Congestion Charge

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> "Gonzalez" == Gonzalez <[email hidden]> writes:

Gonzalez> Would London's Mayor be better advised into putting money raised from the Congestion
Gonzalez> Charge into enhanced provision for cyclists than London's already excellent public
Gonzalez> transport system? -- remove remove to reply

If London has an excellent public transport system, can you tell me how I get to use it? The only
one I can find is overcrowded, dirty, overpriced, expensive, noisy, and stops running too early in
the evening to be of any real use.

AndyC

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Andy Cunningham aka
AndyC the WB | andy -at- cunningham.me.uk |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| cunningham.me.ukrangieOpen ↗ - Everything you wanted to know | about the P38A Range Rover
| but were afraid to ask. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>>> "Gonzalez" == Gonzalez <[email hidden]> writes:

Gonzalez> Would London's Mayor be better advised into putting money raised from the Congestion
Gonzalez> Charge into enhanced provision for cyclists than London's already excellent public
Gonzalez> transport system? -- remove remove to reply

If London has an excellent public transport system, can you tell me how I get to use it? The only
one I can find is overcrowded, dirty, overpriced, expensive, noisy, and stops running too early in
the evening to be of any real use.

Could you be more specific, please.
--
remove remove to reply

In article said:

If they had not forseen the possibility that a local government nutter like Madlad Livingstone
would seize the opportunity to do such vindictive damage, they have no business being in
government.

So you don't believe in democracy, then? Livingstone had rather a larger percentage majority than
most recent governments. And it seems that the majority of Londoners agree with the congestion
charge. But I doubt you live in London anyway.

--
*Confession is good for the soul, but bad for your career.

Dave Plowman [email hidden] London SW 12 RIP Acorn

Quoted message said:

My personal experiences of commuting to London from home which was 5 miles from the station went
something like this:

10 minutes waiting for bus, 35 minutes on the bus, 10 minutes waiting for the train, 40 minutes
standing on the train, 20 minutes standing on the tube, 15 minute walk. 2 hours 10 minutes. Cost
~35 quid. I could usually knock 15 to 20 minutes off by driving to the station and paying 12
quid to park.

How about this?

5 mile cycle to the station - 20 minutes. Waiting for the train - 10 minutes On the train - 40
minutes 5 mile? cycle to work - 20 minutes

Total 1 hour 30 minutes.
--
remove remove to reply

In article said:

My personal experiences of commuting to London from home which was 5 miles from the station went
something like this:

Quoted message said:

10 minutes waiting for bus, 35 minutes on the bus, 10 minutes waiting for the train, 40 minutes
standing on the train, 20 minutes standing on the tube, 15 minute walk. 2 hours 10 minutes. Cost
~35 quid.

35x2x5=350. 350x4=1400. 1400 quid a month would buy a small flat in London.

--
*Young at heart -- slightly older in other places

Dave Plowman [email hidden] London SW 12 RIP Acorn

In article <[email hidden]>,

AndyC the WB said:

If London has an excellent public transport system, can you tell me how I get to use it? The only
one I can find is overcrowded, dirty, overpriced, expensive, noisy, and stops running too early in
the evening to be of any real use.

Quoted message said:

rangie - Everything you wanted to know about the P38A Range Rover but were afraid to ask.

So you prefer to overcrowd and make dirty the London roads with an overpriced expensive and noisy
vehicle totally unsuited to them?

--
*Black holes are where God divided by zero *

Dave Plowman [email hidden] London SW 12 RIP Acorn

In article <[email hidden]>, Gonzalez

Quoted message said:

How about this?

Quoted message said:

5 mile cycle to the station - 20 minutes. Waiting for the train - 10 minutes On the train - 40
minutes 5 mile? cycle to work - 20 minutes

Quoted message said:

Total 1 hour 30 minutes.

How about this?

No trains.

Can't ride a bike on the stairs:-)

Total travelling time 25 seconds.

--
A T (Sandy) Morton on the Bicycle Island In the Global Village sandymillport.fsnet.co.uksandymillport.fsnet.co.ukOpen ↗

"Dave Plowman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

In article said:

My personal experiences of commuting to London from home which was 5 miles from the station went
something like this:

Quoted message said:

10 minutes waiting for bus, 35 minutes on the bus, 10 minutes waiting for the train, 40 minutes
standing on the train, 20 minutes standing on the tube, 15 minute walk. 2 hours 10 minutes. Cost
~35 quid.

