A nice little earner for Tone?

Your horrible tube experience reminded me of watching an old episode of "Fools & Horses" recently where Del is taking a beating in Rodder's name for a little indiscretion he had with a violent criminal's enstranged Missus. A copper walking by (Gregor Fisher/ Rab C.Nessbitt) decdes it lookes like a nasty punch up to get involved with, and scarpered sharpish, at which we all laughed on many occassion afterwards too. Althgough high comedy the essence of this action makes one wonder how often the blind eye is really turned, innit ?


Fritz Von Dodgy Geezers everywhere

During the scuffle, chase and apprehension of the nutter by a passing (off duty) transport policeman, everybody seemed to be looking the other way - thanks a lot folks! When he was arrested and awaiting the white van, they were queuing up to give statements.

You can't blame them - but I WOULDN'T have done the same.

quote:

Originally posted by AndyFelin:
The return price to go from Exeter to London (I know it's in Devon, but I'm using it as an example) is £43.70, cheaper if you book in advance. Whether you consider battling down the M4 and then trying to find (and paying for) a parking space in town to be preferable than the train is surely debateable.

I live in Exeter, and HAVE to use the train. Compared to the times I've been on the M5/4, it's been FAR easier. Anyone who wants to battle the hassle of the large traffic jams at Bristol, and the hassle of parking in London, needs a holiday in the padded room.

As for driving being a basic human right - great! Who's gonna donate me their eyes so I can partake in this right too - or are you lot willing to increase your taxes so the state can pay for my chauffer?

Thought not.

MY human rights include fresh air, being able to walk somewhere without having to wait 30 seconds to cross a road, and being able to look out my front window without having my view obscured by some (likely untaxed and uninsured) POS tin can on wheels. The cats in the local area have the right to be able to cross the road without being run over by some tosser in a 4x4 too.

This constant bickering about car costs - think yourselves lucky you CAN drive. The amount of damage caused to the world as it is is terminal, but just keep on piling on the gas guzzlers and school runs - I don't mind dying of asphyxia.

quote:

Originally posted by HTK:
So assuming you can find a space wide enough to park it, you can stick public transport in a convienient repository and I’ll stick to a mode of transport that works – until such time as we get an infrastructure that actually allows us to go about our business unhindered.

You can thank Beeching and Thatcher for that state of affairs.

Oh god yeah! I guess as time marches on less people will remember (through old age and not being alive at the time) just how bloody awful the 80s were and how much rape and pillage took place. I'm too young for Beeching though. I can just about remember steam locomotives and seemingly going everywhere by public transport - even though we allways had a car parked on the drive. Much as I love my car, I would be very happy to use it less.

quote:

Originally posted by J.N.:
It's a democracy. A huge majority want to be able to drive - just build the bloody roads!

Sadly it's never that simple is it, John?

Building "the bloody roads" usually takes (bloody) years, causes much environmental blight, and sucks up a lot of the investment that could have been going into other forms of transport.

I'm a great believer that public transport, in particular the railways, could be a thoroughly worthwhile alternative to the car, if only someone had the nous and the vision to invest in it properly.

Unfortunately new railways, like roads, take years to build, too long in today's political climate for the government of the day to reap any worthwhile (electoral) dividends. Hence policies like this with which we are now faced. Instant money-grabbers which serve only to raise further resentment from all sides. Assuming the technology works, and I don't believe we are anywhere near this point...yet, the government will get its extra tax alright, but the fundamental problems with our transport system will still be ignored.

And let's not forget one salient fact that the road-builders and car-apologists consistently overlook...more roads mean more cars to fill them. Witness the M25 - it's already having to be widened. How long before they make the M1 4-lanes per carriageway on almost its entire length? Where will it all end?

Cheers,

Jon

Bloody good point Jon. And the bloody M25 is a bloody good illustration. I don't think we'll ever get back what we've bloody lost. Once the infrastructure's torn down we're all bloody fucked.

So to speak.

OK - yeah I know the argument about more roads = more cars, but it's gotta help.

This is one of the areas where the Americans have got it right - they continue to build proper roads where necessary. Governments should also be spending serious money on developing alternative power sources to reduce dangerous emissions for the personal transport that most of us want.

