Congestion

[forddeliveryboy]

What would you do if you were Minister for Transport? Britain has a transport congestion problem which wastes many hours but over the last 50 years we've taken few steps to prepare the country for the future. Our Victorian ancestors were bold enough to make big decision - we're overdue a bit of far-sighted and intelligent planning - especially with a buoyant economy and burgeoning population.

 

What could be done to slash the millions of hours lost in traffic jams? Insist on automated car control on motorways which allowed greater traffic density or take freight off the roads and onto an expanded railway network? Return regular bus services to rural districts? Build new transport networks along disused railway lines? Remove as much freight onto rail? Insist on 2 people per car?

 

Whatever worked, the benefits would be immense. Fewer traffic jams means less pollution, less stress, better business and more free time.

 

 

[Asimo]

Enforce the consolidation of deliveries. One van per postcode or something similar. I have had five different Sprinters to this address in a morning, each with a little jiffybag. Plus the Royal Mail. Ridiculous waste of everything!

[Albert Ross]

I'd make people have to prove they needed personal transport. Some people have no need of it at all, other cannot live without it (Rural areas) Eventually phase in better buses and re-instate small branch line railways. I would also dumb-up the driving test, to include a written part. Not just multi choice button pressing. I would expect all prospective drivers to have a grasp of the English Language for a start. Reading road signs quickly would mean everyone knows how to use lanes and keep disciplined. I would have driving Schools kitted out with Morris 1000s and ADO16s. Trailer tests would be Toyota Crowns and Sprite Musketeers. Police cars would be Jaguars for Traffic. Morgan V8s for Pursuit. Panda cars would be Kia Rios or Dacia Sanderos. Yeah. Boggo spec stuff, that would last being kicked by scrotes.  The buses introduced would be the old "Bouncing Billy" types. No luxuries etc. Rural Trains.. GWR 0-4-2 and Autocoaches. Jintys and Gresley Teaks. Express stuff would be Westerns, Warships and Deltics. Freight would be Whistlers and Choppers. Duffs too maybe. Cross country stuff would be Peaks and Class 124 Trans-Pennine DMUs.  Blether.... etc.

[purplebargeken]

Reopen most of the stuff that Beeching closed. Halve the cost of travelling on public transport. Beef up the proper rural routes.

 

Compulsory scrapping of all foreign reg cars that have been on the UK roads for more than a month. 

[Pillock]

Some railway reopening can work - the Robin Hood line reopened from Nottingham via Mansfield to Worksop in stages, and it's regularly rammed full. Not all lines would be that profitable though and you're talking millions to reopen lines - if it hasn't got affordable housing plonked on top of it by now.

 

I would suggest the government taking control (or taking back control) of as much public transport as possible.... why does it need to make a profit? It just needs to cover costs, to help people get to work - and all the people it currently employs would still have jobs so win win.

 

Then, you can scrap the idea that parents get to choose schools. If the local school is crap, then make it better - but the difference in congestion between term time and school hols is incredible. My term time commute often averages less than 20mph average, because parents fire up the X5 and take Tarquin twenty miles to a school that excels in Greek Literature Studies. Holidays, double that speed. Again, rural areas differ but buses work here. 

[MarvinsMom]

+1 for re opening a good number of the branchlines that Dr Beeching closed, while i know that most never ever made any money at best they just about broke even, operating the lines as a public service instead.

 

here at home arriva trains keeps on wanting to take the trains off into saltburn, stopping instead at marske-longbeck which is 3 miles short of satburn. of course after that, the trains into marske will not be economical, so then it will be stopping the trains at Redcar East, or Redcar Central, before closing the line down completely.

 

if i was working in Middlesbrough i would not be bothering with taking the car to work everyday, instead be taking the train. when i worked in Stockton that was what i was doing.

 

the busses round here used to be excellent, before Arriva took over Tees, since then the level of the service has fallen right off, with a corresponding number of customers, and hence even less services!! shutting down the depots in Loftus and Redcar haven't helped either, the nearest now is i think in Darlington!