35x2x5=350.

35 was a return.

Gonzalez wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>>>> "Gonzalez" == Gonzalez <[email hidden]> writes:

Gonzalez> Would London's Mayor be better advised into putting money raised from the Congestion
Gonzalez> Charge into enhanced provision for cyclists than London's already excellent public
Gonzalez> transport system? -- remove remove to reply

If London has an excellent public transport system, can you tell me how I get to use it? The only
one I can find is overcrowded, dirty, overpriced, expensive, noisy, and stops running too early in
the evening to be of any real use.

You want details of the stains - sweat, tomato ketchup, faeces, etc?

--
speedlimit.org.ukspeedlimit.org.ukOpen ↗ "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
(John Stuart Mill)

Gonzalez wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In my experience of train travel, significant delays have occured far more often than in my
experience of car travel. For example, on the most recent train journey I made, the train was
cancelled, the following one half an hour later was twenty minutes late and grossly overcrowded.

Try this little experiment.

Set a start time for your journey by car.

Calculate the distance travelled in town, on B roads, on A roads, on trunk A roads and on the
motorway.

Estimate the average speed in town at 25 MPH, on B roads at 40 MPH, on A roads at 50 MPH on trunk A
roads at 60 MPH and on the motorway at 70 MPH, and from that calculate your arrival time.

Then see how often your journey by car is delayed.

If the speed limit on a motorway is 70 mph in practice you are not going to be able to achieve a 70
mph average without breaking the speed limit - especially given that typical speedos overread by
5-10%. You wouldn't want me to exceed the speed limit, would you?

Realistically, I would say achievable average end-to-end speeds are:

20 mph in urban areas 40 mph on mixed, mainly rural roads 50 mph on high-quality A-roads 60 mph on
motorways, perhaps more in very clear conditions

If you try to work out comparable average speeds on railways, don't forget to include waiting time
and time taken getting to and from the station.

Quoted message said:

About 4 or 5 times a year I venture to the Lake District from South East London with my
mountaineering club. The time taken for a one way journey can vary between 4.5 hours and 8 hours.
Timing the journey to within 5 minutes is almost impossible, but that is what is expected on the
trains! And if just 20% of the time trains do arrive within 5 minutes of schedule, they are doing
far better than a car ever could.

Not so. On the journey I was describing, apart from one or two examples of congestion caused by
accidents, I knew the likely duration to within a couple of minutes. Sometimes, due to
unusually favourable conditions, I was early, but I wouldn't be so unrealistic as to categorise
that as normal.

You have to judge delays in comparison with the time that, from experience, is realistically
achievable.

--
speedlimit.org.ukspeedlimit.org.ukOpen ↗ "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
(John Stuart Mill)

Quoted message said:

How about this?

No trains.

Can't ride a bike on the stairs:-)

Total travelling time 25 seconds.

Sounds good to me.
--
remove remove to reply

Just zis Guy said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yes, I was on a train that was delayed once.

One presumes in that case you have only ever used a train once or twice.

You presume incorrectly

Quoted message said:

I use the train whenever I travel to work in London.

As do I.

Night shift?

--
end.

You can -walk- from one side of the CC zone to the other in about an hour, if not less.

This is the main problem with the CC scheme. It's too small. The only vehicles you see around
Trafalgar Sq at lunchtime are taxis (public transport), buses (public transport), commercial
vehicles (which have no public transport alternative), and a selection of executive cars (whose
passengers wouldn't notice 50 quid a day, let alone 10.)

(Supporting evidence: I used to walk from Old St to E&C if I was [censored] after a day in the
office and couldn't face the Northern Line. By a coincidence I notice those are the boundaries.)

"Gonzalez" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

All some considerable distance from (a) the middle of London (b) the congestion charge area.

Perhaps you'd care to list trips which are difficult on the fantastic public transport system
within the congestion charging zone.
--
remove remove to reply

Dave Plowman said:

So you prefer to overcrowd and make dirty the London roads with an overpriced expensive and noisy
vehicle totally unsuited to them?

No, I don't own a BMW.

--
end.

Quoted message said:

You want details of the stains - sweat, tomato ketchup, faeces, etc?

