My job takes me all over the North of England and for the last two days I’ve been working near Manchester Airport, travelling from Leeds.

Minimum journey time has been 2 1/4 hours and maximum, tonight, 3 1/2 hours, for a 50 mile journey, basically because the motorway has been down to one lane or closed due to accidents.

Now I appreciate that they happen and I hope everyone’s ok but how do we solve the issues that volume of traffic causes in this country.

It properly f’d up my days and there are poor souls doing that commute every day and being 2 hours late for work on a regular basis obviously isn’t cool.

Public transport is useless between big cities up North so why can’t we just get some compulsory purchase orders and build some 5 lane freeways? It would work for me

50 miles is ridable

Gonna say, you have to ask on a cycling forum?

Move closer to where you work?

Public transport is useless between big cities up North

Trains between Leeds and Manchester are roughly every 10-15 minutes and are direct.

Not sure what else you want to consider it a decent service ?

Train ? Journey time shows as 1hr 17 mins from Leeds->Manc Airport

Almost every car has one person in it, its a very inefficient way of transporting people around. Building more roads will not help, modal shift is needed. Car sharing, public transport, biking, walking would all have more impact on traffic levels than road building. You’re not stuck in traffic, you are traffic

Public transport is useless between big cities up North

It’s a bit rubbish down south too, ever tried Plymouth to Norwich?
I haven’t, but can’t imagine it being much fun.
I think a better phrase would be “public transport outside London is useless”
Last time I used a train was over 4 years ago. Reading to Lincolnshire, 140 miles. A single off peak ticket cost more than the return trip would have done in diesel and was only around an hour quicker than biking it.

Train + bike or taxi?

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With how busy the UK now is, we need a massive shift in how we travel, how much we travel and how to think differently…
Live close to where you work.
Use anything BUT a car.
Stop going to so many meetings.

Personal hover packs

The problem I have is a cover an area from the Scottish Borders down to North Wales on one side and Norfolk on the other, often at short notice and can have appointments 150miles apart in the same day, so public transport isn’t a realistic option, moving closer to work would mean a camper an Monday to Friday.

I know I am the traffic but I’m genuinely interested in realistic solutions to the road network as there are car users who have to even if we would prefer not to.

Edit- I would love to use video conferencing but as our biggest customer, the NHS, is such a IT dinosaur, full of people who can’t keep to a schedule it wouldn’t work

A cull. There are too many people on such a small island who all want cars, more roads will result in more cars.

Increase fuel duty to price people off the road.

Increased use of punctuation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Driving needs to be seen as a privilege, not a right. If you can’t drive to a high standard, you shouldn’t be on the road. I believe a given number of cars would be more successful if they were all driven better.

I live and work around Greater London, if I did 50 miles in that in that time I’d be chuffed.

Increase fuel duty to price people off the road and massively hike the prices of pretty much everything you eat, drink or use.

FTFY

I was on a service call at Hartshead Moor services westbound when they closed the M62 today, i walked over the bridge and did a call at the eastbound.
Whilst stood on the bridge i watched an ambulance trying to get through the traffic, it took it 15 minutes to get from the entrance slip road to the services to the exit slip road back on.

I stood in amazement at the fact the have closed the hard shoulder for 8? miles.

The reason they are working on the M62 is to put a variable hard shoulder in, this is only going to make matters worse.

If the ambulance took 15 minutes to get past the services(1/2 a mile at the most), how long to get to the accident at gildersome ? (5 miles further up)

Surely this hard shoulder system is going to cost lives as the emergency services can’t get through.

Rant over 🙄

(I escaped through the staff exit and went the back way through Bradford to get back home to Boston Spa 😀 )

Don’t envy you there, crazy situation.

Don’t add to the traffic?

Funnily, there are days when I could happily work at home to avoid the massive waste of time that travelling to and from work involves. Today was nearly 3 hours of my life that, Radio 4 aside, could have been far better utilised.

Frankly, the infrastructure investment shouldn’t be in roads: it should be in improving the online connectivity of the country. There’s some exceptional video conferencing capability out there (eg Cisco Telepresence). Turned into a PC version on a quick up/down connection and there’s little need to have offices and commuting.

In brief. Change of culture and better town / city planning.

-A cultural shift, more home working

-A cultural shift so people where possible life near work rather than, live in a village miles from the city they work and drive in.

-A cultural shift of people not jumping into the car for short journeys. Also more people using public transport. I’ve know people in London that drive 1.5 miles to work in a office. No disability.

-A cultural shift so that people consider other option than the car. Maybe use the car to do a big shop but then take bus to go to the cinema e.t.c.

-A cultural shift to encourage car sharing.

-A cultural shift, more flexible working hours to smooth out peaks of traffic.

-Better town planing to avoid poorly designed housing that makes public transport impractical.

-Better town planning reducing in out of town shopping areas and business parks that are only easily accessible by car. That’s not to say all shops and offices should be in town centres. It’s the sprawl of many business and retail parks is poorly designed, push the business and shopping parks together into mini centres with a communal parking and pedestrianised areas to make them a destination rather than a series of buildings in a car park. This make public transport, lift sharing, more practical rather than a narrow ribbon surrounding towns.

