[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

In message , at 19:04:38 on Tue, 15 Feb
2005, Dave Arquati remarked:
One also has to bear in mind *road space* rather than the space
physically occupied by the car. As a typical 4x4 is quite a bit
taller than a "normal" car, it reduces visibility for the car behind
it, so the car behind must keep more distance in order to retain visibility.
And you've seen this happening in practice?

From personal experience outside London. I can't see why it would be
any different in London, and I know that one major claim used against
4x4s is that they make life more difficult for other motorists.

So you'd ban vans and buses from Central London on the same principle?
--
Roland Perry

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:04:38 on Tue, 15 Feb
2005, Dave Arquati remarked:

One also has to bear in mind *road space* rather than the space
physically occupied by the car. As a typical 4x4 is quite a bit
taller than a "normal" car, it reduces visibility for the car
behind it, so the car behind must keep more distance in order to
retain visibility.

And you've seen this happening in practice?


From personal experience outside London. I can't see why it would be
any different in London, and I know that one major claim used against
4x4s is that they make life more difficult for other motorists.

So you'd ban vans and buses from Central London on the same principle?

Of course not. Vans and buses are necessary; in many cases, 4x4s are
not. Besides, I was just quoting one of the many arguments floated
against their use in the city.

I never even suggested banning 4x4s from central London. There are other
measures which could be taken to reduce their use.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
.uk...
In message , at
11:07:15 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
Something like 90% of journeys in London are by public transport, so the
remainder who are using their car have obviously got a very good reason.
Often (amongst those I've asked) it's because they have had very bad
experiences with public transport in the past, and feel they need the
extra flexibility that a car provides.

That statistic does not really mean a great deal though; the fact that the
public transport system can support that figure is because it is more
scalable.

Most of the commuter rail in and out of London is at bursting point, and
has nowhere to scale *to*. It is at maximum capacity.

The issue is that some individuals still appear to consider the private
motor vehicle (read: car), which is not scalable or anywhere near it, a
good way to get around London. A feel your statistic proves my point.

Only 10%, which means they are the real persistent people who must have a
*very* good reason.

Some do, I'm sure, but have you considered some are selfish? I know a
few... That's another, very realistic reason, surely. If they had a bad
episode when they couldn't get a seat between Leicester Square and Covent
Garden, then that's hardly a good excuse to put another vehicle on the
crowded streets of London. I've had some pretty awful experiences on public
transport, but they're very rare, and I've had more in private transport.

As an aside, where did you get that figure from? I've been looking for a
good stats site for a while.

From a LUL (or similar) survey done 5-8 years ago. I've no immediate
reference.

So it's bang up to date! Fantastic! Oh, I think you mis-spelled "my ass".
joking ;)

I used to travel to London from Cambridge 3 or 4 days a week, for a
couple of years, and in that time I used the train except for perhaps
half a dozen times when I went by car because I had lots of
luggage/items-to-deliver to cope with. And most of those trips I did on
a Sunday. And one time I knew I was going to be very late and it wasn't
practical to get a train.

That's wonderful for you, I wish everyone were so considerate.

Self preservation, more like.

Of course, it depends what you call London. Years ago, I would regularly
drive down the M4 and park at Marble Arch (under Hyde Park), or perhaps
at one of the car parks in the squares north of Oxford Street. There was
never very much of a problem, traffic-wise, and as the nearest sensible
railway station to my home in rural Oxfordshire was more than halfway
into London (at the edge of the Metropolitan), a lot of the time it just
felt "right" to carry on, having got that far.

I am referring to anywhere that is densely populated, not just central
London. I cannot recall the development density index where car use
becomes difficult, but I would think zones 1-6 are past it.

