To despair at our obession with cars

[SelkieQualia]

They are awful. Noisy. Polluting. 4 million people die every year from the effects of air pollution. Housing developments are built around them, which means that the most vulnerable people in our society - young people, the elderly - are made even more dependant on those who drive.
Why do we tolerate such terrible public transport and cycling infrastructure?

When I retire, I'm doing this! Love buses.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/grandmother-75-makes-2200-mile-25619642

"Currently, however, the system does penalise those whi can't drive. And I suspect that the number of people who can't drive is much larger than those who can't use cpublic transport."

A large number of people who cannot use public transport cannot drive but they do need to be driven around by others in private vehicles.

@Momicrone

Chocolate orange, yes I think what beeching did to the railways was awful. So many gorgeous little towns in the uk with defunct railway stations

It wasn't Beeching, it was the governments around that time. Beeching was just the guy who was given the job of reducing the number of lines/stations. With him or without him, huge numbers of lines/stations would have closed anyway - someone else would have been given the job. The main criticism levelled at Beeching is on a micro level, i.e. whether he should have closed line A and station Z or whether he should have closed line B and station X instead. There were a lot of "dubious" line/station closures that didn't really make sense, and lots of lines/stations that surprisingly stayed open for no obvious reason. That was down to how Beeching evaluated the stations/lines and the logic he used, which has been open to criticism. Of course there were also lines he wanted to close but which local MPs managed to argue to be kept open for political reasons, i.e. marginal seats where the sitting MP may have lost their seat if the station had closed! To blame it all on Beeching just isn't right - he was just a convenient scapegoat for the politicians of that era who wanted someone else to blame for their unpopular decisions. Beeching also made his suggestions based on an assumption of maintaining/improving rural bus services, i.e. plan to get people to use a bus to station C when stations A and B were closed down, i.e. an integrated/alternative transport system, but that never happened, again for political reasons.

@Sleepyblueocean

"Currently, however, the system does penalise those whi can't drive. And I suspect that the number of people who can't drive is much larger than those who can't use cpublic transport."

A large number of people who cannot use public transport cannot drive but they do need to be driven around by others in private vehicles.

And driven around in taxis, which is basically just the same (if not worse) than private cars, as they use the same roads, cause the same congestion, often produce similar levels of emissions, and in fact probably do more mileage due to the "dead" journeys when they're empty between pick-ups.

User149, right OK, not beeching then, but the government of the time - does it really make a difference given the end result?

So a 'dead' journey is someone driving on their way to pick something up, that means most of the cars on the road are doing dead journeys. If one taxi replaced 20 private cars, that's more space on the road for driving and parking.

How much do people want to pay to subsidise public transport? You'd have to run so many more buses to make it remotely viable and it would take time as frankly, outside of London, you cannot beat the convenience of the car.

Even then, if London buses cannot make money, how the hell do you expect any other areas services to do so?

Day to day, I cannot think of any journey that I currently make by car that realistically I would swap for public transport.

Again, if a nationalised industry couldn't make a go of the majority of routes, then why would it be different now when so many more people have cars?

Shortage of time is a big factor for me and many people. I do every school drop off and pick up for DS, whether it's from school or after school club.

School is a 45 minute round trip if walking. On days when I'm in the office, it's another 20 minute walk to the train station. I get the train into Manchester City Centre.

I don't have 90 to 130 minutes available every day to do those walks, when I can save 60 to 90 minutes of that if i drive.

I enjoy the walks to school, it makes me feel better and it is good for DS too. I will be walking to pick DS up today as I'm not working. But I don't have time most days.

Bike isn't an option as we live in terrace so can only keep bikes in the cellar which is difficult to get bikes in and out of. We do have them for weekend bike rides.
DS school has also shut and still not replaced the bike/scooter shed. Partly as it was knackered but the HT told me it was also because not having bikes/scooters means playground at school pick up is calmer

@Momicrone

So a 'dead' journey is someone driving on their way to pick something up, that means most of the cars on the road are doing dead journeys. If one taxi replaced 20 private cars, that's more space on the road for driving and parking.

OK, you live at point A, work/shop at point B.

At the moment, you travel A>B and then back again later.

If you use a taxi, it's currently at office/rank C, so it has to make a journey C>A to pick you up then A>B to drop you off, then B>C to go back to the base/rank. The two journeys starting and ending at C are extra to what you'd have done if you drove yourself, hence "dead" journey.

Of course, the taxi may be lucky and be parked at the end of your street, in which case the dead journeys are trivial.

The reason there could be more traffic/congestion is all the taxi journeys to come and pick you up and all the journeys to their next fare or base/rank after they've dropped you off.

Bike isn't an option as we live in terrace so can only keep bikes in the cellar which is difficult to get bikes in and out of. We do have them for weekend bike rides.

Interesting you can't put a secure bike box on the road outside your house and keep bikes in it for ease - people wouldn't like you claiming that space, but are happy to place one car for free on the road

would you be happy to pay a £25 fee the same as some councils charge for car permits? obviously it would have to be secure

YANBU, OP. The car is one of the worst things to happen to civilisation.

So bloody useful, so convenient, & they've ruined so much of our lives.

With petrol/fuel prices going the way they are, we may be forced to find alternatives, though.

How much do people want to pay to subsidise public transport?

If we stopped subsidising private car use and swapped the same money for public transport - that'd suit me

£7.89 billion is what the fuel tax freeze will mean over the next 5 years - spend that on buses

There's a great new bus service round here that is a bit like a 'louage' or shared taxi - you call it and it picks up several people at their requested stops. We need a lot more of that - responsive, sensible use of tech, affordable, etc.

