To think one hour for six miles is ridiculous

[Lilacviolet]

No accident or other obvious reason, sheet weight of traffic.

AIBU to think this country’s roads are a joke?

Sounds like the M4 on a Friday evening.

Yes, lots of people have no alternative to driving. But lots of other people could walk or cycle, and if they did so, there would be fewer cars to cause congestion

You're correct, Kazzy.

Living in London I can take advantage of 24 hour bus services plus underground and overground trains to get to most places I want to go, and it's hard to imagine living anywhere that doesn't have numerous options for getting to and from from schools, supermarkets, hospitals etc at times to suit the traveller.

Try living by Stonehenge.

We used divert via Amesbury and the Woodfords.

I work 17 miles away.I drive It can take 24 min to an hour depending on the time of day as I do shifts. I’d I went by public transport it would take 2& 1/2 hours to get there.

Same here with me and OH. He's a railway enthusiast and would have loved to commute by train. He was never been able to do so, despite him living literally a mile away from a train station before we married. He worked just 20 miles away in the next town, but there were no direct trains, despite a direct railway line. He would have had to get a train at station A to go south to station B to change to a train going north to station C to change to a train going south to station D. That would take over 2 hours on the trains (actually less than 15 minutes ON the train, the rest of the time waiting at stations for connections) plus walking time of another 1/4 hour at each end, so 2.5 hours in total. Or he could drive from home to his office in town D in 25 minutes door to door. Guess what he did.

Same with me. I had a job about an hours' drive away. It was physically impossible to get there before the 8.30 starting time by train as the train took 2.5 hours but the first didn't leave until after 7am, so around 9.30 was the earliest I could be there by train. Same coming home, the only trains were 4pm (too early) and 7pm (too late), the latter would have got me home about 9.30. By car, I could leave home at 7.30 and be back home by 6pm.

Neither of these journeys were tiny towns or villages. They were all to/from relatively large towns, all with their own train stations, but just with very convoluted journeys or sparse timetables.

By direct train, I could get from home to London Euston in 2.5 hours (? 250 miles) but from home to a town 60 miles away took the same time (and cost more!) on 3 different trains despite there being a direct track.

That's the reality of public transport outside the big cities.

HeyNotInMyName

"You’d be quicker walking."

Err... no. Walking speed is 3mph, or perhaps 4mph if you're really legging it. Nobody can actually walk six miles in an hour.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant running!

millefiori
5 miles an hour (12 minute mile) is jogging pace, not walking pace. The average walking speed is 3 miles per hour, 4 if you walk briskly. Walking briskly may not be possible if it’s very hilly or the weather is bad, or if you are accompanied by young children, or have a large amount of tools or books etc to carry, have bunions or arthritic feet etc....the list could go on. While I agree that more people could perhaps cycle, it’s not possible for so many people.
I used to cycle when I lived in Holland but I would never do it here as we don’t have adequate (or in places any) cycle paths and I’m far too scared to cycle on the road due to crazy amounts of traffic and terrifyingly poor driving standards of so many.

It’s not as simple as saying ‘just cycle’.

Just cycle 😂

I love mumsnet.

You can pretty much walk five miles in an hour

I've just re-read @milliefiori 's post, I missed this gem the first time round, I'm not sure which part of the post is the stupider, please come back and provide us with specific workable alternatives to those of us who drive to work. Or was your post an ironic one?

Obviously we'll all need a few months to get up to Olympic race walking speed first, good luck to the poster above who lives in a hilly area

I live in the Extinction Rebellion protest area. It is 30 minutes to reach the end of my road. (Indeed I can hear an ambulance making no progress.) An hour for six miles is normal, indeed good going.

(Luckily there are plenty of alternatives. Anything under 40 minutes and I would normally walk.)

It is very difficult to solve the issue of too many cars / not enough public transport across the whole country. Of course in towns and cities where there is adequate public transport we need to get people out of their cars whether its by incentives or penalities.

