Trains...why?

[100%JR]

You think an inner city road with pedestrians, cyclists, children, etc. should be 60 or 70 mph limit? Why do you want roads to be so hostile to people? You'd just spend even longer sitting at traffic lights anyway.
Our cities are unpleasant as it is (noisy, dirty, dangerous) so it'd be madness to make them noisier, dirtier and even more dangerous just so folk like you can live the dream sold to them by car manufacturers.

It's an urban clearway not an inner city road.A major A road linking Sheffield to the M1 of course the speed should be higher!I'm not living any dream sold to me.I need a car simple as that.I like cars.I also like motorcycles.I also like bicycles.I also like walking.When driving I want to get there as quick as humanly possible.You seem to be one of those types who view motor vehicles as the enemy.They're not
You are allowed to Cycle,walk,hike and generally like the outdoors and still like cars.It isn't a Taboo

[kwackers]

You seem to be one of those types who view motor vehicles as the enemy.They're not

Hmmm...

Pollution (rises with speed), time spent in jams, 10's of thousands of people ksi'd per year in this country alone, carving up neighbourhoods, parking issues, encouraging people to live and work miles apart, poor use of resources, global warming, tyre mountains, breathing difficulties, political instability over oil - I'm sure I can think up more.

On the positive side having created a world where they've become a necessity they fill that need pretty well.

[Cyril Haearn]

Kwackers seems to have three-dimensional views about motors, +1

I do not use my motor much, yesterday the battery was flat (not used for four weeks), had to call out International Rescue

[mjr]

Kwackers seems to have three-dimensional views about motors, +1

I do not use my motor much, yesterday the battery was flat (not used for four weeks), had to call out International Rescue

It's trying to punish you for not driving much. Awfully needy these motoring overlords.

I use a solar panel to keep the battery topped up without having to use it. I've never had to attach a solar panel to a train I'm not using.

[RickH]

Thanks goodness for the increasing number of average speed cameras!

They've put them on a couple of very different stretches of roads locally & it has improved them no end.

One is the A765 between Bolton & the M65, a mostly moorland road that used to have regular evidence of vehicles going straight on when the road turned a corner. I've no statistics but there doesn't seem as much collateral damage. And now you drive at, or just below, the speed limit without an "accident waiting to happen" latched onto your rear bumper waiting to storm past (often on solid white lines). It is much more pleasant to cycle on too.

The other is also out of Bolton, the A666 link to the M61/60. That has long been a 50mph road because even though it is a dual carriageway it doesn't have good sight lines. It used to have ordinary speed cameras so you would get at lot of people doing 70-80 & then braking hard for the cameras (when they haven't come over the brow of the hill at speed & ploughed into the back of the queue of slow traffic that they hadn't seen in time). Now it is a lot calmer and traffic flows much better.

If you want to drive fast go to a racetrack session!

[PDQ Mobile]

Why trains?
Because theýre far more energy efficient and less polluting.
Most especially electric one's.

[Cyril Haearn]

What would happen if all train travellers downgraded to bus travel or car travel?

[kwackers]

What would happen if all train travellers downgraded to bus travel or car travel?

According to this only 2% of journeys are by train (8% by distance) so possibly not a lot (although we shouldn't underestimate how much effect a small change can have on an overcrowded network.

[PH]

I often think others must have far more interesting lives than me, if getting somewhere half an hour earlier is so desirable. But then they always seem in an equal rush to leave and travel get back to the place they started, so maybe not.

[Cyril Haearn]

What would happen if all train travellers downgraded to bus travel or car travel?

According to this only 2% of journeys are by train (8% by distance) so possibly not a lot (although we shouldn't underestimate how much effect a small change can have on an overcrowded network.

At Waterloo dozens of trains, each with hundreds of passengers, arrive each hour
Might be different if each travelled singly by car or cycle

[kwackers]

I often think others must have far more interesting lives than me, if getting somewhere half an hour earlier is so desirable. But then they always seem in an equal rush to leave and travel get back to the place they started, so maybe not.

Given how often the motorways around me are stationary due to folk rushing I can't help but think that perhaps a bit less rush might actually save them some time.

I often think that when I see someone do something stupid to save a few tenths of a second. You'd need to that several times a day for several lifetimes before you'd make up the time that just one minor accident will cost you - and given the behaviour often means an accident is a question of when rather than if then it seems a bit counter-intuitive.

[reohn2]

I often think others must have far more interesting lives than me, if getting somewhere half an hour earlier is so desirable. But then they always seem in an equal rush to leave and travel get back to the place they started, so maybe not.

I see this attitude on a regular basis as cars jump from lane to lane in slow moving traffic on our heavily congested motorways as the hope to gain a few hundred metres
I also am constantly at the but end of it when Mr(s) Gitinansuv skims past my elbow as s/he overtakes me in the face of oncoming traffic(5 times on Saturday afternoon,one causing the oncoming carmto perform an ES),these people must be very important indeed as to have so little time to get somewhere a couple of minutes sooner

[reohn2]

I often think others must have far more interesting lives than me, if getting somewhere half an hour earlier is so desirable. But then they always seem in an equal rush to leave and travel get back to the place they started, so maybe not.

Given how often the motorways around me are stationary due to folk rushing I can't help but think that perhaps a bit less rush might actually save them some time.

I often think that when I see someone do something stupid to save a few tenths of a second. You'd need to that several times a day for several lifetimes before you'd make up the time that just one minor accident will cost you - and given the behaviour often means an accident is a question of when rather than if then it seems a bit counter-intuitive.

Spot on!
My thoughts exactly,but when you own a stupidly fast car it must be awefully galling to be stuck in traffic with the other plebian vehicle drivers

[mjr]

What would happen if all train travellers downgraded to bus travel or car travel?

According to this only 2% of journeys are by train (8% by distance) so possibly not a lot (although we shouldn't underestimate how much effect a small change can have on an overcrowded network.

At Waterloo dozens of trains, each with hundreds of passengers, arrive each hour
Might be different if each travelled singly by car or cycle

Not so bad by cycle (far more space-efficient than cars, especially through junctions) but still an effect, yes.

The other reason why no trains would really mess things up is that trains tend to be a big contribution to travel around certain "hub" places, so rail might only be 2% of GB journeys, but it's 23% of all London journey stages (source: Travel in London Report 9) and 82% between outer and central London - and I strongly suspect that if outer London had five times as many cars on the roads, the knock-on congestion would ripple a very long way out into south-east England.

[mjr]

I often think others must have far more interesting lives than me, if getting somewhere half an hour earlier is so desirable. But then they always seem in an equal rush to leave and travel get back to the place they started, so maybe not.

I see this attitude on a regular basis as cars jump from lane to lane in slow moving traffic on our heavily congested motorways as the hope to gain a few hundred metres

Yeah, but the people who really get hurt are the other drivers a few cars back, as people touch their brakes to re-establish their stopping distance behind the lane-jumper, then those behind them push their brakes and so starts a so-called phantom jam - which isn't really a phantom because it's the lane-jumper who caused it.
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