You don't have to live in the deepest countryside to need a car!

soupdragon10

We have buses twice a week, pick up from local village (a half hour walk for me as I've joint problems). Picks up at 10.30 and leaves local town at 12.30 to return so about 1 1/2 hours in town. Just enough to queue for prescriptions and buy a loaf (only the bakers shut down cos the supermarket sells bread cheaper).

I have lived her for over 20 years, and need a car to get anywhere (nearest shop is 5 miles and no I can't cycle due to joint issues).

Do get heavy shopping delivered now (good old internet), but to get to GP, chemist etc and to hold down a full time job I can't manage without a car.

I can't move into town as house prices have gone through the roof, mainly due to second home owners buying up all the affordable housing.

Buses every half hour would be a luxury, and would take advantage of this as I did when I lived in London.

ceridwen

littlerat wrote: »

I'd also like to know how many of those short journeys are made by the elderly or disabled who cannot move that distance another way - my Dad has to drive the 1/3 mile if he wants to get to the shop as there's no way he can walk it. It's a tiny distance, but there's no alternative for him - and I can't ever see there being a bus service for that!

Exactly the point I made earlier - ie that some people are too ill to be able to walk the up to 2 miles it is perfectly reasonable to expect everyone to walk. That is - that your fathers "personal range" doesnt even extend to 1/3 mile.

That being the case - are there pavements all along the stretch of road concerned? I am guessing that maybe there isnt - as otherwise he could use one of those "motorised wheelchair thingies" (soz - name escapes me at present...). I believe their range is up to 10 miles before they have to have a recharge??

(EDIT: just checked the Arg*s website - and they are called "4 wheeled scooter" and there is one there, for instance, at £1,100 and with a 25 mile range).

NEH

bap98189 wrote: »

Very few people actually need a car.

The problem nowadays is that because most people have one, we rely on it because we have geared up our lives on the assumption that we will have a car. As a result people live far further from their workplace/school than they used to. People also walk or cycle far less than in the past and as a result convince themselves they cannot live without a car. They are right insofar as they cannot see a way to do so, but the reality is that they could if they changed other things about their lifestyle or living situation.

The price of petrol is going to continue to rise and rise over the next couple of decades. Commuting is going to be come more and more expensive. The obvious solution is for people to re-organise their life so they travel less miles, which is ultimately what successive governments have been trying to achieve by constantly raising the tax on fuel. I think we are approaching the point at which fuel use will make people think seriously about cutting back on car use.

I think you'll find a fair number of people on here, myself included have cut down on car travel due to the recession etc, but that also means that we can't afford the expensive buses or trains either so it simply means one less "outing" for us...

ceridwen wrote: »

Some valid points. I am certainly absolutely astonished personally at how much time/money some people are prepared to use to commute to work (but its true that I have never had a well-paid job yet:( and rarely had a reasonably paid one even:() - so my personal figure of how much time/money I am prepared to "spend" on getting to/from work is an extremely low one (to allow for the low salary I have usually been paid).

People will have to get used to "living locally" generally - but I think its fair to accept that a lot of people will find this hard. For most of the time the human race has been on the planet - we have got used to living VERY locally indeed. Now that most people (in Western societies at least) have got a totally different mindset and have had some years of taking it for granted that things (work/leisure/etc) CAN be quite some distance away - then we are coming at things from a very different angle.

Personally - I think it best to accept that most people have now got used to "living globally" rather than "living locally" and try to adapt structures to deal with this fact (hence the much better public transport than we currently have) - because I simply dont think people will be prepared to go back to "living locally" (even though it was only in living memory that people could do otherwise). I think we have to be realistic here and accept that its fair enough to expect people to live MORE locally than they have done for the last 50 or so years - BUT not to expect them to go back to living AS locally as people did in all the previous centuries we have been here. It simply won't happen. I dont agree with people being "restricted" to a few miles radius of their homes and I think we have to accept that the mindset now is that people expect to be able to travel further afield than that - and adapt accordingly.

There IS a "happy medium" between the "living locally" of all centuries previous to the 20th century and the expectation of getting into a car/on a plane and expecting to travel tens of miles/thousands of miles in a day. Hence we need to have public transport that is MUCH better than the best we have yet had - and meanwhile the interim position is that we have to use community lift schemes and the like to get us through into that position.

In an ideal utopia maybe we would like to live nearer work or where our meetings our etc but it's simply not practicable with house prices being the way they are....For the rental price of a small 1 bed flat in our old city we could have a decent sized 3 bed house if there was a commute involved....People simply cannot always afford to live near their work anymroe as the prices are so high...People also have to consider the fact that maybe they can't get a job where they're currently living and have to commute a bit further afield to find one and they can't afford to move...Moving is a very expensive business....

tsstss7

Its not just public tranport links that are the problem either. I've lived places with no pavements on the side of the road only grass verges which is fine in summer if the grass is kept short but in winter you end up wet/muddy before you've gone anywhere. Other places I've seen no verges even - you would be obliged to walk on the side of small but busy country roads which is just too dangerous for me.

I also hate the way councils paint a bit of red on the side of a road and call it a bike lane - we could all take to bikes if there was a way of getting there without being almost killed on a regular basis. Holland have the right idea there - bikes take precidence and loads of people cart two (or even more) kids around on push bikes without a seconds thought as its a great way to get around there.

tooldle

I travelled home from town on Saturday morning on the bus. I was the only passenger with the exception of another driver returning home from his shift. The off duty driver and the driver were discussing the pending cuts to the service, and its impact on their hours of work. I feel it needs to be said that services will not increase in frequency or increase the area covered unless people actually use the service. This particular journey takes me approx 35 mins on foot, and approx 20 mins on the bus. If I took my car, it would have to be used in both directions and also parked somewhere. I cannot see that coming in cheaper than the £1.80 cost of using the bus.
My family live in a rural area. When pensioners were first offered free bus passes, the existing service in their area could no longer cope. Outcome being, more busses were laid on, not only on the main road route, but now right into the village itself. The village itself had previously had a once per week service. The main road route however is between 5-30 mins walk depending on where in the village you live. No one is going to improve the service in anticipation of customers, the customer base needs to be there to show the service is required. If more people were able to use the services and tolerate the slight inconvenience of longer journeys, not at exatly the time you would prefer etc, you may well find that the service improves. I can drive, but choose not to.

ceridwen

tsstss7 wrote: »

Its not just public tranport links that are the problem either. I've lived places with no pavements on the side of the road only grass verges which is fine in summer if the grass is kept short but in winter you end up wet/muddy before you've gone anywhere. Other places I've seen no verges even - you would be obliged to walk on the side of small but busy country roads which is just too dangerous for me.

I also hate the way councils paint a bit of red on the side of a road and call it a bike lane - we could all take to bikes if there was a way of getting there without being almost killed on a regular basis. Holland have the right idea there - bikes take prescence and loads of people cart two (or even more) kids around on push bikes without a seconds thought as its a great way to get around there.

More good points - and adaptations that will have to be made.

I am aware of places where there are no pavements (and sometimes not even a grass verge either:eek:) at the side of the road. Down to some shortsighted councillors or someone back in the past deciding to have a wider road for cars - at the expense of pedestrians - I guess. It IS wrong - and pavements are going to HAVE to be put at the side of all roads currently missing them.

I sympathise - because I was only walking along the side of a busy road yesterday. I was at the point on the road where there SHOULD have been a pavement - but there wasnt (and for a large part of my walk there wasnt even a grass verge either). I was definitely feeling a bit "tense":eek:. A cardriver even had the blimmin' nerve to hoot and shout at me for being on the road - how the heck dare he...as I was TRYING to walk on the pavement, but couldnt because it was non-existent:mad::mad::mad:. Not MY blimmin' fault some stupid member of the powers-that-be had at some point decided not to put a pavement at the side of a road where it was obviously needed!!! (expletive deleted about what I think of them having put pedestrians in a position where we have no choice BUT to walk along that busy main road....). I dont know whether maybe powers-that-be will have to revisit such a stupid decision on their part at some point - ie if some pedestrian has an accident because they were simply unable to walk on a pavement because of being missing. I would certainly look to sue any local authority that had caused an accident to me because I had tried to walk on the pavement - but couldnt because THEIR decision meant it was missing.

I certainly agree that bikes - and buses - should take precedence over cars. At the very least - it would stop the antisocial version of cyclists trying to ride on pavements that are meant for pedestrians only:mad::mad:. I would really rather NOT find out just how many cyclists are selfish and want to receive an ear-blasting from me shouting a comment about what an idiot they are/£30 fixed fine after them for having ridden on a pedestrian-only pavement.

