[Closed] TJ is right (again)

Nice theory on pushing us to public transport, but my wife's job and mine are around 60 mile apart

It's a fairly modern (last 20 years? less?) development that people started driving 30, 40, 50, 60 miles to and from work every day. That was a change from the way it was before; it'll have to change again.

There is no sign of an alternative way of powering private cars that comes anywhere close to the internal combustion engine

The Flintstones would beg to differ.

I think either way we are going to have to start living closer to where we work rather than commuting epic distances so we can live somewhere nice.

As to not being an alternative that comes close to the internal combustion engine, you are probably entirely right... but internal combustion doesn't have to work on fossil fuels. Methanol is an option (there are processes to produce this from waste rather than growing biofuel crops), hydrogen is coming on again with the development of hydrogen microbeads that can be transported, stored and used much like a liquid fuel (British development too, which is nice) - if we got the hydrogen cracking process more sustainable (either through fusion or using dedicated renewables such as wind/wave at hydrogen plants....) then that could be a goer. Throw in fuel cells that can run on pretty much anything... with the right investment I think there is a solution. It won't be cheap mind!

TandemJeremy - Member

mogrim - you cannot put a fusion generator in a car. That may solve the domenstic and industrial energy issues but cannot do so for private cars. There is no sign of an alternative way of powering private cars that comes anywhere close to the internal combustion engine

What do you mean by that? Electric cars are already close. Small improvements to battery technology and it's there.
Then thorium or fusion power to boost the grid and it's job done.

lets plan for changes now and use fuel taxation to fund the change

TJ, you keep mentioning this change yet from what I can see you provide no solution. Just a way of raising the money for it.

mogrim - you cannot put a fusion generator in a car. That may solve the domenstic and industrial energy issues but cannot do so for private cars. There is no sign of an alternative way of powering private cars that comes anywhere close to the internal combustion engine

You don't put the fusion generator in the car, you put a rechargeable battery in the car. I am, of course, assuming that battery technology will also improve over time, and that the raw materials necessary are not a limiting factor.

electric cars are no where near close.

electric cars are no where near close.

They're not that far off. Even if they were, realistically replacing private transport with public is just as far off, as you yourself pointed out we're looking at middle to long term strategies.

TandemJeremy - Member

electric cars are no where near close.

Yes, they are. They'll already do a fair chunk of journeys undertaken daily. Improvements to the range, and quick charging (or battery renting/swapping) stations and they are 100% replacements.

I do think we need to be looking to replace oil as soon as possible, but I think that we should be investing heavily in research on replacement tech. If we act quickly this could also help secure Britain's position as a provider of high technology which still one of the few things we can actually do well.

[s]Not read the whole thread so this is an aside - electric cars might be less damaging if the grid is de-carbonised, but they still won't solve our traffic problems. Proper public transport everywhere is surely the way to go.[/s]

Scratch that - it shouldn't be an argument between electric cars and good public transport. They've both got their place. Invest in better technology in both sectors for the benefits Retro suggests?

There is no sign of an alternative way of powering private cars that comes anywhere close to the internal combustion engine

Because it has not been in the oil companies interest to resaerch and produce one. Look at the technological advances in other areas yet the car engine is still fundamentaly the same.

Modern life is built around people having the flexibilty to travel freely. In the major cities, a mass public transport system is a no-brainer however for others it is a non-starter. Yes other alternatives need to be investigated but there is no one size fits all.

The biggie is ensuring sensible future development of our towns and cities, but this [i]could[/i] all go pear shaped if the localism proposed for planning etc. isn't handled properly and ends up with towns with no shops or railway stations because of nimbyism. They announced in the budget proposals to make changes of use classifications easier, but if all that does is makes it easier for developers to close shops and amenities and turn them into shoebox flats, then you're in a worse situation where there's an even heavier reliance on public transport to make day to day life possible.

electric cars are no where near close.

Really?

