The Big 'Let's sell our cars and take buses/ebikes instead' thread (warning: probably very dull)

Pross

Whilst the sensible Government in Westminster are scrapping rail schemes and trying to reverse the war on motorists that some other Government had tried to introduce over the past 13 years those Commie ba$tard lefties in Cardiff Bay are doing things like this. Makes me want to leave Wales!

https://news.tfw.wales/news/plans-for-five-new-railway-stations-in-south-east-wales-and-more-services-released

First.Aspect

What on earth are they thinking slowing down trains at all those stations.

photonic69

@Pross talking of trains/buses in Darkest Wales, I'm off to Cardift on Saturday with the youngest to look at the Uni. Any ideas what's the best form of transport into the city once we are over the border? Park & Ride? Train from Severn Tunnel Junc? Bear in mind I'm popping into Chepstow on the way back to see my aunt.

kingstongraham

photonic69 said:

@Pross talking of trains/buses in Darkest Wales, I'm off to Cardift on Saturday with the youngest to look at the Uni. Any ideas what's the best form of transport into the city once we are over the border? Park & Ride? Train from Severn Tunnel Junc? Bear in mind I'm popping into Chepstow on the way back to see my aunt.

How long are you in Cardiff for and arriving at what time?

I'd probably try and park at the civic centre if there at a decent time.

Pross

photonic69 said:

@Pross talking of trains/buses in Darkest Wales, I'm off to Cardift on Saturday with the youngest to look at the Uni. Any ideas what's the best form of transport into the city once we are over the border? Park & Ride? Train from Severn Tunnel Junc? Bear in mind I'm popping into Chepstow on the way back to see my aunt.

Is it Cardiff Uni or Cardiff Met? For Cardiff Uni you may be better off parking at Severn Tunnel Junction and getting a train as it should be an easy walk. Brynglas tunnels have been closed on quite a few weekends recently which has really made travel around Newport a pain, not sure if they are closed again this weekend but if they are I would definitely consider STJ. The parking there is cheap (there's actually a free car park if you pass the station entrance and drive over the railway but not sure how full it gets). If driving you may as well go all the way into the city centre, as KG says there's reasonably priced long stay parking around the civic centre or by the Royal Welsh College of Music and they are nice and close to the Uni. Cardiff Met campuses are further out so driving straight to them is probably the easiest option.

photonic69

Thanks for the heads up @Pross . It looks like they are closed again this weekend so STJ it is. Quite reasonable £23 open return for two of us plus £4 to park. A LOT less stress than driving around the bowels of Newport.
When the kids were little we all used to see if we could hold our breath whilst going through Brynglas. I used to get faster and faster towards the end. Once I became decidedly light-headed.

rjsterry

Do hope you don't own a mobile phone or ear pods Allison. I mean they could take your head off. 🤪



Edit: oh FFS, the image handling on this site is so ridiculous.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

Do hope you don't own a mobile phone or ear pods Allison. I mean they could take your head off. 🤪



Edit: oh FFS, the image handling on this site is so ridiculous.

Sounds like something she researched and pushed a first draft out while on the toilet.

What's the thesis?

Jezyboy

Presumably related to fire at Luton Airport... although I'm not sure that was actually an electric car that went up...

Certainly lithium ion batteries aren't a great joke if they do go up in flames, but maybe she should also be calling for banning cars in general because even petrol ones catch fire, and also they are involved in lots of traffic accidents, and therefore dangerous.

focuszing723

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8xNjz73p80
LifePo4 batteries use a more stable chemistry, some EV's use those. They are less power dense but an advantage is the amount of times they can be recharged is greater.

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

Do hope you don't own a mobile phone or ear pods Allison. I mean they could take your head off. 🤪



Edit: oh FFS, the image handling on this site is so ridiculous.

Sounds like something she researched and pushed a first draft out while on the toilet.

What's the thesis?

🤣🤣🤣

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

rjsterry said:

Do hope you don't own a mobile phone or ear pods Allison. I mean they could take your head off. 🤪



Edit: oh FFS, the image handling on this site is so ridiculous.

Sounds like something she researched and pushed a first draft out while on the toilet.

What's the thesis?

🤣🤣🤣

Yeah. Uncharacteristically generous of me.

Pross

rjsterry said:

Do hope you don't own a mobile phone or ear pods Allison. I mean they could take your head off. 🤪



Edit: oh FFS, the image handling on this site is so ridiculous.

No doubt typed on a laptop that uses a lithium ion battery and then posted on a phone with a lithium ion battery.

briantrumpet

Re the Exeter traffic thing, it's utterly Cnutish how much the offended car drivers are in denial, like removing a few planters in the road is going to solve Exeter's traffic problems, which have been ongoing and getting worse for the past 40 years. The scale of the problem is starkly outlined in an Exeter City Council report:

Current car usage is 31,000 (residents) and 18,600 (commuters) totalling 49,600
which will rise to 59,000 by 2026.

This increase of 19% assumes that all the transport improvements proposed will be
achieved and 30% of those from the Exeter conurbation going to work will walk or
cycle.

The current road system within Exeter is used at a level close to capacity in the rush
hour period and significant improvements are impossible. The growth of the
extended city to 180,000 will see a 19% rise in the rush hour traffic volume with the
prospect of greater rises as the city grows to over 200,000 by 2050.

And given the 'transport improvements' seem quite ambitious (e.g. doubling the number of trains and buses on key routes), even that seems optimistic.

briantrumpet

Haha. One response just now: "There’s NOTHING as an alternative . People drive because of unreliable rubbish public transport. Closing roads solves nothing. They’ve just done it, with a slap in the face to us all with no other options. It’s disgusting."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/there_are_none_so_blind_as_those_who_will_not_see

briantrumpet

I promise I won't keep on posting comments, but the idiocy on display is quite something...

Why on earth do the councils have this manic obsession with building more houses all the time? The numbers are FAR in excess of what local people and their families need. By their own admission, the population growth will be more than the city (or the county) can cater for. It's as though local and county councillors have been subjected to brainwashing or madness.

So it seems that councils are building houses no-one wants. And they can't cater for them because everyone needs to drive into the centre of town.

Have I got that right?

Pross

Sounds like prime territory for the Tories in the next General Election to me.

Pross

I have to admit that I like the idea they are building houses not needed and yet the City and County can’t cope with the predicted population increase. How to completely contradict yourself in two sentences. Or is the argument that everyone living there has a house so no new houses are enough for the people living there? Unfortunately I’ve seen these arguments across the country so it’s not even down to something polluting the water supply there.

briantrumpet

Pross said:

Sounds like prime territory for the Tories in the next General Election to me.

Not in Benbradshawland. Even if he's retiring, Exeter City Council and the constituency are pretty solid Labour territory. And even toffy Topsham is now Labour. The posh parts of Exeter seem to be full of leftie/commie intellectuals and doctors, there's the university which is about 10% of the population and terribly woke, and there are big, deprived estates, which might have been a bit Brexity, but are natural Labour, now we're just picking up the debris left by Brexit and trying to patch up the tatty remains.

I might have missed the sarcasm in your post...

rick_chasey

briantrumpet said:

I promise I won't keep on posting comments, but the idiocy on display is quite something...

Why on earth do the councils have this manic obsession with building more houses all the time? The numbers are FAR in excess of what local people and their families need. By their own admission, the population growth will be more than the city (or the county) can cater for. It's as though local and county councillors have been subjected to brainwashing or madness.

So it seems that councils are building houses no-one wants. And they can't cater for them because everyone needs to drive into the centre of town.

Have I got that right?

They should loosen the restrictions so private companies can build them where it makes economic sense.

Councillors are not best placed to know where to build houses.

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

I promise I won't keep on posting comments, but the idiocy on display is quite something...

Why on earth do the councils have this manic obsession with building more houses all the time? The numbers are FAR in excess of what local people and their families need. By their own admission, the population growth will be more than the city (or the county) can cater for. It's as though local and county councillors have been subjected to brainwashing or madness.

So it seems that councils are building houses no-one wants. And they can't cater for them because everyone needs to drive into the centre of town.

Have I got that right?

They should loosen the restrictions so private companies can build them where it makes economic sense.

Councillors are not best placed to know where to build houses.

Such as cheap land next to motorways or in flood risk areas?

briantrumpet

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

I promise I won't keep on posting comments, but the idiocy on display is quite something...

Why on earth do the councils have this manic obsession with building more houses all the time? The numbers are FAR in excess of what local people and their families need. By their own admission, the population growth will be more than the city (or the county) can cater for. It's as though local and county councillors have been subjected to brainwashing or madness.

So it seems that councils are building houses no-one wants. And they can't cater for them because everyone needs to drive into the centre of town.

Have I got that right?

They should loosen the restrictions so private companies can build them where it makes economic sense.

Councillors are not best placed to know where to build houses.

Exeter seems to be booming, and it's pretty much expanding in all directions, well, east, south and north west. I think the private companies are doing a good job of trying to meet demand. ECC/DCC are also doing a fair job of trying to provide alternatives to the car for travelling into Exeter, with new railway stations, cycling routes, and bus routes, although the latter are somewhat at the mercy of Stagecoach, so can be ABS and unreliable.

The comment I quoted above is just the sort of head-in-the-sand thing the LTN objectors come up with, as if removing a few planters from LTN schemes is going to magically accommodate an extra 10,000 cars that want to drive around the city. There is absolutely zero recognition from them that people's attitudes to car use will *have* to change to prevent permanent gridlock. I suspect that their anger is partly because deep down they know that things will never be the same again, but that getting angry at a few planters pretends that there is something that can be done to allow them to carry on as before.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

I promise I won't keep on posting comments, but the idiocy on display is quite something...

Why on earth do the councils have this manic obsession with building more houses all the time? The numbers are FAR in excess of what local people and their families need. By their own admission, the population growth will be more than the city (or the county) can cater for. It's as though local and county councillors have been subjected to brainwashing or madness.

So it seems that councils are building houses no-one wants. And they can't cater for them because everyone needs to drive into the centre of town.

Have I got that right?

They should loosen the restrictions so private companies can build them where it makes economic sense.

Councillors are not best placed to know where to build houses.

That's not how the planning system works.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/planning-in-england/#:~:text=The planning system in England is “plan-led”.,land use in their area.

Pross

rick_chasey said:

briantrumpet said:

I promise I won't keep on posting comments, but the idiocy on display is quite something...

Why on earth do the councils have this manic obsession with building more houses all the time? The numbers are FAR in excess of what local people and their families need. By their own admission, the population growth will be more than the city (or the county) can cater for. It's as though local and county councillors have been subjected to brainwashing or madness.

So it seems that councils are building houses no-one wants. And they can't cater for them because everyone needs to drive into the centre of town.

Have I got that right?

They should loosen the restrictions so private companies can build them where it makes economic sense.

Councillors are not best placed to know where to build houses.

Not really, they should just not refuse planning applications that comply with national (and their own) planning policies. The actual policies tend to be quite sensible (although nutrient neutrality regulations are causing a big problem in places).

briantrumpet

As noted ages ago, there are some issues about neighbouring authorities suggesting and allowing massive schemes on Exeter's fringes, where *all* the impact will be on Exeter (Teignbridge's and East Devon's boundaries are less than three miles from the city centre), but Devon (so far) has at least done a passable job of trying to put in place sustainable travel options.

What the reality-deniers can't wrap their heads around is that DCC & ECC are trying to do is to both stop the city centre suffering permanent gridlock *and* to make the lives of people who live there tolerable, and that can only be achieved by car drivers (or at least a decent proportion of them) modifying their habits. They see it as their absolute right to use residential roads as rat-runs when the main roads are busy. Everything must be subservient to their convenience.

First.Aspect

I've only been to Exeter a few times in recent years - to scope out the rowing options down at the Quay, and to visit someone in hospital each evening for a couple of weeks.

For such a small city it seems to have remarkably bad traffic.

briantrumpet

First.Aspect said:

I've only been to Exeter a few times in recent years - to scope out the rowing options down at the Quay, and to visit someone in hospital each evening for a couple of weeks.

For such a small city it seems to have remarkably bad traffic.

It's a victim of its history, Roman & medieval, with radial main roads converging on a small centre and a river with only two main crossings. They 'improved' the road network in the last couple of centuries by demolishing Roman walls, medieval gatehouses and churches, but being surrounded at fairly close quarters by a rural population largely very poorly served by public transport, people out of necessity (in many/most cases) use their cars to get to Exeter (not least, too, because of the lumpy terrain in various directions), and then expect to be able to carry on right into the centre (not entirely unsurprising, given it's only three or four miles from the outskirts to the centre).

It's now a victim of its own success, with its rapid expansion and a public transport system playing catchup.

There's a decent read in this report about the scale of the problem. https://committees.exeter.gov.uk/documents/s45069/Rush hour transport in Exeter.pdf

briantrumpet

BTW, @First.Aspect, the university rowing club is by the outer bypass, and uses the Exeter Ship Canal down to the Double Locks pub.

focuszing723

He'd only be able to see the pub when he goes passed it. I mean what's the point of designing a boat where you can't see where you're going? Now a Kayak, that's proper river transportation that is.

First.Aspect

briantrumpet said:

BTW, @First.Aspect, the university rowing club is by the outer bypass, and uses the Exeter Ship Canal down to the Double Locks pub.

Yes, the city club uses the same stretch from the other end. It seemed a really nice place to have to go to on a Sunday morning. However, we've ended up being closer to Plymouth and it's going to be too far to get to Exeter.

I'm not that distraught to be honest - that canal is fairly narrow and very twisty.