Scottish Ferries

“Have you ever been stuck on the M8/M74/77 junction biggest disaster ever in road planning. Car park every night”

The issue is that ‘one more lane’ encourages ‘one more car’ so that ‘one more person can choose to live in one place and commute by car to another place for work’ over and over and over again.

Exactly Matt.   A90 into Edinburgh, Edinburgh bypass and M8 is already badly congested.   There is nowhere for the extra traffic to go

@sparksmcguff Wasn’t there something about a passenger ferry between Leven and Portobello or did I hallucinate that?

Have you ever been stuck on the M8/M74/77 junction biggest disaster ever in road planning. Car park every night

I raise you A814 Expressway eastbound trying to get to the M8 eastbound at Charing Cross. You’re choices are wait in a huge, barely moving queue in lane 1, or be that guy and go down lane 2 and try to cut in later (no it’s not a merge situation) or various u-turn attempts at Anderston.

There have been a couple of prposals for a ferry from portobello to leven.  I think there was even a hovercraft running for a while.  Too small to make a significant difference.

A90 into Edinburgh, Edinburgh bypass and M8 is already badly congested. There is nowhere for the extra traffic to go

The M8 should be a toll road with congestion pricing. It’s nuts that taxpayers subsidise private cars’ use of the motorway which delays bus and lorry service along it and competes with the parallel train track.

The issue is that ‘one more lane’ encourages ‘one more car’ so that ‘one more person can choose to live in one place and commute by car to another place for work’ over and over and over again.

I understand this but doing exactly that can be a social mobility and career chance of a lifetime for a young person, in the absence of good public transport that reaches beyond the city areas. Which it doesn’t and won’t.

It was for me so just shouting out to not be an I’m alright Jack and quietly stand by while the ladder is pulled up based on logic like this.

” It’s nuts that taxpayers subsidise private cars’ use of the motorway”

Most taxpayers are private car users.  £37M taxpayers 33M cars.

Motoring taxes are more than the cost of roads maintainance.

Tax £25Bn Roads spending £12BN

Economics

Yeah I think there was a hovercraft trial running for a bit, memory fails me. Was it stagecoach operating it?

Then there was a stooshie cos the operator wanted SG to pay for the upkeep I think. Prams and balls springs to mind and here we are.

Used to work a lot in fife and live in Leith. If I was beyond say cowdenbeath I would stay overnight in fife, just wasn’t worth the misery.

“I raise you A814 Expressway eastbound trying to get to the M8 eastbound at Charing Cross”

Which of course is caused by long standing repairs on the 50 year old section east of Charing Cross where 4 lanes are reduced to two.  This in fact demonstrates that insufficient capacity causes congestion.

Irc.  And road spending is a small part of tbe total cost of motoring.

Its widely accepted that new roads equala increased traffic equals increased congestion in areas around  thenew roads.  This is not controversial.

Which of course is caused by long standing repairs on the 50 year old section east of Charing Cross where 4 lanes are reduced to two.  This in fact demonstrates that insufficient capacity causes congestion.

It’s not unfortunately. It was there before the roadworks and it’ll be there after. Certainly made worse (no rat run through the West End option now) but certainly not new

MV Caledonian Isle now properly broken, not just a bit so not expected until the summer. This means on Mull we’re  down to just the Loch Frisa all winter, about a third of our ‘normal’ capacity which creates all sorts of problems with deliveries and any urgent trips as it’ll be fully booked way in advance. We have enough problems with a poorly stocked, over-priced supermarket, so there’s shortages of fresh produce for weeks on end, and what does arrive has a very short use-by date.

Its widely accepted that new roads equala increased traffic equals increased congestion in areas around  thenew roads.  This is not controversial.

since ~1930 too

Motoring taxes are more than the cost of roads maintainance.

Tax £25Bn Roads spending £12BN

The cost of roads is a lot more than the mere maintenance cost – just look at the £110m upgrade being discussed here. VED and fuel duty aren’t hypothecated any more than stamp duty on house sales are ringfenced for housing. They are taxes, not usage fees. When the state provides use of a public asset for a fee less than it costs to provide it – that’s a subsidy.

The state currently charges zero (£0) to use the M8 – every driver is subsidised on every journey. And that’s nuts when the state is also subsidising trains that run along all the same towns, and is trying to encourage buses along the same route that are delayed by private cars!