Sports car that can do 245 miles and 0-60 in less than 4 secs for less than £100k, recharge in 3.5 hrs.

http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster/specs

depends whay you mean by close most journeys by car are relatively short and therefore an elctric car that can do 60 mile swill suffice form most folk and force us on to publci transport for longer journeys.
Perhaps look at doing something about single occupancy journeys as well or make us all go ack to buble cars with teeny engines for high mph.

ratchet up the cost of motoring which in itself will slowly push change and use the money raised to subsidise public transport

That's not a very social policy though is it? It'll make a lot of people very depressed and miserable as they struggle to adapt. It's the policy of the breadline again - if you make things people want progressively more expensive people will only change when they absolutely cannot afford it any more, which means that most people will be hovering around that threshold ie be strapped for cash all the time.

And in this case you have the additional issue that it's often very difficult for people to move. You're forcing them to either a) take a crappier job and/or b) move away from their friends or family, both of which can have serious negative implications for quality of life.

It's all stick, no carrot. I think it's much better to provide incentive for change by making the alternative better in real terms FIRST, not just making it appear better by making the original worse.

I agree with everything you say about the problem, I just don't agree with that particular solution.

And there are also inherent problems with public transport. The feasibility of public transport depends on population density. Densely populated areas are already pretty well served, and it'd be (relatively) easy to lay on more busses or increase train capacity etc. However for the more lightly populated areas it becomes EXPONENTIALLY more expensive to cover fewer and fewer people. So there is a practical limit on who can be covered even with big subsidies.

So then the people out in the sticks have to drive, but they have no choice but to be beaten with the same stick you use for city drivers.

most journeys by car are relatively short

Yeah and they are the ones that use up hardly any fuel, really. Proportionally, they use up more (which is why people moan about them), but because distances are low the actual amount of fuel used is not much.

Sports car that can do 245 miles and 0-60 in less than 4 secs for less than £100k, recharge in 3.5 hrs.

Total red herring. It's extremely easy to make an electric car go really fast - we've been making powerful electric motors for 100 years. It's extremely difficult to make them for a sensible price.

The Tesla roadster is a gimmick and gives nothing to the search for affordable electric cars. Their car would still cost a ton even if it was shaped like a Smart and was limited to 70mph. They made it that fast to justify the inevitable cost. Compare it to a Lotus Elise at a third the price.

That's not a very social policy though is it? It'll make a lot of people very depressed and miserable as they struggle to adapt.

Yeah but this is how the current situation came about. The price dropped over time and people adapted to it. There was no (well, little) explicit government direction, it was mostly just the market reacting.

The advantage of ratcheting up the price progressively is that it doesn't require the government to do too much - they don't need to plan everything in the world about how to solve the problem, they just let the market work out a response. And it's easy and transparent.

Because it has not been in the oil companies interest to resaerch and produce one. Look at the technological advances in other areas yet the car engine is still fundamentaly the same

That's not true. The automobile industry is a gigantic industry with millions of people working in it and trillions of dollars being spent on it every year. If you could invent an engine that was more efficient and captured even 1% of the global market, you'd generate a gigantic amount of money.

What TJ is proposing, although he may not realise it, is the urbanisation of almost the entire global population. It's the only way that you could provide a mass transit system that wouldn't be cripplingly expensive. Increasing urbanisation is already an accelerating phenomenon in the two-thirds world, although it usually results in the rural poor becoming the urban poor, living in vast shanty towns like Kibera. Having been there, it's not a prospect I relish in the same way as TJ.

Alongside that, you eradicate population mobility, and in all likelihood, social mobility as well unless you can somehow create a single tier society to accompany it.

I suspect the social impact of these changes would be cataclysmic. You're effectively proposing a return to the middle ages in terms of static populations, and limited movement of resources around the globe.

EDIT: If he's right, I think it's time to start stockpiling beans and shotgun shells in the basement.

April fool? ^^^^^^^^

you eradicate population mobility

The Tesla roadster is a gimmick and gives nothing to the search for affordable electric cars.