@bathroomparty

my dd1 is in Manchester and presently unable to drive, but gets around with pram on bus and tram, taxi to hospital 10 minutes away. Dd1 has saved a fortune in her own words on not driving

So perhaps if people avoid places without good public transport then local councils will have to look at what they have to offer

cars are amazing. and i would be lost without mine. but in reality if we just stop for a moment and realise we have legs. that can walk for miles then we will all do what we can to save the planet from the polution of cars, 1 person alone wont save the world, but together we can do our best. its our children and childrens children we must think of.

@ivykaty44

How much do people want to pay to subsidise public transport?

If we stopped subsidising private car use and swapped the same money for public transport - that'd suit me

£7.89 billion is what the fuel tax freeze will mean over the next 5 years - spend that on buses

How do you mean "subsidising private car use"? Do you mean the billions we spend on building/maintaining roads and road infrastructure (street lights, traffic lights, signage, etc?)

If so, then don't you realise that we'd still need the roads for lorries, buses, taxis, etc., so the "savings", would be minimal, if anything at all.

I'm not obsessed with cars. I didn't have my own car until I was 40 and I don't like driving but I have a severely autistic teenager who can't walk far, can't use a bike and can't cope with public transport (as well as others not being tolerant of shrieking, spitting, punching etc) so we need a car.

[quote ivykaty44]@bathroomparty

my dd1 is in Manchester and presently unable to drive, but gets around with pram on bus and tram, taxi to hospital 10 minutes away. Dd1 has saved a fortune in her own words on not driving

So perhaps if people avoid places without good public transport then local councils will have to look at what they have to offer[/quote]
Difficult to avoid your local hospital if you're ill, though, isn't it??? Not all hospitals are in town/city centres with a bus stop outside!

Likewise our local council sports centre/swimming pool etc - on an out of town site with a very poor bus service. The council closed and demolished the one in the town centre within sight of the bus station rather than spend money on it to modernise it to current standards!

If we couldn't have a taxi occasionally - we have to drive so from us they'd be at least another 12 car journeys a week extra to get to and from work plus the rest at weekends.

Ideally with better public transport both more compehesive and at more times fewer occaional taxi's would be less needed - but of they didn't exist then there would be more people who couldn't manage with a car and more cars.

@DomesticatedZombie

There's a great new bus service round here that is a bit like a 'louage' or shared taxi - you call it and it picks up several people at their requested stops. We need a lot more of that - responsive, sensible use of tech, affordable, etc.

Yes, nail on the head. We really do need to start using modern technology to "hail" transport, and for the transport provider to use modern technology to plan routes according to need at that time.

Completely pointless to have big double decker buses running around housing estates with just a handful of people on them, no one wanting to get on/off on a 10 minute detour through a housing estate.

We need responsive public transport. App based AND bus stop based, i.e. press a button at a bus stop to request the bus, the bus logistic system then diverts the nearest bus to come and pick you up, whether it's the one on the route, a diverted one from a slightly different route, or if nothing is close, then some kind of mini bus or even a taxi coming specially for you. And no, I'm not meaning a fully variable system where passengers could end up being delayed because of a route diversion, I'm talking about a system where routes would be flexible within limits, i.e. if not required to go through housing estate A due to no demand at the time, then miss it out and go through housing estate B instead because there are a few passengers wanting a bus and their usual bus is delayed or not due for another half hour or whatever. I.e. flexible within tolerable limits.

It's madness and nonsensical that the way buses run is basically the same as it was 50 years ago, i.e. fixed bus routes, fixed timetables, etc. Technology has changed so many things (in fact most things), yet we're still stood out in the cold/wet at the bus stop waiting for the number 15 to come at a random, pre-set time.

@DomesticatedZombie

There's a great new bus service round here that is a bit like a 'louage' or shared taxi - you call it and it picks up several people at their requested stops. We need a lot more of that - responsive, sensible use of tech, affordable, etc.

I saw a you tube showing a similar service in London seemed lik ea good idea.

There's a local tourists site which has a request bus service - had to get there for a girl guide thing and taxi too expenisve and it's not a walkable route. Unfortunately you have to pre-book a working week ahead time for both get there and leave times. It was okay for the event - though did end up hanging round waiting as hard to gauge when it woud be finished but we'd like to take some visiting famiy there - but pre-booking an predomiately outdoor site that early never seems like a good idea. It's a pity it can't be a big more flexiable but I suspect driver work patterns have to be planned ahead of time.

I don't think we are obsessed with cars. We simply need a quick, easy way of getting to and from places. If the transport networks were much better more people wouldn't use cars. I want to get from A - B without hassle, constant changes and constant stops. I don't want to be crammed into a small space with smelly, rude, obnoxious people.

To get me on board they would need a few things:

1. Direct links with very few stops to the places I want to get to.
2. Extremely frequent services - I am talking

There's definitely a gap in the market for something between the flexibility of a taxi (costly) against the cheapness of a bus (but inconvenient due to fixed stops/routes and often poor timetable).

Maybe something like shared minibuses to be run by taxi firms, where you pay less than the usual taxi fare, but have the "inconvenience" of sharing the minibus and maybe a slightly longer route due to dropping off/picking up a few other passengers.

Or alternatively something like the "Dolmus" system in Turkey where there are minibuses working set routes, but not to a timetable (they come literally every few minutes) but instead of bus stops, you can jet on and off anywhere you like along the route, just by telling the driver.

Interesting you can't put a secure bike box on the road outside your house and keep bikes in it for ease

You could if it had wheels, otherwise it would be obstructing the highway.

@Spikeyball

I'm not obsessed with cars. I didn't have my own car until I was 40 and I don't like driving but I have a severely autistic teenager who can't walk far, can't use a bike and can't cope with public transport (as well as others not being tolerant of shrieking, spitting, punching etc) so we need a car.

Same here awful isn't it