The Planner
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Why? its the reality of it. If people were suddenly told the only way you can access something is either via walking or another method they don't like, they won't use it.
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More Delay for HS2, and how should we proceed?
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Its a shame that catching a bus or cycling is still seen as something you do because you can't drive by many despite getting the train into London or Manchester is seen as normal. In fact around me driving into central London rather than catching the train would be considered a bit odd unless their was a rail strike or you were taking something large.
Driving to Manchester Interchange and getting the train is still better than driving all of the way. Cycling infrastructure in big cities should help change the idea of cycling to be a normal, cheap way to get around but that will take time.
Alternatively they will just take the 8 minute train to Piccadilly and change there.
They have got to get to the station first. The majority of the users of Stockport and Wilmslow stations don't live on the stations' doorstep.
Maybe so, but working on minimizing that number is a necessary task.
matacaster
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Cycling in London, Cambridge etc is fine as it's mostly flat, lots of young people. Now try Huddersfield - there are some cycle lanes, but only ever used by lycra boys for pleasure. Cycle lanes simply cause traffic bottlenecks in our part of the woods, with dodo spotting being more likely to succeed than cyclists going to work. No one in their right mind is going to travel to work and back up and down very steep hills pretty much wherever you go. The amount of rain and lower temperatures doesn't help either. Cyclists round these parts do it for fun and exercise, not for essential journeys. Bus services tend to be hourly in the evening if they can be bothered to turn up.
Getting off topic but the feasibility of cycling and bus travel is down to how good the service provision is. Electric bikes make hills into nothing. Cycle lanes would actually be good for people who need to drive if they are sufficiently well segregated that they draw people away from driving.
As for buses, yes an infrequent bus service is pretty rubbish. So fund better bus services. Which again, takes care off the road which is good for everybody including those who still need to drive.
It isn't an us vs them thing. Active travel and public transport are good for everybody, including those who don't use them.
The same applies to rail projects like HS2. Provide a better service and fewer people will choose to drive. It isn't about telling people to stop driving, it's about providing better alternatives. So let's do the same across the board, rail bus cycling and all.
As for buses, yes an infrequent bus service is pretty rubbish. So fund better bus services. Which again, takes care off the road which is good for everybody including those who still need to drive.
It isn't an us vs them thing. Active travel and public transport are good for everybody, including those who don't use them.
The same applies to rail projects like HS2. Provide a better service and fewer people will choose to drive. It isn't about telling people to stop driving, it's about providing better alternatives. So let's do the same across the board, rail bus cycling and all.
Trouble is, improving other modes costs a lot but produces negligible modal shift. Bike travel by distance accounts for such a small share that even it was doubled the effect would be barely noticeable. The cutting of bus services followed the decline in use, rather than caused it: people chose cars as their incomes rose. Road traffic levels in the Netherlands are similar to UK. As far as I am aware, no developed country has yet achieved measurable modal shift away from cars over time.
Roads also cost a hell of a lot of money, though. Not just in construction and maintenance but in health service costs, whether accidents or air quality causing poor health and so on.
I think it's worth spending the money to build proper transit systems. Plus, bus services aren't that expensive to provide and are quick to roll out - a good place to start.
I think it's worth spending the money to build proper transit systems. Plus, bus services aren't that expensive to provide and are quick to roll out - a good place to start.
I rather suspect it was both. Service cuts can turn into a vicious cycle.
Yes, fair point. But a spiral is not reversible if the dominant force is downward.
Well understanding if it is reversible means actually looking into the factors that drive modal shift to cars instead of just blindly assuming that people will always prefer driving.
Cars are more convenient. Where they aren't people use other modes.
"Convenient" is a very vague word that encompasses a lot of factors.
Cheaper, faster, more comfortable, carry more luggage\equipment amongst other reasons encompassed by convenience. It's why people used trains instead of horses and stagecoaches. Progress.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
Personal convenience is far from the only factor behind people's choices - plenty of people have less selfish concerns, thank goodness. "Progress", referred to above, is rather subjective - viz arguments over HS2 right here.
Unless you are living in a cave eating grubs and berries you have chosen personal convenience over less selfish concerns.
No it is the reality of existence.
I've moved some posts that were discussing the Eastern leg (new report issued) to this thread (now reopened)
Future of HS2 2b (Eastern Leg deprioritised)
"HS2 Phase 1 will be one of the most intensively used high speed railways in the world pretty much from opening day" In which case HS2 Eastern Leg will be a white elephant as London to Birmingham won't have nearly enough paths to accomodate trains from Leeds etc.
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Fazaar1889
Member
Idk man, I'd prefer to read a book for an hour rather than focus on driving for an hour.
So in other words, it does encompass a wide variety of unrelated factors - e.g. a train may be more expensive than a car but faster, and depending on the person and the reason for their journey they will value one more than the other. Therefore I don't think talking of "convenience" is very helpful.
quantinghome
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You could probably push road traffic down to 60 or 70% from the current 90% in the absolute best case scenario of world leading public transport in all conurbations and excellent inter-regional and inter-city rail. So maybe, maybe you could reduce road traffic levels by a third. But even that's pushing it.
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so a third of the 40% of energy we currently use on transport sounds good to me, even if we only halve the energy used on that 40%...
Don't forget all the other benefits that active transport brings as well, improved health not being the least.
A glance at fig 4 in this, which shows what other European countries have achieved, suggests a big shift ain’t gonna happen. (Active travel is not included but too small in terms of distance travelled to matter.)
EUR-Lex - 52021DC0005 - EN - EUR-Lex
I tend to think passenger-km isn't the best figure for judging modal share, or most other things really.A glance at fig 4 in this, which shows what other European countries have achieved, suggests a big shift ain’t gonna happen. (Active travel is not included but too small in terms of distance travelled to matter.)
EUR-Lex - 52021DC0005 - EN - EUR-Lex
eur-lex.europa.eu
If you are concerned about pollution or congestion, what’s better?
It’s not a more rational metric if you are concerned with energy use, road congestion or pollution, all of which will be more closely associated with distance traveled than number of trips.
Arguably it makes some sense for energy use/pollution, though it ignores things like how many people are travelling per train (which obviously has a big impact on pollution per passenger), but road congestion? Which road do you think is more congested, the 100km road with one car or the 1km road with 100 cars?
For modal share it makes more sense, which was the original point
BRX
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Modal shift has to start in urban areas, where the lowest hanging fruit are, and then gradually work outwards.
There's plenty of precedent for it being achieved in urban areas and there's a fair bit of it happening just now, including in places where it's part of a decades long battle to get there.
Who knows how optimistic we can be about it being achieved in significant degree outside of urban areas (and inter-city travel) but just because nowhere has really cracked it yet doesn't mean that it can't happen. And there are quite a few fast moving technological developments that might influence things in a number of ways we can't quite predict.
There's plenty of precedent for it being achieved in urban areas and there's a fair bit of it happening just now, including in places where it's part of a decades long battle to get there.
Who knows how optimistic we can be about it being achieved in significant degree outside of urban areas (and inter-city travel) but just because nowhere has really cracked it yet doesn't mean that it can't happen. And there are quite a few fast moving technological developments that might influence things in a number of ways we can't quite predict.
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