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 Head To Head The Modern Antiquarian Stonehenge and its Environs Forum | Start a topic | Search |
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thesweetcheat wrote: What I was trying to say was in reply to your point that there is no demand for "new" public transport routes, only demand for increased spend on existing corridors. My point was that there is a demand for "new" routes as well, but that they are in effect "old" routes really, because any "new" route now would be covering ground that once upon a time would have been well-served by the public transport network, before the advent of so much car usage. In order to really make people view car usage as a choice rather than a necessity, much of the old, lost network would need to be resuscitated, because otherwise in many places there really is no choice other than using a car at present, where once there was public transport. The population of rural towns and villages is much greater than it was in the heyday of public transport, so there are certainly potential users out there, but you have to make it look like a proper, practical alternative to using cars. OK, well it's very questionable whether there's sufficient demand to re-open most of the old branch line network (much as that's something I'd love to see). There are still two fundamental problems. Firstly, even with all the branch lines reopened, they simply won't fit modern working patterns. I work in a business of about 200 people in a town that was once served by a railway, and I'm struggling to think of many people here who could make it into work on the train, if it still existed. I commute about 30 mins to work, and my home town also used to have a railway. The two towns weren't directly linked. But if they were, I would still have a 30 min walk to the station at either end of the journey. If I worked shifts, I would be lucky if public transport fitted my shift patterns. Either way, allowing for some modest waiting time at either end of the day, I'd be looking at my commuting time being trippled. Assuming that the two towns had a direct rail link. If I was to commute using the old branch network, I'd guess my journey time would have another 30 mins tagged on at a minimum while I detoured to a station where I could get a link and then waited for the next train. Secondly, people don't want to give up their cars. They only want to commute by train where the car journey is difficult. Which generally means commutes into large urban centres. You will never significantly reduce car use, however many trains and buses you pay for. The best you can hope for is reducing congestion in cities and siphoning a bit of traffic off the road network (not that these aren't laudable goals, but given the cost of rebuilding our rail network, I doubt any government is going to consider it a worthy investment any time soon). I think you CAN significantly reduce car use, but it would involve strategic planning on a massive scale - rebuilt rail network, massive subsidies for companies relocating to areas directly served by a train station, massive hikes in fuel duty, and probably house building programs in areas that were within the new commuter belts. Because without shifting business, shifting housing, and penalising car use, people will carry on driving to work. And of course to accompany that, you'd need shopping and leisure facilities that were accessible via this new infrastructure. It's not impossible, but it's the work of a generation, and it would be insanely expensive. Reply | with quote | Posted by Mustard 3rd October 2013ce 09:15 In reply to: Re: A303 to go into a tunnel eventually? (thesweetcheat) |
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