Absolutely. We need to stop school consolidation & restore or replace schools that have been lost due to consolidation, with criteria established, based upon minimising distances to schools, number of children living in, and expected to live in an area, cost & logistics of transporting them to schools, etc.Bmblbzzz wrote: ↑24 Aug 2022, 11:00am Those things are all good but while they make active travel easier and more attractive, and might make driving less attractive, I think long term and, yes, in the 'big picture' it's necessary for us to address the need to travel. We need to look at things like siting of schools and employment, not to mention accessibility of housing (accessibility in the physical sense but primarily in the financial and administrative sense).
The same goes with shopping and services. Bring back the village green grocer & chippy, restore GP surgeries, local hospitals & clinics, etc.
Obviously, they have to weigh the cost & convenience of travel against the needs of local residents. It might make some sense to ask people in a population centre to travel 30 - 60 minutes for an MRI, for example, but not for an x-ray. And if people are asked to travel, then the transport should be provided & the travel should not be excessive.
Initially, some commercial enterprises would probably need incentives, but once local mobility is firmly in place, they should be commercially viable.