Congestion

[fossyant]

What's this congestion you talk about. Ah it's the stuff I get stuck in at weekend going for the shopping !

 

[mjr]

What's this congestion you talk about. Ah it's the stuff I get stuck in at weekend going for the shopping !

Should try a bike. Cuts right through it. 😉

 

[presta]

Can't you see a small problem with dividing the distance driven in the Netherlands by the population of the Netherlands? Like, distances driven in the Netherlands by people who aren't its population because, unlike the UK, it's between other countries and has open borders. Dutch driving abroad is said to be excluded but not forever driving in NL.

It's the total distance driven by Dutch cars in the Netherlands (2018), which must be the primary target market or cycle paths.

why calculate that unusual figure and not simply look at the modal shares

Because if cycling just adds to the total, the modal share for cars will go down without any actual reduction in driving. Which is exactly the point: the objective is to reduce car use, not increase overall travel.

I suspect the numbers on driving alone may simply support the point made earlier: if you reduce the need to drive by providing cycleways and filters but don't reclaim some of the now-surplus road space from motorists, then other motoring will happen to refill it. Induced traffic.

In which case, if you're agreeing with me, we need to stop building more cycle paths, and start forcing motorists out of their cars instead, as I said up top.

I find driving a silly little distance rather annoying.

The same can apply to cycling, I walk to Sainsburys and Tesco because cycling isn't worth the faff (mainly of parking the bike and stuffing the groceries into the panniers). If I'm good, and stick to the rules, it's 0.74 miles from Sainsburys to Tesco by bike, compared with 0.1 miles walking from one side of the market place to the other. I recall my boss being amused that I walked 0.8 miles from one site to another carrying a transmitter rather than wait for a car. (Nobody other than me used the stairs up to the 4th floor, either.)

schools aren't necessarily as local as they were

Round these parts primary schools seem to be more local, with a school in the middle of each housing estate.

We can't widen roads, or build flyovers, or plough through green space to make more more roads of cycle ways, as it's too expensive and councils are all skint.

Which is why I think that LTNs are a better and cheaper alternative to cycle paths, and the advantage of taxing motorists out of their cars is that it raises revenue instead of spending it.

Yes, but that is just not going to happen unless changes are made to infrastructure/laws that make it more attractive to use other methods of transport than to use the car.

It doesn't matter how lazy we think people are, or how unnecessary the journeys, people need something external to change before they will change their behaviour.

I think it was York Uni that did some research finding that if you deny motorists their excuse for driving they don't get out of their cars, they just find another excuse. I think it's over optimistic that people will use alternatives just because they are provided.

 

[All uphill]

We can either allow ourselves to feel powerless and moan, or look for things we can do.

Supporting local community cycling and walking initiatives is one thing we can all do. Reducing our own car use and spreading the word about the joys and benefits of cycling and walking is another.

Checking councillors' positions on transport before voting is another.

 

[presta]

We can either allow ourselves to feel powerless and moan, or look for things we can do.

The vast majority of the heavy lifting that needs doing on this, and the environment in general, is stuff that only the government can do, and yet the government keeps acting like it's not their job to govern, and it must all be left to the market and personal responsibility.

 

[ianbarton]

I spent my childhood counting off the days until I could have a car, so when I passed my test I gleefully jumped in the car and joined the fray. Traffic jams bothered me not at all, I was just happy as a pig in sh!t sat queueing in my car. I used to spend my evenings driving nowhere in particular just for the fun of it.

When I was in school back in the 1960's I had to walk to the bus stop (about three-quarters of a mile). The bus was always almost full and had to stop frequently to let people on and off. The school was about ten miles away, but because the bus went round a couple of housing estates it extended the journey quite a bit. On the way back home we had to wait about half an hour for the bus then I had to walk three-quarters of a mile back to the house. Each bus journey took about an hour and a half, including waiting time and walking home.

When I was 16, I got to a Honda 50 motorbike. The journey home to school took about 30 minutes. If I wanted to stay at school for after-school events that was possible. I remember one winter day when it snowed The bus service stopped. There were no mobile phones in those days and I had no idea where the nearest phone box was. Luckily, a friend of mine was working at Fodens down the road from the school. He had a car and he drove me home.

 

[All uphill]

The vast majority of the heavy lifting that needs doing on this, and the environment in general, is stuff that only the government can do, and yet the government keeps acting like it's not their job to govern, and it must all be left to the market and personal responsibility.

That's why we need to use our votes wisely.

In the meantime there are things we can do that cumulatively have an effect locally.

 

[Jotheboat]

I got stuck in traffic yesterday, not for the first time! Main roads, urban situation.
People round here blame cycle lanes & traffic measures for increased congestion. I didn't see a single bike yesterday on my trip home.
The cause of congestion is too many vehicles. Full stop.
One car per household should do nicely.

 

[HMS_Dave]

Gave up the car completely last year. Had a spell in hospital in that time and was offered a couple of lifts, but could have gotten there by other means if necessary. I didn't do it to set an example, but my sister responded by buying a brand new car. So, im glad i didn't do it for this reason because the sad reality is nobody really cares for all the positive comments you receive anyway...

 

[presta]

I got stuck in traffic yesterday, not for the first time! Main roads, urban situation.
People round here blame cycle lanes & traffic measures for increased congestion. I didn't see a single bike yesterday on my trip home.
The cause of congestion is too many vehicles. Full stop.
One car per household should do nicely.

During my years commuting I spent about 3,500 hours queueing behind other cars, and in all that time the number of times I was held up by cyclists were so rare I can't recall any of them.

 

[mjr]

In which case, if you're agreeing with me, we need to stop building more cycle paths, and start forcing motorists out of their cars instead, as I said up top.

I don't see that as an either/or. There are many parts of the solution and we can do all of them. I think we need to both make it nicer to cycle as well as stop motorists transferring their problems (for example, increasingly large vehicles, especially oversize for single travellers) to everyone else (which vehicle bloat does, for example, taking more and more of the highway width for carriageway lanes and parking, reducing footways to unattractive vestigal strips in some cases).

Congestion is an inevitable consequence of mass motoring. There is no way that a town of even 20,000 people can have every adult with a driving licence using a 2m x 4m vehicle that needs a 2m x 24m stopping distance in front. There simply isn't the carriageway space for that, or even the land in a town of average density. Even if there was, it would still be more productive to use the space for a bus lane that could move 16,000 people per hour or a cycleway that could move 9,000/hr, instead of a mixed carriageway lane that maxes out at 2,000/hr.

We don't need to do anything punitive to force motorists out of their cars. We should simply make drivers have to live with the consequences of motoring, instead of the current approach of making everyone else suffer by giving the polluters priority at junctions, widening carriageways, forcing developers to waste valuable town centre land on temporary vehicle storage, and so on. Instead, we should remove parking minimums in built-up areas, turn carriageway lanes into footways and cycleways, install zebra crossings on desire lines... make our towns fair again.

 

[classic33]

I don't see that as an either/or. There are many parts of the solution and we can do all of them. I think we need to both make it nicer to cycle as well as stop motorists transferring their problems (for example, increasingly large vehicles, especially oversize for single travellers) to everyone else (which vehicle bloat does, for example, taking more and more of the highway width for carriageway lanes and parking, reducing footways to unattractive vestigal strips in some cases).

Congestion is an inevitable consequence of mass motoring. There is no way that a town of even 20,000 people can have every adult with a driving licence using a 2m x 4m vehicle that needs a 2m x 24m stopping distance in front. There simply isn't the carriageway space for that, or even the land in a town of average density. Even if there was, it would still be more productive to use the space for a bus lane that could move 16,000 people per hour or a cycleway that could move 9,000/hr, instead of a mixed carriageway lane that maxes out at 2,000/hr.

We don't need to do anything punitive to force motorists out of their cars. We should simply make drivers have to live with the consequences of motoring, instead of the current approach of making everyone else suffer by giving the polluters priority at junctions, widening carriageways, forcing developers to waste valuable town centre land on temporary vehicle storage, and so on. Instead, we should remove parking minimums in built-up areas, turn carriageway lanes into footways and cycleways, install zebra crossings on desire lines... make our towns fair again.

Where is that cycle lane?

 

[Alex321]

I don't see that as an either/or. There are many parts of the solution and we can do all of them. I think we need to both make it nicer to cycle as well as stop motorists transferring their problems (for example, increasingly large vehicles, especially oversize for single travellers) to everyone else (which vehicle bloat does, for example, taking more and more of the highway width for carriageway lanes and parking, reducing footways to unattractive vestigal strips in some cases).

Congestion is an inevitable consequence of mass motoring. There is no way that a town of even 20,000 people can have every adult with a driving licence using a 2m x 4m vehicle that needs a 2m x 24m stopping distance in front. There simply isn't the carriageway space for that, or even the land in a town of average density. Even if there was, it would still be more productive to use the space for a bus lane that could move 16,000 people per hour or a cycleway that could move 9,000/hr, instead of a mixed carriageway lane that maxes out at 2,000/hr.

We don't need to do anything punitive to force motorists out of their cars. We should simply make drivers have to live with the consequences of motoring, instead of the current approach of making everyone else suffer by giving the polluters priority at junctions, widening carriageways, forcing developers to waste valuable town centre land on temporary vehicle storage, and so on. Instead, we should remove parking minimums in built-up areas, turn carriageway lanes into footways and cycleways, install zebra crossings on desire lines... make our towns fair again.

No bus lane has ever carried nearly 16,000 people per hour, nor has any cycle lane ever carried 9,000 people per hour. While those mixed carriageway lanes do often get quite close to the 2,000 people.

16,000 people would mean something around 320 buses per hour at 50 people per bus. So one every 12 seconds.

And 9,000 people on a cycle lane would mean 150 per minute - 2.5 people every second.

 

[mjr]

No bus lane has ever carried nearly 16,000 people per hour, nor has any cycle lane ever carried 9,000 people per hour.

Probably not, but they are still the maximum capacities.

While those mixed carriageway lanes do often get quite close to the 2,000 people.

It depends what you call close, but you'd need car occupancy well above average and goods vehicles to be rare if not banned from a lane. The Bristol High Occupancy Vehicle lanes never got close. Where do you think one is?

16,000 people would mean something around 320 buses per hour at 50 people per bus. So one every 12 seconds.

And 9,000 people on a cycle lane would mean 150 per minute - 2.5 people every second.

Yes, both of which seem obviously possible for a 3.7m lane, if unlikely outside cities.

 

[simongt]

so all everyday errands are easily walkable.

True, but most folk think that it's quicker by car, even allowing for the time taken finding a parking space.
My neighbour is a typical example; local Co-op less than half a kilometre away, but he wouldn't dream of walking, even for the most insignificant purchase.