The Big 'Let's sell our cars and take buses/ebikes instead' thread (warning: probably very dull)
Comments
-
Similar articles on the news about Snowdonia including one woman moaning how busy the roads were for her when travelling there and that she got lucky to have the last space in the car park. To be fair I suppose it isn't that unreasonable, these places rely on tourism but are badly served by public transport due to a lack of vision from our country's leaders.
FTFY
If a lot of people want to get somewhere this should be enough of an incentive to create alternative and more sustainable methods of transport. After all, back in the first half of the 20th century hundreds of thousands of people visited these places without using cars so it's obviously not impossible.
0 -
Creating public transport options in rural areas without destroying what makes them attractive in the first place isn't really that simple. I'm not sure hundreds of thousands were visiting the Lakes or Peaks a hundred years ago. Seaside resorts maybe but I don't think the hills of our various National Parks were anywhere near as popular back then.
0 -
FWIW the Peak District is achievable by train
0 -
Was wondering when one of these anti-ULEZ idiots starts dressing up as Batman and calling themselves Driverz4Justice.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Hill walking (and cycling) was very popular between the wars. from https://perrytwinkle.wordpress.com/2022/04/24/a-sing-song-and-a-scrap-attending-the-90-anniversary-of-the-kinder-scout-mass-trespass/
"With regards to Hayfield, a village in the High Peak close to both Manchester and Sheffield, it was reported that 6000 day trippers were visiting the village each weekend by the 1930s. Easter weekend in 1930 was visited by 13,000 people alone."
That would be about 3,000 cars every weekend or 150 buses. Still saying that public transport would make things worse?
0 -
I didn't say public transport would make things worse. Why make such a stupid comment?
0 -
Hayfield used to have a railway station.
0 -
"Creating public transport options in rural areas without destroying what makes them attractive in the first place isn't really that simple"
What other meaning are we supposed to take from this statement?
0 -
"Isn't that simple" is not remotely the same as "making things worse". You've picked one village within easy reach of both Manchester and Sheffield for one weekend of a year back in the days when industrial employers would put on day trips. That's not really the same thing as providing a reliable public transport system for general use. I mean, it's literally part of my job to try to get public transport and active travel links to places that are far more accessible than the Lake District or Snowdonia. I really wish it was as simple as a 'lack of vision'.
0 -
I don’t think industrial employers laid on transport when there was a mass trespass on Kinder Scout which was accessed from Hayfield. They used to catch the train then walk.
0 -
I meant more generally 'back in the day', you'd have things like the miners' fortnight.
The days over 18 million people apparently visit the Lake District each year. That averages out at around 50,000 per day so I would guess at a few hundred thousand on any given day in peak season. Whilst it's a massive area the main road infrastructure would struggle to cope with the amount of buses needed to move that many people around and most would be there to see the narrow, twisty mountain passes or quaint villages that are tricky enough to negotiate when you encounter a couple of camper vans so I'm not sure how they would deal with two way buses every few minutes.
0 -
If you read any books on early exploration of any of the mountain areas of the UK people went on the train then walked. Later the middle and upper classes used cars. As the the working classes started to get involved they hitched hiked then used motor bikes.
0 -
I doubt there were 18 million a year doing it then though.
0 -
True but also there was a railway system that went to these places then. Folk need to start going back to Benidorm and leave the hills to grumpy folk.🤣🤣🤣
1 -
I didn't select one weekend, the article says 6,000 people per weekend. And yes, it is one accessible village, but there are plenty of others around the Peak District, such as Matlock, Bakewell, Chesterfield, Ashbourne, Leek, Macclesfield, Glossop, all of whom would have had walkers visiting to access the hills.
6,000 people on buses take up much less room than 6,000 people in cars. The vision is to get rid of the cars, then it becomes simple.
Numbers are bigger now, but that only makes it even more imperative that a better solution is found, all the traffic jams from last weekend are evidence of that.
0 -
18 million annual visitors is 10 times the number that currently pass through Carlisle railway station in a year. That’s a huge amount of additional infrastructure required to build through an area that’s attraction is natural beauty. There are obviously many improvements that can be made to transport across the whole country it’s just that these areas are probably the most challenging in the country to deal with. I certainly didn’t say it would make things worse but I do think it is more than just a lack of vision that is an issue.
Lack of vision, together with back tracking on policies because a vocal minority moan about cost and ‘war on motorists’ certainly plays a part but technical and environmental issues also have to be considered. You could also argue that having the wrong vision is a major issue, back in the 50s and 60s cars were aspirational and offered freedom to the masses so everything was focussed to making car travel better not realising the negative impact that would have.
1 -
Forgive me cake stop for I have sinned. I rented a car for a week.
0 -
Towards the end of my bike ride today I can across total grid lock going into Beverley East Yorkshire. It turns out they were moving a wind turbine blade on a low loader. The police were doing a rolling road closure. So it seems people were trying all ways to avoid sitting and waiting by using alternative routes but ended up sitting up waiting anyway.
I just wonder given the amount of sitting traffic that there might be less pollution using a coal powered power station than causing grid lock by moving these blades by road.
1 -
No. Happy to help.
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
Wild paragraph in this report about some traffic lights at pedestrian crossings being cut down, on ULEZ: "Only the most modern cars, including electric vehicles, are exempt from the tax."
Not vaguely true, and even if it were, a weird way of saying 95% of cars.
0 -
I'm assuming people think of it as a decriminalised act given the state of policing, but I'm amazed that someone would want to be in prison for that.
0 -
They're probably not even ULEZ cameras most of the time, people seem to mistake the microwave detectors on signal crossing for 'spy cameras' quite regularly so I suspect the same applies with them being mistaken for ULEZ cameras.
0 -
If you're the kind of halfwit who gets all their information from the same Facebook group that regularly mentions Soros and WEF...
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
... or The Telegraph.
0 -
If these clowns put as much effort into paid employment as they do into vandalising ulez infrastructure, they could afford a newer car
0 -
🤨
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Meanwhile Susan Hall thinks that everyone drives a non-ULEZ-compliant car to vote in local elections, and therefore it'll "cost £12.50" to vote. Or at least that's what she wants other people to think. Ironically, that kind of thinking suggests why ULEZs are a good idea.
0 -
I already voted against her, and it didn't cost me £12.50
0 -
Not sure I can bring myself to vote for anyone. Khan will easily win.
0 -
It's a pity that voting seems to be mostly about defeating someone who's either batshit crazy or a party that's comprises incompetent loons, but I view not voting as opening the door for someone who I really don't want in a responsible position... so if I can't vote enthusiastically for someone for a positive reason, I'll vote enthusiastically to stop the crazy loon party gaining power.
0