I think my point is that saying we're nowhere close isn't quite right - not saying we're their yet. BTW, I think it's better than a sportscar for 1/3rd the price.

what happened during the industrial revolution which occured before we had cars and after the dark ages you predict?

The rural poor became the urban poor.

is this an april fuel joke ?

what happened during the industrial revolution which occured before we had cars

For real?

Everyone moved from their villages to huge ugly over crowed and desperately impoverished slums to be near work. Did you think that was a good situation?

I think my point is that saying we're nowhere close isn't quite right

We are nowhere close. Like I say we could've built that car at any point within the last 20 years. Take the Nissan Leaf for instance - it's a small car, like a Honda Jazz more or less, but it costs 26 grand, which is double what it ought to. Halving that price is MASSIVELY difficult. It's not just a small hiccup.

my point is that we had population mobility without cars - which the posters claimed would stop without cars- -which is undeniably true. Were the conditions good? again undeniably no [generally] but that is another issue.
I suspect some people who move to London dont own a car etc It may be harder but it would not stop without the car.

my point is that we had population mobility without cars

No we bloody didn't! People moved 100 miles from their family homes to the city FOR GOOD and never saw their families or even green countryside again! Yes there were railways but the average worker could only afford one trip a year...

Lovely I don't think.

there were railways but the average worker could only afford one trip a year...

I suspect most families would have struggled with that during the Industrial Revolution.

Paid holidays for employees are a fairly recent innovation (just prior to WW2 IIRC), before that, you got Sunday off to go to church, and the rest of the time you worked until you died or were too ill/weak, at which point you became a drain on your family's resources until you expired.

The reality is that most of the urban poor in the UK are still pretty immobile, both socially and geographically - I regularly take kids of 12-14 on residentials which are their first trip outside Glasgow. Many of them rarely travel outside the housing scheme they live on.

Our current social policy in many areas assumes, and requires, social mobility, as there's a decreasing redundancy in provision - Glasgow Health Board is in the process of centralising A&E provision in fewer hospitals which limits people's access to health provision in reality, even if it's done with the best of intentions in terms of efficiency.

There is some interesting work being done on the potential problems being stored up by the application of 'just in time' planning to areas like health care - basically, our system is [i]increasingly[/i] reliant on population mobility. In essence, it is distinctly possible that we're way more screwed that we realise already.

Like I say we could've built that car at any point within the last 20 years

With that battery life? Well I didn't know halving the cost would be such a huge issue - where are the cost difficulties? But even if we have to pay double current prices many of us will still have cars - and quicker journeys too.

my point is that we had population mobility without cars

Absolutely right. It's complete nonsense to somehow try and make out that if personal car use is reduced, we'll all suddenly be reduced to never leaving whatever hamlet we happen to be stuck in at the time.

I suspect most families would have struggled with that during the Industrial Revolution

Quite possibly, I was thinking of the annual week in Blackpool/Barry Island/Southend on Sea etc.

Mudshark, the issue with batteries is really energy density. You either have a short range, or you have a lot of batteries. That means less space in the car and high cost (because they are expensive). It's no accident that the Tesla is a two seater. They realised that they could satisfy the market requirements of a flash sports car with electricity - a cunning market strategy enabling them to perhaps to get headlines and media profile, and then get more capital to build something more interesting - which I believe they are doing.

Nissan have not produced a car with mass appeal (due to its cost), and they are a huge manufacturer. Even GM have struggled with their Volt because of, you guessed it - battery technology issues. Toyota also were hoping to be able to get enough energy density into the 2009 Prius to give it a 40 mile electric only range, that's not happening now. There is a plug-in version on the way but with a 12 mile range.

It's complete nonsense to suggest that if personal car use is reduced, we'll all suddenly be reduced to never leaving whatever hamlet we happen to be stuck in at the time.

because....?

If you have an financially viable solution that would allow the [i]private[/i] companies who currently provide 'public' transport in the rural areas of the UK to be able to lay on an intensive system of public transport in low density population areas with poor road infrastructures, I'm sure they're be beating down your door to hear it.

because....?

