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?

Hmmm.... can anyone think of any reason why more of us don't live closer to work?

Fact is, most of us live where we do, not for convenience but for affordability. The saving in commuting costs and less childcare doesn't usually cover the additional housing costs when you move closer to areas with greater employment opportunities. And moving is a complete impossibility for many, particularly since lending criteria was tightened.

As a pp said, so many service providers have centralised in recent years. Either to cut costs and/or because technology means they don't literally need to be in the same vicinity as their customers. Think how many bank and post office branches have disappeared. That's just a couple of examples but obviously there are many more. And as a result local(ish) job opportunities are now far scarcer than they once were.

Many of us are well aware how we contribute to traffic problems but what can we do? We come up against a brick wall whichever way we turn, be it a dearth of local work, crap and expensive public transport or housing costs which are out of all proportion to income.

Public transport can never be all things to all people but if it was truly invested in with an eye on the wider picture (and not just individual company profits) as to how it's interlinked with general infrastructure, made reliable, affordable and logical, then a good proportion of current drivers would no doubt use it, leaving the roads clear(er) for others who genuinely have no alternative.

I'm quite happy if I run 6 miles in an hour. It's not that functional for getting to work though.

My last job was 6 miles away, but neither running, cycling nor the bus were practical options for dropping two children off at seperate childcare settings and getting to my desk within a 30 minute window from earliest drop-off time to having to start work. Plus the bags of books/ marking. The bus was fine if you aren't on a tight timescale and have 15-20 mins to walk through the neighbourhood to the bus stop, plus a longer slower journey on the bus.

The reality is that for people to give up on their cars, you need safe walking/ cycling routes that join up. There's a major NSL A** road near me where you can wait at least 5 minutes for an opportunity to sprint across 3 lanes of heavy traffic and the nearest safe access point is an extra mile extension. The irony is that it's a junction of two cycle routes and no safe way to get from one side to the other. Public transport also needs to join up. Nearly everything requires going to the city centre and back out. No one is going to spend over an hour connecting buses to go to the supermarket two miles away!

@Vulpine sure, because everyone has the cash available to just move house.

My house costs me £300 a month. If I were to move to the town I work in, my housing costs would triple. Not to mention the increase in council tax on top. My commute costs me £120 in fuel. It's a no-brainer to stay where I am. I can't afford an additional £480 per month (additional mortgage minus saved fuel costs). It's just not feasible.

And I'm not the only one in that situation. I work in the national park yet I can't afford to live there. The same goes for millions of workers who work in tourism/retail/hospitality - those kinds of jobs just don't pay well, yet they're necessary. Someone has to work the ice cream kiosk or run the cinema or the pub.

I can run that milage in 50 mins.
Id ditch the car and run!

Nope YANBU.

Birmingham at present is a joke and they are about to make it worse by potentially removing the A34 flyover (literally being debated in cabinet now).

It's all very well trying to improve cross city journeys with the tram etc but if you can't actually get into a city in the first place how do you get across it? Where I live the trains are on at certain times and not others, if we get heavy rain like 2 weeks ago they stop all the trains! Today I had to get a taxi into the city centre to get a 6.30am train as the trains by us don't start in time!

I walk to work and back (three miles each way) which takes me 41 mins. It's completely predictable, stress-free, and the best part of the day for thinking!

if we get heavy rain like 2 weeks ago they stop all the trains

Ah Birmingham transport network

More than a couple of times I had to walk from one side of the city up the Hayley road to bearwood because snow/ice had gridlocked the roads - didn’t matter what form of commuting transport you had then you weren’t getting anywhere unless it was on your own two feet!

We’ve moved now but I dread to think of how I’d cope with childcare and shuffling a reluctant three year old through that.

I lived in Houston Texas
Designed specifically with cars in mind. 6 lanes of traffic 1 way, 6 the other.
Nightmare a lot of the time. Way too many cars. Not enough public transport. Road maintenance 0. Any climate event...rain. it is chaos.
Build more roads, create more traffic.

Even if there were excellent public transport options which would be part of the solution many people would still choose to drive. Old habits die hard and this is a car centric country

If you are in London, the traffic problem is made worse as a result of policy trying to force everyone onto public transport to pay for cross rail. This has resulted in most back roads/short cuts being blocked off and the loss of many traffic lanes across the city to cycle super highways. There are lots of routes in London that even 5 years ago were easy to get around but now take ages.