In the mean time we need to look at other solutions - like stopping companies insisting everyone works 9 - 5 even though many employees could work alternative hours and reduce the peaks of traffic for the employees that are on shifts or fixed hours.

at times to suit the traveller

That reminds me of a special bus our village had which went to the city infirmary. It was a twice daily service. The only bus we had that actually went through the village centre (The hourly service goes from the by-pass which is about a mile away from the centre). Few people used it so the council stopped its' funding about 10 years ago.

Funny that no-one used it! Could it have been that it left at 11am and 1pm, with return trips at 12noon and 2pm? So, basically, as useless as a chocolate fireguard. If you had a hospital appointment before 11.20, it couldn't get you there on time, and if you're appointment was afternoon, unless you'd been in and out before 2pm, it couldn't get your home. Completely useless for hospital staff. Completely useless for visitors as it didn't coincide with visiting hours either.

But whenever the locals & parish council raise the issue with the county council or bus company, it's always the same answer - that you used to have a service but people didn't use it!

The city now has a park n ride which is also hardly used. Funny that. Could it be that it is on the countryside end of town where there are no houses and that drivers would actually have to drive through town from the other end where the housing estates are, through the congested city centre to get to it? It's also useless for shift workers as the last bus from the city centre to the park n ride is 6pm, and it doesn't run at all on a Sunday.

I’m assuming you’re a driver OP.

So you have to accept that you’re part of the problem, by adding to the traffic on the roads 🤷🏻‍♀️

Not everyone is physically capable of cycling, albeit a distance which seems short and relatively quick to some.

Not everyone who is physically capable of cycling wants to undertake a journey by bike which can potentially be dangerous.

Not everyone who's physically capable and prepared, in theory, to cycle, can logistically do so due to the time constraints of combining school /nursery/childminder drop offs with getting to work on time. Never mind the inpracticality of transporting kids by bike.

I would happily car share and/or use public transport more often but this has to be viable, and in the case of public transport, affordable. There are any number of jobs which don't easily lend themselves to car sharing, those who find others with similar hours going to the same location are lucky. A successful car share also depends on the reliability and punctuality of all concerned.

As for public transport..... increasingly it seems that unless you live in a major city, your options are diminishing year on year, with bus and train services reduced or cut altogether. I used to live in what would be described as a large village (3 schools, a dozen shops, most definitely not in the middle of nowhere) yet you couldn't leave by public transport until well after 9am. And the last bus back was at 4pm. I once worked out that it would have taken me until 11.45am to get to work via a very convoluted route. It's obviously very frustrating to sit in traffic but at least you know you're on your way, warm and dry and will get to your destination eventually. The same can't be said when trains at peak times are frequently cancelled, often with little or no information and that is why people choose to drive because all too often there's simply no workable alternative.

It is very difficult to solve the issue of too many cars / not enough public transport across the whole country.
Why is it difficult? Starving public transport of investment is virtually Tory party policy going right back to Thatcher, but other options are available. The U.K. is a small, rich country. The notion that we couldn’t have fantastic, relatively cheap, environmentally friendly public transport is ludicrous.

I can jog 6 miles in an hour. I could cycle 12 miles in an hour without getting too sweaty (assuming no big hills!)

Cycling is only dangerous because of the drivers, so we come back to what we do about dangerous drivers.

But also common sense solutions to reducing traffic - like making park and rides operate all week, and until a sensible time at night, like 10pm rather than 6pm like a pp says. I do use park and ride when possible, it saves stress and hassle of parking, but it doesn't work if you work 9-5 and the last bus is at 4pm! Although even when they are good, people still seem to prefer sitting in city centre jams. I was really surprised at how bad the traffic in York was considering there are decent park and rides and lots of buses.

In the mean time we need to look at other solutions - like stopping companies insisting everyone works 9 - 5 even though many employees could work alternative hours and reduce the peaks of traffic for the employees that are on shifts or fixed hours.

