Car ownership vs. car use

DarloRich · 13 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
Car ownership is a lifestyle choice which in most cases doesn't make financial sense on its own.

I am not sure.

I don't own a car now I live in Mk and have a station within 2 minutes of the front door and ( although i hate them) an OK bus service within an acceptable walk. I wasn't using the car so I got rid. It works for me now but if/when I move I will have to reassess, even if i just move in the town. If i went out to one of the villages it would be almost impossible, even today, to not have a car.

When I lived in a village near North Yorkshire ( not THAT far from the county town) I HAD to own a car or I did not leave the village, I could not shop or get to work. There was no public transport. These days I could get shopping delivered but I would still have no way of getting to work without a car.

I think we have to be practical. We should focus on greener forms of traction for cars. They aren't going away, despite the star trek like fantasies of some here.

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DarloRich · 13 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
Or have a delivery once a week/once every 2 weeks with a large order of non-perishables, and top-up with a small rucksack full of fresh items (bread, fruit, vegetables and meats[1]) every couple of days. Even milk keeps for ages these days, particularly if you buy the "pure filtered" type which even tastes nicer to me (unlike UHT rubbish).

[1] Meats can be frozen, so chuck them in with your delivery for an even lighter bag.

that is exactly what i do with my shopping. It works very well. It would be great if the Asda van was an electric mind!

Bletchleyite · 13 Jan 2020

DarloRich said:
I think we have to be practical. We should focus on greener forms of traction for cars. They aren't going away, despite the star trek like fantasies of some here.

That's the car use vs car ownership argument, I suppose. MK is "the city of the car"[1] and not having one is more than a bit of a faff unless you live in one of the "traditional town" parts like Bletchley. But I can see very little argument for allowing private cars to be driven into the centre of most of the larger cities, and indeed York has proposed to be first to ban them outright.

So in reality I think we are looking at both. The practical aim in towns and cities is probably to own one per family, and for it not to be used for local journeys within the town or city, but in the countryside one per person is probably going to remain necessary and we should probably concentrate on it being powered not by burning dead dinosaurs.

[1] Yes, I know it's not actually a city, but "the town of the car" doesn't sound half as good

DarloRich · 13 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
York has proposed to be first to ban them outright.

no problem with that! York has great park and ride facilities.
Moderator note: York P&R topic can now be found at https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/yorks-park-ride-scheme.198330/

Bletchleyite said:
The practical aim in towns and cities is probably to own one per family, and for it not to be used for local journeys within the town or city, but in the countryside one per person is probably going to remain necessary and we should probably concentrate on it being powered not by burning dead dinosaurs.

I am not sure that is realistic either tbh. Employment is so fluid and spread out these days.

Domh245 · 13 Jan 2020

I'm almost exactly the opposite to MidlandsChap, my car journeys are almost only long trips, and even then only where the convenience of the car wins out (luggage or location) - I walk to the local supermarket (~.5mi) and to uni (~1mi), and did much the same when I was working in Wolverhampton for a year. It's made easier by the fact I'm shopping for one so I can get away with carrying it, and I've lived in locations where things are within walking distance/there's good public transport otherwise!

On the topic of financial sense, looking at my statistics for 2019 I did ~1670 miles on national rail outside of commuting, at an average cost of 30p/mile. By comparison, with my dads car I did almost 4000 miles at 16p/mile and since September (and owning my own car) I've done 1700 at 15p/mile on petrol, so on that front car use makes financial sense compared to rail. However, when looking at car ownership, those 1700 miles come out at £1.40/mile - excluding the purchase of the car but all other spend on it, including the extortionate insurance as a young driver with no NCB and an unfortunate £900 repair that I had to pay for because of the dealer not setting the warranty up correctly (it goes up to £3.43 including the purchase price of the car) - from this point of view car ownership doesn't make sense either, but equally car club membership wouldn't work particularly well for the type of journeys that I make (and wouldn't have even been an option when I was in Wolverhampton). Doing a quick & dirty estimate comparing since September, car club would have cost me £0.48/mi on a like for like basis of days I've driven & miles, but this wouldn't be accurate as a good portion of my trips have been London to Nottingham (or v.v.) with a lot of luggage and then staying there for a long period of time

underbank · 13 Jan 2020

Domh245 said:
I'm almost exactly the opposite to MidlandsChap, my car journeys are almost only long trips, and even then only where the convenience of the car wins out (luggage or location) - I walk to the local supermarket (~.5mi) and to uni (~1mi), and did much the same when I was working in Wolverhampton for a year. It's made easier by the fact I'm shopping for one so I can get away with carrying it, and I've lived in locations where things are within walking distance/there's good public transport otherwise!

