JLB wrote:
> Tony Raven wrote:
> > Alan Braggins wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> 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
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.)
>
> There cannot be many places in the UK where there is such good public
> 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.)
> 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.
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
>
>
> --
> Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap