Sustainable Transport

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 11:27:51 +0100 someone who may be David Martin
<[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

I thought I'd share this gemn from the Courier letters page..

Sir,‹There seems to be considerable confusion among those who should know
better about Œsustainable transport¹. Sustainable transport has absolutely
nothing to do with going by bus or train. It is the current politically
correct buzz phrase for getting there by walking or on a bike (preferably
coercing someone other than oneself to be doing this).

Perhaps it is time for Scandinavian style neutering of the feeble
minded so they cannot breed:-)

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

On 14/4/05 1:10 pm, in article [email hidden],

David Hansen said:

On Thu, 14 Apr 2005 11:27:51 +0100 someone who may be David Martin
<[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

I thought I'd share this gemn from the Courier letters page..

Sir,‹There seems to be considerable confusion among those who should know
better about Œsustainable transport¹. Sustainable transport has absolutely
nothing to do with going by bus or train. It is the current politically
correct buzz phrase for getting there by walking or on a bike (preferably
coercing someone other than oneself to be doing this).

Perhaps it is time for Scandinavian style neutering of the feeble
minded so they cannot breed:-)

Visions of Brave New World and modifying the ration of Epsilon minus sub
morons for the right balance of intelligence in society.

As long as they keep the soma quota up I'm happy ;-)

...d

In article said:

I thought I'd share this gemn from the Courier letters page..

..d

Sir,‹There seems to be considerable confusion among those who should know
better about Œsustainable transport¹. Sustainable transport has absolutely
nothing to do with going by bus or train. It is the current politically
correct buzz phrase for getting there by walking or on a bike (preferably
coercing someone other than oneself to be doing this).

http://www.theonion.com/auto/news_3643.php
"Report: 98 Percent Of US Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others"

Alan Braggins said:

http://www.theonion.com/auto/news_3643.php
"Report: 98 Percent Of US Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others"

My answer to public transport services is to start by closing the car
park under the Houses of Parliament and all Council office car parks.
Unless and until the people at the top accept that it starts with their
leadership and is not something for others while they are too important....

Tony

Tony Raven composed the following;:

Quoted message said:

Alan Braggins said:

http://www.theonion.com/auto/news_3643.php
"Report: 98 Percent Of US Commuters Favor Public Transportation For
Others"

My answer to public transport services is to start by closing the car
park under the Houses of Parliament and all Council office car parks.
Unless and until the people at the top accept that it starts with their
leadership and is not something for others while they are too
important....

Heheheh, what better way to show that 'the leaders' truly believe what they
say .. 😉

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!

David Martin said:

Visions of Brave New World and modifying the ration of Epsilon
minus sub morons for the right balance of intelligence in society.

As long as they keep the soma quota up I'm happy ;-)

Roof! Roof! Oh, roof!

--
Dave...

Tony Raven said:

Alan Braggins said:

http://www.theonion.com/auto/news_3643.php
"Report: 98 Percent Of US Commuters Favor Public Transportation For
Others"

My answer to public transport services is to start by closing the car
park under the Houses of Parliament and all Council office car parks.
Unless and until the people at the top accept that it starts with their
leadership and is not something for others while they are too important....

I think the deep emotional attachment to cars needs something beyond
even those sort of measures, judging by what I've seen at the government
offices along Stanley Road in Bootle, near Liverpool. There are several
bus services that go along Stanley Road to most areas around there; and
there is a Merseyrail station with a service every 15 minutes in either
direction with links to the large number of local light rail services
for Liverpool, Manchester and many other places, as well as national rail.
http://nrekb.nationalrail.co.uk/downloads/liverpool.pdf

There cannot be many places in the UK where there is such good public
transport provision. Yet there is constant complaint from people who
work there about inadequate car parking; there are numberless tales of
woe about having to drive 35 or 40 miles every day to arrive before 0730
just to be sure of getting a parking place; bitter letters are written
to the staff magazines, local press and the council about the terrible
injustice of only providing a few hundred free car parking spaces; and
so on. The council has for years been trying to follow a "green policy"
of reducing the free car parking and encouraging greater use of
alternatives. Some people could not have been more outraged if the
council had announced a policy of randomly murdering their beloved grannies.

--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap

JLB said:

Tony Raven wrote:
I think the deep emotional attachment to cars needs something beyond
even those sort of measures, judging by what I've seen at the government
offices along Stanley Road in Bootle, near Liverpool.

Same for bus drivers in Edinburgh. Lothian buses have a very large car park
for staff based at their depot in Portobello.

stupot said:

Same for bus drivers in Edinburgh. Lothian buses have a very large
car park for staff based at their depot in Portobello.

There is a slight problem for the driver of the first bus / train of
the day (or indeed, the driver of any bus / train earlier than teh
first combination of busses / trains that passes both th eplace of
residence of said driver and the depot in question).

regards, Ian SMith

On 14 Apr 2005 18:51:06 GMT someone who may be Ian Smith
<[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Same for bus drivers in Edinburgh. Lothian buses have a very large
car park for staff based at their depot in Portobello.

There is a slight problem for the driver of the first bus / train of
the day

There are other means of getting around that do not involve buses,
trains or cars.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

JLB said:

Tony Raven said:

Alan Braggins wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

http://www.theonion.com/auto/news_3643.php
"Report: 98 Percent Of US Commuters Favor Public Transportation For
Others"

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My answer to public transport services is to start by closing the car
park under the Houses of Parliament and all Council office car parks.
Unless and until the people at the top accept that it starts with their
leadership and is not something for others while they are too important....

Quoted message said:

I think the deep emotional attachment to cars needs something beyond
even those sort of measures, judging by what I've seen at the government
offices along Stanley Road in Bootle, near Liverpool.

When my father bought his first motor car I recall being very
surprised to discover that by far its most important use was being
taken every Sunday to be washed outside his mother's house. No, she
lived quite nearby, and it wasn't easier to wash it there. The point
was to let everyone in the street know that her son had a motor car.

Some friends of mine who have lived in the same country place for 25
years recently bought their first car because their old legs needed a
rest. They were startled to discover how many people that they had
thought simply didn't like them started being friendly. Seems that car
ownership was some kind of important social marker distinguishing
social outlaws from People Like Us.

Probably the reason some folk here are willing to consider not having
a car is thinking in a crude simplistic way that cars are for getting
from one place to another. That just happens to be a rather useful
side effect.
--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Chris Malcolm said:

When my father bought his first motor car I recall being very
surprised to discover that by far its most important use was being
taken every Sunday to be washed outside his mother's house. No, she
lived quite nearby, and it wasn't easier to wash it there. The point
was to let everyone in the street know that her son had a motor car.

That's not restricted to cars. As someone who was around when colour
TV's first came out, there was a curious division between houses. If
you looked in the window and saw the back of the TV odds on it was black
& white, but if you saw the screen you could bet it was colour.

Tony

In article <[email hidden]>, Tony Raven

Quoted message said:

That's not restricted to cars. As someone who was around when
colour TV's first came out, there was a curious division between
houses.

My family were very popular 'cos we had one of the first tv's - b & w
and 1953 :-(

--
A T (Sandy) Morton
on the Bicycle Island
In the Global Village
http://www.millport.net

Sandy Morton said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Tony Raven

Quoted message said:

That's not restricted to cars. As someone who was around when
colour TV's first came out, there was a curious division between
houses.

My family were very popular 'cos we had one of the first tv's - b & w
and 1953 :-(

9" screen? And was it one you looked at directly or did it have the
lift up mirror on top of the cabinet?

Tony

In article <[email hidden]>, Tony Raven

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My family were very popular 'cos we had one of the first tv's - b
& w and 1953 :-(

Quoted message said:

9" screen? And was it one you looked at directly or did it have
the lift up mirror on top of the cabinet?

omg - the first one was a direct view crt and we then had the whale
oil magnifier which hung over the front - later replaced by a solid
perspex magnifier

--
A T (Sandy) Morton
on the Bicycle Island
In the Global Village
http://www.millport.net

JLB said:

Tony Raven said:

Alan Braggins said:

http://www.theonion.com/auto/news_3643.php
"Report: 98 Percent Of US Commuters Favor Public Transportation

For

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Others"

My answer to public transport services is to start by closing the

car

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

park under the Houses of Parliament and all Council office car

parks.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Unless and until the people at the top accept that it starts with

their

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

leadership and is not something for others while they are too

important....

Quoted message said:

I think the deep emotional attachment to cars needs something beyond
even those sort of measures, judging by what I've seen at the

government

Quoted message said:

offices along Stanley Road in Bootle, near Liverpool. There are

several

Quoted message said:

bus services that go along Stanley Road to most areas around there;

and

Quoted message said:

there is a Merseyrail station with a service every 15 minutes in

either

Quoted message said:

direction with links to the large number of local light rail services

Quoted message said:

for Liverpool, Manchester and many other places, as well as national

rail.