I think the telling part of that is your reference to the Uni. Public transport, cycling/pedestrian options are always going to be better around a Uni simply because most of the students won't have cars and live relatively close to it (so don't need a car anyway). Often, the Uni subsidises the public transport provision for its students in the form of cheaper bus passes, subsidies to the bus firm to put on a more frequent service, etc. It's a brilliant example of what can be achieved by integration and working together. But also, students/staff choose their accommodation based upon the existing bus routes etc. I've seen that in action - where some accommodation that isn't close to a bus route can be as much as half the price of accommodation further away but which is on a direct route. You can really see how public transport, cycle paths etc can influence a person's decision as to where to live. That's fine for younger people starting out, as they get used to not driving at Uni, so may well choose future jobs/homes around non driving options, but that doesn't apply to older people whose lives are based around the car. Perhaps we need to accept that existing drivers will continue to drive and concentrate on the next generations so that car use can be phased out over a few decades.

Domh245 · 13 Jan 2020

underbank said:
I think the telling part of that is your reference to the Uni. Public transport, cycling/pedestrian options are always going to be better around a Uni simply because most of the students won't have cars and live relatively close to it (so don't need a car anyway). Often, the Uni subsidises the public transport provision for its students in the form of cheaper bus passes, subsidies to the bus firm to put on a more frequent service, etc. It's a brilliant example of what can be achieved by integration and working together. But also, students/staff choose their accommodation based upon the existing bus routes etc. I've seen that in action - where some accommodation that isn't close to a bus route can be as much as half the price of accommodation further away but which is on a direct route. You can really see how public transport, cycle paths etc can influence a person's decision as to where to live. That's fine for younger people starting out, as they get used to not driving at Uni, so may well choose future jobs/homes around non driving options, but that doesn't apply to older people whose lives are based around the car. Perhaps we need to accept that existing drivers will continue to drive and concentrate on the next generations so that car use can be phased out over a few decades.

Whilst true, I've not taken the bus to Uni once, although I've thought about it when it's chucked it down! The pedestrian options aren't brilliant though and you do often get bottlenecks at some pedestrian crossings just before 9AM!

I think you have got a very good point though about getting used to not driving and then choosing things based on that - when I needed to find a house in Wolverhampton, I deliberately chose one that was within walking distance of where I was working, even though it then meant that the house wasn't as nice, nor as much to do in the local area (not that I was particularly bothered!) although everything I 'needed' - ie grocery store, doctors, was within walking distance, and a relatively frequent bus service (10 min) for when I needed to go into the centre. I'm now very much in favour of trying to walk anywhere that I can.

edwin_m · 13 Jan 2020

In the days before cars were widespread, travel was much less. Since the 1950s car use has expanded hugely and roughly matches the total increase in travel, rail use has stayed about constant (changes are negligible compared with the overall demand for travel) and bus use has steadily declined. There are several major lifestyle changes that have happened in this time, including:

Much more diverse employment, so fewer people live close to work and many have to change jobs to work somewhere that's not an easy commute by public transport
Most households have both partners working, not necessarily in the same place, so finding somewhere to live that's an easy PT commute for both isn't always possible.
Decline in rural employment, replaced by commuting elsewhere.
Demise of many local shops which were accessible on foot and often did local deliveries (although the supermarkets that replaced them will now do deliveries too)
Long-distance moves for study/work/retirement are more likely, so families are often scattered across the country.