M4, Westway, then Marble Arch via Paddington aren't particularly congested
most of the day.
--
Roland Perry

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

Roland Perry wrote:

Of course, it depends what you call London. Years ago, I would regularly
drive down the M4 and park at Marble Arch (under Hyde Park), or perhaps
at one of the car parks in the squares north of Oxford Street. There was
never very much of a problem, traffic-wise, and as the nearest sensible
railway station to my home in rural Oxfordshire was more than halfway
into London (at the edge of the Metropolitan), a lot of the time it just
felt "right" to carry on, having got that far.

What part of rural Oxfordshire was that? I can think of parts of it that
it would've been more practical to drive via the M40 than take the
train, but none where the M4 would've been better.

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

In message , at 00:15:03
on Wed, 16 Feb 2005, d remarked:

Roland Perry wrote:
Something like 90% of journeys in London are by public transport, so the
remainder who are using their car have obviously got a very good reason.
Often (amongst those I've asked) it's because they have had very bad
experiences with public transport in the past, and feel they need the
extra flexibility that a car provides.

That statistic does not really mean a great deal though; the fact that the
public transport system can support that figure is because it is more
scalable.

Most of the commuter rail in and out of London is at bursting point, and
has nowhere to scale *to*. It is at maximum capacity.

The issue is that some individuals still appear to consider the private
motor vehicle (read: car), which is not scalable or anywhere near it, a
good way to get around London. A feel your statistic proves my point.

Only 10%, which means they are the real persistent people who must have a
*very* good reason.

Some do, I'm sure, but have you considered some are selfish?

Some people would say you were selfish to buy your vegetables at the
supermarket, rather than spending several hours a week digging an
allotment. People's standards vary.

I know a
few... That's another, very realistic reason, surely. If they had a bad
episode when they couldn't get a seat between Leicester Square and Covent
Garden, then that's hardly a good excuse to put another vehicle on the
crowded streets of London. I've had some pretty awful experiences on public
transport, but they're very rare, and I've had more in private transport.

I had more in mind the people who travel 50 miles in from their home
town, and had a bad experience (or two) with the railways. I went back
to driving to work (outside the London area) after Hatfield, for
example, when one day (not the first day after) it took me three hours
to get to work (instead of one).

As an aside, where did you get that figure from? I've been looking for a
good stats site for a while.

From a LUL (or similar) survey done 5-8 years ago. I've no immediate
reference.

So it's bang up to date! Fantastic! Oh, I think you mis-spelled "my ass".
joking ;)

I don't think that kind of figure varies much from year to year. We'd
have noticed if cars in Central London had doubled (80% by PT, 20% by
car) or halved (95% by PT, 5% by car) from the underlying 90% by PT, 10%
by car.
--
Roland Perry

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

In message , at 13:23:24 on
Wed, 16 Feb 2005, Aidan Stanger remarked:
Of course, it depends what you call London. Years ago, I would regularly
drive down the M4 and park at Marble Arch (under Hyde Park), or perhaps
at one of the car parks in the squares north of Oxford Street. There was
never very much of a problem, traffic-wise, and as the nearest sensible
railway station to my home in rural Oxfordshire was more than halfway
into London (at the edge of the Metropolitan), a lot of the time it just
felt "right" to carry on, having got that far.

What part of rural Oxfordshire was that? I can think of parts of it that
it would've been more practical to drive via the M40 than take the
train, but none where the M4 would've been better.

Sorry, I did mean the M40.
--
Roland Perry

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 23:19:30 +0000, Dave Arquati
wrote:

I never even suggested banning 4x4s from central London. There are other
measures which could be taken to reduce their use.

That may well be where we differ. I don't see why a 4x4 vehicle
should be considered any different from any other vehicle, in Central
London or otherwise. We may well want a target to reduce the numbers
of private motor vehicles in general in London, but to target a
specific type of *transmission* in such an ill-informed manner is not
a good idea.

I say transmission, because 4x4 vehicles come in many shapes and
sizes, the only thing they *all* have in common being power
transmission to all wheels in some way. Only *some* of them are Range
Rovers, Discoverys etc, and as has been stated even those don't take
as much road space (on the horizontal plane) as people think.