[JohnK]

^^ you must be local to me fella, I start all my chod buying adventures at Redcar Central!

[MarvinsMom]

i am, been from Saltburn (for my sins!)

[willswitchengage]

Congestion problem

 

[MarvinsMom]

could be worse, you may need these

 

[Albert Ross]

Shit the bed!

[MarvinsMom]

i think those would do that.....

[RoadworkUK]

Abolish the existence of the 9-5 job.

[burraston2006]

Abolish the existence of the 9-5 job.

 

Jog on with that idea! I've been in retail for 20 years and I dream of a monday to friday 9-5!! Just can't seem to get one!

[Wilko220]

Abolish schools.

[gordonbennet]

Short of assuming we are East Germany of 1972 as above re proving you haf need of ze car comrade?, then there is nothing to be done about congestion, it's here to stay unless we tarmac over the land owned by those who have profited by selling this country, and that isn't going to happen.

 

We have a quart of people in a pint pot country, and no longer a local based economy that we once did have.

 

If you've travelled the roads enough you will have seen that lorries by the hundred thousand now pound the roads 24/7, carrying either food to feed the overpopulation or Chinese plastic shit and second rate disposable clothing to please the proletariat from container port to fuckin huge warehouse or from FHW to onward destinations then to good little drones to spend the little bit of pocket money on that (and a bit more tax) they have left after they paid for all the above.

 

At one time a region would be fairly self contained, people didn't need to travel lemming like at breakneck speed from their rabbit hutches to their offices/call centres to perform robot duties for 9 hours then do the return journey back to hutch, they had proper jobs in industries large and small that dealt with each other on a fairly local level, often enough they could bike to work and back...no not like Boris on a photo shoot.

Anyone around in the 60's and 70's drove past countless small factories employing local people in sometimes specialsed local industries (boot and shoe in Northants, car making in Coventry/Longbridge but lots of supporting small industries serviced these), as you drove along during the 80's and 90's you suddenly noticed that factory that was there last week wasn't, and 2 years later a retail park or an office block (sorry business park) was in its stead...

As you drove in the countryside on the edge of working class towns you'd seen fuckin great monster warehouses going up with sometimes up to 200 lorry loading bays all around...these are designed to absorb what discharges from those fuckin great ships at Felixstowe and Southampton.

 

So we lost localised industries, and gained the age of the service industry (who coined that bollox name), which meant instead of creating wealth by making and selling things, we make money by buying cheap shit and moving cheap shit about, and the govt keeps the illusion going by taking a slice of tax 20% vat from every transaction large and small and then taxing any profits made, however its falling apart the fuckin ponzi scheme and it's ended up with the current national debt of £1.5 trillion which in another 3 years will be £1.8 trillion.

 

Anyway basically we're fucked, there is no going back, the population will continue to grow faster than the country can cope with, the race to the bottom will continue and congestion will be a sodding sight worse in 20 years than anything we've seen yet...and we'll do our bit to ensure it carries on exactly as planned by voting as told by the state broadcaster and the rest of the propaganda industry.

[inconsistant]

Transport problems are really just the visible sign of short sighted policies in other areas. I reckon.

 

So I'd get rid of league tables for schools so that everyone could just send their kids to their local school without the guilt that they're being bad parents... there was no such thing as the 'school run' when I was a kid and went to (my local) school.

 

Do an economics thing to sort out house prices so people can choose to live closer to where they work if they can afford too.

 

Go back to shops not opening on Sundays (like they do in France, probably).

 

I'd also make driving large distances less cheap.

 

I'd make all urban 20/30mph limit roads pedestrian priority, then bikes, then buses/ambulances then delivery lorrys then cars, and any accidents would automatically be the fault of the driver. (I nicked that idea from Ivan Illich).

 

I'd ban people from considering themselves 'Petrol Heads' if all they do is buy and drive cars. And watch F1 on tv.

