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G'day (esp on Australia Day). I'm an Aussie too living in London. I'm a keen cyclist and love walking. I've been hit by several cars while cycling, three times

• Silhouette 15y ago
  Just to add some more food for thought, from someone who lives in Cambridge, UK. The basic problem with aiming for fewer cars and more public transport and walking/cycling is that neither alternative is actually a viable alternative for a surprisingly large proportion of journeys made by car today. Public transport essentially relies on having critical mass. If you have enough people wanting to travel similar routes at similar times, then you can make great economies of scale, avoiding congestion, using natural resources more efficiently, and reducing environmental damage. Unfortunately, while megacities like London typically achieve this critical mass, smaller cities like Cambridge rarely do. You see mostly full buses for an hour or two at the start and end of each working day, or on major routes like those between the Park and Ride car parks on the edge of the city and the centre. However, the average number of passengers on a bus, taken across all times they run and all routes in the UK is only something like 7 IIRC. At that point, buses are actually more polluting per passenger-mile than the average family car with an average of 1.5ish occupants, not so much in the carbon oxides that get all the press, but certainly in the really nasty stuff like PM10s. They don't compare so favourably on things like fuel consumption either. This lack of critical mass also creates problems for financial viability, which in turn means that you get less frequent services and that those services that do run have to follow fewer, more circuitous routes. That makes the whole thing less efficient than personal transport, and at some point, you reach the stage where getting the bus simply doesn't save you any time over walking, and not because we're talking about a short journey where waiting for the bus dominates. On top of all of that, buses are basically a menace to every other class of road user. They are obviously dangerous to cyclists. If you don't have space for dedicated roadside bus stops so the buses have to block the main driving lane while picking up and droping off passengers then a single bus can hold up an entire queue of traffic, slowing everything down to its stop-start pace. That is inefficient, environmentally unfriendly, and dangerous, all at once. Moreover, dedicated bus lanes and other priority features tend to violate the normal road layout rules, causing difficulties for just about everyone else at major intersections. Basically, if you've got enough people to run frequent bus services on fairly direct routes between everywhere and everywhere else, buses have a lot going for them. Otherwise, they suck and have almost no redeeming features whatsoever. Cycling and walking have a lot more going for them, and if we could just ban buses around here then we could probably get a lot more people cycling. They are clean and efficient methods of transport, and of course they have side benefits in terms of health and fitness. Unfortunately, they aren't much use if you're trying to get somewhere and still look presentable at the other end, it is impractical to carry large/heavy/young and wriggling loads on most journeys, and they are pretty unpleasant in bad weather. Oh, and a single cyclist can hold up a whole queue of traffic on a narrow road as well, and even on a relatively wide one the choice is between a hold-up or a stream of other vehicles passing dangerously close. On the face of it, the solution to most of the drawbacks of cycling is to provide better cycle facilities: dedicated cycle lanes away from the main traffic, secure cycle parking, mandatory shower facilities at places of work, and so on. Sometimes, the results are inconsistent or counter-intuitive, though, particularly with the idea of separating cycle traffic. Nervous/inexperienced cyclists often prefer to ride on separate paths off the main road, but more experienced/capable cyclists typically prefer the main roads rather than having to give way to motor traffic so much when separate cycle paths need to cross main roads (or vice versa, if you prefer). My personal feeling as a driver and cyclist is that if we could redesign the city around a good quality cycle path network from the start, and then overlay a road network for motor traffic on top with suitable under/overpasses to avoid breaking up the cycle network (since it's much harder for cyclists to stop and get going again if they have to yield priority) then a lot of these problems could be overcome. But right now, the local authorities here are proud of the fact that they have got a couple of major cycle routes from one side of the city to the other coming together after several years. I don't think it will ever be practical to implement something as comprehensive as I've described in an old city like Cambridge. The only solution, therefore, is to give up on finding a workable transport infrastructure for the city as we have today, and change the planning policies so that over the coming years there simply isn't as much need for so many people to travel into the same small area at the heart of a small city from everywhere around on the same few roads. Urbanisation might be inevitable, but we don't have to design every city so everyone is trying to get to the same place right in the centre when the area feeding it isn't big enough for public transport to reach critical mass.
  • 7952 15y ago
    The problems with buses are all caused by cars. Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? This would allow you to superimpose a subway like system on top of city's without the restrictions and cost of rail. Let specially licensed freight use it also to give business benefits.
    • Silhouette 15y ago
      > The problems with buses are all caused by cars. Sorry, but that's just not true. In a relatively small city with narrow streets like Cambridge, buses have just as many problems navigating around cyclists, awkward intersections, and indeed other buses. And the problems buses cause, particularly when only sparsely occupied, have nothing to do with cars at all. > Why not build new roads solely for the use of buses? Where are we going to put those? They're trying to create new roads only for the use of buses, by taking away lanes that used to be for everyone and designating them to be bus lanes instead. That is making things much worse for everyone else, because it means 50% of the road surface on major arterial routes is unused most of the time. And it isn't even helping buses that much, because they still have to get to and from those major routes on the back roads they serve, and they still have to stop at lights or give way at roundabouts just like everyone else. (Cambridge also has far too many sets of traffic lights for its size, which introduces an entirely artificial ceiling on the capacity of its road network for reasons no-one seems to quite understand. You can usually tell when the lights fail at a major intersection, because the drivers all start being polite and taking turns to proceed, there are hardly any queues in the area, and journeys are invariably quicker and more pleasant. Note to people wanting saner traffic systems for cities in future: competitive routes and stop/go lights are an evil that will cripple your efficiency.)
      • saraid216 15y ago
        > (Cambridge also has far too many sets of traffic lights for its size, which introduces an entirely artificial ceiling on the capacity of its road network for reasons no-one seems to quite understand. You can usually tell when the lights fail at a major intersection, because the drivers all start being polite and taking turns to proceed, there are hardly any queues in the area, and journeys are invariably quicker and more pleasant. Note to people wanting saner traffic systems for cities in future: competitive routes and stop/go lights are an evil that will cripple your efficiency.) Incidentally, I did hear about a study that indicates that roundabouts are far better for safety than traffic lights. Unfortunately, I don't remember the reason they concluded for this. Suffice to say... I don't really see much reason to ever use traffic lights if they can be avoided.
• repsilat 15y ago
  Not an Aussie, but living in Australia... I think the GP overstated things a little. Melbourne is reasonably dense compared to some other cities I've lived in. Quite a few of my co-workers don't own cars, and none of them drive to work in the city - every one of them walks, cycles, takes a tram or catches a train. Melbourne buses are terrible, but the trains aren't nearly as bad as everyone says. Our trams and cycle lanes are ubiquitous and they're incredible. Most of the hills in Melbourne exist in bike riders' imaginations, though - compared to my native NZ it's dead flat. Having commuted on Brisbane's buses I know they're top notch, and the ferries aren't bad if you're near the river and have some extra time in the mornings. The trains are getting a lot of money thrown at them, too, upping service frequencies and extending them further north. There's definitely cultural lean towards living in the suburbs and having a back yard big enough to play cricket on, but you only really know what you see. What used to be called outer suburbs are now called inner suburbs, and they're getting dense and very transport-accessible.