If it please you to write about such things.
--
remove remove to reply

Quoted message said:

Gonzalez wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In my experience of train travel, significant delays have occured far more often than in my
experience of car travel. For example, on the most recent train journey I made, the train was
cancelled, the following one half an hour later was twenty minutes late and grossly overcrowded.

Try this little experiment.

Set a start time for your journey by car.

Calculate the distance travelled in town, on B roads, on A roads, on trunk A roads and on the
motorway.

Estimate the average speed in town at 25 MPH, on B roads at 40 MPH, on A roads at 50 MPH on trunk
A roads at 60 MPH and on the motorway at 70 MPH, and from that calculate your arrival time.

Then see how often your journey by car is delayed.

If the speed limit on a motorway is 70 mph in practice you are not going to be able to achieve a 70
mph average without breaking the speed limit - especially given that typical speedos overread by
5-10%. You wouldn't want me to exceed the speed limit, would you?

Realistically, I would say achievable average end-to-end speeds are:

20 mph in urban areas 40 mph on mixed, mainly rural roads 50 mph on high-quality A-roads 60 mph on
motorways, perhaps more in very clear conditions

If you try to work out comparable average speeds on railways, don't forget to include waiting time
and time taken getting to and from the station.

Shall we take my recent experience, Lewisham to Dartington as an example.

TRAIN
=====

5 min cycle ride to Lewisham station 5 min wait for train to Charing Cross 20 min journey to Charing
Cross 15 min cycle ride to Paddington 10 min wait for train 195 min journey to Totnes 15 min cycle
ride to Dartington

Total time 265 mins = 4hr 25min

CAR
===

30 min Lewisham to Hammersmith @ 20 MPH (fat chance!) 2 min Hammersmith to Chiswick @ 40 MPH
(Chortle!) 120 min Chiswick to Bristol @ 60 MPH 75 min Bristol to Exeter @ 60 MPH 30 min Exeter to
Buckfast @ 50 MPH 15 min Buckfast to Dartington @40 MPH

Total time 272 mins = 4hr 32min

The alternative: A2 - M25 - M3 - A303 - A30 - M5 - A38 - A384, would be even slower.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

About 4 or 5 times a year I venture to the Lake District from South East London with my
mountaineering club. The time taken for a one way journey can vary between 4.5 hours and 8 hours.
Timing the journey to within 5 minutes is almost impossible, but that is what is expected on the
trains! And if just 20% of the time trains do arrive within 5 minutes of schedule, they are doing
far better than a car ever could.

Not so. On the journey I was describing, apart from one or two examples of congestion caused by
accidents, I knew the likely duration to within a couple of minutes. Sometimes, due to
unusually favourable conditions, I was early, but I wouldn't be so unrealistic as to categorise
that as normal.

I don't believe that a rush hour car commute can be more reliable than a train commute.

Quoted message said:

You have to judge delays in comparison with the time that, from experience, is realistically
achievable.

Indeed.

Lewisham to Hamersmith is more likely to take 90 mins during the Rush Hour than 30 mins.
--
remove remove to reply

Grant Mason said:

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

PeterE said:

In my experience of train travel, significant delays have occured far more often than in my
experience of car travel.

I think it depends on your definition of delay. It reliably takes over two hours to get to
central London from Reading by car, and only about an hour by train and tube. Therefore I count
every journey as significantly delayed" by car because if you drive the same journey in the
middle of Sunday morning (as I have done) it takes no longer than the train.

But not everyone lives on platform 5 of Reading Station.

My personal experiences of commuting to London from home which was 5 miles from the station went
something like this:

10 minutes waiting for bus, 35 minutes on the bus, 10 minutes waiting for the train, 40 minutes
standing on the train, 20 minutes standing on the tube, 15 minute walk. 2 hours 10 minutes. Cost
~35 quid. I could usually knock 15 to 20 minutes off by driving to the station and paying 12
quid to park.

Driving usually took 90 minutes. Sometimes it did take 2 hours, on a couple of occasions 3. During
the school holidays, 75 minutes was not unusual. Parking was 10 quid.

If I was working anywhere west of Kings Cross that wasn't right on top of Paddington, it was the
car every time.

I recently needed to get to London from rural Hampshire.

