'No more war on the motorist'

cee

dawebbo wrote:

You really haven't thought your taxi point through...

Taxis only reduce congestion if they reduce the number of journeys. ie. people share a taxi. 100 fares with 1 passenger each time is the same as the 100 people driving themselves (setting off at the equivalent time that the taxi would have picked them up) - but the taxi is also on the road between fares, whereas the private cars are parked somewhere not adding to the congestion.

1 car at a time...sure I agree...

that 1 taxi can never be on the road more than once at a time!

Your point only makes sense if those 100 cars are not in the city centre at the same time....i.e. they wait until the first has cleared out before going in! That doesn't make sense....

I might not have thought it through completely and of course buses are better for congestion than taxis...but it is a fact...that taxis congest less than private cars!

redhanded

TGOTB wrote:

redhanded wrote:

Opportunistic populism...

The bottleneck on the eastbound M4 is the 2 lanes on the Brentford flyover and it doesn't matter if there are 3 lanes, or 30 lanes leading up to it as you aren't going to get more traffic through this bit of road.

The "bus lane" is probably more important for traffic engineering as it gets cars into 2 lanes about a mile before the flyover so smooths the flow of traffic onto the flyover.

With 3 lanes open to everyone, you'll just get drivers charging down the outside lane and trying to squeeze in at the last point before the flyover, other drivers will refuse to let them in, tempers will fray and there will still be jams. Lovely.

I disagree.

Before the bus lane was put in, you used to be able to drive at 60-70, all the way to the flyover. When you got there you'd slow to ~40, with a slower bit at the merge point.

When the bus lane was put in, you had to slow to ~40 at the beginning of the bus lane; the merging problem was exactly the same, it just happened in a different place. Typical journey times (for cars) increased.

The bus lane does nothing to change the dynamics, it just moves the problem elsewhere. The proportion of taxis/buses/politicians in the traffic is sufficiently low as to make the "pre-segregation" irrelevant.

IMO journey times increased because of the reduced speed limit and at J3 my experience was that cars got into lane "better" (with one lane coming off at J3 and two going straight on) rather than trying to force their way in just before the flyover which is what used to happen (and will now happen again)

They could have increased the utilisation of the "bus lane" by allowing high occupancy vehicles in it but I don't know if this was ever considered.

However I do agree that it is just shifting the problem as nothing can overcome the fundamental capacity bottleneck of the Brentford flyover without a huge road construction project which ain't going to happen.

But it is typical politician opportunism to present this as an improvement when it isn't.

greg66_tri_v2.0

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

tgotb

thelawnet wrote:

This road expert would disagree with you: http://www.cbrd.co.uk/indepth/m4buslane/

In case you've missed the point from the picture, you have:

Lane 1, Lane 2, Lane 3, prior to J3
then coming up to J3 exit:
Exit Lane, Lane 1, Lane 2

I.e. there are still effectively 3 lanes for all traffic - much of the traffic leaves at J3, and the new traffic entering at the J3 on-ramp (a little bit further down the road) is joining into a two lane motorway.

So it's simply not true that you have the same merging problem, you actuall reduce the merging problem by performing it at a point where the traffic is reduced - between the exit and the entrance for J3.

You claim that merging the traffic at a point of reduced flow, albeit a mile or two earlier, is less efficient than leaving it till the last possible moment. I suggest that's far from clear.

Did you actually drive along this part of the M4 before the bus lane was created? I suspect that if either you or the writer of your linked article ever did, you have short memories.

What used to happen was that traffic leaving the M4 at J3 would filter relatively painlessly over to the left-hand land, and then turn off. Everyone else could carry straight on at 70 for another 3.5 miles, at which point they would get slowed by a merge to 2 lanes.

What happens now is that the merge happens before J3; not only does the traffic bunch up to get into the two right-hand lanes, the situation is exacerbated by other cars crossing to the left-hand lane to go up the A312, and then cars joining from J3. The traffic then continues for 3.5 miles, before encountering a second slow patch approaching the 40 limit on the elevated section. The delays approaching the elevated section are not dissimilar to what they were before the bus lane, the difference is that there is now a separate hold-up at J3 (and the bit between is slower). This also serves to delay traffic headed up the A312 from the M4, which used to get a fairly clear run.

The fact that things improved when the speed limit on the 3.5 mile section was increased to 60, further illustrates the benefit of increasing the carrying capacity of this section of road.

