Why is the UK completely incapable of treating public transport as a whole?

[reb0118]

(e.g. Galashiels on the Borders Railway).

Here is an interesting fact. The rail/bus integrated fares to/from the non rail served Borders towns have very recently been quietly dropped. The towns themselves remain in the system but there are no longer any through fares or timetable information.

The reason: seemingly they were made redundant when the railway reopened. Why? Because the railhead interchange remained at Edinburgh and was not moved to Galashiels or Tweedbonk as required.

It was theoretically possible to purchase a ticket from Gala to Hawick. That was priced at the rail fare from Gala to Edinburgh PLUS the bus add on from Edinburgh to Hawick. Absolute bonkers.

There may still be some some legacy through fares to places served by the historic permanent rail replacement buses on the X60, X62, & X95 routes. Many of these through fares were available with priv or railcard discounts. The last time I checked there were Advance 1st fares from Edinburgh to Hawick via Carlisle priced by TPE.

 

[underbank]

Everyone knows the benefit of the integrated public transport system, particularly in tackling the "last mile" issue.
One issue to hinder the integration is, the bus industry is almost fully privatised, which the government and even local authorities have limited power over them, to ask them to integrate with other modes of transport.

It was no better when local authorities ran the local bus services, so you really can't blame privatisation. I remember having to get off one bus (operated by town A) and walk for 5 minutes to get on another bus (operated by town B) on my way home from school. Neither town council would allow the other's buses into their town so if you wanted to go from one town to another, you had to get off and walk across the town boundary. The alternative was longer distance buses which ran mostly between town centre bus stations which we useless for people who didn't want to start/finish their journeys in the town centres!

 

[ruaival]

Here is an interesting fact. The rail/bus integrated fares to/from the non rail served Borders towns have very recently been quietly dropped. The towns themselves remain in the system but there are no longer any through fares or timetable information.

The reason: seemingly they were made redundant when the railway reopened. Why? Because the railhead interchange remained at Edinburgh and was not moved to Galashiels or Tweedbonk as required.

It was theoretically possible to purchase a ticket from Gala to Hawick. That was priced at the rail fare from Gala to Edinburgh PLUS the bus add on from Edinburgh to Hawick. Absolute bonkers.

There may still be some some legacy through fares to places served by the historic permanent rail replacement buses on the X60, X62, & X95 routes. Many of these through fares were available with priv or railcard discounts. The last time I checked there were Advance 1st fares from Edinburgh to Hawick via Carlisle priced by TPE.

From memory, when living there and booking through fares to the central Borders ... different rail-link routes had different station designators?
- Galashiels Bus Station (XAA) is still there attached to the East Coast at Berwick-upon-Tweed
and I seem to recall there was (pre-Borders Railway) a different code for Galashiels linked to West Coast at Carlisle ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

From memory, when living there and booking through fares to the central Borders ... different rail-link routes had different station designators?
- Galashiels Bus Station (XAA) is still there attached to the East Coast at Berwick-upon-Tweed
and I seem to recall there was (pre-Borders Railway) a different code for Galashiels linked to West Coast at Carlisle ?

Yes, Luton was (and I remember this one) "LUTON AIR BUS MK", as distinct from "LUTON AIRPORT" which is what is used for a through fare onto the Thameslink-contracted shuttle. There were similar ones for the X5 e.g. "OXFORD BUS MK".

 

[TUC]

I can see the benefits.

All the bus and coach services that run in competition with the railways could be swiftly ended, helping to push passengers back onto the railways with their generally higher fares.

Just think of the wasted duplication that could go. The intensive M8 services between Glasgow and Edinburgh, the frequent services between Glasgow and Aberdeen.

Why shouldn't I have the choice of goung by coach if I want to?

If that undercuts rail fares and drives prices down, that's a good thing isn't it?

 

[TUC]

I have no idea of how you worked out your "theft" of time theory, but might I suggest you get out of London into the areas that makes up the majority of the country, and see how the rest of us have to get around. I used to work in London finishing after midnight often at 2am regularly, and never felt selfish about having to use my car or motorcycle. When you have what is possibly the best transport system in the entire UK, it is easy to despise those of us who by necessity have to use private transport, but please don't accuse us of the theft of other people's time or of being selfish.

