The Transport 2000 ?mission? statement quoted in the current speeding thread set me thinking.
For the record the 2 para statement on their website (www.transport2000.org.uk) is:
?Transport 2000 is the independent national body concerned with sustainable transport. It looks for answers to transport problems and aims to reduce the environmental and social impact of transport by encouraging less use of cars and more use of public transport, walking and cycling.
Transport 2000's vision is of a country where traffic no longer dominates our lives, where many of our journeys can be made on foot, by cycle or using public transport and where you don't need a car to enjoy the countryside or city life.?
Am I alone in this discussion group in thinking these statements taken in isolation (and possibly out of context) are not unreasonable.
I don't want to automatically dismiss these statements as totally anti-car (though they may be meant that way).
In the interest of stimulating some discussion, my own thoughts are:
1. Cars are a good thing, if used appropriately can be enjoyed by those that wish to use them well into the future. But liking cars does not mean liking sitting in them in heavy traffic. So what?s wrong with using cars less?
2. What?s wrong with using public transport (o.k. need to encourage an improved public transport system as part of a better transport system). I commute by train on a 110 mile round trip every day and this is a preferable alternative to a rush hour drive (even in these Railtrack days) ? not to say it can?t be drastically improved, and I know the service I use is much, much better than that available to most..
3? What?s wrong with walking and cycling, when possible ?Many people can walk a LOT more than they do - I walk two miles to the station and two miles back every day. This keeps me fit, reduces stress, saves me money (car wear and tear, parking and about 12 mpg on such a journey), reduces environmental impact, but I am very very much alone on my walk. Mothers in my street take their children to and from school by car ? and this is a 5 minute walk. There are many examples like this.
4 ? However, I am not naïve enough to not suspect that many in Transport 2000 and other like bodies wish to see the end of the car and wish to penalise car drivers out of all proportion. This is not realistic and they should not be allowed to win such an argument (they do seem to be gaining ground).,
Members of this discussion group generally seem to me to be balanced intelligent road users and perhaps we should be encouraging the car to be acknowledged as part of a ?sustainable? transport policy instead of bashing the likes of Transport 2000 at any opportunity?
Please treat me gently in any response!
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Well said, Clear Spot!
While I think a lot of the ideas from groups such as these are anti-car, it's a bit unfair the minute they suggest anything that the whole lot gets consigned to the bin without consideration.
I don't see what's wrong with motorists being allowed the freedom to won and operate cars if they do so responsibly, but those who choose to use other methods of transport being catered for as well. Particularly in towns and cities that are well-served by public transport, is there really any justification for driving in and parking illegally right outside the particular building you're going to?
Just don't try to make us switch by force without a reasonable alternative being available.
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"Transport 2000's vision is of a country where traffic no longer dominates our lives"
So do you travel more than 10 miles a day to wrok?
If so, will you move house or employment?
That is the only way to achieve many of their ends..
Or move closer to schools to end the school run?
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I agree. Knee-jerk dismissal of supposed 'anti-car' groups is crying wolf. It makes it impossible to get taken seriously when you try and argue against them when they do get it wrong.
Why not have both options catered for - travelling into town by car (to a legal parking space) or by public transport. If you're going from A to B and back to A again a bus or a train might do the job perfectly. But if after B you are going to C, somewhere else entirely, you may need your car to get you there.
Just don't try to make us switch by force without a reasonable alternative being available.
That is the most important point. Using the stick (making roads EVEN worse than public transport currently is) rather than the carrot is just plain morally wrong. And it won't work because human beings en masse don't tend to respond to bullying in the way the bully wants.
GJD
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I agree. Knee-jerk dismissal of supposed 'anti-car' groups is crying wolf.
Done 2000 miles in the last 4 weeks. I can't think of a single journey that could have been done by public transport.
It's useless unless you live somewhere that is well served by PT and want to go to places that are well served by PT.
No doubt anti car groups all use road for almost everything they do.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
www.private-eye.co.uk/innews
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One of the problems is that those who are most anti-car probably never sit back to consider to what extent they are indirectly dependent on road transport.
Even if they are able to claim "I do not own a car", they probably depend on relatives, taxis or friends in cars for many of their needs, their children probably visit them by car, the driver of the bus or train that took them to work probably drove to the depot, the deliveries to their local shops came by road, etc., etc.
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I agree wholeheartedly with you, Toad, and I know I am fortunate to be well served for London. I remember obstinately travelling to work in Leatherhead by train (from Milton Keynes) a few times - a complete nightmare - never did it again, its much quicker and more pleasant to sit on the M25. That train service should have been good, and well used, but as it was so appallingly unreliable not many did use it and its now been discontinued.
All the more reason for a better integrated transport policy though.
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Why not have both options catered for - travelling into town by car (to a legal parking space) or by public transport. If you're going from A to B and back to A again a bus or a train might do the job perfectly. But if after B you are going to C, somewhere else entirely, you may need your car to get you there.
Do park and rides work? They seem to be a good idea and would mean that bus lanes get properly used. Why aren't there any schemes in London - is it that land prices are too high? Or is it only smaller cities that it is actually viable?
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Park and rides have had a bit of a mixed result.
They can help in small cities, Oxford springs to mind, but in other cases people are driving further to the park and ride centres than they would have done driving straight into the city centre.
London is too large for bus-based park and ride schemes. to be outside the congested part the bus journey would take too long. Here the sensible alternative is parking at stations on the periphery, but this has tended to suffer from theft and vandalism due to the areas in which they are located (and the number of toe-rags in circulation). With secure parking they are great.
