Are there just too many cars on the road today?

[genome]

I would agree largely with the OP. There are too many cars our streets, and Britain is unfortunately dominated by them. For this, I squarely aim the blame at the Government, in particular local councils and their developers. For some inexplicable reason the bus services of most of the UK are provided by uninspired monopolies.

In Basingstoke, Stagecoach owns the towns public transport and does a pitiful job: they charge £2.60 for a 2 mile journey; rarely stick to their schedule; have lamentable hours of operation; and refuse to serve several parts of the town (often the poorer parts where public transport is vital) particularly on weekends. Basingstoke is a sprawled development designed for cars to the extent that many pedestrian paths to the town centre are intersected by high speed roundabouts where cars usually do 40+mph. In addition, many of the houses are based on long straight, or long curved estates which promotes speeding, so it is not feasible or safe to walk around.

This is a place, where the Taxi drivers are used to regular business from some of the towns poorest citizens who either need them to get to town for shopping at weekends (pram and all), or to get to work at awkward times of the day e.g. going to or returning from a night-shift. All this because inept and apathetic members of the council could not care less about the well-being of it's citizens, and because Stagecoach view public service as optional.

Therefore I am not surprised that the residents of Basingstoke would aspire to own cars, since in this place the car equals freedom.

[gilesjuk]

Milton Keynes is another example. If you don't drive there then you'll struggle to get around.

A guy I worked with caught taxis to work and back as he didn't drive.

You can cycle of course, but with many of the roads are 50 or 70MPH.

[drossall]

[quote="Si"It's all relative...[/quote]

+1. There are too many cars, but people thought that decades ago.

Nevertheless, living here in the commuter belt, there are loads of quiet roads and getting to work isn't difficult. Let's recognise the positives!

[johncharles]

I will give up my car when the public transport can get me to and from my place of work in a reasonable time and within the time limits I require.
At the moment it means me leaving my house at 06.00 to walk about a mile (which is ok distance wise for a walk). The bus then takes 45 mins to the city centre then I get another to get to my place of work where I eventually arrive at approx 08.00.
After work I then repeat the journey arriving home at approx 19.00. If I miss the 17.40 bus I then have to wait till 18.40 for the last bus home.
For this I pay £40.00 per week and am out of the house for about 13 hours a day.

For those who say change jobs or move house I just say get real as the choice is not always there.

Oh and horror or horrors my wife has her own car and works 16 miles in the opposite direction and the public transport for her is even worse.

[gilesjuk]

I will give up my car when the public transport can get me to and from my place of work in a reasonable time and within the time limits I require.

Indeed, life is too short to waste it on buses. At least when you cycle you get exercise.

Have a go with this, it's comical how bad public transport can be:

http://www.transportdirect.info/Web2/Home.aspx

My results:

1 Bus, Walk 1hour, 10 mins
2 Bus, Walk 1hour, 33 mins
3 Bus, Train, Walk 1hour, 39 mins
4 Bus, Walk 1hour, 18 mins
5 Car 30 mins / 16.7miles

Car distance is way over the top, it's about 13 miles and 20-30 mins is accurate.

I can cycle to work in about 55 minutes. So who in their right mind would go on the bus?

[northstar]

I will give up my car when the public transport can get me to and from my place of work in a reasonable time and within the time limits I require.

Has it ever crossed your mind that if there was less cars on the roads, the buses wouldn't get held up?

I'm just putting it out there.

[Si]

I will give up my car when the public transport can get me to and from my place of work in a reasonable time and within the time limits I require.

Has it ever crossed your mind that if there was less cars on the roads, the buses wouldn't get held up?

What you say is very true. However, the problem suffered by some (many?) is that there just aren't any buses to start with.

The obvious answer is that they should move to somewhere near work or where there is good PT to work. But this raises more problems - many people live where they do because that's what they can afford, many households have more than one bread winner - what if these people work in totally different areas, and finding work near where you live isn't always easy, especially in the current climate.

It's a difficult problem to solve....the use of cars means that PT is neglected, and people won't give up cars is PT is rubbish or none existent. If only a few people swap over then there is no incentive for PT to improve. And the masses won't swop until it does.

[northstar]

What you say is very true. However, the problem suffered by some (many?) is that there just aren't any buses to start with.

That depends where you live, in London there is little need for a car.

[Si]

What you say is very true. However, the problem suffered by some (many?) is that there just aren't any buses to start with.

That depends where you live, in London there is little need for a car.

Fortunately most of us don't

[johncharles]

I will give up my car when the public transport can get me to and from my place of work in a reasonable time and within the time limits I require.

Has it ever crossed your mind that if there was less cars on the roads, the buses wouldn't get held up?

I'm just putting it out there.

No

Using the link given by gilesjuk my morning journeys are as follows

Walk, 2 trains,1 bus,walk 2 hrs 27 mins

Walk,2 buses,Walk 1 hr 42 mins

Car 34 mins

21 miles

Repeat journeys in the evening.

[northstar]

What you say is very true. However, the problem suffered by some (many?) is that there just aren't any buses to start with.

That depends where you live, in London there is little need for a car.

Fortunately most of us don't

You don't know what you are missing out, London is one unique city

[johncharles]

The world can only support one London

[AndyK]

Portsmouth has the highest population density of anywhere in the UK? Wow. I would never have guessed at Portsmouth. I would have plumped for somwhere in London with lots of high rose development. (Its a few years since I visited Portsmouth so excuse my ignorance if recently there has been lots of building!)
grw

Just to set the record straight, in the ONS population density report of 2003, Greater London just pips Portsmouth to the post with 4,679 people per square km, as opposed to Pompey's 4,671. Some individual London boroughs are much higher (e.g. Ken & Chelsea at 13,609!). Outside of London, though, Portsmouth and Southampton (4,438) easily have the densest population in the country. [Insert 'dense population' joke here.] Up north, only Blackpool breaks the 4,000 mark.

[Tonyf33]

Letchworth where I live is undergoing a refurb in the town centre to increase footfall & revenue for the heritage foundation (an alledged charitable organisation!) whom own most of the land/buildings in the town centre. They've increased the amount of car parking in the town centre considerably and will be building more shops. Seems no thought has gone into the increase in congestion(which is already a problem for such a small town) or the environmental impact. They told me that were providing 'Bespoke'/safe cycle parking, this now appears to be polished stainless steel sheffield stands in groups of 3 in 6 locations in the town centre, which will replace the existing steel sheffield stands albeit with blue paint on them. So no 'bespoke' parking, nor any added security & certainly no incentive for potential Garden City residents to cycle into the town centre.
Time & time again councils or those in charge take little or no action to encourage people to get into towns or cities other than by car, as has been said buses can be expensive & unreliable with little control over what areas they cover, at a time when public money is been thrown at big corporations to keep their execs in bonuses even a pitiful % point of that could provide all sorts of safer facilities to increase cycling as a whole.
makes me so mad

[thirdcrank]

I'm not sure that population density has much effect compared with the extent to which people travel. In the days when levels of motor car ownership were lower, say 60 years ago, people tended to work nearer home (we lived over the shop) and travel less as part of their work and often lived a lot closer together than they do today. Sixty years before that, when local public transport was limited, they tended to live even closer together and lived even nearer to their work. The relatively cheap availabilty of personal transport means that people can live miles from work - my next-door neighbour commutes several times a week from Leeds to Shrewsbury - and further as part of the job. Same neighbour drives 100,000+ miles every three years between changes of company car. He obviously needs a car to do that as do so many others in that sort of position, but do they need to do it at all?