Because there are already many places in the world that are less reliant on the personal car than the UK and people are able to leave their hamlets; and because not long ago the UK was less reliant on the personal car and people were able to leave their hamlets.

It's a false dichotomy that's being suggested: either we carry on as we are or ZOMG we'll be eating turnipz and we'll never see teh sea again!!!11!!

Good lord, I find myself tending to agree with TJ! Current fundamentals of western society are not sustainable. Broadband will solve commuting issues, what is more worring for me is how we sustain an agricultural system that relies totally on oil to be productive enough to meet our demands. Dig for victory springs to mind. No two ways about it, the western definition of high living standards is going to need to change.

Electric cars are a red herring, the batteries are more unsustainable to make that petrol!

That's still not offering a solution tailored to the UK context. I live in the country, although near a large city. I work from home most of the time, but my wife has to travel into work in the city every day, and has to rely on a limited bus service. She can only do this because she works set hours - there's no opportunity for flexible working in that sort of situation. There's zero incentive for the private companies who provide the bus services to provide an improved service, because it's not financially viable for them.

I'm interested to hear more about the places in the world where people commute from the country each day without and significant reliance on cars, in a context where mass transport is provided in low population density areas by private companies who are able to make it economically viable.

Batteries - they've come on a lot in recent times so maybe improve more? Would a bus be viable - better passenger to vehicle/battery weight ratio? If so then we just need a lot more of those serving our more rural communities.

No we bloody didn't! People moved 100 miles

thank you for both denying and proving my point in only 8 word
A ++++

If you have an financially viable solution

Broadband will solve commuting issues

Except you can't get fast broadband out here in the country ( a whole 10 miles outside Glasgow). The private companies who provide these services; BT/Virgin Cable in our case, don't believe it's financially viable to provide the service anytime soon, so we're stuck with sub 1Mb speeds on a good day.

I should make it clear that I'm not denying the existence of the problem by any means, but nobody's yet offered a viable alternative to the spectre of an almost entirely urbanised population.

thank you for both denying and proving my point in only 8 word

You spanner.

People relocating their families for permanently and for generations is absolutely opposite to what we are talking about in terms of personal mobility. I suppose you consider Jews escaping pre WWII Europe as an increase in international tourism too? 😆

Except you can't get fast broadband out here in the country

Way the heck easier and cheaper to install BB to rural areas though than to provide transport infrastructure. Plus it makes a lot more sense to move around people's information at 10% the speed of light than chug them around at 40mph doesn't it?

to claim it would lead to the dark ages

If that's a reference to my comment about the [i]middle[/i] ages, it was clearly only a reference point for a static population, rather than a suggestion we'd return wholesale to that level of social development.

I'm 48, and only 2 generations on from a period before widespread car use - I can remember the tail end of this period as a child. We had relatives dispersed in other parts of the UK that I rarely saw, and visiting my grandparents at the other side of the city was a rare treat. The level of social mobility we have now is a recent phenomenon, but now that genie is out of the bottle, I'm not sure how you get it back in?

Way the heck easier and cheaper to install BB to rural areas though than to provide transport infrastructure.

But BT and Virgin don't provide transport infrastructure, so that's not an financial decision they have to make - for them it's a simple question of "is it worth the financial outlay of the engineering work to lay cable that far from Glasgow" - as the answer is "no", then they've told us it's not going to happen in any timescale they're currently working to.

If we lived in a planned economy, then the bigger questions of economic necessity might be asked, but that's not the government people voted for...

I'm interested to hear more about the places in the world where [b]people commute from the country each day [/b]without and significant reliance on cars

You're still not getting it. Things go to where we are by adapting over time; things are going to have to adapt over time again. One of the things that might have to change is people driving long distances every day to and from work relatively cheaply; either an alternative means of transport exists or is developed; or we pay more for the journeys for which there is no alternative; or we change the way we live, work and travel.