Exactly. I do wish Londoners would either get some sense of perspective outside of their insular world, or accept they know very little about the UK and declare their ignorance in discussions like this.

 

[edwin_m]

It was no better when local authorities ran the local bus services, so you really can't blame privatisation. I remember having to get off one bus (operated by town A) and walk for 5 minutes to get on another bus (operated by town B) on my way home from school. Neither town council would allow the other's buses into their town so if you wanted to go from one town to another, you had to get off and walk across the town boundary. The alternative was longer distance buses which ran mostly between town centre bus stations which we useless for people who didn't want to start/finish their journeys in the town centres!

To be fair that tended to disappear as time went on - I can even think of joint routes operated by two municipals and a privateer, such as the 13 and 14 between Manchester and Uppermill.

Local authority run or franchised bus routes aren't good by definition, and many of them weren't. But even the best routes run by private operators (and there are some) suffer from lack of integration with anything other than the same company's other routes. Having a franchised system isn't an automatic ticket to excellence but it does enable integration and if necessary even subsidy.

 

[tbtc]

Taking a slightly different look at this thread today; what pressing problems would an integrated transport policy actually solve, and how far up the list of government priorities are those problems?

This is a good question that deserves some attempts at an answer (rather than some of the "blue sky" stuff on this thread about how we should make all public transport free etc etc).

I think that it's going to be hard to start integrating urban networks (and even if you are hell-bent on forcing bus passengers to change part way onto heavy/light rail to get into the nearest big city then where's the spare capacity on trans into central Manchester/ Birmingham/ Leeds etc to take all of these existing bus passengers?) so a more important thing to do in the short term would be to focus on rural bus services (which could be better co-ordinated with rural train stations) and trying to integrate National Express services into the long distance TOCs.

But a lot of the suggestions on here are medium/long term things that will require a lot of "rip it up and start again", so are going to be a lot harder to try to "solve"

Far more than methods of ownership, this fixation on public transport being revenue-neutral is what causes the lack of integration, both on a local and national level

I don't think that anyone seriously demands that all public transport be revenue neutral (even the Taxpayers Alliance have their limits!), but I don't think it's a bad thing to try to focus public transport on actual demands and try to use the finite subsidies as efficiently as possible (or try to use the right tool to tackle each problem - e.g. if a railway line has such low passenger numbers that the average passenger loading could be accommodated in a minibus then maybe heavy rail resources should be used elsewhere and we invest in a couple of Optare Solos).

Take Manchester. Stagecoach and Go North West don't really compete. But a Stagecoach day ticket is £4 and an any-bus day ticket is £6. If you can take two Stagecoach buses you're laughing, but if you have to cross town onto a Go bus your commute is an extra two quid a day. It's the same in most areas. It's that lack of integration that becomes a problem.

Certainly when I lived in North Tyneside the fact a Metro day ticket was £4 but a Dayrover was £8 made me think twice when travelling off the Metro network

You've identified a problem, but if the "solution" that people on here want is to only offer integrated tickets then that means that the passengers currently paying £4/day would have to pay £6 or £8 a day instead - which is great if they wanted city-wide travel on all methods of transport but quite an inconvenience for everyday passengers just buying a return ticket to the city centre.

 

[MarkyT]

...You've identified a problem, but if the "solution" that people on here want is to only offer integrated tickets then that means that the passengers currently paying £4/day would have to pay £6 or £8 a day instead - which is great if they wanted city-wide travel on all methods of transport but quite an inconvenience for everyday passengers just buying a return ticket to the city centre.

Integrated tickets are old hat really. It would be better if single legs on all modes, individually priced by each operator, could be made available at more reasonable rates and could be paid for on a universal travel account (card/phone/web account) which could have multi-operator payment caps like Oyster for defined areas and periods. This is the best of all worlds as revenue for single trips made on one operator the would go to that operator. Singles would have to be re-based to reasonable prices rather than the current fare structures of most private commercial bus companies which usually perversely incentivise buying a wide area single operator go anyway ticket for a day or longer period for all but the very shortest journeys.

 

[AlbertBeale]

MotorcycleAlan said:
I have no idea of how you worked out your "theft" of time theory, but might I suggest you get out of London into the areas that makes up the majority of the country, and see how the rest of us have to get around. I used to work in London finishing after midnight often at 2am regularly, and never felt selfish about having to use my car or motorcycle. When you have what is possibly the best transport system in the entire UK, it is easy to despise those of us who by necessity have to use private transport, but please don't accuse us of the theft of other people's time or of being selfish.

