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?

Or get food delivered

I hate trying to do online shopping I always miss something much more than I do if I'm physically in a shop.

The centralising makes running offices cheaper, our company closed 5 offices and opened 1. Cheaper for them 1 set of bills to administer and pay but more travel for the staff (the majority were closer to there old office)

@ShavingTheBadger

The point about little localised shops is interesting. I live in Gtr Mcr and I have no local butcher, baker, fishmonger or greengrocer. I have a chemist and a tiny Co-op within walking distance. If I want to buy food, I have to get to a supermarket - the nearest is 5 miles away.

My mum used to shop regularly at indie shops - probably half our weekly shop came from them. But it was mid 1970s and she’d given up work to care for us. Nowadays most of us work full time - I don’t have time on a weekend to nip to three or four little shops. I’ve long thought that if these shops had opened late a couple of nights a week - say, 12 noon to 8pm, maybe some would have survived.

Our family had a "corner" shop for around 25 years.

A huge Asda opened about a couple of miles away and our trade was absolutely decimated overnight.

We could have opened 24:7 but wouldn't have survived, simply because Asda opened 7 days late into the evenings, so there was no reason customers would come to us when they could go to Asda.

As for opening late "a couple of nights a week", that simply doesn't work. Customers expect regular opening hours. You do more harm than good opening late some days and early on others as it just confuses customers and they go elsewhere to where opening hours are regular.

Our local town is a 9 min drive, it does have 2 butchers, fishmongers, green grocers and several indi shops such as pet shop, gift shops, clothes shops etc as well as supermarkets, discount shops, charity shops and chains and cafes etc, but it is 5 miles and a bus is infrequent and takes 40 mins, cycling is no good for shopping even if I wanted to cycle.

Totally agree with you. It’s a huge mess and the answer is to make public transport cheap or even free imo. Even then people will choose the convenience of their own car but we have made it too easy and too convenient. Public transport should certainly be free to under 18s then at least we could try to reduce all the traffic that is taking teenagers to school and back.

Maddening, you don't have to do all your shopping by bike, just some of it, weekly shop can be delivered

@Dailywalk

Public transport should certainly be free to under 18s then at least we could try to reduce all the traffic that is taking teenagers to school and back.

I fully agree. We need to chip away at unnecessary car use, identify areas where big/easy changes can be made and subsidise to make it happen. Making the car journey to school harder by traffic calming, one way systems, parking restrictions etc doesn't actually solve the problem and just causes more pollution, stress, accidents, etc. Drivers need viable alternatives. If a parent can't afford expensive bus passes for their teens, then they can't, however long/bad the journey by car is made!

Or reducing the distance for school buses (and making it by walking route not straight line... part of the official primary school catchment for DDs school is less than a mile straight line, ignoring the airport! They can't walk across the runway!)

We've just bought a second car.

We went down to one in 2020 but as life returns to normal we just can't both do work and all the children's activities with one car.

The kids walk one bus to school - it's everything else.

No transport no business=no money.
For me anyway.
However how many people are just popping out?

My village has free school buses to the secondary school about 2.5 miles away. However many children go in cars because they would have to leave the house earlier if going by bus and it can be unpleasant on the buses. My neighbours child goes to special school on school transport but the 15 min direct drive takes 45 mins by the time they picked everyone up so other parents choose to drive.

And my son goes to a school on individual transport an hour away as does virtually every child at that school because of the large area they take from and most of the kids cannot share transport or wait around for transport. A school that specialist couldn't be built in every town for 5 pupils so there is no way around that.

cycling is no good for shopping

Why not? I take my shopping home by bicycle all the time, even fill 25kg sacks of potatoes.

Why not? I take my shopping home by bicycle all the time, even fill 25kg sacks of potatoes

What other superpowers do you have? It’s a ten mile ride back from my local supermarket. Uphill all the way.

You don't need superpowers to carry heavy things by bike

@Momicrone

You don't need superpowers to carry heavy things by bike

You don't, but you do need to be fit. I'm speaking as someone who cycle commutes, goes on cycling holidays, and bike-packed the coast to coast last year. It's hard work. If you don't have a rack for panniers (mine's a cyclocross bike so great for commuting and off-roading), then you're limited to what you can get into a backpack. Cycling back from the supermarket with a "small shop" - a chicken, some veg, toothpaste, and a bottle of squash, for example, isn't easy. We can all do better, but the best way to do that is to offer different options for different people, because with Active Travel, it's not a case of "one size fits all".

