It doesn’t if you don’t live in a city.

Same old, same old. And as has been pointed out previously, on multiple similar threads, in rural areas, where local shops don’t exist anymore in the way that they used to, and supermarkets are miles away, I really don’t think anyone is advocating that you never use your car. It’s clearly important to you.

I don’t think rural driving (where you’re likely to be at the vehicles more efficient output, more often anyway) is what’s choking towns is it? It’s unnecessary car journeys. I even made one myself today. But, y’know, it was drizzly outside.

Molgrips pic says it all really….cities have always been busy, I remember being at school and reading about cities that date back hundreds of years and were busy stinking places (only it was waste that was the problem then), put people in close proximity and what do you expect?!….i could spout off about the sheep who insist on moving to the south/london/cities and contributing to the problem….if you don’t like it move away, we did….where I live now I barely notice traffic, it’s a complete non issue that only city dwellers drone on about, boring.

Speaking of laziness isn’t that pretty much the main reason for moving to a decent sized town or city?!….you know, how ‘convenient’ it is to have everything nearby!

If you want to appeal to more than just cyclists direct government investment and infrastructure towards moving people, housing and jobs out of the congested areas in the UK….we have enough space, sadly our populace is concentrated in small areas and congestion arises because of that….spread everything more thinly and watch the roads become a far quieter place….of course then people will moan that they can’t walk to the nearest bar/shop/restaurant etc….

Seems people in cities hate cars, meanwhile the rest of the country wonder what all the fuss is about.

Once we have self driving cars will Google just take charge of the whole mass transport problem and work out which vehicle to send where and who to pick up on the way?

I think you need to get off that high horse and realise that there is a whole world out there beyond your own perceptions and experiences.

I think you need to read the thread properly.

Speaking of laziness isn’t that pretty much the main reason for moving to a decent sized town or city?

No.

I think you need to read the thread properly.

I think you need to read what he was quoting properly.

Fwiw I never disagreed with the point that public transport is great when it works. When it doesn’t though, its useless. Moreso when you are still cheaper and quicker driving it on a clogged road.

opposed to the Costa del Sol or whatever fabulous little enclave it is you live in.

It is a fabulous place, but Edinburgh is a lot colder than the West Coast in the winter. In any case, an awful lot of people cycle to work in the West & 7.5 miles isn’t that far, even in the rain. just sayin’

I wish people would put the “just sayin” at the beginning of the post instead of the end.

It would be a lot easier to ignore the post if I hadn’t already read it before realising 😆

Mass transit makes sense in VERY dense cities. I suspect we only have a few square miles of that sort of landscape in the whole UK.

Wtf are you on about? Greater London alone is 600 square miles. The significantly inhabited parts of the UK are densely populated – the other bits don’t matter because practically no-one lives there.

Greater London alone is 600 square miles. The significantly inhabited parts of the UK are densely populated

Yeah, and the U.K. is around 94,000square miles, so add your 600 to the other lesser conurbations of the U.K., and I’ll stand by my assertion of ‘a few’. And if you get out of the big cities, the U.K. Is dotted with medium and small towns that aren’t particularly dense and would be very difficult to make mass transit worthwhile. Everyone who doesn’t love in a city doesn’t automatically live in the countryside, you know.

I seem to recall a stat which showed that the average commuter could expect to get rained on about half a dozen times a year

I heard that as 12 times a year (in London) which I guess applied to those who were able to leave earlier/later if raining, or use a different mode of transport. Because I was in London at the time and got more than a dozen soakings before that month was out.

It is a fabulous place, but Edinburgh is a lot colder than the West Coast in the winter. In any case, an awful lot of people cycle to work in the West & 7.5 miles isn’t that far, even in the rain. just sayin’

Yes colder. Also drier. I’d say your so called statistic is utter bullshit in any case, you’re seriously trying to suggest the average commuter will only cycle to work on six rainy days a year?

Yes people cycle to work but generally not along the A78 at all times of the day and night sharing the road with the average dickhead who ends up on the rocks further up probably once a fortnight because they don’t realise the limitations of physics. Enjoy your lovely cycle paths and city designed to actively discourage driving, I’ll continue to drive on roads that are much safer taken that way.