Exactly. I do wish Londoners would either get some sense of perspective outside of their insular world, or accept they know very little about the UK and declare their ignorance in discussions like this.

Firstly: if you'd read what I wrote, you'd see that my criticism did specifically relate to the selfishness of private motorists in London. (And I well understand that people who are being selfish often don't "feel" selfish.)
Secondly: the calculation of time theft is true in many other areas too, once the externalities of private motoring are taken into account.
Thirdly, the scale of private car use is a significant factor in the lemming-like rush of our species to render our ecosystem uninhabitable by us - that's a simple truth irrespective of where the car use is happening.

 

[jagardner1984]

Surely the primary reasons why integration hasn’t happened are

1. Competing privatised interests
2. Competing divided ticketing
3. Inadequate co-ordination of planning.

If a ticket product was launched tomorrow by the government. Any current ITSO smartcard would automatically be part of the system, and simply dare and shame the private operators not to accept it. Numerous cross modal ticketing exists in other parts of the world very successfully. For example their much feted policy of investment in bus services could be simply treated by default as a £1-2 “PlusBus” flat fare to a rail ticket, automatically charged by tapping in on the bus and in and out on the railway. Season tickets available for unlimited bus travel in a local zone, rail travel between two locations or a combination of both. In other words a mass simplification of ticketing, a clear signpost that the days of Comically overpriced £5 FirstDay bus tickets (to give one example here in Glasgow) must be over if the terminal decline of bus passenger use is to be reversed. Affordability will drive ridership.

Finally planning changes and investment to integrate modes (for example the nonsense of vast areas of land at rail hubs for car parking but woefully inadequate, open air facilities for bus passengers to wait, promoting bus corridors and cycle corridors in and out of rail stations to make them simply the fastest ways to get in and out of a rail station, and to open the conversation about moving stations (both rail and bus) into the same area that makes sense for people, rather than just unusual historic legacies. Indeed to look at areas where there are substantial passenger flows from a particular suburb into a rail hub (for example primary commuter routes) and examine whether automated light rail / guided bus ways might provide faster / more reliable links for more people than a series of diesel buses zigzagging slowly around the city.

It really isn’t so difficult, it just requires national co-ordination and habit forming that has been sadly lacking from governments of all colours for many years. Some might argue given the increasingly dire financial situation the country faces, substantial infrastructure investment is exactly what we should be starting right now.

 

[TUC]

Firstly: if you'd read what I wrote, you'd see that my criticism did specifically relate to the selfishness of private motorists in London. (And I well understand that people who are being selfish often don't "feel" selfish.)
Secondly: the calculation of time theft is true in many other areas too, once the externalities of private motoring are taken into account.
Thirdly, the scale of private car use is a significant factor in the lemming-like rush of our species to render our ecosystem uninhabitable by us - that's a simple truth irrespective of where the car use is happening.

My point is that, whatever the views about private motorists in London, it has little to do with the rest of the country and should be put to one side in this disucssion.

 

[RT4038]

Surely the primary reasons why integration hasn’t happened are

1. Competing privatised interests
2. Competing divided ticketing
3. Inadequate co-ordination of planning.

If a ticket product was launched tomorrow by the government. Any current ITSO smartcard would automatically be part of the system, and simply dare and shame the private operators not to accept it. Numerous cross modal ticketing exists in other parts of the world very successfully. For example their much feted policy of investment in bus services could be simply treated by default as a £1-2 “PlusBus” flat fare to a rail ticket, automatically charged by tapping in on the bus and in and out on the railway. Season tickets available for unlimited bus travel in a local zone, rail travel between two locations or a combination of both. In other words a mass simplification of ticketing, a clear signpost that the days of Comically overpriced £5 FirstDay bus tickets (to give one example here in Glasgow) must be over if the terminal decline of bus passenger use is to be reversed. Affordability will drive ridership.

