town is gridlocked between 330 and 630 every weekday

[badtraffic]

The answer is to build more homes.

I could cry.

We had one of those surveys about developing on greenbelt recently and my response was surely there comes a point where a town is full.
The roads are full
The schools are full
The doctors are full
The hospitals are full

As a private renter desperate to own I get it. I really get it, but plonking an extra 200 houses next to crowded towns in for landlords to buy isn't the answer

And quite frankly, the cost of public transport is ridiculous.

This - I actually started using public transport when I got a raise. I hate driving, and I could finally afford not to.

Bike

But the town planners say if you build more roads, more people use them.

Surely peoples need for a home is more important than your need to drive your car through the city centre for a 3 hour window each day? hmm

There is actually a thing called urban planning. It is possible to build homes and the infrastructure needed to support those homes, including roads, shops, community spaces and schools. Otherwise you just get sprawling estates with no support, miserable traffic, no way for the people who live in those homes to get to work, nowhere for their kids to go to school (adding to traffic) and no community spaces for people to meet. It isn't an either or. A decent urban planning department could set it up so that you can have a liveable space and enough homes.

Public transport realistically means a bus here. Costs a lot. Drops me miles from where I need to go. And still get stuck in traffic!

o, all you people complaining that your locality is "full", and there's more houses being built (most of which will have people with cars) with no extra infrastructure being built, too - why don't you ring your councillors and tell them to get on the job? So that people can walk to school, the doctor, the shops.

It's that or enjoy your gridlock and your pollution problem.

I used to get the bus everywhere. It is wonderful to use the car now. Every journey takes way less time than it used to.

User21. Because that's a practical alternative to driving your 4yr old to school ,5miles away, with your 2yr old toddler, then driving another 3miles to nursery and then 10miles to work, to arrive by 9.30? Or for the builder with his ladders and kit? Or the person whose job is driving to different locations all day etc etc etc

But time constraints mean it not always viable to use public transport. No amount of planning will say change the fact the first bus is 6am and will take an hour to get to X but you need to be there for 6:30pm. If I get a bus home from dc's school I can just get home for 20minutes before having to leave to catch another bus. In that time I would have to change and feed the toddler, let the dogs out, let the chickens out and get everything prepped for the next three hours we would be out for. The car ride is 5-10minutes but because the buses are always running late you have to allow an hour. I can't change the time school starts or change DD appointment time because that is the only time that fits in between getting DD and ds to school and manages to get DD back to school before lunch, if I moved it to the afternoon I wouldn't be back in time to collect ds from school. It's a nightmare. Infant sometimes I beat the bus when I walk its that bad.

Archery we have fantastic local councillors, who do their ( unpaid) job but that doesn't mean they can stop the developments

My town is the same. The road system cannot cope with the amount of traffic going through the town each day, and yet the council are allowing more and more houses to be built. Thousands of new homes have been built on the outskirts in the last few years, with another 2000+ currently being built or about to be built. There aren’t enough doctor surgeries and schools yet on they plough. At a council planning meeting last year, the concerns about lack of facilities as well as the existing traffic problems were repeatedly brought up and the response from the council was that people on these estates wouldn’t need to go into the town centre because they would be “self-contained” and have their own amenities 🙄 I’m pretty sure most people don’t do a big monthly shop at their local corner shop. Not to mention that the original plans submitted showed certain amenities (shops, medical centres etc) on each estate yet when the plans were revised these amenities had disappeared and replaced with more housing. Our public transport system is ok but to get from my house to the train station, for example, (a 10 minute drive), I would need to get two buses and it would take me the best part of an hour. Driving would take me half an hour. So it’s no wonder people opt to drive rather than bus it. The town is getting worse by the day.

It's been repeatedly brought up Archery.

The town is like an island at some parts of the day.

In response to the people who say "I can't walk or cycle because it's too far/I have childcare/mobility problems" - this may well be true for you, but wouldn't your journey benefit if some of the people who are currently driving were able to switch to walking or cycling? Half of all trips under 3 miles are currently driven - surely some of those people would walk or cycle if they felt it was safe to do so? What about all those school-age kids being taxied around who don't need to be sitting in traffic?

Next time your local council's doing a consultation about development, ask what they're doing to make it easier and safer for people to choose sustainable travel - even if you can't change your journey, other people could, and that will make your life easier.

A town in Somerset beginning with B by any chance??? Woe betide you if there’s anything on the M5!!!!

Exactly @pallisers! In my very small city, there are plans for at least 10000 new homes in the near future. Unfortunately there is still only one way to get from north to south as there's a river in the middle, and only one bridge. An added complication is the main A-road which has to pass through the city and across that bridge. The council have been talking about a bypass for 30 years, it still isn't happening. Instead they built a road nobody wanted or needed in the middle of the city.... all this road will do is open up a bit more land to build houses on! Brilliant!

It's the 'there is no option for public transport' posts who then tag on 'not without it taking longer or having to wait' onto the end I have a problem with. That means that there is an option for public transport. It's OK not to want to take it, but to say it isn't there is inaccurate.

But you have no idea what their reasons behind the 'it takes longer' comments do you?

Pigflewpast
I'm suggesting that many people could cycle. It works for me.
It would also help if people sent their children to local schools. Very few people have to drive their child to school, it's a choice.

This is another example isn't it, of how uncontrolled immigration has caused a huge surge in the population, without the infrastructure to cope.

The Blair government's idiotic open doors policy has adversely affected everything - the NHS, schools, housing.

Roll on Brexit I say. I'm not holding my breath though.

in all seriousness user it isn't safe to cycle.

This is another example isn't it, of how uncontrolled immigration has caused a huge surge in the population, without the infrastructure to cope.

No.

I live in a medieval town with 4000+ new houses to be built in the next 15-20 years. Realistically they're all being built now. The infrastructure simply cannot CANNOT cope. Immovable medieval buildings, a river with limited bridges, a railway cutting through the town, and a motorway to boot; it's absolutely mad to build that many there. But everywhere else is green belt and none of the councillors live in that part of town so that's that. It's disgraceful and will not make it a pleasant place to live which defies the whole point of 'needing' that many houses.

This is a big part of why we emigrated. I don't miss it, and it sounds like it's just getting worse.

user my dc's school is one where if I catch the bus I have to leave an hour before the gates open to make sure we are there on time and even that isn't always enough. We have been in the situation before where the bus just hasn't arrived for so long we had 10 minutes before the register would close. I ended up having to get a family member to leave work to collect my children from the bus stop to get them in before they where late. Our bus service is meant to be every 10minutes but it's more 30/40minutes with 3 turning up at once. Because it's such a long route with over 10 schools and a industrial estate on the route however no matter how many people complain the bus service claim they run only a few minutes behind and that if you have to order a taxi and get a recipt they will eventually refund the cost once you can prove you had to do it.

I can't cycle because it's 50mph roads and I have to do school and nursery drop off. And I can't get the bus because despite it only being 6 miles to that town it would require 2 buses, going into one town then changing. And there's no station near my village. So yeah. My town is gridlocked at those times too. Sucks.