasn't suggesting that you were! I just get so tired of endless repeats on this kind of thread of people endlessly saying "well I CAN'T use public transport for XYZ reason", and imagining that this is an eternal, unchangeable state of affairs that's nothing to do with them.

It's only going to get worse. Gridlock. Pollution. Kids unable to go anywhere without their parents ferrying them in their car. It can't carry on.

I appreciate that there are some people who just don't want to get the bus, but there are also people who just can't.
I start work at 7 so I can't get the bus - they don't start early enough.
I used to bike in but now I have to do the school run straight from work and I can't get there in time on the bike, so now I drive.
Lots of people could walk to school but don't because they continue straight on to work once they've dropped the kids off.

It's not as simple as getting the bus, or sending all children to their nearest school.

Except, GoodForgetter everyone who is saying basically the same things as you seems to think that the current situation they are living with is eternal and unchageable. Which it will be if you don't get together with other people and push for change - petition for an earlier bus, or after-school provision, or whatever else you need in order to be able to not have to jump into your car all day, every day. Or do you want to live with every-increasing gridlock and pollution?

We are lucky to have great public transport (SE London) though

I'm sure you appreciate not everywhere does, right? I was on a similar thread a few weeks back. One posted told me it was reasonable to leave home at 5.30am for an 8.30am meeting because I can walk. I'd have to "find some childcare" and it didn't matter I had to carry some tech equipment with me I should manage. It's a 20 min drive.

Better public transport isn't really the answer, except maybe in some big cities. As many examples on here show, traffic may be bad and car journeys slow, but they are still generally significantly shorter than a bus journey - often 3 or 4 times shorter, and that's where there even is a viable route.... even doubling or trebling the buses out there wouldn't make much of a difference, apart from adding many more large and mainly empty vehicles clogging up the roads further.

In my opinion the solution is a combination of:
a) more investment in roads
b) faster transition to electric cars to reduce pollution on those roads
c) self-driving cars which drive more efficiently with other self-driving cars, enabling smoother traffic flows, and increasing capacity
d) a proper network of cycle paths
e) more flexible and home working (thoughbappreciate this isn't possible for some jobs)
f) and yes, better public transport on certain key routes

Cars are just far, far more convenient in 95% of circumstances - and with busy lives with families it's completely unrealistic to expect people to martyr themselves by adding an hour or so to their commute each day to do their bit to make traffic less bad for those who continue to travel by car.

At work I arranged with a bus company to do a route around the local area whilst building works meant that the staff car park was out of action.... out of 400+ staff virtually no one used it despite promoting. Why? Because the bus only left twice over route each morning - 45 mins gap - one bus was expensive enough, we could hardly provide a fleet of them to give a ten minute service. People invariably chose to park a mile plus away (away from parking control zones)!and walk in. They could at least travel in when suited them, and were not beholden to a particular time in the evening to leave.

I live off the South Circular road and traffic is terrible for much of the day, worst between school drop off and pick up time. I do the 15-20 minute walk into town rather than drive or take the bus and sit there for ages. Not if I have heavy bags to take home though. At least with a car you can pop to supermarket during evening when roads are quieter. Needs must. I dislike that some people seem to be welded to their car as if they were born with wheels. I'd hate to drive all the time and never stretch my legs it's awful for your health. I do get that it's not possible where someone has a very long walk into town or is disabled etc.

I live in the country and there has been huge development in a number of villages here (part of the government directive). Hundreds of homes have been added but the infrastructure is still the same - tiny lanes, no public transport, the small rural schools are full to bursting and GPs surgeries are crammed. The local sewage network couldn't cope before either!

And yet the local council continue to grant planning permission for hundreds of houses (which of course we need) but without making any contingency plans for the infrastructure which is creaking badly. A bit of joined up thinking and common sense at this level would help. Local concerns about this are just dismissed.

I think that the reasons for congestion are blindingly obvious -

The average number of walking trips has fallen by over 30% since 1996 (why is there an obesity crisis I wonder).

Rail fares increase faster than the cost of living.

7,500 pedestrians and cyclists are killed or seriously injured each year on the roads.

Which is why 64% of all journeys are made by car. 66% of those journeys were under 5 miles and over half of those were made by car.

Lord Adonis did mention investment in transport infrastructure yesterday and to my suprise it wasn't just about roads. Maybe there is hope ...