This is so so true. London traffic has deliberately been made worse in a misguided attempt to force people out of their cars by making driving utterly miserable. They've messed with roundabouts (Aldgate roundabout was pretty effective although very busy, now it's nearly all pedestrianised and a massive traffic hotspot impacting anyone trying to cross the river at Tower/London bridges), they've messed with the traffic light phasing (causing huge tailbacks) and they've caused no end of issues by removing lanes to make cycle superhighways...which many 'professional' commuter cyclists don't use as there are some super slow cyclists (who aren't really safe t be on bikes) which slow everyone down so the 'professional' commuter cyclists still ride in the road....causing even more traffic issues now that there's only one lane. Argh!!

Really the problem isn't the roads or the public transport system. It's that with our ever increasing population, there are just too many damn people on the island. I expect we'll sink at some point.

I live in a city based on a medieval street plan. The cycleways have been dramatically improved. Today I was driven at by a white van and nearly knocked off my bike by three cars exceeding the speed limit racing to the next set of traffic lights.

There is a lot of road rage but most of the hold ups here are caused by parked cars creating chicanes.

Roads and pavements where I live are actually being used as all day car parks for work. It is a deliberate strategy to cope with the over population problem I presume.

Recently I read locally that there are not enough GPS but not that there are too many patients. As an example of news manipulation.

It all comes under the heading of infrastructure and or a social experiment maybe even capitalism. An endless supply of malleable cheap labour but you think the brains at the top would have built some more houses, roads, hospitals, sewage works, prisons, power stations, that sort of stuff first.

Personally I gave up.Retired early cut my spending and put my feet up.

If you add up the real true cost of work and I did it wasn’t worth the bother. I did part time freelance work as and when the finances necessitated and live a simple life.

I know that is not for everybody and being lazy is not something I am particularly proud of but in the circumstances all things considered it seems to have been ok for me. I cannot however defend my position to people who can’t believe that an accomplished intelligent well educated person can just stop going to work. Sorry.

A 3/4 mile hill is about 12 minutes walk.

We can't roadbuild our way out of congestion. It's known as "induced demand" - make the roads better and people will take advantage by travelling more and further, until the congestion returns. Just look at the American cities with urban freeways that still have bad traffic. That's not to say improving the roads is a bad thing - just that it's not a long-term solution to traffic problems.

It takes an hour to drive 6 miles because you, and enough people like you, tolerate it because you can't find a better option.

London traffic has deliberately been made worse in a misguided attempt to force people out of their cars by making driving utterly miserable.

The same has happened in lots of smaller towns and cities too. At least London has good public transport as an alternative.

It takes an hour to drive 6 miles because you, and enough people like you, tolerate it because you can't find a better option.

It's up to councils to provide the better option though isn't it? Individuals can't build new roads or force an employer or school to move!

It's nothing new either. In my city, we've finally got a new by-pass linking to the motorway which means traffic from two nearby towns, industrial estates and a sea port, no longer needs to go through the city centre one way system to get there.

It was planned over 40 years ago and has only just been done. I'm old enough to remember what it was like 40 years ago - daily congestion, queues, etc. I lived on the main road and could see it from my bedroom window. Day after day, it was relentless - a steady stream of slow lorries, cars, etc., yes, even 40 years ago queueing to get over a narrow bridge into the city centre enroute to the motorway.

40 years of the local council faffing around with one way systems, traffic calming, pedestrianisation, etc., none of which worked, because it was never going to work with the volume of traffic, even decades ago.

Not helped by tree-huggers and even the local MP who objected to the by pass being built and spouting loads of nonsense about alternatives such as park n ride (really useful for lorries to/from the sea port!).

At least it's finally happened and the area is now virtually congestion-free, even at rush hours and school time. It's been a monumental success and has done exactly what it was planned to do. Shame it took 40 years!

I can get to work by bus. It takes me 15 minutes in the car and well over an hour by bus, as I have to change buses or else get the 'direct' bus that goes all over the place. The direct bus also means that I arrive either 3/4 hour early or 3/4 late, neither of which is great. I am regularly told that the place I work has great transport links (its the big local hospital), but it only has great links if you are coming from the city centre. I am coming from the shire, and the buses are terrible.

I work 45 minutes away from home. For a 9oclock start I have to leave home at 7am because the last 5 minutes of the journey can take over an hour as the traffic gridlock backing on to the motorway and the car park which is for permit holders only fills up to capacity early in the morning. You need to get there by 7.30am to guarantee a spot in the main car park.

I teach at a university so the traffic problems are caused by staff (like me!) and commuting students. There is no public transport from my town at all or I would take it.