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I like the idea of park and ride but I avoid it in practice (at least the one I know in Cambridge). To me, going into a town for shopping type purposes is something to be started and finished as quickly as possible. Having to wait for a bus going in and out doubles the time involved so something that should take an hour's break when I might be on the way somewhere ends up taking all morning. And for all the bus lanes, they don't move any faster than my car and the cost is the same as a car park.
I don't think much of the travelling I do would work on public transport, but I don't object to making it more user friendly because I do use it sometimes. From what I've read here and elsewhere I am suspicious of Transport 2000 particularly.
GJD
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I think getting people out of their cars and onto the pathways or cycle lanes is a massive undertaking. As I type this it is ping it down outside and my nice warm Picasso is just sitting there waiting to take me home. However, I could, and have, been getting ready to don my waterproofs and take on the elemnts to do the 5 mile home trip on my push bike. Or I could be preparing my self for an adventure on public transport.
Meanwhile my young kids are waiting for their bath and their mother is getting ready to go out.
Public transport cycling and walking have some how got to be made very attractive before the majority swap from their cars to the streets.
Is there any mention of car pooling?
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Is there any mention of car pooling?
Unfortunately it seems that people's lives are far "too comlicated" to even get this one off the ground. Seem to remember someone posting a story about a couple and their neighbour who all worked at the same building 5 miles away and all 3 took their own cars because they finished at different times.
I once remember meeting this chap on the train who commuted by car from Bristol to London everyday along with 5 other friends/acquaintances. It used to cost them about £6-7k each a year by train so 4 of them decided to pool £20k and buy a car. They take it in turns to drive up and down to London.
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Come on, you lot, Transport 2000 are a bunch of fanatics at the forefront of control freakery.
Don't give them an inch.
If convenient alternatives are there, we don't need this lot to tell us to use them, we can decide for ourselves.
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If convenient alternatives are there, we don't need this lot to tell us to use them
I don't mind being told. If they can give me a cheaper, more convinient and easier way to get around I'm all ears.
Problem is they consistantly suggest options that are provably worse.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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They never answer any questions asked, i've tried to get responses to some fairly straight forward questions in the past. All emails are ignored and they hang the phone up on you if you question ask anything that questions there mission.
Makes sense when you realise they are funded by the bus companies. Run a service then create an 'independent body' to rubish any competition to your service.
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Well l never got an answer to that email sent questioning their reliance on unsubstantiated statistics...say a lie enough times it becomes a fact etc... I posted the email on this board but that was some time ago.
I find it very interesting that this thread initially talks of being open to Transport 2000 point of view and therefore crediting ourselves with a more valid and balanced apporach to the whole shebang. Laudable, but Transport 2000 is the antithesis of that very approach.
It would appear that the self annointed moral high-ground is an acceptable substitute for reason or ability. Transport2000 reeks of dogmatism and self interest, its spokepersons are merely well taught eloquence-monkeys with a liberal dash of mediocrity. They truly believe that their way is the only way and look only for patterns that affirm that belief. If you don't agree with them then it is you that is in the wrong. They need not properly address detractors because after all you're all pedo's aren't you?
There are well meaning people in this organisation but they are fanatics which by any definition is dangerous, and yes they are being funded/exploited by business interests that stand to gain from anti-car lobbying.
Its a form of religion and relgion relies on faith not fact. (Or indeed any real tolerance of 'others' regardless of what the holy books say)
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I've been a cyclist on and off since my early teens (off at the moment.) I've raced, toured and all the other stuff. The one thing I stopped doing as soon as I could afford to was using the bike as basic transport. It takes too long for all but the shortest non-urgent journeys, you cannot carry any but the simplest of cargo, you are at the mercy of our weather and much of the time arrive at your destination cold and wet or sweating and smelling. Sure, you can get all the gear that helps prevent that, but thats another fifteen minutes getting ready before you go out.
The bicycle is also the least reliable form of mechanical transport on the planet. Ride it regularly and see how much time you spend standing by the side of the road trying to stick a patch on an innertube.
If people are ever persuaded to use their cars less, it will not be to go back to a mode of transport that worked only till something better came along.
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Well said, young man.
Now, how do we start to change government thinking?
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I'm sorry but l perceive Tom to be a ruddy faced old fella with a monacle and a handlebar moustache.
Well Mr Shaw?
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It's been said that I bear a striking resemblance to Brad Pitt. We've both got our ears on the same part of our heads, noses right in the middle of our face and five toes on each foot. Uncanny, really.
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No really? Me too as it happens. We should meet up and get all homo-erotic over a pint...
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In London there has been a spate of building of cycle lanes, in some cases taking up a third of the road and effectively reducing a two lane one-way street to a single vehicle lane.
The only problem is that you very rarely see a bicycle on them ( I was going to say "never", but that would not be true as I DO see one being used about once a fortnight ).
In my experience campaigners such as Transport 2000 have a rose-tinted view of the world where throngs of cyclist pedal happily along in Spring sunshine and trains are Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends.
Not real !
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Seriously: If HSE ever looked at cyclists they would be banned:
inadequate brakes
Out of control when changing gear stopping and starting
Loads of sharp projections: pedals , handlebars
Working at a height with no safety net.
Exposed to weather with no projection.
Wot are crumple zones?
So side repeating indicators, no brake lights, totally inadequate lights at night.
(I speak as an occasional cyclist)
madf
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A quick check of the WHOIS databases seems to show that www.transport2000.co.uk and www.transport2k.[anything] are all free. Who's up for sticking together some *real* facts then? I'll foot the bill for domains and hosting...
Reckon we could get some coverage on Top Gear pretty easily too - old Clarkson doesn't seem to be too much of a fan.
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The idea of playing them at their own game is VERY attractive!
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