The state could solve congestion and increase uptake of public transport overnight simply by charging tolls at a level that reduces private car usage to a point where existing infrastructure can cope. But instead we’d rather build ONE MORE LANE BRO at massive expense…

The cost of roads is a lot more than the mere maintenance cost

Exactly. The cost of excess motoring in the UK goes way beyond maintenance and even beyond construction and engineering costs and the cost of car storage in our cities and towns.  There is a social, health and environmental cost. There are landscape, heritage, and wellbeing costs and the huge cost of lost opportunities.  Many of these costs are cumulative and this amplifies the cost of undoing our motornormativity and of putting it all right in the future.

Supposedly the Glen Sannox is finally going to be handed over to CalMac today

I hope that’s true, but it’s not hit the news yet here on Arran.

Supposedly the Glen Sannox is finally going to be handed over to CalMac today

Do they all go for a wee cruise up the Clyde in the new whip?

A wee cruise to Birkenhead for dry docking according to where I read this, because of course.

and not increase traffic in general – the jams on the M8 and into Edinburgh are bad enough without generating more traffic.  Building more roads in general does not reduce congestion – it increases it in other areas as total traffic increases

I am aware of the  rationale.  I’m sceptical that it was logical in this case, but even if it was speccing if so if was under capacity at completion rather at capacity at completion was just naive – it’s not like there is some wonderful magic alternative: I doubt most of that traffic is going town centre to city centre.  Presumably those that do, typically don’t use the M8, as it would be quite a bit of extra journey.

have you tried any of the these journeys on public transport:

One of the urban sprawl housing estates in Dunfermline to Leith / Rosyth to Roslin /  Dalkeith to Glenrothes / Livingston to Methil / Dalgety Bay to Little France and be certain of arriving there for say 8am or not leaving until after 7pm.

the same is true for the M8 toll suggestion – it’s easy to get from the centre of Bathgate to the centre of Glasgow but have you tried getting from an East Kilbride housing estate to a Bathgate Industrial Estate? Or from Airdrie to Newbridge? Or Port Glasgow to Blackburn?    Have you been in any of those towns when there is problem in the m8?  They will all get more traffic if tou pay to use what is essentially the “town bypass”.

pricing people out their cars only works if the alternatives are actually realistic.  The train service (at least pre Covid) was dreadful, massively overcrowded, unreliable, poorly connected to other services and often expensive despite the subsidies.  Congesting them out of their cars probably does work better (I “never” drive into Edinburgh and rarely in Glasgow because of that) but the FRB isn’t a city centre – it’s an arterial route.

pricing people out their cars only works if the alternatives are actually realistic

Several considerations – first, there is the long running Treasury view that public transport is a luxury rather than an essential public utility and driver of growth (which of course has also led to such blunders as bus deregulation); second, there is screaming (and sometimes death threats) from a minority of drivers whenever there is any suggestion of restricting driving, or removing parking to put in bike lanes/bus lanes/whatever which then causes councillors to bottle it, and thirdly, in the nicest possible way, no matter how good the alternatives are, carrot with no stick does not work, and driving has to be made less convenient before people will use them.

Ultimately, we lack an integrated transport strategy and the current situation is not good for individuals, for air quality, for the planet, or for the economy (as car dependence excludes those who can’t or can’t afford to drive, making it harder for them to eg. get better jobs or any job, time spent stuck in a traffic jam isn’t economically productive, and the oil and car companies are largely based overseas so money spent on this goes out of the economy).

But this is all off topic.

Poly – lots of those journeys are actually pretty simple with a short walk or cycle ride included,   I do similar regularly

just for fun I looked up a couple

Dunfermline to leith.  2 stations in dunfermline plus rosyth so nowhere is more than 20 odd mins walk from a station.  2 trains an hour.  30 mins to haymarket.  change platforms, tram to leith – every 7 mins.  longest its going to take in total is 1.15 hours.  You wouldn’t be able to drive it in that time in peak times.

Rosyth to roslin

train to waverly, bus to roslin.  total journey time under 2 hours.  slower than driving in peak times but perfectly possible and not that much slower as at peak times the roads towards edinburgh and the bypass are very congested

pricing people out their cars only works if the alternatives are actually realistic. The train service (at least pre Covid) was dreadful, massively overcrowded, unreliable, poorly connected to other services and often expensive despite the subsidies. Congesting them out of their cars probably does work better (I “never” drive into Edinburgh and rarely in Glasgow because of that) but the FRB isn’t a city centre – it’s an arterial route.