 

And I'd put the country under mass therapy to try to understand and address the unchecked fetishisation of cars and the constant need to be somewhere else. 

 

 

 

 

Vote for me.

[Dave_Q]

I would do this: http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/in-the-media/files/Briefing_1501_Paving%20over%20the%20tracks_web.pdf

 

This would serve as a better form of mass transport than the current train network as well as getting some lorries off the roads.

 

I would also go on a fairly extensive motorway building rampage.

 

Finish the M57 from Sheffield to Manchester, big tunnel under the peak district.

Finish the second transpennine motorway (M65 - Bradford/Leeds).

Possibly an extra motorway alongside the M60 north of Manchester so east-west traffic is seperated from local traffic.

Make the A50 Derby to Stoke into a motorway.

 

Some of those might seem a bit ambitious but they have all actually been planned in the past.

 

http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m67_manchester_to_sheffield_motorway/

http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m650/

http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m62_relief_road/

http://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m64/

[Uncle Jimmy]

What would you do if you were Minister for Transport?

[Uncle Jimmy]

...start off by forcibly re - nationalising the buses and rail network.

[dollywobbler]

I'd widen hard shoulders, then force anyone without Autoshite tendencies to buy a modern Renault diesel. The hard shoulders will be congested with smouldering wrecks, and we get to enjoy the resulting empty roads.

 

We need to sort out the 'travelling to work' thing. We really need to sort out the 'travelling to school' thing. I was always within walking distance of my primary school (ten minute walk). My secondary school was a few miles away and I caught the bus. Cars really should be banned from the school run - or at least the cars should be made to park a ten minute walk away from the school. People are just too bloody lazy. Hence the fight to park as close to the doors at Morrisons as is physically possible, preferably in the bus bay or ATM spot.

 

Cars shouldn't be allowed anywhere near city centres. Walking and cycling need further encouragement, and public transport has to be much, much better. A lot of trains are just utterly grim, overpriced and you get shafter rather than rewarded for parking your car miles away from your destination at a railway station (often not necessarily having a public transport option to get to said station - 12 miles away in my case, with no parking at all!)

 

Mind you, I think folk are finally starting to realise how grim driving a car in an urban area is. I'm sure the update of driving amongst teenagers is lower than it ever has been. Plans to toughen up the driving regs for young folk is only going to increase that change.

[Alan_Green]

Can't be long now until cars are fitted with sensor systems/cruise control to allow them to travel in convoy at constant speeds. Probably won't be much motorway congestion then. Seems well overdue.

[michael1703]

School buses are a good idea but many kids live close enough to school to walk but get driven, since the Jamie bulger case in the early 90's there's been a generation that won't let there kids walk to school now, peados are everywhere etc.

 

walking crocodiles are what's needed, might sort the obesity problem a bit too.

[Tayne]

walking crocodiles are what's needed, might sort the obesity problem a bit too.

So the crocodiles would eat the kids who were too fat to run away?

[mercrocker]

Where I live and at the times I commute (which vary between 5 AM and midday going and 1 PM and 10PM returning) the congestion I see is caused by three things -

 

Fat mums in fat people carriers performing ridiculous manoeuvres in a road not designed for it. The school behind us dates back to WW1 as do the houses. Nobody can be blamed for failing to predict the Vauxhall Mokka. This is compounded by the current need to ferry kids across three school boundaries to apparently obtain a better OFSTED result.

 

Ridiculous delivery arrangements at retail shops and businesses. Why does everything come in a 40ft trailer these days and need a pallet truck on every drop? Actually, I know full well the answer to this....

 

Lastly, the complete and utter inability for any fucker of any age, BMI or physical ability to WALK to a shop. Our small town centre has THREE free car parks. Its only a little town, each car park is within 100yds of the other and hence all the shops. Why do they need to WAIT in the street for a kerbside space they cant possibly fucking park properly into just to buy a Subway roll? Walk you bastards you might burn an extra sandwich each week.