Agutka

Last time I had to get to the "local" hospital by bus it took me 2.5 hours by public transport. On the way back I had to get a taxi as I missed the last bus back. Nice.

I love having a car and the freedom that gives you. Excellent way to explore the world.

msb5262

There's a wide range of opinions and experiences on this thread...like others here, I would love to be able to get to work by public transport but there are a few issues:

a) my DS1 is on a college course in a city 15 miles north of here. He has a bus pass which is great but the bus only goes from the nearest A-road.
If he had to get the train to the bus stop, he would have to leave home to get the local bus at 6.15am, get the train at 6.50am, then wait 45 minutes for the bus. Bus gets him to college for 8.40am...it's a long time to travel 15 miles!
As it is, I drop him at the A-road on my way to work in city 10 miles south of here. We leave at 7.30am.

b) If it weren't for DS1, I could get the little bus to the train, then train to the city where I work...then walk nearly a mile through a not very safe part of town for women on their own, carrying my stuff. I am a schoolteacher so generally have at least one huge shopping bag full of books etc and often my laptop too. When I drive to school, it's often two trips to get my stuff from the car into the building.

c) From March to July, our part of the railway line is going to be closed for essential works. There will be buses from here, and some trains from the nearest town, but at such a time as to make it impossible for work purposes.
Not only will I have to continue to drive but I'll probably have to drop my DD and DS2 near their schools as otherwise they will be late every day.


As so often in real-life situations, the idea of sticking to public transport is great but in practice it just won't work for us. On the other hand, at present my driving enables DS1 to use the bus for college, and DD and DS2 use only public transport for school, so we're not entirely bad!

MsB

littlerat

ceridwen wrote: »

Exactly the point I made earlier - ie that some people are too ill to be able to walk the up to 2 miles it is perfectly reasonable to expect everyone to walk. That is - that your fathers "personal range" doesnt even extend to 1/3 mile.

That being the case - are there pavements all along the stretch of road concerned? I am guessing that maybe there isnt - as otherwise he could use one of those "motorised wheelchair thingies" (soz - name escapes me at present...). I believe their range is up to 10 miles before they have to have a recharge??

(EDIT: just checked the Arg*s website - and they are called "4 wheeled scooter" and there is one there, for instance, at £1,100 and with a 25 mile range).

Nope there aren't - frankly it's pretty hazardous to even walk it, that's a whole other issue though! A bloke down the road from us had one but after somebody hit him he's gone back to a car even.

Dad can't bend his legs back far enough to sit in one though, he has good movement within a certain range thankfully (as it means he's allowed to and can safely drive!) but most things like that need your legs at a 90 degree angle, its damn annoying!


Same reason he can't use the public transport from our village if he wants to, there are mobility buses but he has to phone ahead and then they may send one depending on room for one of the stops that day, but they can't guarantee which time, if they send one at all :rotfl: And of course, there's then the same issue back.



Honestly on a selfish note, I hate public transport so I'd actually be more interested for myself in a viable way to keep us able to drive on sustainable fuel than I would be in more public transport.

GobbledyGook

It always bugs me when people just say casually 'get rid of the car' when people are struggling with money. Often they were bought on finance when people were doing well and even if they sold the car they'd still have part of the finance to pay anyway.

I live 15 minutes away from a big city and if you live near our town centre and you want to go to the city the buses are great. Super regular, cheap and reliable. However if you want to go anywhere else - including the town centre if you don't live close enough to walk - then the bus service is shocking.

For example my daughter has the hospital on Tuesday. Parking is murder so I was going to take the bus instead, but when I looked into it it's totally impractical. The bus is an hourly service due at 20 past the hour. Speaking to people who use it it regularly runs up to 35 minutes late as the time given to the run is very tight and doesn't take into account rush hour etc. It goes through such a convoluted route that for a 15 minute car drive it takes 1 hour and 45 minutes! Also if we happen to finish our appointment at the time of the local factory finishing for the day the bus may not even stop at the hospital because it gets too full - every day!

To visit my friend in another part of town 4 miles away I'd have to get 3 buses. It would cost me over £7 (different bus companies so no day ticket option) and would take over 90 minutes. Yet they often wonder why people in this town struggle to use the buses. It's madness and makes a car vital for anyone who works and has children at school or who doesn't work within a mile or two of their home. No bike lanes or anything here either and they are clamping down hard on people cycling on the pavements.