These are my own observations of how traffic flow has changed over the life of the scheme. If you prefer to disregard the facts in order to promote your own theory, that's your privilege...

thelawnet

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

This road expert

"Expert"? Loose use of that word, IMO: http://www.cbrd.co.uk/about/

As to the rest of it, well, it's always nice to hear (a) a person's real life experience contradicted by (b) someone else regurgitating what another person has scribbled on the internet about what should happen.

Genius.

I think you missed the point. The man is a road geek. Not some sort of tree-hugging hippy. He likes roads. He doesn't want to see them clogged up for ideological reasons.

And when it comes to self-appointed internet experts, I'd take the one who has written the encyclopedia of roads and has bothered to try and explain the issue, over the one who claims journey times have increased without a shred of evidence theoretical or practical, especially relevant considering how long the M4 bus lane has been in operation (a decade now).

Here's some facts for you:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/508554.stm

"Jjourney times have improved for all types of traffic in the first three months of the operation of the £1.9m lane on the M4 in west London, according to Transport Research Laboratory figures. "

And again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1120542.stm

"on average, each bus was saving 3.5 minutes and each car one minute, in journey times during peak periods. "

W1

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

Indeed.

Not sure why this is on here at all. I do hate the way that cyclists appear to have to be against motorists almost by default. I mean we're not all socks-and sandle wearing eco mentalists.

W1

thelawnet wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

This road expert

"Expert"? Loose use of that word, IMO: http://www.cbrd.co.uk/about/

As to the rest of it, well, it's always nice to hear (a) a person's real life experience contradicted by (b) someone else regurgitating what another person has scribbled on the internet about what should happen.

Genius.

I think you missed the point. The man is a road geek. Not some sort of tree-hugging hippy. He likes roads. He doesn't want to see them clogged up for ideological reasons.

And when it comes to self-appointed internet experts, I'd take the one who has written the encyclopedia of roads and has bothered to try and explain the issue, over the one who claims journey times have increased without a shred of evidence theoretical or practical, especially relevant considering how long the M4 bus lane has been in operation (a decade now).

Here's some facts for you:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/508554.stm

"Jjourney times have improved for all types of traffic in the first three months of the operation of the £1.9m lane on the M4 in west London, according to Transport Research Laboratory figures. "

And again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1120542.stm

"on average, each bus was saving 3.5 minutes and each car one minute, in journey times during peak periods. "

And a quote from that same article:

"However, during off-peak periods, journey times had increased by one minute over the 3.5-mile-long stretch of motorway. "

electric_blue

thelawnet wrote:

electric_blue wrote:

mroli wrote:

You can also get the Picadilly Line to Heathrow.

I said quickly


point taken about the direction though - didn't know that - clearly the correct thing to do then would be to open a similar bus lane int he other direction.

Well no, because the only reason they did it was to better manage the merge from 3 lanes to 2. Going the other way it's the opposite, 2 into 3, which clearly presents no bottleneck at all.

well I rarely drive and only once ever to Heathrow - to be honest seemed OK so didn;t really pick up on the issues.

the Picc Line is very slow though - that I do know

thelawnet

W1 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

This road expert

"Expert"? Loose use of that word, IMO: http://www.cbrd.co.uk/about/

As to the rest of it, well, it's always nice to hear (a) a person's real life experience contradicted by (b) someone else regurgitating what another person has scribbled on the internet about what should happen.

Genius.

I think you missed the point. The man is a road geek. Not some sort of tree-hugging hippy. He likes roads. He doesn't want to see them clogged up for ideological reasons.

And when it comes to self-appointed internet experts, I'd take the one who has written the encyclopedia of roads and has bothered to try and explain the issue, over the one who claims journey times have increased without a shred of evidence theoretical or practical, especially relevant considering how long the M4 bus lane has been in operation (a decade now).

Here's some facts for you:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/508554.stm

"Jjourney times have improved for all types of traffic in the first three months of the operation of the £1.9m lane on the M4 in west London, according to Transport Research Laboratory figures. "

And again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1120542.stm

"on average, each bus was saving 3.5 minutes and each car one minute, in journey times during peak periods. "

And a quote from that same article:

"However, during off-peak periods, journey times had increased by one minute over the 3.5-mile-long stretch of motorway. "

That was because they reduced the speed limit from 70mph to 50mph. The speed limit was subsequently increased to 60mph.

electric_blue

W1 wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

Indeed.

Not sure why this is on here at all. I do hate the way that cyclists appear to have to be against motorists almost by default. I mean we're not all socks-and sandle wearing eco mentalists.

Is that what happens when you're an environmentalist then? You wear sandles? Funny - I was in a meeting of environmentalists this morning and most of them appeared to be wearing business suits and using Blackberries. :?

W1

electric_blue wrote:

W1 wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

Indeed.

Not sure why this is on here at all. I do hate the way that cyclists appear to have to be against motorists almost by default. I mean we're not all socks-and sandle wearing eco mentalists.

Is that what happens when you're an environmentalist then? You wear sandles? Funny - I was in a meeting of environmentalists this morning and most of them appeared to be wearing business suits and using Blackberries. :?

Either way - key word is "mental".

thelawnet

W1 wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

Indeed.

Not sure why this is on here at all. I do hate the way that cyclists appear to have to be against motorists almost by default. I mean we're not all socks-and sandle wearing eco mentalists.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise. It's not like being against foreign holidays or something. Motorists cause congestion and serious personal safety issues for cyclists.

I'm no eco warrior, I just think there are far too many lazy car users around, who directly inconvenience me.

W1

thelawnet wrote:

W1 wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

Indeed.

Not sure why this is on here at all. I do hate the way that cyclists appear to have to be against motorists almost by default. I mean we're not all socks-and sandle wearing eco mentalists.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise. It's not like being against foreign holidays or something. Motorists cause congestion and serious personal safety issues for cyclists.

I'm no eco warrior, I just think there are far too many lazy car users around, who directly inconvenience me.

Ridden along the M4 bus-lane much?

Do you have a car, or make use of one (out of interest)?

greg66_tri_v2.0

thelawnet wrote:

Here's some facts for you:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/508554.stm

"Jjourney times have improved for all types of traffic in the first three months of the operation of the £1.9m lane on the M4 in west London, according to Transport Research Laboratory figures. "

And again:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1120542.stm

"on average, each bus was saving 3.5 minutes and each car one minute, in journey times during peak periods. "

TRL. Dept of Transport and the Highways Agency are two of their biggest clients. The second story is based on Highways Agency Data.

You'll have to forgive my cynicism at these "facts".

thelawnet

W1 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

W1 wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

Indeed.

Not sure why this is on here at all. I do hate the way that cyclists appear to have to be against motorists almost by default. I mean we're not all socks-and sandle wearing eco mentalists.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise. It's not like being against foreign holidays or something. Motorists cause congestion and serious personal safety issues for cyclists.

I'm no eco warrior, I just think there are far too many lazy car users around, who directly inconvenience me.

Ridden along the M4 bus-lane much?

Do you have a car, or make use of one (out of interest)?

Ridden? Only way would be on a motorbike. Which I don't have.

I do have a car, but I don't use it often. I take my son on Monday evenings rock climbing, which is 6ish miles away, and he rides on the back of my Kona Ute. Got some good lighting, which makes me much more confident about our safety, and the journey takes about 25 minutes, compared with 20 minutes driving (rush hour) there, 15 minutes back, but then I don't have to worry about parking, which is horrific, due to the fact that pretty much all other users of the centre drive there.

noisemonkey

Daily Mail = delluded kunts...

is anyone arming themselves to the teeth against motorists really? pure hyperbolic overreaction...

electric_blue

W1 wrote:

electric_blue wrote:

W1 wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

thelawnet wrote:

Taxis are given excess privileges that incentivise their use and increase demand. Got to get to a meeting across town? Most people will jump in a cab. Why don't they get the tube, which is relatively empty outside of rush hour? Because taxis are excessively convenient/privileged.

I'm going to take a big wild stab in the dark here.

Because it's slow? And having lots of room is pretty academic if you're late for your meeting?

Indeed.

Not sure why this is on here at all. I do hate the way that cyclists appear to have to be against motorists almost by default. I mean we're not all socks-and sandle wearing eco mentalists.

Is that what happens when you're an environmentalist then? You wear sandles? Funny - I was in a meeting of environmentalists this morning and most of them appeared to be wearing business suits and using Blackberries. :?

Either way - key word is "mental".

