Government: we will tax your business relative to the commuting distances of the staff.

Boss: Maybe I’ll employ someone from Leeds

Unions – STRIKE! 😉

boss you can have your job but the company is moving to Chester, can’t do as other half has a job and job market is crap.

Now i have a new job but it is 16miles away from home. I ride more than i drive but couldn’t do the job without the car.

There is NO effective Public transport i could use if i wanted to. i guess i could get a 40 mile train journey which i don’t think would arrive early enough. or a 30 mile bus journey which incidently is going to be hammered when they close junction 10 of the m5 next spring, but that wouls also see me late and having to leave early.

Mrmo – you have still made choices that put you in that situation – living somewhere with rubbish public transport is a choice.

I have never done a commute I could not do by bike – thats because of the choice sand compromises I made

I’m sure the young female nurse getting off shift late at night and having to get the night bus home, then walk to her tenement flat past the group of pissed up ned’s on the street corner feels really reassured by that TJ, still, that was her choice, yeah 🙄

Ridiculous argument TJ. Houses aren’t selling quickly, people change jobs (by choice or otherwise) and there are various other factors to take into account.

Are you seriously suggesting that people always have a viable choice as to whether they commute or not? Please note, I said viable.

so TJ, yes i made a choice, now lets hear what you would do?

I live in the same town as my family, as does the other half. we both worked in that town. If you add Cheltenham and Gloucester together, which you might as well considering how connected they are, your talking a population of c250-300k so not a particularly small town.

I was told the choice was relocate to chester, c150miles away, or take redundancy?

So the choice is either i keep my job or the SO keeps her job, but not both. I suppose we could have split up but is that really an option?

The current jobs market is crap, took me 18months to get the job i have, pay isn’t brilliant but it is a lot more than i was getting temping. I can actually afford to pay the bills rather than use the credit card to cover things. But it does mean i have to commute across county boundaries, hence the appauling bus service, and beeching did for the rail line.

So what would you do? A very simple question and i would be interested to hear your answer.

That’s a shit situation mrmo, I don’t think I would have done anything different. Although I did move 150 miles once for a job, I’m still here 10 years later so it must have been a good choice. Is it really that easy for a company to up sticks and move 150 miles? Perhaps it shouldn’t be.

richpenny, it made a lot of sense for the company and you can’t argue the logic.

our main supplier was same group, they owned huge amounts of surplus land, the closure of the blast furnaces 30years ago sorted that. The site i was on was leased, our business was loosing money. Moving meant source materials were a mile away not 150, the rent was lower and intracompany not extra company….

so yes for me a shit situation but if they hadn’t moved and gone bust i would have been in the same place.

Don’t talk shite!

Tetchy.

When my father-in-law started work in the 70s, he lived in a tiny hamlet 17 miles from his work. He managed just fine without a car, because he caught the works’ bus. When the works’ bus was cancelled in 1978 or so, they moved to Darlington, because they couldn’t afford a car.

There are probably scores of people making the same/similar journey today who “can’t do it by bus”. If workplace parking was taxed, would employers start running bus services again?

I used to work for a medium-large employer on the edge of the Cotswolds in a tiny town because the owner and senior management liked living there. The rest of us (over a 1000 mostly in are 20s and 30s) live in the surrounding cities and towns like Swindon, Cheltenham, Bristol and Bath. When I started 6 years ago everyone commuted on their own but as fuel prices rose every one started to lift share to save money. They did try to lay on a bus to Bristol but it wasn’t popular as it you still had to get to the one bus stop and it added lots of extra time to the 2hrs spent commuting every day.
I questioned a director about whether it was sustainable once and they just dismissed it as not being a problem.
I’m so glad I don’t do it anymore as there is better ways of wasting my time than being stuck in a car but they are a prestigious employer for many graduates who are not realistically going to want to live in the middle of nowhere. If fuel prices continue going up I can see it affecting their recruitment.

oh well i was hoping tj would come and give an opinion to the scenario i set out.

on the edge of the Cotswolds in a tiny town

Wotton?

Yes, that’s right. However the rest of Europe is a different place. Different population distribution, different patterns of economic activity, different economic and political history.. Doesn’t really make sense to compare. Simple geogrpahy in many cases makes a difference.

Yes Europe is different people there use their public transport and it goes through every one-horse dorp on the way to a town. It’s maintained as a fantastic resource for everyone, regular public investment and renewal. There is a lack of will here to do what our neighbours do maintained by the “little Englanders” at the top.

mrmo,
presumably there were compromises you were unprepared to make to your lifestyle? asking ‘what would you have done’ is a bit disingenuous as we’re not you!