As I said, mass transit or cycle commuting is not a one size fits all solution. There are those of us who live either away from work or away from cities by necessity rather than choice and we are stuck with what we have. Living in the real world you can’t cater for everyone so you have to cater for the majority.

Driving may be convenient but it doesn’t enrich our lives. A society where car use is not the norm would be a nicer society.

I live in a village.

There is a bus service to the local train station 2 miles away. It’s slow, dirty and expensive.

I used to cycle to the station, which was fine as I had a sneaky little route, using the main roads was horrendous. Then I would take the train into “that there London” and then walk to the office. I obviously would never dream of driving into London, cars are useless there.

Changed jobs, 35 miles the other direction, public transport would of been of 2.5 hours at least. More like 3 hours with the waiting and walking added in. It was still slow by car and took an hour because of traffic.

As has been said above, mass transit is only really useful in the cities, useless for the rest of the Country.

A lovely city centric view of the world in the original Gif 🙂

In my wallet is a public transit card for the 4 major cities I visit on a regular basis, no need for cars in most of them, now moved into a reasonably sized place and I will be cycling or walking to work as there cars make no sense, in other places they did I mean FFS in one case not using a car would have meant living in Warrington!

The real issue is sorting out attitudes & public transport means that when you need to drive it’s possible.

Driving may be convenient but it doesn’t enrich our lives.

Depends whether you drive an Alfa…

The answer is legalizing Swegways and getting the cars off the road…

TurnerGuy – Member

The answer is legalizing Swegways and getting the cars off the road…

Not sure if you’re trolling but a smaller, greener personalised transport alternative might be the way. People want their own personal space, they want to go where they want, when they want and they want to be warm, dry and sweat free.

Yeah, and the U.K. is around 94,000square miles, so add your 600 to the other lesser conurbations of the U.K., and I’ll stand by my assertion of ‘a few’. And if you get out of the big cities, the U.K. Is dotted with medium and small towns that aren’t particularly dense and would be very difficult to make mass transit worthwhile.

This is just silly rubbish. The UK population is highly urbanised: 82% in fact. Plenty of other places make public transport work outside a “few square miles” 🙄 . All of this talk of Snowdonia is just empty blether because practically no-one lives there, there aren’t any traffic jams and no-one’s suggesting building a light rail there.

My nearest major city (not that major really) has pretty good public transport with dedicated services to major places of work/study/business in the area, up to maybe 20 km from the city centre.

I have colleagues who will walk past a bus/tram stop to get to where they have parked their car, then queue all the way to work then walk past the bus stop on the way to the office.

This costs them about twice what it would cost on the bus, and takes twice as long. (incidentally, the buses are usually pretty clean, and not at all smelly and mostly run in dedicated bus lane.)

It’s mental.

I live in the country, the nearest bus stop is only a 10 minute walk, but its a minimum of 2 hours door to door, bus, train, bus. And its an hour between buses at the local stop. Driving takes 50 minutes, door to door.

Moving isn’t an option for us, but if I was in the city I’d be carless and signed up to one of the rental fleets, a mate does this, total bill for transport for 2014 was about 1500 quid, all in, two travel passes, fleet membership and hire. Last year they had a car (knackered 10 year old focus) it cost them nearly a grand just for insurance and parking. And in 12 months he *ONCE* had to change plans as he couldn’t get a car. Got to a BBQ at our place an hour late.

I love these threads. Here’s a set of circumstances specific to me, therefore cars are the only available option for everyone.

It is a choice, we wanted to move out of London, we looked all over the SE in the end
We chose Milton Keynes, it’s a fair sized city and the cycling infrastructure is amazing, segregated cycle paths everywhere, you can get from one side to the other, without ever crossing a road,
I tow the kids to school in the trailer, leave it at nursery, take my folder to the station ride to work. My wife leaves her bike at the station Cycles v to nursery, gets the kids, tows them home.
Our neighbours use their 4×4 to do the exact same thing
We get our food delivered and of we ever go to the centre we can cycle with the trailer and save a load on parking

If the weather’s really bad, long journeys or need to move big stuff, will take the car.everyone has lazy days !