All of these are both consequences and causes of increased car ownership and use, and trying to put some of those genies back into their bottles would mean radical and unacceptable lifestyle changes for many. I think the strategy must be to try to address both as follows:

Try to remove the necessity and attractiveness of car ownership for those who have alternatives. This includes "carrots" like car clubs for when a vehicle is really needed, and a good bus/tram network, and also "sticks" like parking charges and re-allocating road space to walking, cycling and public transport.
For those that realistically can't do without a vehicle, try to minimize the consequences of using it. This group contains most rural dwellers, those for whom a vehicle is essential to travel to work or to do their job, those who can drive but are prevented by infirmity from travelling by other means. Measures such as park and ride, congestion charges and encouragement of zero-emission vehicles fall into this category. Policy should be to shift motoring taxes and other costs such as insurance from ownership to use, so this group aren't penalized for the vehicle they have to own, but are encouraged to use it less.
Try to move people out of the second group into the first. This includes planning for housing, employment and retail sites to plug into a transport network which must be integrated rather than a discrete series of routes to match today's more dispersed travel patterns.

I think heavy rail actually has only a very small part to play in this. It's much more about integrating buses, trams and emerging new modes of local transport so people can easily and cheaply get to work, shopping, leisure and to the railway for longer-distance journeys.

MidlandsChap · 13 Jan 2020

AndrewE said:
That sounds exactly like our pattern of local journeys - except that we don't go to a gym, and use our bikes for most of them. If you are making 4 or 5 journeys a week then surely you can't be moving £90 worth of groceries each time?
Spreading your shopping across multiple trips is a reasonable way of limiting the load on any one bike trip...

3 or 4 gym sessions and 1 supermarket delivery.
To those that say supermarket delivery you need to appreciate that it isnt ideal for everybody. Might work for those who rely heavily on ready meals/frozen foods.
Plus

Bletchleyite said:
Or have a delivery once a week/once every 2 weeks with a large order of non-perishables, and top-up with a small rucksack full of fresh items (bread, fruit, vegetables and meats[1]) every couple of days. Even milk keeps for ages these days, particularly if you buy the "pure filtered" type which even tastes nicer to me (unlike UHT rubbish).

[1] Meats can be frozen, so chuck them in with your delivery for an even lighter bag.

I have no interest in doing a 1+ hour round cycle trip for fresh produce every few days. Plus we make the vast majority of meals from fresh foods so it would not even be feasible on bike.

Bletchleyite · 13 Jan 2020

MidlandsChap said:
I have no interest in doing a 1+ hour round cycle trip for fresh produce every few days. Plus we make the vast majority of meals from fresh foods so it would not even be feasible on bike.

That doesn't sound like a local journey to me, then. You can walk two miles (briskly) in half an hour. You can probably cycle twice that.

Regarding delivery, presumably you do still use milk and canned goods like tomatoes and chickpeas? You can order those in bulk because they are not perishable and they are (unlike fresh veg) quite heavy.

MidlandsChap · 13 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
That doesn't sound like a local journey to me, then. You can walk two miles (briskly) in half an hour. You can probably cycle twice that.

Regarding delivery, presumably you do still use milk and canned goods like tomatoes and chickpeas? You can order those in bulk because they are not perishable and they are (unlike fresh veg) quite heavy.

1. 15 minutes on the bike each way and about 30 minutes in the shop, give or take.
2. Potatoes, steak, chicken, fish, cottage cheese etc etc are not especially light. Besides I like to inspect and pick the cuts I want from the counters.

As I say, home delivery is not ideal for all. It partly depends your attitude towards food/cooking. Though of course there are many life constraints. IMO its rather obtuse to assume because one can get home delivery that everybody else should.

I dont have a downer on the bike. Indeed I commute by bike in all weathers.

DarloRich · 13 Jan 2020

MidlandsChap said:
To those that say supermarket delivery you need to appreciate that it isnt ideal for everybody. Might work for those who rely heavily on ready meals/frozen foods.
Plus

i don't rely on ready meals. I cook everything from scratch. It is great. The asda man brings all my heavy stuff! Hard veg will last for ages and doesn't need to be refrigerated and soft veg can be eaten in turn with a decent menu plan.

MidlandsChap said:
Potatoes, steak, chicken, fish, cottage cheese etc etc are not especially light.

i carry those home regularly in my back pack. No hassle. mind you: Cottage cheese. Wrong. Just wrong.

MidlandsChap · 13 Jan 2020

DarloRich said:
i don't rely on ready meals. I cook everything from scratch. It is great. The asda man brings all my heavy stuff!

i carry those home regularly in my back pack. No hassle. mind you: Cottage cheese. Wrong. Just wrong.

1. *Shudders*
2. Not the nicest foodstuff but a pre bedtime superfood.