@etulosba

Why not? I take my shopping home by bicycle all the time, even fill 25kg sacks of potatoes

What other superpowers do you have? It’s a ten mile ride back from my local supermarket. Uphill all the way.

Gears

Disregarding the weight, which must be upwards of 50kg if sacks of spuds are included, where do you put it all without compromising the stability of the bike?

A cargo bike or trailer would take it for sure, really much more common in Europe.

I do think being time poor makes us more reliant on the car. The 'weekly shop' probably mostly does warrant a decent boot to bring it all home again, but if we were popping out every other day for that evening's meal and the bits for tomorrows lunch and that was it then this would be much much easier even with a rucksack or ideally a couple of panniers, nothing really heavy duty. When your working day is already 8.30 - 6 with a 30 min commute if you go by bike on top of that, plus changing time, the last thing you want to do is still be in the supermarket at 7 every night. If the working day was 8.30-4 it might be more viable.

Supermarkets deliver

Why not? I take my shopping home by bicycle all the time, even fill 25kg sacks of potatoes.

Good for you, I won't be. I'll carry on getting my main shopping delivered as I'm not going out on a bike in the pouring rain. I can't fit a sack of spuds in the boot of my car and I'll use the car for the rest.

I'd love to use a bike to get my shopping but the nearest proper supermarket is at least six mines away, down a very busy duel carriageway. Not to mention the lanes in and around my village aren't very safe (unlit, very bendy, lots of farm traffic).

@etulosba

Disregarding the weight, which must be upwards of 50kg if sacks of spuds are included, where do you put it all without compromising the stability of the bike?

Sack of spuds weighs 25kg, gets draped over the pannier rack and is bungeed on. Not really any different to carrying a child in a seat mounted on the pannier rack. I don't do it often, a 25kg sack will last me months.

@lampygirl

A cargo bike or trailer would take it for sure, really much more common in Europe.

I do think being time poor makes us more reliant on the car. The 'weekly shop' probably mostly does warrant a decent boot to bring it all home again, but if we were popping out every other day for that evening's meal and the bits for tomorrows lunch and that was it then this would be much much easier even with a rucksack or ideally a couple of panniers, nothing really heavy duty. When your working day is already 8.30 - 6 with a 30 min commute if you go by bike on top of that, plus changing time, the last thing you want to do is still be in the supermarket at 7 every night. If the working day was 8.30-4 it might be more viable.

I work shifts and fit my shopping in around it. Sometimes I'll go shopping after an early shift, or before a late. Normally though I'll pop out when on my lunch break. The only time I really went out of my way was the 5 miles each way to/from the zero-waste shop for refills of baking stuff and cleaning liquids, but like with the spuds it wasn't very often - they've now closed to concentrate on their other business so I'll have to use the one in the city where I sometimes work.

Little-and-often detours via shops on the way home from work doesn't take long anyway. I'd guess that I only usually carry shopping on my bike twice a week, plus walking to the corner shop for bread and milk (the only place I've know using returnable glass bottles).

If I had a large family I would probably get it delivered. Better to have one van on the road, delivering to dozens of customers than having dozens of cars vying for parking spaces.

Really good public transport requires serious government investment; this can been seen in other countries where public transport is well funded and used . The UK hasn't with it's insistence on a so-called 'private' model, which is really just a wealth transfer exercise to shareholders because it's not like anyone has much choice in which train they get since there's usually only one company going from A to B.

Where I live - and I only live here because I couldn't afford a house in the city centre - we used to have a bus service twice a day and it was stopped about 3 years ago so now there are no buses and no form of public transport whatsoever. Cycling is taking your life in your hands and obviously only accessible to the totally fit and not families with young children. There have been several accidents and cyclists dying on the main road as there's no room for them. The only safe option is car.

It's only possible to make choices when there ARE choices.

There seems to be no real political will to improve public transport from any side. We need another party I think probably.