Get a bike - if it's just you and older kids / teens, or a cargo bike (e.g. Bakfiets) if you have younger children.

Like magic, you'll be able to bypass all the jams

Of course better public transport is key! I don't just mean a few more buses on some routes. The whole system needs to be overhauled. It needs to be cheap. And joined up. And publicised. it needs to be more expensive to drive and park than to hop on a bus-a lot more.
And yes, the number of people killed by cars is horrific. Driving a car isn't a human right, and a lot of people who really shouldn't be driving are forced to because of appalling transport services.
More roads are shown time and time again to create more traffic. If you build them more will drive on them. It's not the answer.
Look how great Londons tube is. OK it could be cheaper, but it works mostly, and it's used, not just by the old and the poor (who no one cares about) but by everyone.
If we can have great public transport in one city, why not all of them? Why not a joined up rural bus and train service?

We can't just be all British and accept that it's shit.

The town I live in has always had huge traffic problems. So the council decided to build a ring road. This was meant to take the traffic away from the town centre. Well some twat must of been a bit off with his drawing equipment as when the bypass was finished , it went straight through the centre of town. Not relieving the traffic at all.
They built another bypass to another town, which is unused as it goes so far in the other direction it’s pointless. May out my self here now , the new airport relief road they are building . If we took this planed road. It would take us 45 minutes, yet I live 20 minutes away from the airport. The council have just agreed to X amount of house to be built, how it reads a whole new town, with shops and schools. I am lucky I don’t need to drive to work.
And on a side note. Why the hell do they keep building houses that are apparently affordable homes , yet start at the £200k mark? Surely more social housing is needed?

Birthdaybeast - thanks for the clarification.

Kootoo - that sounds awful. Did you make a formal complaint to the bus company? They may have been able to identify the individual driver.
I have had my share of rude drivers in my time (no racist ones fortunately) but I don't feel that boycotting buses would be the most productive course of action.

There is a community group in my area of town that organises public meetings. They invite councillors and representatives from the police and bus companies. I don't know how effective they are but at least it gives people a chance to raise their concerns.

I live about 2.5 miles from the town centre. I know that walking and cycling aren't feasible for everyone, but even if some of the drivers could avoid using their cars for this distance, it would help a bit. Admittedly, some of my local cycle lanes are a bit rubbish. There's one that has cars parked all over it. I think the council just put it there so they could say they had made a cycle lane even though it's unusable for most of its length.

In my opinion the solution is a combination of:
a) more investment in roads

This has never, ever worked, cocoanuttella.

rightsaidfrederickll - it can be quite hard to bypass the traffic in a bike (I expect more so on a big cargo bike). The traffic sometimes comes very close to the kerb, so without a cycle lane it's difficult to overtake on the inside, and you must be very careful of larger vehicles that have a blind spot. On the right there is not always room to overtake either, and it can take nerves of steel to do so. If there is a cycle lane (one with an unbroken white line that the cars can't go in), then it's great when you can whizz past the traffic. I have just started working in town two days a week and prefer to take a quieter less direct 'back route' that avoids the main roads. Fortunately there is a nice one that goes along the canal and river.

Companies should also try and help aswell. Carpool things like that ( the big companies I mean) may not be for everyone but some simple ideas in place could help a little. The number of people that live near me but never offer a lift

I'm sorry but I'm not prepared to risk mine or my kids lives by cycling on the roads. It's just not going to happen until there are safe cycling paths for the whole journey - which again isn't likely to happen. So we will continue to drive until public transport can get us there for the same price and in the same or reasonable time.

Which is the mindset of most people. Which is why the problems are there. Which is why the planners need to grant planning permission with infrastructure conditions - which the government must fund and not overrule. Mmmmm...

So we will continue to drive until public transport can get us there for the same price and in the same or reasonable time.

So what are you doing to help make this happen, Whinesalot?

Honestly - nothing. Which again is the mindset of most people. Which is why it needs to be government driven. Unfortunately apathy reigns.

Then nothing will change, Whonesalot, because the government will do nothing unless they are pressured to.

So: every-increasing gridlock and pollution is on the cards, again.

Ask yourself what would you do if you were banned from driving today for a year or two? Do you think you’d cope? Or would you have to change jobs etc