Trains can help, but as above there’s the cost factor.

Remember, when these things were built there was a far greater difference between the rich and the poor. So the rich elite could employ scum for peanuts to do all the backbreaking work, and most people could only afford one trip a year, and then make their money back charging other rich people lots of money.

hmm, but now we have machines that do a lot of the back breaking work. think it more likely that railway lines are now just hemmed in and that expansion requires either bulldozing lots of things or going the long way round.

i thought one of the biggest issues with our train network was that there were two ‘pinch points’ in the country that effectively throttle the flow everywhere else?

surely the fact that people commute from small villages/towns around big cities is proof that a commute is necessary. There simply aren’t jobs where some houses are (in the countryside, outside of farms), and there aren’t enough houses where there are jobs (in cities, which people commute to).

without private transport, how would you move a child up to university and back every term? carry all their belongings on the train?

surely the fact that people commute from small villages/towns around big cities is proof that a commute is necessary.

I think the counter argument goes that the jobs are in a different place to the houses because people can commute, rather than the people need to commute because the jobs are in a different place. Of course both viewpoints are by their nature simplistic generalisations which can be picked apart easily.

without private transport, how would you move a child up to university and back every term? carry all their belongings on the train?

I think it’s reasonable to say that there exists some land between “No one’s allowed to have a car” and “I should be allowed to drive anywhere for free”. I’m guess what’s being suggested is that many people (but not all) could drive a lot less without devastating their lives. For instance I have a neighbour who every morning drives 1/4 of a mile to another neighbour to then take that neighbour’s dog on a 5 mile walk. This strikes me as slightly mental 🙂

ian what are you thinking of here being all reasonable and seeing shades of grey in tis issue – you will never be a big hitter with this type of attitude. Takes a position at one of the extreme poles and argue it to death…..you are letting the side down 😉
i agree with you FWIW people use cars for very short journeys. i always remember a neighbour driving her kids to nursery club and when i returned from walking my kids there i saw her park in her drive get the kid sout and confess she could not get parked anywhere closer – it was about 200 m away

Yes Europe is different people there use their public transport and it goes through every one-horse dorp on the way to a town. It’s maintained as a fantastic resource for everyone, regular public investment and renewal. There is a lack of will here to do what our neighbours do maintained by the “little Englanders” at the top.

I do agree with this, however it is amazing to see that despite this alot of a european neighbours who we think of like this still have a higher number of vehicles per capita than the UK.
Clearly it is not just as simple as saying “better public transport”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita

Sorry Junkyard!
I haven’t had any coffee yet this morning, so I’m feeling slightly weak.

I think it’s reasonable to say that there exists some land between “No one’s allowed to have a car” and “I should be allowed to drive anywhere for free”. I’m guess what’s being suggested is that many people (but not all) could drive a lot less without devastating their lives. For instance I have a neighbour who every morning drives 1/4 of a mile to another neighbour to then take that neighbour’s dog on a 5 mile walk. This strikes me as slightly mental

this is true, but your example is the sort of journey that will have very little effect from £5/litre fuel. a 1/2 mile journey, even from cold, probably costs around 10p to drive. Even at 50p, I doubt there is enough impact to make someone not want to make the journey

Yes Europe is different people there use their public transport and it goes through every one-horse dorp on the way to a town

And why is that? Because they are great and we are idiots?

No, it’s because as I said – politics, history, geography and so on.

Public transport in Helsinki for instance is great but that’s because cars are hugely expensive, and so is housing so most pepole live in high rise flats. This increases the population density, which is a critical factor in public transport viability.

EDIT very surprised by crispo’s link and where Finland comes. Most of the older people I worked with had one car per household and the under 30s typically had no car. Perhaps that’s just Helsinki tho.

without private transport, how would you move a child up to university and back every term? carry all their belongings on the train?

Erm, yes?

When I was at uni, my friend from Cornwall got the train up to Durham with their stuff. She thought asking her parents to make the 20 hour round trip six times a year was perhaps a bit cheeky.

or hire a car as needed…

I’m guess what’s being suggested is that many people (but not all) could drive a lot less without devastating their lives

I don’t have the figures to hand, but something like 50% of all car trips are less than 2 miles. Imagine how much more pleasant our streets would be if the only people driving were those who genuinely have to.

my mate cycled from germany with his stuff in a trailer to get to uni

My ex’s Dad used to pay for me to hire a car to bring her down to Cornwall. Was great fun for me cos I didn’t get to go on road trips very often.

mrmo

So what would you do? A very simple question and i would be interested to hear your answer.