I don't like public transport and wouldn't use it, if it was free.

John.

John (and Harry),

If you prefer to drive to the exclusion of all else then that's of course entirely up to you, but do you really think the key to safe, hassle-free and jam-free motoring all day every day is actually to build more roads?

Unfortunately the decline of our public transport systems and infrastructure in this country has been so keenly felt, and so long-running - the Beeching cuts were in the early 60s of course and that was just the start (!) - that IMO it has caused a cultural shift in this country as exemplified, I'm afraid, by your exhortations to just build more roads. In other words, forget the public transport system, it's f**ked beyond measure and there's nothing we can do, let's concentrate on driving everywhere instead.

Unfortunately shifting the national mind-set back in favour of public transport is probably going to take even longer than it would take to, say, re-build the East Coast Main Line, or to build myriad new roads.

Cheers,

Jon

No Jon I don't prefer to drive to the exclusion of all else. When I lived in SW9 and worked in WC1 I took the tube, then the bus. When I lived in Kent and worked in WC1 I took the train (and got a lot of work done). Nowadays I DO use the car exclusively - can you guess why? It's that infrastructure lark again - or lack of it.

John - try queuing for LA in the rush hour. At least while you sit stationary for two hours you can relish that giant pall of smog you're going to drive into. Getting from Central park to downtown in NY by car can be pretty pointless too. The Americans haven't got it right. And as Jon points out, building more roads generally does tend to just increase the volume of traffic using them - M25 being the classic example. However, one thing you can say about the Evil Rune is that it's infinitely better than trying to cross London (as many of us pre M25 babies will remember only too well).

So when you build a new/wider road only to watch it fill up with even more vehicles, where have all those cars come FROM? That's where I want to be.

My apologies, Harry, I lumped you in with John but your positions aren't quite the same. If I understand it correctly he prefers to drive to the exclusion all else...you OTOH appear to feel forced into it by your experiences on public transport - and I must admit that after your reading about your experience of being attacked with a knife at Warren Street station at the height of the rush housr I don't blame you!

However, my point is this:- just suppose we had a public transport system that was a clear and unequivocal improvement on our current state of affairs, a pleasure to use and a source of national pride...like Switzerland, say? It's a fanciful scenario I admit, but just imagine...do you really think the roads would be as busy and clogged up and as frustrating to use as they are now?

Cheers,

Jon

quote:

more roads mean more cars to fill them.

This snippet of bollocks has been the undriving force behind the government's untrasnsport policy ever since Norman Lamont pissed the road building budget up the wall attempting to keep sterling in the Exchange Rate Mechanism back in 1992.

I'd like you to close your eyes and just imagine what it would be like to get across London now if they closed the M25...

Traffic levels grow by around 1% per year and this will continue until we reach a point at which they level off, probably in about twenty years. This is not caused by road building, it is caused by more people passing their driving tests and acquiring their own cars against a lack of any alternative form of transport.

If we build roads slowly and belatedly we simply play catch-up with demand. If we don't build roads at all then traffic levels increase nevertheless along with increased congestion and even more pollution.

The phenomenon of "more roads mean more cars to fill them" stems from the way enterprise (business/retail parks etc) tends to (re)locate alongside the new roads, bringing traffic with it. Quite often, this is in part how such new roads are funded.

quote:

However, my point is this:- just suppose we had a public transport system that was a clear and unequivocal improvement on our current state of affairs, a pleasure to use and a source of national pride...like Switzerland, say? It's a fanciful scenario I admit, but just imagine...do you really think the roads would be as busy and clogged up and as frustrating to use as they are now?

Hear hear!

Our government should not be in the business of forcing us off the roads but instead giving us a public transport system we could be proud to use. There would then be less traffic on our roads.

I guess our Tone with his authoritarian bent prefers using sticks to carrots because that's how he and his cronies get their jollies.

I can't remember if I mentioned the fact or not some two weeks ago when I started a thread on this subject, that the proposed money earner has actually been tried (on smaller scale) in both the States and Australia, innit ?