Finally planning changes and investment to integrate modes (for example the nonsense of vast areas of land at rail hubs for car parking but woefully inadequate, open air facilities for bus passengers to wait, promoting bus corridors and cycle corridors in and out of rail stations to make them simply the fastest ways to get in and out of a rail station, and to open the conversation about moving stations (both rail and bus) into the same area that makes sense for people, rather than just unusual historic legacies. Indeed to look at areas where there are substantial passenger flows from a particular suburb into a rail hub (for example primary commuter routes) and examine whether automated light rail / guided bus ways might provide faster / more reliable links for more people than a series of diesel buses zigzagging slowly around the city.

It really isn’t so difficult, it just requires national co-ordination and habit forming that has been sadly lacking from governments of all colours for many years. Some might argue given the increasingly dire financial situation the country faces, substantial infrastructure investment is exactly what we should be starting right now.

I think you are oversimplifying the issues, and targeting the bus companies as the sole 'problem'. The language of ' dare and shame' and 'comically overpriced' are rather indicative. The bus companies need a financial settlement that is more equitable than a cheap 'add-on' to rail fares. If affordability drives ridership, why are bus (and rail) fares not much cheaper than they are? (Because generally the reduced fares does not drive enough ridership to make up for the revenue lost and any additional cost to carry the increased ridership)

Car Parks at railway stations are often large money generators for the train companies. Do they really want to give up this revenue generating space for convenient bus stops and encourage modal shift from cars to buses as feeders to their trains? More funding required then, to make up for this lost revenue.

It really is very difficult. Not the theory (anyone can come up with that), but the practical application, and more importantly the funding, is a much bigger problem. If it wasn't, much more would have been done already. And, of course, not many voters are that interested!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Integrated tickets are old hat really. It would be better if single legs on all modes, individually priced by each operator, could be made available at more reasonable rates and could be paid for on a universal travel account (card/phone/web account) which could have multi-operator payment caps like Oyster for defined areas and periods. This is the best of all worlds as revenue for single trips made on one operator the would go to that operator. Singles would have to be re-based to reasonable prices rather than the current fare structures of most private commercial bus companies which usually perversely incentivise buying a wide area single operator go anyway ticket for a day or longer period for all but the very shortest journeys.

That is basically the Dutch OV-Chipkaart model, isn't it? Singles for everything, but you stop penalising them, and make a return journey using two singles just as good value as a season ticket is.

There's no real need for a "universal travel account", you just use a contactless payment card. You might want to make available some kind of contactless payment card just for travel (like Oyster), loadable at PayPoints/PayZones/railway booking offices and TVMs for those who genuinely do just work in cash and for children, but that could be easily put together in a deal with a bank rather than needing to be its own thing - it could use the likes of Visa or Mastercard for the processing part. Basically just a pre-paid card which will decline authorisation for any transaction that isn't categorised "public transport" or "taxi" and has any card fees subsidised by the Government.

 

[Tetchytyke]

the "solution" that people on here want is to only offer integrated tickets then that means that the passengers currently paying £4/day would have to pay £6 or £8 a day instead

That's by no means inevitable. But it would take operators realising that a smaller slice of a bigger pie is beneficial to them. The current attitude- they'd get £4 from their ticket, so they want £4 from a multimodal ticket- is what needs to change.

The multi-modal premium is what puts a lot of people off using public transport.

It would be better if single legs on all modes, individually priced by each operator, could be made available at more reasonable rates and could be paid for on a universal travel account (card/phone/web account) which could have multi-operator payment caps like Oyster for defined areas and periods.

You've just literally described a multimodal ticket, just one using a convoluted medium of delivery?

I couldn't give a stuff what medium it is on. The medium is irrelevant. The old Transfare system in Tyne and Wear (back before Go North Eadt neutered it) was on a bit of paper.

The issue is the significant financial penalty commuters face if they have to use several modes, or even several operators of the same mode. If you have to use multiple operators then the cost penalty will tip you into your car. It does (well, did) for me.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Exactly. I do wish Londoners would either get some sense of perspective outside of their insular world, or accept they know very little about the UK and declare their ignorance in discussions like this.

I wish people on this forum would stop make pejorative over-generalisations about Londoners. The opinion to which you object has been challenged by people living in London. Most people in London are well aware they're not qualified to judge what best suits other parts of the U.K.

 

[squizzler]

I wish people on this forum would stop make pejorative over-generalisations about Londoners. The opinion to which you object has been challenged by people living in London. Most people in London are well aware they're not qualified to judge what best suits other parts of the U.K.