It's not so much 9-5 as 9.30 to 3 for working parents with kids at primary schools who are working during school hours only. Their timetable is so tight, they can't use public transport as there isn't time. It's also why they "have to" park so close to the school gate, as they havn't time to park/walk further away. Flexible school times would make a lot more sense, i.e. a much wider range of times for drop off/pick up and more pre/after school clubs etc. At our school, the gates don't open until 8.45 and registration is 8.55 - so over 300 kids have to get in within a 10 minute window - no surprise there's congestion, not only on the roads, but the pavements are full too! Same at the end of the day, last lesson ends 3.30, school gates close 3.45.

Yabu.
It's too many able bodied people using cars for short journeys, crap public transport and inflexible employers wanting everyone in at 9am and out at 5pm that are the problems.

When we moved house, I had to wait a few weeks for a school place...so my DC was still going to their old school which was 4 miles away... school started at 9am...I had to leave at 7.50 . The driving and the stress every day actually made me ill. Thing is if everyone took public transport it would be so much quicker...but I couldn't risk taking the bus as it would have taken me even longer...catch 22

@StCharlotte That only works if you live Salisbury side. Not if you live in a village just along from Larkhill on the Devuzes side of the 303

I work 40 miles away in one direction, DH the same in the opposite direction. There is no public transport option that would fit in with work hours or shifts. We are in Scotland, but not Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen, so no decent transport connectivity. We have to drive.
Even if we could find jobs locally, cycling is not an option for loads of reasons: physical health issues, weather, needing kit or equipment for work,and the sheer bloody danger of pedalling a frail and flimsy contraption in traffic which is bigger, faster and liable to kill me!

starving public transport of investment is virtually Tory party policy going right back to Thatcher

Can't remember Blair/Brown doing much to improve it. In fact, our village lots it's only bus route during their tenure (by a Labour county council), at similar time to when our village had it's library closed by the same Labour county council, and the bus service on the by pass a mile away downgraded to hourly (it used to be half hourly). All under a Labour govt, and Labour county council. So, it's not just "evil" Tories despite what you may wish.

Funny that London has had so many billions of cash thrown at it over the past 20 years when the rest of the country has been starved of money for improvements.

People who are saying, “Just get the bus or cycle” have obviously never lived rurally. At the end of my driveway is a countryside road. That’s it. No pavement, nothing. And it’s on a steep, twisting hill. Ain’t nobody walking or cycling out of my house, unless they have a death wish.

I just had a quick google to find out how I could get to my work by public transport: I’d have to drive to my nearest bus stop and find somewhere to park, then take two different buses for a 1 hour 32 journey time for a seven mile trip. And it would cost be £6.50 for a one-way ticket.

Cyclists actually make it way more difficult and slow to get to work in the mornings, so I’d rather they just drove their cars as well. There are no cycle lanes anywhere, as it’s all country roads, and there are so many bends that opportunities to overtake are few and far between. And they can’t even keep a decent pace. Because it’s Cornwall. There are steep hills FUCKING EVERYWHERE. So we all end up driving at less than 5 miles per hour all the way uphill, when actually the cyclist could just get off and push their bike... it would be much quicker!

There is only one bus to my village. It leaves at 7am and it gets back at 6pm. And obviously only follows one route. So for about two people it’s probably perfect. Fuck-all use for the rest of us though.

@kazzyhoward
Why do you think the Tories are evil? I certainly did not state that. But I do think they are ideologically opposed to anything but minimal levels of state investment on public services. In fact the Conservatives have made cutbacks to 3000 bus routes since taking power in 2010. Quite a figure. Bus usage everywhere outside London has declined 10% in the last decade or so. And re. New Labour, well it’s new secret that they were hardly idelogically opposed to chunks of Tory policy - train privatization among them. But New Labour are not here right now.