Fritz Von Late as always

quote:

Originally posted by JonR:

However, my point is this:- just suppose we had a public transport system that was a clear and unequivocal improvement on our current state of affairs, a pleasure to use and a source of national pride...like Switzerland, say? It's a fanciful scenario I admit, but just imagine...do you really think the roads would be as busy and clogged up and as frustrating to use as they are now?

Cheers,

Jon

Switzerland is a good example Jon. I would also cite Holland and Belgium from personal experience. The trains are a pleasure to use and preferable to driving if it can be avoided (not always possible). From time to time I have to chug round my European clients – a kind of grand tour, and travelling is hassle free, relatively cost effective, comfortable and just about everything it is not here.

My brief brush with danger hasn’t put me off public transport but it has kept me off the London Underground. And I freely admit to loving my car and enjoying driving – which is just as well. In the past two and a half weeks I’ve done two way trips (some repeated) to Reading, Slough, Hammersmith, Nottingham, Coventry, Manchester and Gatwick with an overnight at the Meridian – which featured in another recent thread – I might have been there the same day as Steve. Spooky.

With equipment, paperwork and sometimes luggage to cart about I can’t begin to describe how painless it was to be able to just throw it all in the boot and waft in comfort, door to door. And it probably cost a fraction of public transport and certainly took less time – even factoring in getting stuck on the M4 on two successive days last week. So I’m a sinner – but in defence by necessity. I can’t get to anywhere from anywhere on busses & trains – it takes too long and costs too much (assuming it’s even physically possible) – unless I get on a plane first. Stupid really.

I think it’s too far gone in the UK and TBH I can’t remember a time when it was that good anyway. Could be I’m not old enough. I think that’s enough rambling from me…

Oh and to answer your question quoted above, no.

We try to use public transport when we can..........

My wifes' train into Coventry no longer stops at our local, walkable station. This has caused absolute chaos.

There is little parking at the alternative station, nor is there a bus service direct to it, so I now have had to purchase another car so my wife can get to the station early enough!

So much for integrated transport systems.

Regards

Guy

Public transport is a joke. Unless this government comprises the dumbest of the dumb, to dress up charging for miles undertaken as a means of reducing congestion is a nonsense. It is tax pure and simple.

If this government seriously intends to reduce congestion then it has to deliver a public transport system that works. And quite frankly I do not see that happening - the cost will be truly astronomical.

Quite.

Meanwhile they are working out how to make the roads system even more of a cash cow than it is already. Hiking fuel prices causes civil unrest. Road pricing will enable them to keep track of people's movements so they can stop civil unrest in its tracks...

The good news is that there is no way they can get the system up and running before the next General Election. Hopefully by then the Tories will have got their act together.

quote:

So much for integrated transport systems.

this is not just an English problem. My local Sydney station used to have loads of street parking. Then the NIMBYs stepped in and complained that they didn't like seeing all those cars parked outside their houses, so up popped all the "1 hour parking" signs. No doubt all the people who used to park there now drive to work. Brilliant.

Tashkent's murder too John

Living in London I use the public transport system most days. The infrastructure is awesome if you think about it. The number of people who are transported into and out of London daily is huge. But the service is aweful. There are ridiculous numbers of delays, I can normally expect that either into or out of work there will be some form of delay and probably once a week a signifcant delay. I am not a great fan of governent intervention but I would suggest that some of the huge amount of tax revenue generated in London and by us suckers who work there could actually be used to make the tube system work better (ok I realise this is happening a littl ebit now but it is bloody slow), I would not begrudge paying so much tax if I knew it meant my commute was not so unpleasent.

And could they please get rid of the term Good Service and replace it with Normal Service, we are not stupid!

Matthew

?

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:

Hopefully by then the Tories will have got their act together.

Make a meaningful sentence using the following words:

fryingpan, fire & disaster

quote:

Originally posted by London Lad:
What car do you drive Stephen ?

Sorry London, missed this . Toyota MR2 mk 3 - but my bike is my 'first vehicle'

Regards

Stephen

quote:

Originally posted by Nime:

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:

Hopefully by then the Tories will have got their act together.

Make a meaningful sentence using the following words:

fryingpan, fire & disaster

Aye, t'is true. Rail privatisation - case closed.