Again,, "most" is not all. Even amongst the 75pc of households with a car, many have gone into great debt and made sacrifices to get a car because public transport is no longer viable to them, especially for accessing employment.
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Even if an area has universal car ownership, public transport should be provided regardless, certainly in urban areas. The problem is that people can choose employment that is too inconvenient for public transport, even in countries with the best public transport provision and mode share. Although there also work locations that are too difficult or too much hassle to access by car, such as central London. The good news is that white collar city centre employment is becoming more popular as blue collar small town/suburban employment is declining.
Part of the problem with using garages is that a lot of them are no longer large enough for the cars that are supposed to go in them! I drive a Ford Fiesta from 2008 so hardly the largest car in the world and it would be a mighty struggle to get it into the garage attached to my house (well, I'd probably get it in the have to climb out through the boot as the doors wouldn't open
). A more recent car would be even more of a struggle.I would imagine an awful lot houses, unless they've been built in the last twenty odd years, will probably have similar problems in that modern cards just won't fit in the garage anymore. In which case, why not convert to something useful? Considering house prices in a lot of places it's probably cheaper than buying a larger house!
I like the concept that people can "choose" employment. More generalisation, and rather backs someone elses' comment that some people on this forum don't live in the real world. And I hope I'm reading your last sentence too cynically, as it sounds like you are rejoicing in suburban towns being turned into ghost towns populated solely by beggars and drugs peddlers (and no, II have not mis-spelt the last word).
Part of the problem with using garages is that a lot of them are no longer large enough for the cars that are supposed to go in them! I drive a Ford Fiesta from 2008 so hardly the largest car in the world and it would be a mighty struggle to get it into the garage attached to my house (well, I'd probably get it in the have to climb out through the boot as the doors wouldn't open
I would imagine an awful lot houses, unless they've been built in the last twenty odd years, will probably have similar problems in that modern cards just won't fit in the garage anymore. In which case, why not convert to something useful? Considering house prices in a lot of places it's probably cheaper than buying a larger house!
Surely, that's the wrong way round! Isn't it the most recent homes that have tiny garages - or indeed no garage at all if they are apartments (or as we call them' shoeboxes). Our current house (1930s build) has a garage attached to the side which is big enough to accomodate a Ford Focus, four wheelie bins and racking on the opposite side. Alternatively, the car goes on the driveway. Our car is *never* left on the road (let alone pavement). Our previous house (1957 build) had a very long drive way and a purpose built garage. As I look out of my bedroom window now, I note many house with frontages paved over to accomodate a second car, but equally, there are cars parked outside virtually every house. During the week, there will be slightly less, but a bigger proportion will be unmarked white vans.
When you apply for jobs, unless you are considering relocation or applying for jobs that allow you to work fully or mostly at home, you restrict your search to locations of jobs that you can commute to.
From the point of view of public transport accessibility and deterrence against car commuting, it is better for jobs to be concentrated in city centres rather than dispersed randomly across a region. It is not necessarily a bad thing if that means that some places end up becoming dormitory towns. Surbiton and Haywards Heath are famous for being quite dull places where many of their residents flee during the day, but they are also quite safe places to live.
I'm not talking about BBC Comedy writers' idea of suburban, I am talking about northern suburbs consisting of historically major towns with populations of 40,000-250,000 that are losing jobs - first manufacturing and now retail (so much for Free parking eh, Ms. Portas!). The remaining jobs are largely minimum wage often zero hours (which by implication can include shifts with skeleton or no bus services) and unless you are travelling 70 miles a week* or more, bus fares will be more expensive than fuel for the car.
*based on Stagecoach Manchester fares in eastern GM - their fares are much cheaper in parts of northern, western and southern GM.
Is it so bad if poorly paid local jobs in Rochdale and Bolton are replaced by better paid jobs in Manchester city centre? Rochdale and Bolton would become places that people commute from rather than work in, just like Surbiton and Haywards Heath.