Home: Leave 6:30
- car Arrive Winchester 7:00 Leave Winchester 7:10
- train Arrive Waterloo: 8:20 (slow train, you get to sit!)
- tube Arrive Liverpool St: 8:40 10 min walk to offices

2hrs 20m journey

On my last visit I did a bit of shopping and then found the next two trains were delayed - I
eventually waited over an hour before having to run down the platform to be sure of getting a seat -
quite a few people didn't and decided to wait for the next one (also delayed)

Even parking in Winchester is bad - I once took a day off to go into London for "pleasure" and had a
one hour tour of Winchester's car parks looking for space - I went to all the town centre car parks
and the three park-and-ride car parks and didn't find a single space. I eventually found somebody
just leaving and nipped in quickly just before a BMW :-)

Gareth

Gonzalez wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Gonzalez wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

>In my experience of train travel, significant delays have occured far

more

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>often than in my experience of car travel. For example, on the most

recent

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>train journey I made, the train was cancelled, the following one half an hour later was twenty
>minutes late and grossly overcrowded.

Try this little experiment.

Set a start time for your journey by car.

Calculate the distance travelled in town, on B roads, on A roads, on trunk A roads and on the
motorway.

Estimate the average speed in town at 25 MPH, on B roads at 40 MPH, on A roads at 50 MPH on trunk
A roads at 60 MPH and on the motorway at 70 MPH, and from that calculate your arrival time.

Then see how often your journey by car is delayed.

If the speed limit on a motorway is 70 mph in practice you are not going

to

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

be able to achieve a 70 mph average without breaking the speed limit - especially given that
typical speedos overread by 5-10%. You wouldn't want me to exceed the speed limit, would you?

Realistically, I would say achievable average end-to-end speeds are:

20 mph in urban areas 40 mph on mixed, mainly rural roads 50 mph on high-quality A-roads 60 mph on
motorways, perhaps more in very clear conditions

If you try to work out comparable average speeds on railways, don't forget to include waiting time
and time taken getting to and from the station.

Shall we take my recent experience, Lewisham to Dartington as an example.

TRAIN
=====

5 min cycle ride to Lewisham station 5 min wait for train to Charing Cross 20 min journey to
Charing Cross 15 min cycle ride to Paddington 10 min wait for train 195 min journey to Totnes 15
min cycle ride to Dartington

Total time 265 mins = 4hr 25min

CAR
===

30 min Lewisham to Hammersmith @ 20 MPH (fat chance!) 2 min Hammersmith to Chiswick @ 40 MPH
(Chortle!) 120 min Chiswick to Bristol @ 60 MPH 75 min Bristol to Exeter @ 60 MPH 30 min Exeter to
Buckfast @ 50 MPH 15 min Buckfast to Dartington @40 MPH

Total time 272 mins = 4hr 32min

The alternative: A2 - M25 - M3 - A303 - A30 - M5 - A38 - A384, would be even slower.

You have picked a route where there is a particularly convenient train service and congested roads,
especially on a Friday evening. Fancy having a go at, say, Cardiff to Aberystwyth?

My second most recent commute could reliably be accomplished by car within 40 minutes for 27 miles,
even in the rush hour.

By public transport? God knows. 600 yard walk to bus stop. Bus. Train. Another train. Bus. Half-mile
walk from bus stop. Whether any of these services actually connect with each other I haven't a clue.
Likely time -
2.5 to 3 hours. And what would be the odds of at least one bus or train being cancelled?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

About 4 or 5 times a year I venture to the Lake District from South East London with my
mountaineering club. The time taken for a one way journey can vary between 4.5 hours and 8 hours.
Timing the journey to within 5 minutes is almost impossible, but that is what is expected on the
trains! And if just 20% of the time trains do arrive within 5 minutes of schedule, they are doing
far better than a car ever could.

Not so. On the journey I was describing, apart from one or two examples of congestion caused by
accidents, I knew the likely duration to within a couple of minutes. Sometimes, due to unusually
favourable conditions, I

was

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

early, but I wouldn't be so unrealistic as to categorise that as normal.

I don't believe that a rush hour car commute can be more reliable than a train commute.

ROTFLMOL!

Even in London it probably usually is. Within the rush hour, many commuting journeys will reliably
be free of congestion.

--
speedlimit.org.ukspeedlimit.org.ukOpen ↗ "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."
(John Stuart Mill)

(Steve Firth) said:

Night shift?

Rarely.

Guy
===
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Grant Mason said:

But not everyone lives on platform 5 of Reading Station.

Be fair - it takes me ten minutes brisk walking from home to get to platform 5.

Guy
===
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