BBC story re pollution / excise duties

(Guy Chapman) said:

news.bbc.co.uk2989555.stmOpen ↗

And they STILL haven't realised that fuel duty is a perfect carbon tax.
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Guy Chapman said:

news.bbc.co.uk2989555.stmOpen ↗

Great... wonderful... more tax without any serious investment in public transport. What a great idea
that wouldn't be.

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StainlessSteelRat said:

Guy Chapman said:

news.bbc.co.uk2989555.stmOpen ↗

Great... wonderful... more tax without any serious investment in public transport. What a great
idea that wouldn't be.

Might even force us all onto bicycles? ;-)

More investment would be a good thing. However, having just been to Virginia for a week I realise
that the state of our railways is not the worst in the world. "We have this train that goes on
Tuesday, then there is this one on Friday, ...". Exaggeration is only very slight!

--
Daniel Auger - [email hidden] (Please remove Granta to get a valid address.)

Quoted message said:

news.bbc.co.uk2989555.stmOpen ↗

That should burst a few blood vessels over in uk.tosspot ;-) Mind you, without any serious real
investment in public transport, it would achieve b*gg*r all.

Cheers, helen s

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Daniel Auger said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

news.bbc.co.uk2989555.stmOpen ↗

Great... wonderful... more tax without any serious investment in public transport. What a great
idea that wouldn't be.

Might even force us all onto bicycles? ;-)

Hehe, well perhaps. But even though bicycles are a wonderful thing there are many jobs and
situations that mean they are not practical. Equally the provision for a bicycle bound society just
isn't there.

Quoted message said:

More investment would be a good thing. However, having just been to Virginia for a week I realise
that the state of our railways is not the worst in the world. "We have this train that goes on
Tuesday, then there is this one on Friday, ...". Exaggeration is only very slight!

Hmmm, but what were the trains like? Clean, busy...? This might just be a timetabling issue, or down
to lack of people using trains (American's lurve their cars).

What I find frustrating about trains is the crumbling infrastructure, they're dirty and overcrowded
(where I live), and there are always timetable problems. Anyway, I guess we all know this...

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

Quoted message said:

news.bbc.co.uk2989555.stmOpen ↗

Banning petrol cars and forcing people to use cleaner fuels (like LPG) would work better. Wouldn't
make money though.

I think we need to get away from the idea we must force motorists off the road due to safety and
environmental issues - rather we should concentrate on making cars cleaner and safer. That way
everyone wins.

Nathaniel Porter said:

I think we need to get away from the idea we must force motorists off the road due to safety and
environmental issues - rather we should concentrate on making cars cleaner and safer. That way
everyone wins.

Depends what you mean by safer. I'm comming to the conclusion that all these advances in passenger
safety for car occupants have just made life more dangerous for vulnerable road users. Make cars out
of glass and stick a spike on the steering wheel pointed straight at the drivers heart. Bet the
buggers wouldn't be so keen to overtake me comming up to a blind bend then!

Cheers,

Andy (cyclist, motorist etc)

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

Quoted message said:

StainlessSteelRat said:

Guy Chapman said:

news.bbc.co.uk2989555.stmOpen ↗

Great... wonderful... more tax without any serious investment in public transport. What a great
idea that wouldn't be.

I'm about ten quid a week better off working than on benefits. There is NO public transport to my
work. I am very close to becoming a professional cyclist sponsored by the DHSS. One more raid on my
pay packet should do it.

Bill

StainlessSteelRat said:

Great... wonderful... more tax without any serious investment in public transport. What a great
idea that wouldn't be.

You are Paul Smith & ICMFP :o)

Guy
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Quoted message said:

Depends what you mean by safer. I'm comming to the conclusion that all these advances in passenger
safety for car occupants have just made life more dangerous for vulnerable road users.

The correct terminology is "benign modes" since we're only vulnerable by comparison with the cagers
who are the cause of the problem :-)

Guy
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Just zis Guy said:

Quoted message said:

Great... wonderful... more tax without any serious investment in public transport. What a great
idea that wouldn't be.

You are Paul Smith & ICMFP :o)

I guess I should know who these people are. Only I don't :-)

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read." -- Mark Twain

Nathaniel Porter said:

I think we need to get away from the idea we must force motorists off the road due to safety and
environmental issues - rather we should concentrate on making cars cleaner and safer. That way
everyone wins.

And how does that accomodate the projected increases in traffic in the future?

--
Andy Morris

AndyAtJinkasDotFreeserve.Co.UK

Love this: Put an end to Outlook Express's messy quotes
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"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Depends what you mean by safer. I'm comming to the conclusion that all

these

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

advances in passenger safety for car occupants have just made life more dangerous for vulnerable
road users.

The correct terminology is "benign modes" since we're only vulnerable by comparison with the
cagers who are the cause of the problem :-)

Hate to correct you Guy, buy Bad "cagers" are the cause of the problem. I understand though, you
wouldn't notice the good "cagers".

For a start, we make some effort to accomodate present traffic (i.e. build new motorways). As for
future traffic, I say we nip this in the bud by preventing the construction of new out-of-town
shopping centres etc. that generate new traffic*

*IMHO, it is a myth that roads generate new traffic. However, I believe that new destinations do
generate new traffic - these new destinations should be prevented from developing.

Nathaniel Porter said:

For a start, we make some effort to accomodate present traffic (i.e. build new motorways). As for
future traffic, I say we nip this in the bud by preventing the construction of new out-of-town
shopping centres etc. that generate new traffic*

*IMHO, it is a myth that roads generate new traffic. However, I believe that new destinations do
generate new traffic - these new destinations should be prevented from developing.