Quite. I would never choose to live there myself, cannot imagine many things worse actually, but the rest of the country should be 'levelled up' (starting to sound soo 2019, that) and that includes a humane transport network and clean air legislation.

Looking at the piece of mischief that started this London vs the Rest schtick on this thread:

I have no idea of how you worked out your "theft" of time theory, but might I suggest you get out of London into the areas that makes up the majority of the country, and see how the rest of us have to get around. I used to work in London finishing after midnight often at 2am regularly, and never felt selfish about having to use my car or motorcycle. When you have what is possibly the best transport system in the entire UK, it is easy to despise those of us who by necessity have to use private transport, but please don't accuse us of the theft of other people's time or of being selfish.

Erm, yes. Motorcycling makes up how much of the UK travel market exactly? Less than one percent? Whilst leisure motorcycling is best enjoyed in rural terrain, most of the utilitarian motorcycling takes place in cities as that is where the benefits of fitting through gaps between the cars come in, so really motorcycling could also be labelled mobility used by a metropolitan minority as well.

I am a bicycle rider, and am willing to argue on behalf of those of us getting about on two wheels. There are certainly good reasons for two wheeled vehicles such as bicycles and motorcycles to be more widely used instead of cars if circumstances permit. Two wheelers are classed as 'vulnerable road users' but despite this were traditionally only ever an afterthought in highway design and transport strategy generally. Despite the merits, two-wheeler traffic accounts for a fraction of the mileage of rail users, never mind public transport as a whole.

So for somebody with a username identifying themselves as a motorcycle user to come on a rail forum and tell us all that public transport is irrelevant strikes me as a losing strategy

 

[AlbertBeale]

I wish people on this forum would stop make pejorative over-generalisations about Londoners. The opinion to which you object has been challenged by people living in London. Most people in London are well aware they're not qualified to judge what best suits other parts of the U.K.

Of course the important thing is not what "suits" people - anywhere - but what is essential for our ecosystem.

Hence - relating to the actual topic here! - if better integration of public transport will speed up getting rid of most private cars, it's obviously a good thing.

 

[DarloRich]

if better integration of public transport will speed up getting rid of most private cars, it's obviously a good thing.

It wont though will it? Most people wont give up their car despite the eco greeny fantasies of many here. I am lucky where I live in that I can manage with public transport. If I lived almost anywhere else, even in the same town, it would be much harder. Perhaps you are lucky and are single, don't work and live 2 minutes from a shop. Lots of people are not in that potion and need a car to function. You wont agree ( because you don't need a car you assume ALL don't) but it is true, especially away from London

I do wish posters here could look beyond their own situation and see the reality of life for the majority of the population. That majority would be helped by better public transport but better public transport alone wont fix the issues many face. Star trek fantasies aren't helpful.

Personally I would be looking to incentivise "green" vehicles and "green" power sources and use finance to drive behavioral change, but then I am pragmatist not a theorist.

 

[corfield]

Of course the important thing is not what "suits" people - anywhere - but what is essential for our ecosystem.

You may feel green issues should dictate things but I think the vast majority of people will disagree with you there. Plus the two are not indivisible, we are part of the ecosystem and so what we see as essential for us (easy mobility) is a component in what is essential for that and so neither are inherently superior. I think you look at this from a narrow angle and think that your primary concern trumps other considerations.

Ultimately, if you transport system does not “suit” people it will not be used well. That means it will fail to deliver it’s purpose and probably fail financially.

Cars suit people for the freedom and mobility they provide, something humans (except perhaps the very elite) have never had in history in terms of the ease, distance, ability to take others/things with them at no more cost on what are 99% of their desired journeys. If you genuinely cannot see this is something to be celebrated and sustained, then (a) you will get no support from people and (b) it is a shame, perhaps ignorance given you own life/perceived needs vs experiencing and empathwith others.

The challenge is to achieve it in a cleaner and less wasteful manner, using mass transit where it’s strengths are.

On the theft of time theory - a car stopping someone crossing the road “steals” a bit of their time, a person using a traffic crossing “steals” it from many motorists. The idea is asinine as it goes straight to “beggar my neighbour” politics and artificially and without justification puts one type of person as a saint and the rest as sinners. It has zero traction as an accepted logic. The answer as always is compromise, hence pedestrianised town centres, the more multi-user friendly modern housing developments and so on.