You can of course move house or job to something easier as a journey.
Very easy for me to say that, but decisions have to be made. Until recently it was completely normal to want to live in one place with greenery and good school, but drive to the city centre where all the big employers were. Post pandemic, working from home, people choosing different office locations etc, I can see a slight shift in that assumption. Maybe we will see businesses and people move to places on rail and bus routes, or close enough to walk or cycle. Maybe businesses will realise that the city centre location has it’s downsides etc.

thread is a microcosm of Scottish transport policy …….

….discussion of rural lifeline links gets hijacked by metropolitan central belt naval gazing….

🙂

Fair point!

thread is a microcosm of Scottish transport policy …….

….discussion of rural lifeline links gets hijacked by metropolitan central belt naval gazing….

Guilty as charged!

to come back to the ferries then.  to me it seems like multiple issues:

Under investment for a long time

Botched procurement of the latest ferries

The service trying to please too many folk leading to pleasing none

I do not know if this is done but one thing I would like to see in the future is differential pricing for locals freight and tourists.  ~Raise significant money without penalising locals

any talk of a tourist tax on the islands….

As someone who visits the Hebrides once every couple of years I wouldn’t object to an extra £5 or £10 per night on accommodation to go to community stuff like transport etc

Quite a few places talking about it in UK now….

They have differential pricing in eg. the Canaries, and it’s always been a bit of a mystery why eg. Edinburgh doesn’t have a tourist tax.

I suspect if Glen Sannox/Glen Rosa had been anything like on time, there would have been at least two more ferries built in Port Glasgow so they’d not be in the mess they’re in now with a number of vessels coming to the end of life.

there was an attempt to put a tourist6 tax in Edinburgh that failed and never happened for reasons I forget.  Now there is Scottish Govenment legislation to back it and another attempt is being made

I suspect if Glen Sannox/Glen Rosa had been anything like on time, there would have been at least two more ferries built in Port Glasgow so they’d not be in the mess they’re in now with a number of vessels coming to the end of life.

Agreed. The budget would have gone further, buying two more ferries on top of the Turkish built ones..

Argyll & Bute Council are currently consulting on a visitor levy, which many are now calling a “host tax”. The simplest solution would be to put a levy on the ferry ticket, but for whatever reason can’t be done. There are 3,500 residents on the island, but our council tax gets consumed paying for facilities and cleaning up the waste of the 600,000 visitors per year. Likewise, to pay for a new pier as the old one is knackered.
Most islanders don’t resent the visitors as most bring valuable revenue, but we are getting increasing numbers of campervans and motorhomes who ‘wild’ camp, shit in the bushes and leave their mess behind – this new levy however doesn’t apply to them.

There was this scheme https://www.highland.gov.uk/info/20027/highland_campervan_and_motorhome_scheme

It would be polite to say it wasn’t a runway success.

That would be the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024. Came into force in July, IIRC it is down to local authorities to choose to use the powers and implement the levy.

I do not know if this is done but one thing I would like to see in the future is differential pricing for locals freight and tourists.  ~Raise significant money without penalising locals

it’s not done, I’m not sure it’s actually a great idea – it feel like a them and us situation.  But I see no reason why regular travellers can’t get a season ticket / discount on “bulk” travel.

however if it was up to me foot passengers would go free and vehicle fares would increase!  I’d like to see free public travel for everyone in Scotland.

calmac ferries are cheap as chips for foot passengers anyway

You can of course move house or job to something easier as a journey.

Seriously – I ended up with a 180km round trip commute because after over 10 years of trying I finally got a job that was not just for a few weeks.  Getting work can be very, very difficult.   Fortunately although expensive, there was a good train service for that journey.

it’s not done, I’m not sure it’s actually a great idea – it feel like a them and us situation.

Yes, but there is a difference between residents (for whom the ferry is a lifeline) and tourists (who are not going to notice a small surcharge on the ferry) and as above Navieras Armas have a discounted rate for Canarians IIRC.

there was an attempt to put a tourist tax in Edinburgh that failed and never happened for reasons I forget

Wasn’t it people wailing about how a tourist tax would deter people from attending the internationally renowned arts festival in a city that’s very much on the American ‘Europe’ trail?