Wisnae about,

As said above thats a shit situation really. Only you can make the right decision for you and I don’t have all the info. However I would very much doubt I would do a 150 mile commute so it would be one of us quit or live apart – maybe weekly commute? Julie and I lived apart for work reasons for a while and did a long distance relationship but that ain’t good either.

No right answer is there but I the biggest commute I have every done is 45 mins on a bike. Its a hugely important thing to me that I live in cycling distance of my work. It would take a lot to make me commute further

without private transport, how would you move a child up to university and back every term? carry all their belongings on the train?

Yup – seems normal to me I used to hitchhike sometimes.

surely the fact that people commute from small villages/towns around big cities is proof that a commute is necessary.

A lot of the time there is a two way commute – the people that work in the rural locations have been priced out of the housing market locally by commuters and end up living in the towns and cities and commuting to their rural jobs

this is true, but your example is the sort of journey that will have very little effect from £5/litre fuel. a 1/2 mile journey, even from cold, probably costs around 10p to drive. Even at 50p, I doubt there is enough impact to make someone not want to make the journey

Quite true. However what I was trying to highlight (and I guess failed) was the default action that many people have on opening their front door is to then open the car door. It can become so ingrained that it becomes a sort of learnt helplessness preventing them from exploring other possibilities. Having only relatively recently got a car I tend to suffer from it the other way round. Several times I’ve been sat looking at the weather thinking “don’t fancy cycling to the shops in that rain”, before remembering I have the option of the driving there instead 🙂

I don’t have the figures to hand, but something like 50% of all car trips are less than 2 miles. Imagine how much more pleasant our streets would be if the only people driving were those who genuinely have to.

There was a pretty big study done in my little, average, parochial, northern home town a couple of years ago. They found that 1 in 3 trips made were less than 5 km, made by someone on their own who was physically capable of cycling and owned a bike and who wasn’t carrying anything heavy or bulky.

Nearly a third (32 %) of all trips are currently undertaken by motorised private modes because of “subjective” reasons – lack of awareness and negative perceptions of alternative modes. A change in these subjective influences would have to be achieved to produce a significant shift towards STM. Such a shift could be achieved
without any changes to the transport system.

– (page 43)

The report’s available at http://www.grassick.net/cycling_downloads/Werner%20Brog%20report%202004.pdf and makes interesting reading.

on the edge of the Cotswolds in a tiny town

Wotton?

Malmesbury?!

I live in town and haven’t had a car in 6 years. When I lived in a village though, it was essential. Nearest shop 3 miles, work was 25 miles away. 1 bus a day going the wrong way.

I often thought some sort of hybrid bus/taxi systems might be a solution for rural areas. Big eneough to take 30-40 people but flexible enough to change routes if you booked in advance on the internet.

A law making every bus capable of carrying at least 10 bikes would open so many more options too.

TJ, straight question i have given the details, to have the job i have i need a car, i wouldn’t have the job if i couldn’t drive, which would mean i would probably still be temping, as that is all that seems to be about at the moment, that would mean earning less than £15k as that seems the going rate.

The job market is crap at the moment. So whilst working a bit closer might be nice, not having to drive would also be nice, the choices i have been forced to make mean i have a job and have to drive. Go to the dole office and say i don’t want the job because it is 45mins away and they will tell you where to go, read the rules on benefits.

I’ve just left my lovely bikey job because it meant I had to live in a tiny village with no facilities or public transport. I don’t have a car, and this little village is the only place I could feasibly cycle to work from. I’ve been there 6 months, but my lease is up now, and I’m not struggling there for another 6 months. Car free in the countryside is hard. I’ll never drive, and I’ve accepted that this means certain things regarding my life choices, certain compromises. I’m alright with that but I know our country could be much better in this regard.

I often thought some sort of hybrid bus/taxi systems might be a solution for rural areas. Big eneough to take 30-40 people but flexible enough to change routes if you booked in advance on the internet.

That’s one (actually two) of the solutions to rural public transport needs that Lynn Sloman suggests in her book Car Sick.

One system is for buses that are, kind of, like taxis. The other is for taxis that are, kind of, like buses. Great ideas.

that exists in pretty much any country that is too poor for private cars (ie Matatus in Kenya). In Cambodia they even have them running on the railway lines, which is an interestin solution