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Post by silverdragon on Feb 1, 2015 10:27:34 GMT
Reducing Car ownership will make public transport better.
I predict chaos.
This is being bandied about all over the pace in many forms, from making the test harder to attain, to outright banning of vehicles to either a group of people, or places.
Banning the poor from owning a car... this is one that was voiced, banning Unemployed people from car ownership....
Yeah, that one works, like it stops them from going places for Job interviews, it also prevents them from getting a job where owning a car is necessary.. places with no transport links etc.
Didnt think THAT one through did you?...
Not all of us live on a regular more than one a day bus route.
Plus unemployed people dont drive around in rush-hour traffic...
They wait until the rush is over before they go out.
Just how reliant are we on personal transport.
How to test?...
Quite simple, take a group of average people and ask them to surrender their vehicles for a month.....
For those with ZERO transport links, that wont work, of course, but that must be counted as a fail anyway.
Any who are absolutely dependant on the vehicle for Work, must be allowed Work related journeys, but it also counts as a fail if they cant find alternative transport.
At the end of the month, see how many people rush to their cars....
Then get them to answer how it affected them.
The test must be to count how many can survive without the car.
You cannot deny people use of the car where no other transport is available...
How MUCH they can survive is also data that can be used.
Someone who is Work reliant but can do the weekly shop and can also socialise without the car is valuable data.
Those who have to shop locally at greater expense than doing a supermarket by car, its valuable data as to how much the car saves them on weekly spend.
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Post by the light works on Feb 2, 2015 12:00:42 GMT
making public transport better will reduce use of personal cars...
the US (apart from selected urban areas) and Europe have completely different cultures when it comes to cars. the idea that there would be less than one car per licensed driver is, in the US, a sign of poverty. only the most urban of people don't have a car at all.
I think a great test would be to go to various cities, and have an expert tester shadow a selected individual for a week - and then see if they could accomplish their routine more efficiently using public transport.
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Post by GTCGreg on Feb 2, 2015 14:24:59 GMT
making public transport better will reduce use of personal cars... Exactly. Forcing people to use a service will NOT make that service better. A few examples: IRS, DMV offices, VA Administration. And a more recent example, Health Care. |
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Post by silverdragon on Feb 3, 2015 8:30:30 GMT
So the myth that reducing car ownership is "better" is just that... a Myth.
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Post by GTCGreg on Feb 3, 2015 15:04:41 GMT
So the myth that reducing car ownership is "better" is just that... a Myth. Better than what? Better for the environment? Maybe. Better for reducing traffic jams? Probably. Better for safety? Well, at least for those still driving. We could discuss all that if you like, but your original myth was that reducing car ownership would make public transportation better. So that's what we were discussing. |
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Post by the light works on Feb 3, 2015 15:16:25 GMT
So the myth that reducing car ownership is "better" is just that... a Myth. as I said of a particular tax hound in Oregon; you don't make the car run more efficiently by only putting in half a tank of gas. |
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Post by silverdragon on Feb 4, 2015 8:38:44 GMT
Better for public transport as you will create a need for more public transport.
That is what I still mean by "Better"...
And as stated, I predict chaos.
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Post by Cybermortis on Feb 4, 2015 13:13:24 GMT
Better for public transport as you will create a need for more public transport. That is what I still mean by "Better"... And as stated, I predict chaos. I'd say the opposite is true. Good, reliable and cheap public transport to major towns and cities* (or other places with large numbers of workers) will pull in users. Manchester's Metrolink system** showed this, and naturally proved so popular successive government's have done their best to stop it spreading as there were fewer cars on the roads and less taxes taken in. Trying to force people onto public transport only works if the transport is there in the first place. Something that is painfully apparent in London. More usually such attempts are little more than excuses to raise additional funds from drivers. If you want people to get out of their cars it is easier and better to give them something cheaper and more convenient to entice them out than it is to try and force them out when they don't have any practical alternatives. Of course that would require government investment, what would basically be a nationally run and planned transport system and several years to put into effect. Politicians don't think that far ahead, hate national run companies because they can't give kickbacks to potential future employers of theirs and don't like spending money unless it is to their friends companies. (*Cost's here are not just in owning and maintaining a vehicle, but also in parking it. When you add in parking costs for major cities public transport works out as being a LOT cheaper even without season passes.) (**For those who don't know this is a tram system build in Manchester, England, in the 1990's using the existing rail lines and rail stations. The original line ran from South Manchester to North Manchester passing through the city center. Connecting to the bus station and Manchester's two main rail stations (which in turn connected to Manchester Airport) and stopping outside the city library and the 'G-Mex' center (used for exhibitions and concerts). This was later expanded to the Media city area near Manchester, which is where a huge chunk of TV is produced in the UK. Travel time between the two ends of this route is roughly the same as going by car outside rush hour; Although that is with missing out the city center.) |
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Post by ironhold on Feb 4, 2015 20:36:57 GMT
Some time back, someone proposed expanding the area's public bus service so that we would have buses run between the town I live in and its county seat, Gatesville, which is 25 miles to the north. Presumably, the bus would also stop in Pidcoke, a small town about halfway in between.
A week or so back, however, word came that the proposal had been quashed.
Gatesville is home to several prison facilities, and so a lot of the people who commute between Cove here and Gatesville are prison staff. These individuals need to drive their own vehicles so that they can work the often-irregular schedules that the job entails and so that they have a secure place to store personal effects.
Without the prison staff in the hypothetical rider pool, there just weren't enough people routinely making the trip for the route to be profitable.
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Post by silverdragon on Feb 5, 2015 7:50:41 GMT
And that is the problem.
Since de-regulisation, the bus industry in Manchester has been chaos, routes are not "Permanent", and since bus routes can change overnight, be re-scheduled, changed, cancelled even, what surety have you got that you can get to work, and continue to get there, six moths from now.
None.
Its not reliable.
At the moment, the new tram system is in chaos, due to an "Incident" in Ashton...
I dont know the details, but since they built it, there has been a number of incidents where cars have driven onto the Tram lanes, and followed them, which is OK so far as long as the lines are in the road, but when they revert back to being a tain line, the cars get grounded on the lines....
The Tram system is still being expanded to this day.
The Bus "priority" scheme in the west side of Manchester is in chaos, daily tailbacks and delays, they are doing this to "prove" that we have too much traffic?..
They are building a "Guided bus way", defectively stealing a whole lane away from other transport who desperately need that major artery route in and out of Manchester.
So that is an improvement is it?
Meanwhile, in Liverpool, the scrapping of Bus lanes proved so effective that they may extend the trial period to permanent.
Or as is rumoured, since we told them to (beep) off with Congestion charge once, they are going to try it AGAIN...
Will the public vote change?...
Or will we chase them out of town with large implements for daring to try that trick again?...
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