Well - I'll mark you down as someone not to have a rational debate with about anything then.

Zombie_donkey

This sort of "Cars are killers and we're at war with them" stuff is just the cycling equivalent of abuse from white van men that gets directed at bikers.

They are both just extreme, polarized viewpoints.

lost_in_thought

jamesco wrote:

kelsen wrote:

electric_blue wrote:

Actually, there's a Heathrow Connect service which departs from Paddington and arrives at Terminal 1&2. It's every half hour and journey time is ~25mins. Fares are half the price of the Heathrow Express.

I have no idea why it isn't more publicized. Maybe to keep the prices of the HEX grossly inflated!

http://www.londontoolkit.com/travel/hea ... _train.htm

+1 to this. It takes 30 minutes to Paddington (as opposed to 15) but usefully stops at Ealing and other places for half the price. Lovely train, why on earth is it kept a secret?

Well, for starters the tube is both cheaper and quicker to Ealing than the Heathrow Connect. The HEX is good for west London and definitely the quickest way to get to central london from LHR.

prj45

I think a lot of people miss the point of bus lanes, especially the ones that say "I'm sitting here in a traffic jam and there's a whole empty lane next to me".

1. That "empty" lane is probably at the time transporting more people down the road than the lanes full of cars (e..g it only takes a coach load to go down once every five minutes)

2. Of course what they mean is "I'm sitting here in a traffic jam and there's a whole empty lane next to me that I could drive down all on my own"

A good transport system targets the moving of PEOPLE, not vehicles.

prj45

http://the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/2010/1 ... round.html

mybreakfastconsisted

The current useless pillock who is transport secretary said on the radio that the bus lane was a bad idea because


"the car drivers have paid as much taxes as the people on buses".

mybreakfastconsisted

Unthinkable?

Declaring war on motorists

When the transport secretary said 'We will end the war on motorists', the obvious question was: what war on motorists?


Right, not an actual war. A national newspaper is not calling for bayonets to be taken to tyres, nor for shotgun-toting mercenaries to patrol NCP car parks.

But when the transport secretary, Philip Hammond, declared yesterday that "We will end the war on motorists", the obvious question was: what war on motorists?


Presumably Mr Hammond is not referring to Gordon Brown's decision 10 years ago to freeze the fuel duty escalator. That decision was only reversed after six years – and the tiny increases in fuel duty since then mean that, after inflation, the tax remains 11% lower than it was in 1999.


Nor did the transport secretary quote his own civil servants' figures, which show that the cost of motoring fell 14% between 1997 and 2009 – even while rail fares went up 13% and bus and coach ticket prices shot up 24%.

What those figures suggest is not so much a war on drivers as a battle against users of public transport. And others who go under their own steam: as the Campaign for Better Transport points out, cities like Luton refuse to reshape their inner ring roads, thus making it harder for pedestrians and cyclists to get into the centre. When autophiles complain that rail travel is as much a middle-class pastime as Glyndebourne, they make the right criticism but draw the wrong conclusion: the answer is to make non-car transport cheaper and more readily available than cars. Harder than it sounds?

Sure. But a (non-violent) war on motorists, rather than the current system of preference, would be a start.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -motorists

tailwindhome

CTRL + C
CTRL + V

and repeat ad nauseam

mybreakfastconsisted

TailWindHome wrote:

CTRL + C
CTRL + V

and repeat ad nauseam

Pertinent to the thread, I would have thought. Don't read it if you're not interested, you rude person. The thread's about the spurious "War Against Motorists" and so is that article. I thought just posting the linkwould be less helpful than posting the article. If that annoys you then please go and boil your head.

I class "The War On Motorist" press reports alongside "Muslims have banned Christmas" reports.

People who claim speeding fines are "stealth taxes" are cockwombles, they are no more a stealth tax than fines for urinating in the street- easy to avoid such fines.

Hammond is pandering to the lowest common demoninator and may well have been appointed in a ghastly mistake.

jds_1981

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

Nor did the transport secretary quote his own civil servants' figures, which show that the cost of motoring fell 14% between 1997 and 2009 – even while rail fares went up 13% and bus and coach ticket prices shot up 24%.

& yet the 'real cost' of running a car has increased by almost a quarter over the same period...