Quoted message said:

http://nrekb.nationalrail.co.uk/downloads/liverpool.pdf

I've not lived or worked in Bootle, and perhaps my question won't apply
to this area - but are you sure it's a "deep emotional attachment to
cars" that's the issue, and not a "deep emotional [opposite of
attachment] to public transport"?

Public transport is, after all, something that as cyclists we don't
have to put up with - yes yes, I know that's a generalisation and at
times we have all used public transport, etc. However, my experience,
and that of my London and out of London neighbours is that public
transport is not very good and something they don't enjoy taking:
expensive, unreliable, not-door-to-door, wierd timetables, sometimes
unsafe. Really, it's horrible.

You can easily have buses trundling past the office door from many
different direction, trains and trams, even Tube/metro lines, passing
every few minutes but if the service isn't frequent and there isn't a
stop near your house - they aren't much good to you.

As I said, I don't know the area you mention but if the service is
infrequent, then a bus (eg) will likely fill up with people at the
start of the route. If they're all going some distance, then all the
wannabee commuter sees is a procession of busses trundling past that
they can't get on. OTOH you are, however, likely to be able to cram on
a train and play sardines with total strangers.

Neither of those experiences - hanging round a bus stop or being
cattle-trucked - is one I'd want ten times a week for up to an hour at
the start and end of a working day. It's just plain vile. Fortunately I
have an alternative in the bike: other people have made the same
decision I have, to avoid commuter public transport where possible, and
opted for a car/motorbike. I can follow the reasoning even if I didn't
come to the same conclusion, and unfortunately it does make it hard to
condemn their decision.

Probably most people will balance out the depths of the misery and its
duration: an hour in your dry warm car not scrunched up against random
people is always going to win over fortu-five minutes, maybe even half
an hour, of hanging around in cold and/or being crushed by bad-tempered
people. Yes, a bike will give you pleasure instead of misery - but it's
not easy persuading other people of that, and may not be practical for
them, or the terrain. (I like a nice challenging hill as much as the
next person but Pontllanfraith to Cardiff over Caerphilly Mountain (1:4
parts) was not a commute I was going to do on the bike.)

Quoted message said:

There cannot be many places in the UK where there is such good public

Quoted message said:

transport provision.

"Good" public transport provision may be more apparent than real, as I
suggested. I wouldn't call a public transport system good until I'd
commuted on it for a winter and found out what it was really like. (The
Paris Metro is very good.)

Quoted message said:

Yet there is constant complaint from people who
work there about inadequate car parking; there are numberless tales

of

Quoted message said:

woe about having to drive 35 or 40 miles every day to arrive before

0730

Quoted message said:

just to be sure of getting a parking place; bitter letters are

written

Quoted message said:

to the staff magazines, local press and the council about the

terrible

Quoted message said:

injustice of only providing a few hundred free car parking spaces;

and

Quoted message said:

so on. The council has for years been trying to follow a "green

policy"

Quoted message said:

of reducing the free car parking and encouraging greater use of
alternatives. Some people could not have been more outraged if the
council had announced a policy of randomly murdering their beloved

grannies.

I wish the public transport alternatives *were* alternatives in the
real world instead of in the minds of council green teams working
within a culture where they have to tick boxes to make it look like
they are justifying their existence. A publicity scheme, spending
money, or making easy cuts are three classic MOs. Of course, in Bootle
there may genuinely be a wonderful public transport system, and the
council may not be mad box-tickers, I just don't know: if that *is* the
case, and people still prefer to use their cars, then the council is
going to have to look at its policies and swallow some bitter pills
about why nobody loves public transport. Or loves their cars. Or won't
ride their bikes (the fools!)Or about human nature.

Lin

Quoted message said:

--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap

Lin said:

Public transport is, after all, something that as cyclists we don't
have to put up with - yes yes, I know that's a generalisation and at
times we have all used public transport, etc. However, my experience,
and that of my London and out of London neighbours is that public
transport is not very good and something they don't enjoy taking:
expensive, unreliable, not-door-to-door, wierd timetables, sometimes
unsafe. Really, it's horrible.

The biggest problem I have it half empty PT trundling along with seats
packed in so tight that even midgets don't have enough leg room. Why on
earth they can't have legroom on buses that doesn't exclude 95% of the
population is beyond me. Trains are slightly but not much better.

Quoted message said:

I wish the public transport alternatives *were* alternatives in the
real world instead of in the minds of council green teams working
within a culture where they have to tick boxes to make it look like
they are justifying their existence.

Hence my proposal to make the people responsible for PT travel on it
rather than opting out and leaving it for "less important" people while
having no idea what travelling on PT actually means.

Tony

Quoted message said: