As always, a lot from
@RT4038 in his getting to the nub of things. Not least, the issues with housing development, government house building targets, the economics of house building, and the fact that section 106 funding isn't some cash cow that local authorities can milk in order to support bus services. Not least because many smaller developments simply don't have the economic case to do much more than put up a couple of raise curbs and a shelter, and because s106 funding may often have to pay for other facilities, such as a new (or funds to expand an existing) school or health centre. Where there are larger developments, there is more scope to have features to promote bus use though private car use is still the dominant transport mode.
As
@RT4038 has said, local authorities are expected to reflect the needs of the population, and as there are many more car drivers than public transport users, policy will inevitably be skewed.
@The Ham has volunteered some comments; I'm not a member of a car club nor had any exposure to using one so I'll gloss over that area but I few other comments that I think are worth covering off...
Public transport officers aren't stupid. They have a remit to provide socially necessary services outside the commercially viable ones so that invariably means looking at existing transport flows as they are demonstrably necessary. That said, I can think of several instances where such services have been extended when a supermarket has opened etc but these officers are dealing with tight budgets; they can barely support the existing services and whilst some diversions/extensions are possible, that can only be done if it doesn't result in an on-cost.
I'm give you a real world example where the thinking from the officers wasn't that good.
There was a sure being built and a further sure proposed further out, the suggestion was to extend the bus to the first site to the second site (few shares facilities so little need to travel between the two), both sites had over 500 homes (so quite sizable).
The proposal put forwards by the developers team, took a bus route from the other side of town and extended that to the hospital and then along the main road to the second site.
When the second option was put to the bus company they loved it. Why? The extra journey time from the day side of town only required one extra bus compared to the basic extension, but connected an existing service to the hospital as well as the new site to it.
Only then did the officers decide that it was a good idea (in fact they claimed that they thought it was a good idea all along).
As far as I can recall, there have been three local referenda on the subject of local tax raising (or at least spring to mind). Bristol in 2001 asked if people wanted a council tax freeze (and cut services), a modest increase to maintain services, or a larger increase to improve services. People voted for the cuts! In Croydon (about the same time), you had a similar one where there were 2%, 3.5% or 5% council tax increases to maintain or improve services. Again, the lowest figure won. Then you had the Manchester congestion charge.
Now that's 20 years ago and we've seen local government spending gutted in the last 14 years. However, do I think that people will vote (especially in the current economic climate) for tax and spend? Absolutely not, and if we did, there are crises in social care and other infrastructure that are much more pressing and electorally sensitive.
As I've said, because there's too much focus on low cost, rather than good value. If you could buy 2 acres of farm land (£20,000) and a £2,000 rent every year over a 70 year period or would cost £160,000. That's far cheaper than buying a house (and you'll have a lot more land).
No one dies or because there's lots of implications of living in a tent which are very hard to put a price on (for example preparing a meal on a gas stove rather than in a kitchen) but have a value.
If we keep cutting taxes, there will come a point where things will become hard for people.
I'm not saying that we should tax and spend (at least not in the way many would typically think), as racking up a large deficit isn't great either. Spending money to keep the workforce healthy (so trying to limit waiting times on the NHS), able to move about (so they can access better paid jobs), well trained (so they have the potential to work in good jobs), where companies are encouraged to invest in people as well as equipment (so that those who miss oit in further education can still do well, but there's an advantage to not having low paid staff unless it's a sector where there's no option but to be staff heavy - as whilst the population is getting much bigger the working age population is hardy getting bigger).
This is the nub of it. I've mentioned it before but Copenhagen did an exercise in removing 1% of roadside parking spaces by stealth.
Imagine doing that on a major arterial road from the centre to the suburbs? A road with good public transport but the challenge will be the enforcement and those claiming it's undermining their business, their right to park outside their house, etc.
With the claims of the foil hatters about restriction of liberties, low traffic neighbourhoods etc, you can imagine the outrage...