 

[edwin_m]

I think you are oversimplifying the issues, and targeting the bus companies as the sole 'problem'. The language of ' dare and shame' and 'comically overpriced' are rather indicative. The bus companies need a financial settlement that is more equitable than a cheap 'add-on' to rail fares. If affordability drives ridership, why are bus (and rail) fares not much cheaper than they are? (Because generally the reduced fares does not drive enough ridership to make up for the revenue lost and any additional cost to carry the increased ridership)

Car Parks at railway stations are often large money generators for the train companies. Do they really want to give up this revenue generating space for convenient bus stops and encourage modal shift from cars to buses as feeders to their trains? More funding required then, to make up for this lost revenue.

It really is very difficult. Not the theory (anyone can come up with that), but the practical application, and more importantly the funding, is a much bigger problem. If it wasn't, much more would have been done already. And, of course, not many voters are that interested!

This is one of several posts that highlights how commercial interests of both bus and rail companies get in the way of integration. In other countries (even the USA) you see debates such as the relative importance of coverage (providing as many people as possible with some sort of service, meeting objectives around inclusivity) and ridership (maximizing the number of people using the service, meeting objectives around sustainability). But in the UK it's all about revenue, which leans more towards ridership but isn't actually the same as either. Companies are incentivized to focus on the more popular routes, particularly on the bus side where service regulation is non-existent, but are sometimes more interested in getting a bigger slice of the cake than in making the cake bigger.

 

[DarloRich]

You may feel green issues should dictate things but I think the vast majority of people will disagree with you there. Plus the two are not indivisible, we are part of the ecosystem and so what we see as essential for us (easy mobility) is a component in what is essential for that and so neither are inherently superior. I think you look at this from a narrow angle and think that your primary concern trumps other considerations.

Ultimately, if you transport system does not “suit” people it will not be used well. That means it will fail to deliver it’s purpose and probably fail financially.

Cars suit people for the freedom and mobility they provide, something humans (except perhaps the very elite) have never had in history in terms of the ease, distance, ability to take others/things with them at no more cost on what are 99% of their desired journeys. If you genuinely cannot see this is something to be celebrated and sustained, then (a) you will get no support from people and (b) it is a shame, perhaps ignorance given you own life/perceived needs vs experiencing and empathwith others.

The challenge is to achieve it in a cleaner and less wasteful manner, using mass transit where it’s strengths are.

On the theft of time theory - a car stopping someone crossing the road “steals” a bit of their time, a person using a traffic crossing “steals” it from many motorists. The idea is asinine as it goes straight to “beggar my neighbour” politics and artificially and without justification puts one type of person as a saint and the rest as sinners. It has zero traction as an accepted logic. The answer as always is compromise, hence pedestrianised town centres, the more multi-user friendly modern housing developments and so on.

Good post - much more eloquent than my ramblings!

This is one of several posts that highlights how commercial interests of both bus and rail companies get in the way of integration. In other countries (even the USA) you see debates such as the relative importance of coverage (providing as many people as possible with some sort of service, meeting objectives around inclusivity) and ridership (maximizing the number of people using the service, meeting objectives around sustainability). But in the UK it's all about revenue, which leans more towards ridership but isn't actually the same as either. Companies are incentivized to focus on the more popular routes, particularly on the bus side where service regulation is non-existent, but are sometimes more interested in getting a bigger slice of the cake than in making the cake bigger.

Out of interest - do US local political institutions provide better financial support to public transport than the UK equivalents?

 

[Bald Rick]

You may feel green issues should dictate things but I think the vast majority of people will disagree with you there. Plus the two are not indivisible, we are part of the ecosystem and so what we see as essential for us (easy mobility) is a component in what is essential for that and so neither are inherently superior. I think you look at this from a narrow angle and think that your primary concern trumps other considerations.

Ultimately, if you transport system does not “suit” people it will not be used well. That means it will fail to deliver it’s purpose and probably fail financially.

Cars suit people for the freedom and mobility they provide, something humans (except perhaps the very elite) have never had in history in terms of the ease, distance, ability to take others/things with them at no more cost on what are 99% of their desired journeys. If you genuinely cannot see this is something to be celebrated and sustained, then (a) you will get no support from people and (b) it is a shame, perhaps ignorance given you own life/perceived needs vs experiencing and empathwith others.