I'm not convinced by the vertical plane argument, as I would have
thought most drivers don't look ahead through other cars as a means of
seeing the road ahead, as visibility is that poor that way.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

Mike Bristow wrote:
I've driven from Leytonstone to Paddington on a number of occasions.
Certainly more convienent when meeting She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named
and her luggage. It was probably quicker than the Tube (the PT
alterantive), but it's hard to be sure. Certainly not much slower.

How much luggage are we talking? While I see that as a reason *you* make
this journey, I don't think it is a valid reason for anybody but yourself.

Lets say that for something to be a metro service, it needs to be
frequent enough that a timetable is pointless. Comparing the number
of people arriving at the station per minute over the course of the
day would be an interesting way to find out if the passengers bother
with learning the timetable.

My guess is that there will be little variation at Camden Road -
about as many passengers will arrive at the platform looking to
catch a train the minute before the train is due as the minute after
- indicating that 15 mintute wait between trains is "metro", while
at Upper Holloway, there will be a vast difference - indicating
that 30 minute waits are not "metro".

But I'm guessing; hard figures would be interesting.

My guess would be that is not the case; at least I live next to a so
called "metro" station, but I still check the timetables everytime I go
there. I'm not waiting around for fifteen minutes.

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
15:39:51 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:

The PM is hardly representative or comparable to "business men". I
don't know what you mean by "business man" but I'm guessing there's
too many of them to cater for aI'm afraid, and frankly they're not
important enough to concede to (unlike the PM).


So where do you draw the line?

At people with "Minister" in their job title.
"Junior Minister"
Managing Director of a PLC
Director of any registered Company
People called "Sales Manager" of a company with more than 1000 employees

Ultimately Roland, while we are constrained by natural language in
discussing this point one can always take the discussion down the road
of semantics and ambiguity into a dead end. Let's not do that 'eh?

Picking up on the original point, my position is that the car is still
overused given PT provision in London. I consider that in many cases
people are too lazy, or simply do not make a conscious decision to use
PT, as if they have some kind of logical reasoning limit. I come to this
conclusion witnessing the chronic congestion caused almost entirely by
private motor vehicle users in South London.

My point is that PT is inherently more scalable, and so would be better
fit to support the people wishing to be transported, regardless of their
bourgeois preferences.

[OT] 4x4 cars on London streets
 

In message , at
09:45:02 on Wed, 16 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:

The PM is hardly representative or comparable to "business men". I
don't know what you mean by "business man" but I'm guessing there's
too many of them to cater for aI'm afraid, and frankly they're not
important enough to concede to (unlike the PM).
So where do you draw the line?
At people with "Minister" in their job title.
"Junior Minister"
Managing Director of a PLC
Director of any registered Company
People called "Sales Manager" of a company with more than 1000 employees

Ultimately Roland, while we are constrained by natural language in
discussing this point one can always take the discussion down the road
of semantics and ambiguity into a dead end. Let's not do that 'eh?

My choice would be "anyone whose employer considers them important
enough to issue them with a company car or chauffeur" - but I'm sure
others won't agree.

Picking up on the original point, my position is that the car is still
overused given PT provision in London. I consider that in many cases
people are too lazy, or simply do not make a conscious decision to use
PT, as if they have some kind of logical reasoning limit.

I think most of the people in the central area have made a very
conscious decision to use a car. You don't spend 30 grand on a merc, on
a whim!

I come to this conclusion witnessing the chronic congestion caused
almost entirely by private motor vehicle users in South London.

My point is that PT is inherently more scalable, and so would be better
fit to support the people wishing to be transported, regardless of
their bourgeois preferences.

There's precious little PT outside the M25, which is where a lot of the
people we were discussing originate their journeys from. As for local
journeys, I'm sure few would exchange their car for a bus when visiting
the supermarket for their weekly shop - or indeed when popping up to the
High St to pickup their takeaway. People *do* have reasons to use a car.
--
Roland Perry