I have a question, if I have a shop with 2 hours parking restrictions outside it, except for permit holders, what is better:
- me and my other shop keepers parking in half (10 out of 20 spaces) of the spaces near the shop by using our permits
- leaving all 20 spaces vacant for our customers to use
The problem is, in business terms the latter is the better, as over an 8 hour day (assuming that each space is used for an average of 2 hours at a time) it's the difference between 40 customers for those shops and 80 customers for those shops.
Obviously, that's a very simple way of looking at it (in that there'll be shops which do need to have work based vehicles, however there'll be plenty which don't).
That's a beautiful theory but people don't act like that. I see plenty of people who go to the gym who would never walk or cycle. I used to use the gym in Longwell Green in Bristol, and I had to laugh at the majority of people who would enter and then use the escalator to go up to the gym, rather than the stairs!
Indeed, it does however highlight the fact that too many don't see simple things as being good for them. Almost "I can only get fit by using an exercise machine, but if I climb the stairs that's of no benefit to my health at all."
It's why some are keen to highlight that it's not unreasonable to cycle for 40 minutes a day every work day may actually be as good for you as going to the gym for 2.5 hours a week, but by the time you add in your driving to get to and from work and the gym you'll actually spend more time exercising and travelling than just traveling by cycle.
Here's an example that I've posted before but now updated and it shows it even better than before. A38 Gloucester Road is an urban clearway so no parking/loading before 1000 and after 1600, so no problem? However, imagine if there was a bus lane down the left hand side.... OR
View attachment 150383
...even if you removed these two spaces so the bus had a clear run to the major junction ahead? It's not about the big things - LTNs and grandiose schemes but even just little moves may have a bigger return
View attachment 150382
Indeed, however there's not the funding for those simple things, LTN's attract government grants to be installed which is why they get done.
Some places they need to buy and demolish buildings to create an offstreet car park for residents and/or local shops etc, to clear the road for buses.
The downside is the reduction in housing (unless its urban enough to build flats above or there are redundant shop/business units
Also buying a suburban house so a bus road can be knocked through into single entry/exit housing estates. Depending on the location that might not even involve unpopular compulsory purchase, just buying the next one in a row that comes up for sale.
It will of course be expensive, but if you compare to the cost of building railways etc it looks like chickenfeed.
That's the American way of doing things, the net result is town centres which are low density and are no longer the destinations they once were.
Shops work well when there's enough of them in a small enough area that people can walk between two major shops and have the chance to pop into shops between the two. They don't work where you have to drive between the two main shops as people won't visit the others (not that they'll exist at they'll be a car park).
However, the people are still living in the historic centre of the population, so don't wan't to see their (financially staggering) bus service being reduced, and there is no money (either commercially or subsidy) to run comparable services 'where now a lot of people live' .
Again I'll give an example, pre 1980 where I live was a about 2,500, however during the 80's it grew to be about 6,000 people, by expanding eastwards. The original population mostly fitted into an area between the current Western edge and the shopping area. The buses only run to the shopping area. Since then the population has grown significantly (now nearly 10,000 and yet the buses are still only running within about 300m of nearly all the original houses, yet the newer (i.e. built during the 89's and beyond) estates (which were most served of a new road of a suitable size for buses to run along) are often over 500m from the bus stops including a new supermarket (which is surrounded by houses) which is about 900m from the nearest bus stop (to illustrate how central it is there's about 600m of housing beyond it, leaving that houses on this edge of the settlement are 1.5km from the nearest bus stop).
Being unpopular (with existing users) and a good case for changing routes sits fairly uncomfortably. Upset and lose your existing customer base for the possibility of a new one is not usually a phrase associated with successful commercial operations, or the pleasure of local councillors having to deal with the flak from voters.
Taking the above location, you could divert the bus to serve the new supermarket by adding 5 minutes of driving time (so probably about 8 minutes of bus timetable) it would add the potential of about 8 new stops all quite some distance from the existing stops.
A lot would be people going to/from the settlement, the rest would be making journeys of over 30 minutes (once it's gone beyond the next village it's a very rural bus route until it gets to a smallish sized town and then again very rural until it reaches another smallish town, it's most used to get between those more major places with limited travel through them - the reality is it's what should be several shorter routes serving those towns but it's just that it's easier to join them up than find somewhere to turn around).
