Cost of fuel.

[winjim]

I live in a city where, at rush hour, the buses and trams are regularly filled to, and probably over, capacity.

Have you ever tried to travel with two small children on a tram or bus that's filled to capacity? It's not an entirely pleasant experience if I'm being honest.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Most of that is due to national government policies. The local council has no choice. The infrastructure levy comes after the houses are built. The NHS allocates resources after the houses are occupied. No-one is backing up local councils to require non-car transport infrastructure: Active Travel England is taking ages to set up and should improve stuff for cycling and walking but still no one will be requiring bus gates and lanes. So car use is established early and is a hard habit to break.

In this instance the National Government has decided we need around 6K homes across the whole District, the Council has decided to build over 11K, well not them, but are trying to approve planning for over 11K, most of which will be within the green belts as brown fields are more expensive to develop.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

So can cars with the right incentives too………ive never seen a bus filled to capacity, not my old school bus back in the day

What would be the incentive for private car owners to ferry four other people about? What will it take for you to carry four other passengers every time you head out in your car?

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Cars are here to stay imo - they are too convenient to give up, are nigh on essential for a good number of people for various reasons and universal, quality and user-friendly public transport is never going to happen on cost grounds.

ICE cars are doomed and EV or possibly hydrogen is the direction that we are heading.

We should do what we can re public transport (easier in more densely populated areas I should imagine) and at the same time re imagine the car.

As I see it, EV's are following the ICE vehicles hackneyed trend of bigger = better, higher performance = better and more 'toys' = better. That way madness lies.

The cars for tomorrow need to be sized to their probable usage especially in terms of passenger carrying ability, they need to be safe, have adequate and not insane performance and they need to be cheap to buy and run.

First base for me would be to limit performance - 0-62 mph in 3 seconds etc and top speeds of 100, 150, 200 mph are utterly ludicrous. This may help some people get off of the performance dog *issing contest for starters.

Seriously, I have friends with some very fast cars and to hear them talk of specifying new cars with another eg 25 bhp more than their current huge bhp car is beyond belief. They talk of shaving 0.1 seconds off of 0-62mph or 0-100mph times. How utterly absurd and out of step with the world we now live in.

 

[figbat]

What would be the incentive for private car owners to ferry four other people about? What will it take for you to carry four other passengers every time you head out in your car?

Not forgetting that a bus's occupancy rate will rise and fall during a journey, whereas a personal car will tend to be fixed for the journey. I see loads of empty buses driving through my village but we're at the end of the route - I assume that the same buses will have more people on board through the central part of the route, covering larger towns and city.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

On days when I frequently got the bus to work, it was packed full by the time it's a third of the journey in. It was even busier on the way home. So much so that I would walk further back along the route to an earlier bus stop to get on.

Buses are very efficient movers of many people. The problems are: that public transport costs have risen enormously compared to the continually subsidised private car, and too many people use their car like an overcoat.

 

[jowwy]

What would be the incentive for private car owners to ferry four other people about? What will it take for you to carry four other passengers every time you head out in your car?

im talking more about commuting with others too work, that can be done, not direct travel to shops, shopping etc etc .........but then again buses would be the same. what incentives could be used for people to swap their private cars for buses, when some communities dont even have bus routes or networks available to them.

Also who's going to carry the little old ladies/gentleman or single mothers with prams and bugggies, shopping bags in and out of the buses and to their homes???.......lets talk real world here and not some fantasy in your head

but again the pictures you posted are not representing the truth, its just a folly

 

[jowwy]

On days when I frequently got the bus to work, it was packed full by the time it's a third of the journey in. It was even busier on the way home. So much so that I would walk further back along the route to an earlier bus stop to get on.

Buses are very efficient movers of many people. The problems are: that public transport costs have risen enormously compared to the continually subsidised private car, and too many people use their car like an overcoat.

are they really??? not withstanding the fact many communities dont have bus routes or networks that go anywhere near were the live or work....so not as efficient as people may think

and what do you mean by subsidised private cars??

 

[jowwy]

we have a member of staff that does use the bus for work. to be able to be at the office the usual 9am start time, she has to set off from home at 7-00am........so thats 4hrs extra per day, to use the bus service to and from work, ludicrous

not only that, but at the office end, she has at least a 3/4 mile walk from the closest bus stop to the office

 

[SpokeyDokey]

we have a member of staff that does use the bus for work. to be able to be at the office the usual 9am start time, she has to set off from home at 7-00am........so thats 4hrs extra per day, to use the bus service to and from work, ludicrous

The reality is that there is no one size fits all solution.

It's certainly not public transport imo.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

we have a member of staff that does use the bus for work. to be able to be at the office the usual 9am start time, she has to set off from home at 7-00am........so thats 4hrs extra per day, to use the bus service to and from work, ludicrous

Are you sure it's 4 hours extra, if she used a car it wouldn't be instant therefore some allowance needs to be made for car journey time, also if she doesn't have any other form of transport it's not extra, it's just the time it takes.

 

[jowwy]

Are you sure it's 4 hours extra, if she used a car it wouldn't be instant therefore some allowance needs to be made for car journey time, also if she doesn't have any other form of transport it's not extra, it's just the time it takes.

all im saying is that using public transport adds 4hrs to her work day lets say........if she used a car, it would probably be around 45mins each way

so thats 2.5hrs less, that she could use for herself. people are saying that public transport/buses are an efficient way of moving people around, but in reality its not

 

[Deleted member 26715]

all im saying is that using public transport adds 4hrs to her work day lets say........if she used a car, it would probably be around 45mins each way

so thats 2.5hrs less, that she could use for herself. people are saying that public transport/buses are an efficient way of moving people around, but in reality its not

It all depends where you live, my nephew who lives in London at the age of 45 still hasn't a driving license, he uses, bike, bus, tube, but his brother lives in a village in North Lincolnshire where there is no bus service, the local school closed so he has to have a car to take the girls to school, okay I suppose he doesn't HAVE to have a car, but is it realistic to go twice a day 5 miles each way without one?

 

[winjim]

The reality is that there is no one size fits all solution.

It's certainly not public transport imo.

Public transport can and should be part of the solution, as should active transport. But in my view, and this also relates to issues other than transport, what is needed is a reappraisal of how we as a society view work, and childcare, and education, and the way we organise our lives and our homes and our communities around those things. It did seem like the pandemic in the beginning might have provoked some thinking along those lines but it doesn't seem to have lasted.

It's a big issue and probably not one for this section of the forum but it impacts on everything.

 

[jowwy]

It all depends where you live, my nephew who lives in London at the age of 45 still hasn't a driving license, he uses, bike, bus, tube, but his brother lives in a village in North Lincolnshire where there is no bus service, the local school closed so he has to have a car to take the girls to school, okay I suppose he doesn't HAVE to have a car, but is it realistic to go twice a day 5 miles each way without one?

thats what we are saying, its not a fit all solution......some dont have access