 

The thread that runs through all these three reasons is people want everything cheap, they want it now, they want it at any cost to their own quality of life or that of the community they live in.

 

Answers are - pay a bit more money for the stuff you buy, appreciate what is involved in transporting the shit, pay a bit more council tax if that's what it takes to establish a properly useful urban transport system (Bus, tram, whatever) and make sure that the people that run this stuff are fully competent and sufficiently rewarded.

 

It wont come cheap people, it wont be popular but these are the things that need addressing before congestion gets any worse. And it will....

[barefoot]

Three suggestions from me;

 

The most obvious is re-introduce proper trains - in the 'golden age' of British Rail, trains were 10, 15 & 20 carriages long but now, they are just five.

If you doubled the length of the train, you could halve the fare and then you'd have to bung on another half a dozen coaches to cope with the increased demand.

 

Bus stops - in the fair village where I live, we have recently seen a monstrous M&S distribution centre open. All the staff are bussed in, the bus numbers have trebled and they've moved the bus stops, two pull in's are now disused and the bus stops amongst the traffic calming islands - congestion.

 

3 - Congestion - When New Labour introduced the congestion charge, out here in the sticks, we didn't know what they were talking about and then overnight, the sequencing/phasing/whatever of the traffic lights at J24/J24a/A50-J1 all changed - Instant artificial congestion - put them back so that they work with the traffic, not against it.

[Mr Lobster]

I think blaming the school run for all the congestion issues is a little unfair. Certainly around here that isn't the case. Most of the congestion around the schools is caused by peoples selfishness, inability to park or drive properly rather than the actual act of driving.  Certainly some kids can walk to school and here they do. 

 

Part of the issue with the school run is peoples time. Certainly where primary schools are concerned at least - parents have to get their five / six / seven year old to school - it'd be nice to be able to walk them to school but in it would take too long - people are pressurised to get to work and just can't spare the time in the morning to walk the kids to school hence drop them off on the way to work. In my own case, kids school is two miles away in the next village and driving is the only option. There is a school nearer but even then its a half hour walk and who has a spare two hours every day to walk the kids to school.

 

For older kids though and those at high school theres no reason why they couldn't get the bus or walk longer distances.

[mercrocker]

Trouble is we have allowed ourselves to be squeezed. Both parents have to work - longer hours and further away. Tax cuts have meant school cuts, price wars have killed local shops. Etc. None of what I am saying is politically driven, its just a fact. We have become squeezed - the pressure of life today is killing us and nobody who ever wants to be voted for again will have the will to change what needs to be changed....

[Mr Lobster]

Anyway, what would I do to improve it.

 

Public transport needs to be both better and cheaper. I'm not really one for nationalising things but I think there is a case to be made for it here. You'd need more train capacity, operating at times when people need it and cheap enough to make it an attractive alternative to driving. The trouble is this is massively uneconomic and would need substantial investment and a government willing to fund it. HS2 is both controversial and expensive but I believe that part of the reasoning behind it was to reduce passenger trains on existing lines and free up additional space for freight trains.  

 

For people going into a city centre then public transport should be the default choice - not because they are forced to by law or regulation or increasing the cost of driving but because it is easy / cheaper / more convenient / faster than driving. It'd need massive investment to make it work though.

 

Tackle the 9-5 working day. Wouldn't be popular or easy but with people working remotely or different hours then rather than having rush hour twice a day you spread it out more. This isn't about taking people out of their cars but about reducing congestion.

 

There is a need to do something about road capacity. Whether this is building new motorways or increasing capacity on existing ones depends on the situation. 

 

Also, I'm a bit surprised by the number of people advocating banning or restricting peoples ability to do various things. Presumably if a government banned all cars over ten years old on safety or environmental grounds you'd be in an absolutely frenzy of horror and fury?  

[barefoot]

Freight trains don't work in the UK because the country is not big enough.