As such fairly few from the either side make it beyond this settlement, and if they were upset by it, there's a good chance that they would be more than replaced by those going to the new supermarket or by people able to more easily access the buses.
I think car clubs are a pretty niche activity, unlikely to become mainstream and only likely to fit a minority of people's circumstances. Not to say that they don't have their uses.
However I should think the barrier to expanding the concept of car clubs is if can you afford a car, or two cars, or more (depending on size of family), why wouldn't you? Yes, if you are (a) particularly enthusiastic on moral grounds, and/or (b) a public transport enthusiast, and/or (c) don't see a car as an extension of your persona and don't care much what other people think, and/or (d) have parking difficulties at home, and/or (e) would rather spend the money on something else, and/or (f) can't afford to own car/s, and (g) do not need a car each to get to work, then I can understand trading the inconvenience of not having a car each. And inconvenience it definitely is.
I live in a medium sized town in the shires. My wife and I (no children) have only had one car for the last 23 years. I fall in (b), (c) (e) and (g) categories. I have been within walking distance from work, or working from home, for all those years, and 25 min walk from the main bus stops and a fairly major railway station. [for 10 of them I was entitled to a fully expensed company car, but chose to take the cash alternative and use public transport instead].
For this to work I have had to have a pretty comprehensive knowledge of public transport routes and timetables. We both have had to have friends prepared to go out of their way to give us lifts (and reciprocated when circumstances allow). We have both had to schedule journeys in for when the car has been available, at severe inconvenience on occasions, none on others and a lot of some . Sometimes we've used taxis, and certainly walked quite some distance (healthy no doubt, but not always appreciated at the time, especially in bad weather or when carrying items). I've spent lots more of my time travelling by public transport than if a car had been available for the same journey. Some activities have been altered, curtailed or simply not done. But it has been an enjoyable time. Using a car club for any of this sounds like a faff too, but if available I might well have made occasional use?
One car and children would have been much, much more difficult. Having no car, or having to rely on a car club/ public transport/ taxis /car hire for everything would have been so restricting and miserable.
Until last year we only had one car (and three kids), mostly it's fine, you just have to plan a bit more. There's been fairly few times where we couldn't do everything needed because of a lack of a second car. That's in a rural (just, as it's got a population of only a little less than 10,000) location. Having said that, there's just about enough to mean that you can get around day to day without a car (two supermarkets, a selection of shops, pubs, churches, dentists, a doctor's surgery, the local schools fairly central - other than the secondary school but that's so far away it's in the next village so there's free school buses for all - and so on; no library but a second hand book club which sells books at 20p each, so cheaper than driving to the nearest library), I've worked so I've travelled out by train and I've worked so I've walked to work.and I've worked so I've cycled to the next village over.
The rain we've currently got two cars, we inherited one and it's too small to be out main car but is fuel efficient enough the extra costs of keeping it aren't too bad overall.
I'd be tempted to get rid of it if we could get a more reasonably cheap to run main car, as we still mostly only ever use one car at a time. We definitely would if there was a car club vehicle. We know of others who would too.
Only one car on the front drive (space for two cars), and the only car in the street to go in the garage at night.
If it wasn't for (b) and almost certainly (g) would I have put ourselves through all of this? No - we'd have foregone the (quantity and quality) of the alternative expenditure I expect.
I would say that I suspect that part of the reason that many do have two cars is they don't fully understand the cost of their car ownership. The average is cost (including purchase costs) is £3,500 per year and it's unlikely that many are less than £2,000 per year without doing very limited milage. However as it's £500 here, £3 there (and again, and again, and again) £140 for this £125 for that, £30 a week for fuel plus £120 a month to buy, then as the money doesn't just all go out in one lump people don't notice just how much does go out.
If you're doing 12,000 miles a year the 30p per mile isn't bad value, if you're doing 4,500 miles a year 55p per mile isn't so great value (I've reduced the petrol/diesel cost for the lower mileage, but most other costs would be broadly the same, depreciation would be a little slower, but even then a lot would be just because it's a year older).
A return to Manchester from London would be £230 at 55p per mile Vs £126 at 30p per mile.
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