-Better town planning to include quality cycle and pedestrian facilities.

-Redesign of some junctions to improve safety and through put of traffic.

-More variable speed limits. Smooths traffic flow and increase throughput.

-Harsher consequence for motoring offensives. People treating their licence as a precious object rather than a right. Less accidents, less traffic problems.

That will do to start.

Then when people need to drive (and most people do some times) they can get about easier.

The answer to traffic is a well timetabled, reliable, coordinated public transport network involving buses and trains.

Shame my job can’t be done online. if you want to power your computer, someone has to go out and look after that kit.

More roads would help. Despite the UK starting to build motorways 60 odd years ago there is still no motorway link between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

One of my jobs involves driving across Glasgow on various routes at varying times of day. Life is much better since the completion of the M74 last year.

Onzadog – Member
Shame my job can’t be done online. if you want to power your computer, someone has to go out and look after that kit.

Which if everyone (including you when you don’t need to drive) follows my recommendations, you will be able to do far more easily!

Shame my job can’t be done online. if you want to power your computer, someone has to go out and look after that kit.

But wouldn’t it be ace if you could get there more easily without people like me clogging up the roads because there’s an historic expectation that my work can only be done in an office with one road in and out and a ship canal in between.

muckytee – Member
The answer to traffic is a well timetabled, reliable, coordinated public transport network involving buses and trains.

This is the REAL answer.

autopilot on motorways.

make the motorway speed limit 50 keep hgvs to the inside lane and off the roads between 7 and 10 and 3 and 7 and bingop

muckytee – Member
The answer to traffic is a well timetabled, reliable, coordinated public transport network involving buses and trains.

To achieve this town and cities need to be designed around this idea rather than everyone driving. They are both interlinked.

petrieboy – Member
autopilot on motorways.

Would be awesome. Safer, more fuel efficient, smoother. I’m not sure how many people would actually accept it. Also it would have to be all or nothing. All cars on the motorway on autopilot or none.

Between Manchester and Leeds is a special sort of hell hole. When the idiots voted down massive investments in coordinated public transport due to scare stories about congestion charging the writing was on the wall. People can’t see how public transport can work as its so shocking. Overcrowding badly timed and slow.

It requires massive investment in proper infrastructure including the expansion of some roads. Charging for some routes may be needed but only when I viable alternative is in place. That and transport planning needs to be done by non London dwellers

More telecommuting. Much more.

It would solve many problems, both rural and urban. And result in much better family life for a great many people. Both those who have to travel for work and those who have to work like hell to afford a house near where the work is or have to spend 3 hours a day driving.

Madness in this day and age.

Also it would have to be all or nothing. All cars on the motorway on autopilot or none.

Possibly not. There was a thing on telly the other day where cars were networked to chain them into convoys. So the front car drives and the others are connected to it, so they brake when the front car does. That way, only the cars in the convoy need the facilities and you can still interact normally. They drove so close together that other cars couldn’t pull into the gap. Well.. M25 drivers might be able to.

There are three sensible choices available:

1. Kill the driver in front of you.

2. Kill yourself.

3. Kill EVERYONE in the WHOLE WORLD.

/manic cackle

send all non urgent heavy good via canal rather than HGV, re-establish the water ways and share the distribution load across the UK.

having just in from 489 mile round trip and a 16 hr day can I have one of these local working commutable by bike jobs please.

HGVs aren’t the problem. They all leave the motorways during rush hour, at least on the M3 and M4 it seems. When I get snarled up in congestion there are very few HGVs involved.

In our company we don’t see reps any more at all. We speak by phone and look at their products on the internet. However this causes major problems with some of our suppliers as they “HAVE” to visit their customers and file call reports in order to get paid. Even though in a lot of cases the visit was just a chat and a cup of coffee. Insanity.

Clearly public transport has a significant part to play, but it’s going to be a raft of measures that will make improvements including, I suspect higher fuel prices.

A cultural shift of people not jumping into the car for short journeys. Also more people using public transport. I’ve know people in London that drive 1.5 miles to work in a office. No disability

This is the biggie. I think the OP has a genuine need to use a car but there a lot of lazy people out there. I think car tax should be charged per day the car is used.
For example, abolish fuel duty and charge car tax at £10 for each day you drive (maybe vary that according to emissions, price of car whatever). Hey presto, the 1 mile drive to work is suddenly very expensive and people will look for alternatives. The 300 mile drive overnight (when there is no train) to Spean Bridge (where there is no station) becomes a lot cheaper. The vast majority of congestion is cuased by a lot of people making very short journies, and it’s congestion that causes pollution. If you aren’t moving you are doing 0mpg.
This plan is not flawless, people with a £70k RangeRover doing 15mpg or a £100K S-Class doing 20mpg will still be able to afford to do silly shot journies. However, if fuel prices keep going up at the present rate soon it will be only those with massive gas-guzzlers who can afford to drive.
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Or carbon rationing. If we could make that work the sky’s the limit.

The vast majority of congestion is cuased by a lot of people making very short journies,

I don’t think it is. I tihnk it’s people going to work over longer distances than that.

People will only drive 2 miles to work if it’s easy, and it’s only easy if there’s not much traffic.

what traffic?