The challenge is to achieve it in a cleaner and less wasteful manner, using mass transit where it’s strengths are.

On the theft of time theory - a car stopping someone crossing the road “steals” a bit of their time, a person using a traffic crossing “steals” it from many motorists. The idea is asinine as it goes straight to “beggar my neighbour” politics and artificially and without justification puts one type of person as a saint and the rest as sinners. It has zero traction as an accepted logic. The answer as always is compromise, hence pedestrianised town centres, the more multi-user friendly modern housing developments and so on.

Brilliant post.

 

[squizzler]

It wont though will it? Most people wont give up their car despite the eco greeny fantasies of many here.

The economic realities will probably achieve what 'eco green fantasies' (sic) have not. With less commuting and leisure travel curtailed over the coming year, and household incomes squeezed, the value of owning their own motorcar will be something that will be questioned by many.

You may feel green issues should dictate things but I think the vast majority of people will disagree with you there.

I disagree with that! Most people do in fact want something done about the climate crisis. And the experience of clean air over lockdown gives a further appetite to change things.

On the theft of time theory - a car stopping someone crossing the road “steals” a bit of their time, a person using a traffic crossing “steals” it from many motorists.

The academic success of the 'Time Pollution' as a theory stems from its demonstration that much transport expenditure is regressive - paid for by everyone but favours the elites over the proles. It was amusing however to watch the Stop HS2 movement trying to deploy this argument (an expensive railway for rich businessmen, etc), which might have had to do with well heeled Cotswolds Stop HS2 activists typically being the sorts of people who feel entitled to hyper-mobility in their own lives, and everyone else being able to se the hypocrisy.

 

[DarloRich]

The economic realities will probably achieve what 'eco green fantasies' (sic) have not. With less commuting and leisure travel curtailed over the coming year, and household incomes squeezed, the value of owning their own motorcar will be something that will be questioned by many.

More fantasy. The reality is most ( not all but most) will do anything to keep the car. Mainly because it creates more opportunities for employment. I have been out of work and on the dole. I kept my car as long as I could ( longer than the TV or the sofa) because it allowed me to get to interviews further than the confines of the local public transport network. In many parts of the country, but perhaps not Jersey, you will be in trouble without that mobility.

I maintain: want people to give up the car? Incentivise them. Make the "right" choice of action the financially savvy one. (YES a better public transport system is part of that but not the only part or, in my mind, even the key part)

Ps Sorry for being dysle(sic)

 

[edwin_m]

Out of interest - do US local political institutions provide better financial support to public transport than the UK equivalents?

Yes in the sense that virtually no public transport in the States comes near to covering its operating costs from the farebox. In the UK TfL and most light rail operators sort of did pre-Covid and commercial bus routes obviously do.

No in the sense that a small town in the UK would represent a paragon of service frequency compared to one of the same size in the US, so there is much less to support.

 

[TUC]

To get from my home to where I work, I would have to get a bus, followed by train, followed by a walk or a further bus across Leeds city centre. Total travel time 1 hr 35 mins. To drive takes me around 1 hour 5 mins. Why would I want use public transport?

 

[DarloRich]

To get from my home to where I work, I would have to get a bus, followed by train, followed by a walk or a further bus across Leeds city centre. Total travel time 1 hr 35 mins. To drive takes me around 1 hour 5 mins. Why would I want use public transport?

The answer will be you should get a job nearer home or move.

 

[scotrail158713]

To get from my home to where I work, I would have to get a bus, followed by train, followed by a walk or a further bus across Leeds city centre. Total travel time 1 hr 35 mins. To drive takes me around 1 hour 5 mins. Why would I want use public transport?

Half an hour difference isn’t that bad. The 3 different modes of transport would get to me more than the journey time to be honest.

 

[MotorcycleAlan]

So for somebody with a username identifying themselves as a motorcycle user to come on a rail forum and tell us all that public transport is irrelevant strikes me as a losing strategy

I think you need to re-read what I wrote as you clearly have not. I use rail and bus as much as many on here, and have never said or implied that public transport is irrelevant. You have invented that in your own mind, because I simply replied to someone who clearly has an anti-car agenda at any cost. Cars will be around in the real world for a long time to come, and if you don't like that I am afraid it is tough. Please do not imply or accuse me of being anti something I always support and use whenever allowed to.