What really gets my goat is that there is public transport for the majority of the commuters. In fact there is a free bus for staff and students from the town centre, 5 minutes away. The nearest towns and cities are only 20 minutes away with excellent rail and bus links but those staff and students would rather gridlock the road and spend an hour sitting in traffic and another hour sat waiting around before lectures or work starts than get the public transport. I have students who live a five minute walk away who refuse to do anything but drive and there are thousands of students living in halls who bring their cars to uni and take up more spaces.

We also have the problem of terrible rail links, delays, cancellations etc which for some make commuting impossible. As I said, if I could get a train (and there is no reason I shouldn't be able to) I would.

My workplace is very old and wasnt designed for so many car owners. The council turn down planning applications for more parking spaces.

As it stands, I have taken to driving to another town, parking in a pay and display £3 all day, then getting a free bus in. When I mention this to others they say there is no way they are paying £15 a week to wait around on buses .

What do you see as the answer OP?

I am regularly told that the place I work has great transport links (its the big local hospital), but it only has great links if you are coming from the city centre. I am coming from the shire, and the buses are terrible.

Same with our city. There is a fantastic bus service (every 5 mins) from the city centre bus station to the university which passes the hospital, which is fine if you live/work on that route. But it doesn't include the railway station meaning a 15 minute 3/4 mile walk between bus and train station. The buses into the city centre bus station from the suburbs and villages are really poor (some with only a 1 or 2 hourly service) that go round the houses so take 30 minutes to do a direct 10 minute drive.

Near our village (there's no bus stop in the village itself), there are kids at the by pass bus stop from 7.30 in the morning waiting for buses to take them just 3/4/5 miles to the schools in the nearby towns and city. That's because the buses are hourly, so the kids need to catch the 7.35, or 7.40 or 7.45 buses to each of the 3 towns/cities to get there in time for registration. If they miss that bus, it's an hour wait and they'll be late for school. That's absolutely ridiculous when the schools are less than 5 miles away. The even more stupid thing is that there's a popular secondary school across the county border which lays out a fleet of 10 coaches every morning to take the kids from our towns the 20 miles to the school - and they get picked up far later, to do a longer journey, and still get there in time.

There's absolutely no joined up thinking between modes of public transport, no communication/planning between schools and public transport providers, local councils who don't give a toss beyond making life harder for motorists and raking in parking charges and bus lane fines, etc.

What do you see as the answer OP?

A minister of "joined up thinking" for public transport with a remit of knocking the heads together of local councils, big employers, schools, hospitals, local bus firms, train operators, town planners, etc. and a legally enforceable requirement for comprehensive public transport to be an integral part of every aspect of new developments, planning applications, etc.

Minister for Joined Up Thinking sounds excellent.

I commute to work by train and tube, with a walk at both ends of the journey. It's 6.2 miles. Takes one hour 15 end to end. The walking part is by far the fastest portion of the journey. People who think public transport in London and other big cities is great need to actually experience it before they sound off. Not to mention the fact that there often isn't even standing room. Certainly no seats. Either freezing or boiling - sometimes both in the same journey. Constantly banged into by other stressed commuters. Face full of backpack or no way to even grab a bar to hold onto on the train. Often someone who farts, has bad breath you can smell from feet away or has been smoking or having a joint on the way to the station. People who absolutely have to have a LOUD chat on the way to or from work. The screeching of the train brakes that is so loud it actually hurts to hear it. People clutching coffees which they then spill. People who won't move down a carriage, or do it so slowly you wonder if they have roots instead of feet. People who stand at the tops or bottoms of escalators considering the mysteries of the fucking universe. Phone dawdlers. Tourists who take gigantic suitcases on the train at 7.20am. People who refuse to get off the train to let others off, so you have to squeeze through (I've ripped two shirts on other people's zips this way).

Public transport is one of the absolute worst things about my life. I don't have words bad enough to describe how much I hate it. If I could drive (cost/time prohibits), I would.

It takes an hour to drive 6 miles because you, and enough people like you, tolerate it because you can't find a better option.

What do you propose? That people walk their children to/from school on roads without streetlights and pavements? Or should they cycle along dual carriageways instead? Or maybe get up at 5am and spend three hours on a bus, and do the same again each evening?

Again for the people in the back - NOT EVERYONE HAS AN ALTERNATIVE.

People who think public transport in London and other big cities is great need to actually experience it before they sound off.

At least you have it which huge numbers of people outside London don't.