I suppose you consider Jews escaping pre WWII Europe as an increase in international tourism too?

lol!

loving the comparison of [s]evidence[/s] assumptions from completely different historical contexts to prove a point 😆

You're still not getting it.

Oh I do - I'm not arguing your point about the need for change. You said it happens in other parts of the world, and I asked you for an example - it's not that complicated a question, assuming you had an example in mind when you made the comment.

We had relatives dispersed in other parts of the UK that I rarely saw, and visiting my grandparents at the other side of the city was a rare treat. The level of social mobility we have now is a recent phenomenon, but now that genie is out of the bottle, I'm not sure how you get it back in?

"Social mobility" doesn't mean what you think it means. It has nothing to do with how often you see your relatives because they don't live in the same place.

In sociology and economics, as well as in common political discourse, social mobility refers to the degree to which an individual's or group's status is able to change in terms of position in the social hierarchy. To this extent it most commonly refers to material wealth and the ability of an agent to move up the class system. Such a change may be described as "vertical mobility," in contrast to a more general change in position ("horizontal mobility").[1] Mobility is enabled to a varying and debatable extent by economic capital, cultural capital (such as higher education or an authoritative accent), human capital (such as competence and effort in labour), social capital (such as support from one's social network), physical capital (such as ownership of tools, or the 'means of production'), and symbolic capital (such as the worth of an official title, status class, celebrity, etc). Many of these factors, however, ultimately remain intertwined with economic capital. In modern nation states, policy issues such as welfare, education and public transport exercise influence. In other societies religious affiliation, caste membership, or simple geography may be of central importance. The extent to which a nation is open and meritocratic is fundamental: a society in which traditional or religious caste systems dominate is unlikely to present the opportunity for social mobility.

By the way, if you saw your grandparents who lived across town "rarely" in the 60s and 70s, it was because your parents didn't like them very much. You're not that old!

I think people have got social mobility confused with personal mobility. That's what the original thread was about. Social mobility has little to do with diesel prices.

Ditch_jockey - don't the govt have a programme for rolling out broadband to rural areas? Presumably through means of subsidies?

"Social mobility" doesn't mean what you think it means.

It does, but you're correct in pointing out I didn't use it correctly in the context it appeared. It's the peril of typing quick responses under an anonymous username on the internet, rather than preparing a submission for peer review under my real name!

As to you other point - my parents and grandparents are all dead now, so I can't go back and verify your allegation. My point, which I probably didn't make very clear, was that regular car use for domestic purposes was something that became a feature of our family life well into my parent's generation - my first long car journey was from Aberdeen to Glasgow when I was around 12years old, and I saw it as a major adventure. Nowadays, I'd think nothing of jumping in the car and driving to Aberdeen and back in a day to visit some of my remaining elderly relatives (who may also not like me very much 😆 ).

However, I do think there is a correlation between the increasing use of cars as part of the [i]democratisation of luxury[/i] and the realities of social mobility in the UK, but that connection wasn't very clear in my original post - apologies!

don't the govt have a programme for rolling out broadband to rural areas?

I believe so, although it seems more targeted at properly rural areas like Buttend of Nowhere, Sutherland, rather than a commuter village 15 miles outside Glasgow. We've spoken to BT, who basically told us "tough luck".

I don't see any political will for bringing about the changes necessary to shift our relationship to private car use - our village is currently fighting a planning app from Bellway who are looking to plant over 200 'affordable' houses in land currently designated as greenbelt. That's going to put 200 more families into a situation where they're dependent on private car use to go to work and pay their mortgages. East Dunbartonshire council are totally opposed, but apparently the current planning regs mean the decision is taken by some nameless bod in an office in Edinburgh! Situations like this do tend to subvert people's willingness to listen to arguments about reducing our dependence on fossil fuel by lowering car use, when the government's own decision making is adding to the problem, rather than contributing solutions.

I'm also not sure we'll get anywhere if we continue to have discussions about mass transport, broadband etc in separate silos - private enterprise driven by profit doesn't have the motivation to sort this, so it will have to come from elsewhere.