DarloRich · 13 Jan 2020

MidlandsChap said:
2) Not the nicest foodstuff but a pre bedtime superfood.

I don't know what a super food is. Is it chips?

PeterC · 13 Jan 2020

DarloRich said:
Employment is so fluid and spread out these days.

The move of employment to peripheral locations is definitely an issue.

edwin_m said:
In the days before cars were widespread, travel was much less. Since the 1950s car use has expanded hugely and roughly matches the total increase in travel, rail use has stayed about constant (changes are negligible compared with the overall demand for travel) and bus use has steadily declined. There are several major lifestyle changes that have happened in this time, including:

Much more diverse employment, so fewer people live close to work and many have to change jobs to work somewhere that's not an easy commute by public transport

My situation nearly 30 years ago. Redundancy from a job where I commuted by train left me with a choice of low wage call centre work or driving. My desire to be as "green" as possible didn't quite extend to cutting my pay by about 70%.

DarloRich · 13 Jan 2020

PeterC said:
The move of employment to peripheral locations is definitely an issue.

but it isnt suddenly going to move back to town centres. We need to be realistic.

Meerkat · 13 Jan 2020

Employment doesn’t have to move back to the centre (though offices should really), but it needs to be denser, more concentrated, and designed around public transport.
Not hugely sprawled office/industrial parks dotted about, with one way in/out, and a hostile pedestrian environment. Build/adapt them to focus on train stations, or around bus stops with a through bus route between the centre and Park and Ride locations.

PeterC · 13 Jan 2020

DarloRich said:
but it isnt suddenly going to move back to town centres. We need to be realistic.

The absence of a "silver bullet" solution doesn't make it unrealistic to state that a problem exists.

DarloRich · 13 Jan 2020

PeterC said:
The absence of a "silver bullet" solution doesn't make it unrealistic to state that a problem exists.

it isnt a problem in itself. We just need to change how we consider the solution. As I said we should be focusing on green propulsion of vehicles both public and private. Star Trek fantasies about killing the car and making everyone get the hoverbus wont do that.

Bletchleyite · 13 Jan 2020

DarloRich said:
it isnt a problem in itself. We just need to change how we consider the solution. As I said we should be focusing on green propulsion of vehicles both public and private. Star Trek fantasies about killing the car and making everyone get the hoverbus wont do that.

Town planning increasing centralisation can certainly help.

edwin_m · 13 Jan 2020

Making all cars electric reduces CO2 and pollution but is unlikely to be enough on its own. There is still congestion and accidents and a significant amount of pollution even if the power comes from renewables and nuclear. And because electric cars are cheaper to run it's quite likely that traffic will actually increase, with less tax coming in (unless the government bites the bullet on congestion charging). So the solution still needs to include a significant reduction in car use.

Bletchleyite · 13 Jan 2020

edwin_m said:
Making all cars electric reduces CO2 and pollution but is unlikely to be enough on its own. There is still congestion and accidents and a significant amount of pollution even if the power comes from renewables and nuclear. And because electric cars are cheaper to run it's quite likely that traffic will actually increase, with less tax coming in (unless the government bites the bullet on congestion charging). So the solution still needs to include a significant reduction in car use.

For short distance travel that needn't mean public transport, though. Electric bicycles are a growth industry, and so can be normal ones. It is perhaps time, in towns, to cut road capacity for motor vehicles in favour of segregated Dutch-style cycling facilities. The "lycra brigade" will still ride on the road, but without those facilities there is simply no chance of significant growth in either manual or electric bikes.

The railway is well-suited to being a good long-distance alternative, but to make decent inroads we're going to need fare cuts and massive step changes in capacity. HS2 does that for the WCML etc, but we also need it across say the North. Add to that Dutch style supervised cycle storage so the e-bikes don't just get nicked - these facilities could also make money from offering servicing.

edwin_m · 13 Jan 2020

Bletchleyite said:
For short distance travel that needn't mean public transport, though. Electric bicycles are a growth industry, and so can be normal ones. It is perhaps time, in towns, to cut road capacity for motor vehicles in favour of segregated Dutch-style cycling facilities. The "lycra brigade" will still ride on the road, but without those facilities there is simply no chance of significant growth in either manual or electric bikes.

