mjr wrote:Mike Sales wrote:mjr wrote:Yes, but hopefully horizon has done this or seen something written by someone who has to make such a statement with so much certainty.
Isn't it obvious that those too poor to afford a car will have to travel by bus?
No. Isn't it obvious that those people may have bought a car before they became poor (and maybe they became poor because of the high costs of car operation) or may hire cars, belong to a car club or borrow a car from friends or family?
MikeF wrote:gaz wrote:horizon wrote:I recently stayed in Hackney which AFAIK (no facts checked here either!) has the lowest car ownership in the UK.
If you want to check the facts here's a
link to 2011 Census figures for % of households with access to a car/van by electoral ward.
Seems to confirm a statement that those that live in towns or cities pollute less than those that live elsewhere.
The link (in the quote above) would seem to indicate that car ownership has more to do with where people live. Some of the wealthiest areas in the country, e.g. central Cambridge, central London, have the lowest levels of car ownership , while rural areas, e.g. in the South West or Wales, have some of the highest levels of car ownership.
Living in a town or city, you complain if the bus service is less frequent than once every 15 minutes. In many smaller towns, your are lucky to have a bus once every 2 hours, and the first bus is too late for a job starting before 9am, or too late for one finishing after 5.30pm (so, no good for most jobs one end or the other). Many villages have no bus service. (And looking at a map of bus routes can be very deceptive, as some of these routes are not even daily, but just weekly).
If you are better off, you can afford a new car that meets the latest emission standards, so avoid paying emission based charges, or benefit from lower road tax. While the poorest can only afford older cars that have higher tax. Very often increasing taxes or charges on older cars so as to reduce pollution has no adverse effect on wealthier people, as they would be buying new a new car anyway. But it does cost the poorest who usually have the oldest cars. Tighter standards can suddenly make what was a functional car no more than a pile of scrap metal, which you have to pay to get ride of!