I could carry on, but then I'd just be cherry picking figures much as the guardian article has done (bias, really?)

mybreakfastconsisted

jds_1981 wrote:

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

Nor did the transport secretary quote his own civil servants' figures, which show that the cost of motoring fell 14% between 1997 and 2009 – even while rail fares went up 13% and bus and coach ticket prices shot up 24%.

& yet the 'real cost' of running a car has increased by almost a quarter over the same period...

Is there a source for that please?

Declining cost of motoring

33. Taxes and charges are only part of the overall cost of motoring. Although some motoring taxes have risen, the overall cost of motoring has declined substantially over the past 20 years. RAC research has shown that:

[…] despite the perception, the cost of motoring in real terms has fallen, even when rising fuel prices were taken into account. In real terms, we found it is 18% cheaper to buy and run a car (comprising service and repair costs, insurance, road tax and breakdown cover), including fuel costs, in 2008 than it was in 1988.[28]


http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... /10304.htm


Plus UK motorists pay below the EU average for running a car.

The cost of motoring is artificially kept low so private motoring is subsidised by quite a lot, HGV vehicles are subsidised a great deal more.

The fact that it is 18% cheaper to run a car now than twenty years ago combined with massive increases in the real level of bus and rail fares over the same period, makes it more difficult to encourage modal shifts from cars to public transport or cycling. The basis of Government policy should be to reverse these trends, not pander to the petrolheads.

jds_1981

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

jds_1981 wrote:

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

Nor did the transport secretary quote his own civil servants' figures, which show that the cost of motoring fell 14% between 1997 and 2009 – even while rail fares went up 13% and bus and coach ticket prices shot up 24%.

& yet the 'real cost' of running a car has increased by almost a quarter over the same period...

Is there a source for that please?

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... n2ptbm.pdf

The basis of Government policy should be to reverse these trends, not pander to the petrolheads.

Heh.

Anyway, I was of the opinion that 'war on the motorist' wasn't so much general running costs of cars, but more along the lines of additional street parking costs, speed humps which damage cars and so on.

With regards to competitiveness to public transport isn't one of the major problems that public transport is not convenient or competitive in many cases?

What do you think the government policy to reverse these trends should be? large subsidies for the overly expensive public transport, or more punitive measures on motoring?

jamesco

lost_in_thought wrote:

Well, for starters the tube is both cheaper and quicker to Ealing than the Heathrow Connect. The HEX is good for west London and definitely the quickest way to get to central london from LHR.

Well, no. The tube takes 20 minutes from T3 station to Sth. Ealing, whereas the HC takes 14 minutes to West Ealing station. The tube is cheaper (£4.50 for a cash single to Paddington vs. £7.90 on the HC) and runs more frequently, but the HC trains start earlier, are a lot nicer and get to Paddington in 25 minutes, vs 1hr on the tube.

The Heathrow Express doesn't stop between the airport & Paddington, so it isn't any good for getting to West London. No question it's quickest between the airport & central London, I'm just agreeing that the HC is really under-publicised - it's as if it's suppressed in order to favour the Express.

roger_merriman

jds_1981 wrote:

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

jds_1981 wrote:

mybreakfastconsisted wrote:

Nor did the transport secretary quote his own civil servants' figures, which show that the cost of motoring fell 14% between 1997 and 2009 – even while rail fares went up 13% and bus and coach ticket prices shot up 24%.

& yet the 'real cost' of running a car has increased by almost a quarter over the same period...

Is there a source for that please?

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... n2ptbm.pdf

The basis of Government policy should be to reverse these trends, not pander to the petrolheads.

Heh.

Anyway, I was of the opinion that 'war on the motorist' wasn't so much general running costs of cars, but more along the lines of additional street parking costs, speed humps which damage cars and so on.

With regards to competitiveness to public transport isn't one of the major problems that public transport is not convenient or competitive in many cases?

What do you think the government policy to reverse these trends should be? large subsidies for the overly expensive public transport, or more punitive measures on motoring?

And our Income has increased by double in the same time. Public transport has not quite tracked our income.

like a lot of things you can spend the dosh, or not, some folks commute on £**** bikes others on cheap hacks, same with cars I have a cheap runabout that is almost valueless my overall yearly running cost is less than some folks yearly deprecation on there cars.

where i live public transport can be very good such as trains to central london or the bus to kingston, but also poor it's quicker to walk the 3 miles to work than take the bus...

living where I am, the car has one big problem which is congestion.