Indeed so, as I posted in #38.

Bletchleyite said:
The railway is well-suited to being a good long-distance alternative, but to make decent inroads we're going to need fare cuts and massive step changes in capacity. HS2 does that for the WCML etc, but we also need it across say the North. Add to that Dutch style supervised cycle storage so the e-bikes don't just get nicked - these facilities could also make money from offering servicing.

The railway already has a high proportion of the markets it's most suited for - centre-to-centre intercity travel and commuting into London. Intercity could be boosted by integrating other modes so it's easier to access the train, otherwise journeys between the suburbs of different cities tend to be by car. To my mind the big opportunity in rail is commuting into other cities plus off-peak travel everywhere. HS2 and NPR will transfer some car users to rail, but is mainly about creating more economic activity without the downsides that would occur if it was based on driving or flying instead.

TrafficEng · 13 Jan 2020

HowardGWR said:
<Snip> I admittedly have no idea on the total cost of such infrastructure, let alone the ability to find "rolling stock" and staff to provide such levels of service but it will be enormous. It's like building London Transport and all the cycle paths (which London doesn't have yet anyway), in every city and town of our country, let alone finding a way to deal with more rural areas. I wonder if charities like CfBT have any notion themselves about what is needed to finance and build that lot.

The above post was originally in the HS2 thread, but I thought it would be better to respond here as it is off-topic for HS2 and Bletchleyite has just mentioned segregated Dutch-style cycling facilities.

Previously on the HS2 thread I'd said segregated cycle paths were "Horrendously expensive" which I think someone has dismissed as a 'myth'. The news reports/twitter they linked to refers to a TfL scheme for Dutch-style segregated facilities in West London.

That scheme is going to cost £42 million. Although I've seen differing figures for the total route length, if we take the figure of 7.6km from the BBC report (see link below) that works out to a bit more than £5.5m per km, or £5,500 per metre if you prefer.

£5,500/metre is still cheap compared to rail projects, but as a local transport solution I would stand by my view it is horrendously expensive.

There are good reasons why it is so expensive to provide segregated facilities in existing urban areas - I'm not criticising that - but it is undeniable that providing the type of facilities many people want is not going to be a cheap or quick exercise.

However, I would criticise the TfL proposals for the impact they will inevitably have on other priority modes, and that is something which goes to the heart of the future transport debate.

(Link provided only for verification of quoted figures)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-48635369

richw · 13 Jan 2020

My car is definitely not a lifestyle choice, it’s a necessity I would cut without a second thought With better public transport.

AndrewE · 13 Jan 2020

richw said:
My car is definitely not a lifestyle choice, it’s a necessity I would cut without a second thought With better public transport.

Funny, almost everyone says that!

richw · 13 Jan 2020

AndrewE said:
Funny, almost everyone says that!

Mine is a case of no transport early enough in the morning, I start work at 6am. The first public transport doesn’t arrive until gone 7. It’s around 20 miles away so too far to walk/ cycle etc.

Previous employment where I started at 9-5 within walking distance of a train station, a monthly ticket was £170 but it was costing me £20 a day in petrol to drive. I sold my car and didn’t own a car for well over a year until redundancy and a new job impossible with transport

AndrewE · 13 Jan 2020

richw said:
Mine is a case of no transport early enough in the morning, I start work at 6am. The first public transport doesn’t arrive until gone 7. It’s around 20 miles away so too far to walk/ cycle etc.

Previous employment where I started at 9-5 within walking distance of a train station, a monthly ticket was £170 but it was costing me £20 a day in petrol to drive. I sold my car and didn’t own a car for well over a year until redundancy and a new job impossible with transport

Bad luck. That's a far better reason than most people can offer.
Maybe society has to allow for situations like this, maybe tax employers who put people in this position?

PeterC · 13 Jan 2020

AndrewE said:
Funny, almost everyone says that!

Observing similar discussions over the years I get the impression that people with a genuine need for a car are the ones most likely to respond to "lifestyle" type comments.

richw · 13 Jan 2020

AndrewE said:
Bad luck. That's a far better reason than most people can offer.
Maybe society has to allow for situations like this, maybe tax employers who put people in this position?

Umm I drive the buses... the first or last buses can’t run unless we find another way to get ourselves to or from the depot!

Car ownership vs. car use

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