There was a huge study done when the M25 was built that showed the amount of traffic on it was many
times more than the anticipated traffic based on the surrounding roads.

Due to this the government massively reduced the road building programme.

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bickering." -- The Shoveller, Mystery Men

Nathaniel Porter said:

For a start, we make some effort to accomodate present traffic (i.e. build new motorways). As for
future traffic, I say we nip this in the bud by preventing the construction of new out-of-town
shopping centres etc. that generate new traffic*

Quoted message said:

*IMHO, it is a myth that roads generate new traffic. However, I believe that new destinations do
generate new traffic - these new destinations should be prevented from developing.

I think it's sometimes true that "roads generate new traffic". It happens in cases where someone
makes a decision based on the availability of a road. For example, I might take a job further from
home if a road makes travel reasonable, or I might move further away from family and friends if
there's a suitable road to make visits easy.

But the factor they never seem to allow for is how folk allocate their time. Available time is a
limiting factor which means that roads development has a limited effect on traffic growth. To take
an extreme example to illustrate the effect, if we doubled available roads, we could not possibly
expect to double traffic because many folk simply could not find the time to spend twice as long
travelling.
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cameras cost lives

Nathaniel Porter said:

*IMHO, it is a myth that roads generate new traffic. However, I believe that new destinations do
generate new traffic - these new destinations should be prevented from developing.

Well it certainly doesn't seem to be a myth up here. When I moved up to the frozen north I elected
to buy a house out in the country with a 23 mile commute along the A96 to work. So there go my green
credentials [1]. At the time the A96 was single carriageway and went through a number of small
towns. The journey was slow and took almost an hour. Then they turned the A96 into dual carriageway
and bypassed the towns. Bingo, 70mph from Inverurie to the roundabout on the outskirts of town then
a slow bit to work, but journey times down to 30 minutes. But of course this just made living in the
country even more attractive so we've seen an explosion of house building along the new A96.
Consequently, four years later, I still get to travel at high speed to the outskirts of Aberdeen.
But with a few thousand extra cars there is now a hughr jam at the first roundabout, where we sit
for 20 minutes. So the end result is that four years after the new dual carriageway was put in my
commute takes as long as it did before the road was built. Some developers have made lots of money
thank you very much. In fact overall it seems to me that my taxes were spent to provide new
infrastructure but the only people to benefit were the developers.

Cheers,

Andy

[1] I do have some public transport options (in fact I'm using them most days at the moment) but
they are not great. A 7 mile bike ride along a narrow twisty B road where all the drivers are
doing 70+ will get me to Inverurie where I can take either a train to Aberdeen centre and a bus
to work or a bus all the way. There is one train at 7:50 (the next one isn't until 10:30) and
the bus sits in the same jam on the outskirts of the city that I would do in the car (then makes
a detour via the airport). So overall I need to leave home at just after 7am to get to work for
9am by public transport or just after 8am by car. Still it's a nice ride even if the local
motorists would rather kill me than be held up for 30 seconds!

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

But the factor they never seem to allow for is how folk allocate their time. Available time is a
limiting factor which means that roads development has a limited effect on traffic growth. To take
an extreme example to illustrate the effect, if we doubled available roads, we could not possibly
expect to double traffic because many folk simply could not find the time to spend twice as long
travelling.

True but you also have to consider extra traffic coming from people not then using shared cars.
For instance, I share a car journey with my partner then use train and bike to complete my
journey. If a nice shiny new dual carriage was placed slap bang across the Durham Dales I might
decide that driving directly was a better option (though I wouldn't.) Our personal car use would
then double. I have no idea how many such cases might exist but it is another factor and in your
extreme example all shared car journeys could become single occupancy journeys because of a
doubling in road capacity.

Colin

Paul Smith said:

Nathaniel Porter said:

For a start, we make some effort to accomodate present traffic (i.e. build new motorways). As for
future traffic, I say we nip this in the bud by preventing the construction of new out-of-town
shopping centres etc. that generate new traffic*

Quoted message said:

*IMHO, it is a myth that roads generate new traffic. However, I believe that new destinations do
generate new traffic - these new destinations should be prevented from developing.

I think it's sometimes true that "roads generate new traffic". It happens in cases where someone
makes a decision based on the availability of a road. For example, I might take a job further from
home if a road makes travel reasonable, or I might move further away from family and friends if
there's a suitable road to make visits easy.

But the factor they never seem to allow for is how folk allocate their time. Available time is a
limiting factor which means that roads development has a limited effect on traffic growth. To take
an extreme example to illustrate the effect, if we doubled available roads, we could not possibly
expect to double traffic because many folk simply could not find the time to spend twice as long
travelling.

But the fundamental issue is that people are prepared to spend a certain amount of time travelling.
Reducing the congestion by building new roads doesn't decrease the number of cars on the road, but
they all drive further. And others for whom a particular journey was not acceptable will now
consider it. Then there are less passengers on public transport, public transport is cut back, so
still more people have to drive. Before very long the roads are as congested as before except that
now people have taken jobs further from home than they would previously have considered and are now
stuck commuting for longer than is acceptable to them. Then they get angry and you get road rage.

People are now producing maps on how to avoid the M25 by using the roads the former traffic was
using. Many people now on the M25 were not driving in the area before the M25 was built so they need
these maps. In addition the road signs are carefully designed to omit any alternative routes that
don't use the motorway which makes it a nightmare when you are on a bicycle.

Regards,

Tim.

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