MK has the highest obesity rate in England, despite loads of parks, watersports, activities, amazing cycle network, bike racks everywhere.
Every tubby **** drives around coz Clarkson told em to and cars are awesomez !
Drive to tesco, to get your shopping, retail park etc it becomes a habit, drive to work, drive to the corner shop, is easier…

It’s too dark and wet to cycle to work is a weak excuse, more than 10 miles each way is probably too far but anything less is easily doable, with some army surplus goretex and a big bowl of porridge b4 you leave whatever the weather is

it is a lot about attitude and preparation. people have got used to the convenience of car travel and the choices it opens up. choices like ‘i can live 30miles away because the a38 is free-flowing and i can get in to work in 30 mins. we saved so much buying in town x, rather than buying in the city’.
i made a choice to live on the outskirts of the city i work in. there were good reasons for not doing so for the first 6 years of my employment with the same company, but when those reasons went away, i made the choice to move within cycling distance. i can even walk it in an hour if i have to. i got back 30mins at each end of the working day to do with as i pleased.
sure, live in the country and use the car, but don’t pretend you didn’t make that choice, and don’t pretend you only use the car because the public transport is shit.
people gravitate towards towns and cities and should – it’s the most effective way of providing services including public transport.

looking forward to seeing how cardiff’s car free day goes. wish they would do it in my city. once a year, once a month, once a week….

Yes, I know I made that choice.When we moved in it was far better, but due to lack of use, it’s become shit. We use the car due to where we chose to live. And poor public transportReally? I find living in cities stressful, deeply unpleasant and generally far far too expensive for what you get. I’ll quite happily sacrifice the “benefits” some people seem to attribute to living in a city to not live in one. If I could find what I wanted in a city, I’d probably live there, and most likely do it car free, but I can’t.

This is just silly rubbish. The UK population is highly urbanised: 82% in fact. Plenty of other places make public transport work outside a “few square miles”

I disagree with you (however, I do it with a modecum of politeness). 85% urbanised? That’s great, but that doesn’t mean living and working in population dense metropolis. Outside of the big cities, towns do have reasonable public transport, so long as you want to go to the centre of town, and back out again, at reasonably normal times. However, if you live in one town, but work in the next, or have ‘unusual ‘ work hours, public transport doesn’t work, and it’s never going to whilst there’s not a critical mass of people need to go to roughly the same place at roughly the same time. Outside of cities, most people don’t all work in the centre of town, and work roughly office hours. And if you don’t, public transport isn’t viable, and that’s fine.

However, if you live in one town, but work in the next, or have ‘unusual ‘ work hours, public transport doesn’t work, and it’s never going to whilst there’s not a critical mass of people need to go to roughly the same place at roughly the same time.

Hence my point about needing a re-think.

Busses need to be subsidised for a start.

[quoteBut the majority of car journeys are single occupancy. Everyone travelling in an individual big metal box with three or four empty seat in it is just not sustainable as the population grows.[/quote]

I’m single, and no matter how often I try picking people up at the roadside they just don’t want to get in a car with a stranger. If I removed four of my seats would that be ok?

kimbers

MK has the highest obesity rate in England, despite loads of parks, watersports, activities, amazing cycle network, bike racks everywhere.
Every tubby **** drives around coz Clarkson told em to and cars are awesomez !

Believe it or not, people liked cars before Jeremy Clarkson. Of all the cyclists I know the vast majority love cars. When you say stupid shit like that, or like this guy

yunki – Member

I think GAAAAAAY describes the cult of the motorcar very succinctly

…you just come across like the cyclists equivolent of Clarkson. Irrational, blinkered, sensationlist, confrontational, elitist, condescending snob.

It’s unnecessary car journeys

^this.

Caused it seems by wealth and lazyness.
Caused by the 25-65 age group.
Caused by a culture of commuting to work in a car – rather than before where you may have chosen to live close to work/rail/bus/cycle links.
Caused by school commutes in cities increasing (Across UK).
The longer journey’s and rurality are not the issue.

(Scotland 2014 Travel Survey)
Car Access and Licence Possession

7.8 Average distance travelled increased with the number of cars available. Forty per cent of journeys carried out by those with no car available were less than 1 km in length compared to 23 per cent for respondents with one car and 17 per cent for those with 2 or more cars. [Tables 14, 15]

7.9 Licence possession was also an important factor – 44 per cent of journeys undertaken by those with a full licence were at least 5 km compared to less than a quarter with no licence. [Table 14
– See more at: http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/statistics/j205156-07.htm#sthash.BGh1Gc3G.dpuf

Travel mode in England in 2013 (National Travel Survey 2013)
? The average number of walking trips was 30% less in 2013 than 1995/97 (203 walking trips per person in 2013) (1)
? 78% of trips under one mile were walking trips(1)
? 64% of all trips were by car (as driver or passenger) 22% by foot, 7% by bus, 3% by train, 2% by bike and 2% other (1)
? 55% of trips by children (aged 16 and under) were as car passengers with 32% on foot (1)
? 1% of all stages were made by bicycle – the average number of cycle stages has fallen by 25% between 1995/97 to 2013 (15 stages per person in 2013) (1)
? 67% of trips were under 5 miles in England of which 55.4% were by car, 33% by foot and 2% by bike (1)
? Bus trips were highest amongst 17-20 year olds, 18% of all trips for this age group (1)
? Since 1995/97 walking trips have decreased by 30% to 203 per person per year in 2013 (1)

2.24 Those usually travelling by car/van tended to rise with household income, to (27-32%) of pupils from households with an annual net income of £30,000 or more.

There’s a huge body of evidence that compact cities of around 1,000,000 inhabitants, where everybody can walk/cycle/bus to work, and cities are linked by high-speed rail, are probably the most efficient and sustainable form of habitation for a modern society. You can see a pretty good approximation of this in Amsterdam/Rotterdam/The Hague.

The problem in the UK is that we have given too much priority to the car for the past 70 years, so we’ve carried on building homes spread out across rural areas because people like the idea of living there, while at the same time jobs and industry have become more and more centralised in certain areas of the country. Where there is industry in smaller towns it’s all in out of town business parks, rather than in the town centre. That, combined with high house prices and high levels of home ownership, which makes people reluctant to move, leaves lots of people living miles and miles from work, and therefore relying on cars.

It is obviously a choice though, there are cities that work well in the UK, and you can chose to live close to work. Living in some unspoilt countryside may be worth an hour in the car each day to some people, but as with much of our lives, it’s a pretty selfish choice that billions of people around the world don’t get to make.

I also live in Vienna. The city annual transport ticket for trains, trams, buses and underground there is 365 euros. That’s one euro a day. The public transport is always on time, clean and very efficient. It’s run by the city, for the people – not by some private company out to screw the commuter for as much as they can.
If uk cities had the same pricing and punctuality, there would be much more people using it. As it stands, having lived in the past in Liverpool and London, from my experience it was bloody expensive and dirty so used my car as much as possible.

I find living in cities stressful, deeply unpleasant and generally far far too expensive for what you get.

I lived in nottingham for a couple of years, and the area I was in, and other circumstances at the time, meant that experience chimes with me, but i live in a far nicer city now, in the ‘burbs, in what my mate’s architect wife describes as a ‘noddy box’. 😀 it’s a lot nicer than my experience of nottingham ( which isn’t to say that nottingham can’t be a nice place to live too, if you can do it right ).

I’ll quite happily sacrifice the “benefits” some people seem to attribute to living in a city to not live in one. If I could find what I wanted in a city, I’d probably live there, and most likely do it car free, but I can’t.

or won’t? it’s fine, you’ve faced and made a choice, but going forward we do have to try to limit that choice, or at least make it make more sense. obviously i don’t know your circumstances, but ‘city vs country’ evokes a stark choice at either end of the spectrum, but it really doesn’t need to be like that ( even if it may be for your particular circumstances ) for a lot of people. for many, living on the edge of the same small or large town they work in is perfectly viable, isn’t it? and properly integrating the systems involved in transportation should not be beyond the ken of man under those circumstances?

Caused by a culture of commuting to work in a car – rather than before where you may have chosen to live close to work/rail/bus/cycle links.

Part of that is urban planning – they built and planned a lot of houses without thought of public transport links.

Cardiff has several railway lines going through the city from the Valleys, with local stops. These would be brilliant for going to town but also to make national rail journeys convenient. When they built the huge modern developments in the east of the city they didn’t add rail links, which was a crying shame. Cardiff used to have many more railway lines, most of which were to bring coal from the Valleys, but most of them were taken up. If you look at an old map now it looks like a mass transit wet dream.

How many of those people you see every morning on your commute are making the daily pilgrimage to sit on a chair, behind a desk in an office to talk on a phone and tappity tap on a computer for the entire day?

How many of those people have chairs and phones and computers and broadband in their own homes?
Why do they need to go to an office?
How much easier would the commute be for people who physically need to travel to their workplace of all the desk jockeys were taken out of the equation?

Surely the easy win would be to alter the culture of employers who can’t trust their employees to work remotely from home and take them out of the commuting equation altogether?
I drive about 35 mins each way to work every day.
Bizarrely, my company has an office about 10 mins walk from my home. Can I work there? No! Coz’ that’s not where my department is based. It’s madness if you stop for a moment and examine it logically.

I’d happily submit to 8 hours of video surveillance in my office at home if it saved me the commute every day.

Maybe we don’t have a traffic problem or an infrastructure problem.
Maybe it’s a cultural hangover from days gone by when the office work infrastructure needed to be centralised to function.
Technology has changed the game but very few employers seem willing to make the change.

Why do they need to go to an office?

This has been my complaint for years. “Oh, it’s not the same” they say. Well, MAKE IT the same. It’s insanity forcing people to spend hours a week schlepping around when there is an alternative. When you consider how damaging it is to our urban environments and the world as a whole, it’s bonkers. All we need to do is make an effort to adjust our working practices and we could solve some of these huge issues within a couple of years.

And yes, I obviously know that lots of people can’t do this so don’t point it out. But enough people can to ease the burden dramatically.

I reckon a government could simply create a tax incentive for companies to encourage home working *where possible*. Companies would have to do the work, but they’d save cash, and the government would probably recoup any money lost by tax cuts in reduced infrastructure spending.

Don’t be so rational.

It has been proven, beyond doubt, time and time again on this thread. That absolutely everyone in a car is making a uniquely important and difficult journey that simply cannot be completed on foot/bike/bus/train.

The solution to our transport needs is more cars, with fewer people in them wherever possible.

Believe it or not, people liked cars before Jeremy Clarkson. Of all the cyclists I know the vast majority love cars

I also blame vin diesel, there’s a hilarious gathering every Friday in the Network Rail ! office car park in MK, lots of yoofs in blinged up Foci, caps on backwards, cheeky spliffs, body kits, wide rims, ICE pumping out phat tunes etc.

You know people that LOVE cars, really ?

I now a few people, some even cyclists that like them, but love!? 😉

They scrapped the bus service through our village. Not that it was any good anyway.. 3 buses a day at bizarre times and very unreliable. That makes my nearest train station 8 miles away. I’m not entirely sure what the elderly do to support themselves. All houses in the village seem to have shot up from one car ownership to one per person in the last 10 years.

My commute is 35 miles and takes 40-45 minutes to drive. If I cycled to the train station, took the train and then walked to the office it would take me 3 hours! It’s just not possible to do that. Ironically there used to be a train line through the village 40 years ago that would have taken me to work in 30 minutes..

The UK needs to rethink its infrastructure and improve public transport. People want convenience and public transport doesn’t offer that for many. Not entirely sure what the solution is, or if there ever will be one, but something needs to change.

kimbers

I also blame vin diesel, there’s a hilarious gathering every Friday in the Network Rail ! office car park in MK, lots of yoofs in blinged up Foci, caps on backwards, cheeky spliffs, body kits, wide rims, ICE pumping out phat tunes etc.

And that was going on long before Vin Diesel and The Fast and the Furious. All the films did was glamourise something that was already happening, and to a certain extent legitimise it for those involved. You seem very reliant on films and television to help you make sense of the world by stupid generalisations and rash assumptions. Unless you’re trolling by posting sensationalist crap to get a reaction, like, y’know, Clarkson.

You know people that LOVE cars, really ?

I now a few people, some even cyclists that like them, but love!?

If you want to argue semantics then you’ve really got nothing to say. Love, obsessed with, passionate about, whatever term you choose….yes that. The same feeling most passionate cyclists have towards their bike. Shouldn’t be too difficult to understand.