Yes, if:
a. There still aren't enough jobs to go round - you can add Oldham, Ashton, Denton, Hyde, Stockport and probably, Bury, Wigan, Leigh and many more smaller towns - and that's just in GM. Is Rotherham thriving or Middlesborough or St Helens?
b. If there isn't enough space in the city centre to accomodate those jobs that are created.
c. If they all drive to the city centre because public transport is inaccessible (rail), appallingly unreliable (rail), slow (bus) or expensive (bus) or all of the above to a lesser extent (Light Rail).
d. If, as I said earlier all those areas become "ghost" towns.
My brother has this recurring nightmare of a post-Thatcherite state where the whole of the UK north and west of Oxfordshire is turned into a badly maintained, ultra violent 19th century theme park (a British "Westworld" if you will). That wouldn't be your idea of Utopia, would it?
Currently a lot of council's have a minimum internal dimensions for garages (3m x 6m).
If (a) is the case, then this whole argument doesn't apply anyway.
(b) If there is no space, then there is no job, but it does seem that new office space is opening up all the time in places like London and Manchester.
(c) is highly unlikely as the greater the intensity of city centre activity, public transport becomes more and more captive. Rail doesn't even have to be particularly reliable as long as it is still better than driving. Thameslink has hardly worked since 20 May but people aren't driving into London instead.
I grew up in Rochdale during the 80s which were the bleakest times for unemployment. I assumed therefore that living in the south was the only option but in retrospect I could have done the same job in Manchester, not earned much less and have a much bigger house now. Our Manchester office is thriving at the moment. We also have growing offices in Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham.
I disagree - many supermarkets pick online shopping from stores that the public visit. Therefore, you have the same number of staff making deliveries and restocking shelves, plus staff to pick and deliver them. I don't think online food shopping is all part of a great conspiracy to reduce staff levels (for the meantime, at least). If anything, my local store has been advertising for staff to pack and deliver online shopping - having asked a delivery driver, it's not due to a high staff turnover but due to expansion.
It's one of the reasons that sites are so keen on self scanning as that allows them to have fewer staff for payments, allowing them to redistribute those staff to other roles.
Yes like many people have a vast choice of Jobs to choose from, maybe in some parts of the South but certainly not in the North that's for sure.
I'm probably from the generation most wedded to my car and certainly wont be giving it up without a fight that's for sure, there not much I can say about Cyclists without resorting to Four Letter Words quite frankly.
Railways well with current Timetable and Electrification fiasco it could be argued that the Railways are failing to deliver and as such should we continue to put substancial investment In?
Electric Car yes I would like one but only when the Technology and Range Improves, and I think some of the manufacturers are well behind the curve on this and perhaps should be putting more development into this rather than messing about with Driverless Cars, which apart from potentially massively increasing unemployment is another potential control device by the government when we get to the day when no one is allowed to drive on a public road, and more pointedly not even allowed to own a car to be used on the public road.
I have (as have many people who cycle) seen life from both begins the wheel of a car and from peddling my bike.
Yes there's some cyclists who do crazy things, however I'm much more likely to come across a driver doing something crazy (even when in my car).
Even on the lower end of bad driving, how often do you come across people driving in the middle lane of the motorway? There's even people who would argue that is the way you should drive on a motorway (often saying the left lane is for slow vehicles, the middle lane is the driving lane and the right lane is for overtaking).
I would argue that people who cycle (and in a similar vein people who have ridden a motorcycle) on the road first (having been taught how to do so) and then learn to drive tend to be more aware of what's going on around them. For the reason that they have had to do so as a cyclist.
People who ride bikes don't necessarily have to be an identifiable group called "cyclists". In the specific British case, that's how it appears as there is so little provision for bikes that only a tiny proportion of the population are brave enough to share with road with busy traffic, but it isn't like that in all countries. In the Netherlands, they don't have "cyclists", they just have "people".
You don't necessarily have to choose one of car/train/bus or bike and not use the other modes. In the Netherlands, for example, most people use the bike some of the time and the car some of the time. Or they ride the bike to the station and get the train.
Most people don't stay in the same job from age 18, they often change jobs throughout their lives for various reasons, even up north. Looking at CVs on our company intranet, many of the people in our Manchester office have had several previous jobs.
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