In message , at
13:41:05 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
The number of people in the car is irrelevant. Although one could
easily make a case that the people who have had bad experiences of
public transport are much more likely to be single travellers who
therefore end up one-per-car.

It's indicative of the unsuitability of private motor vehicles for
urban environments, or specifically London.

Quite the reverse. The people whose lifestyle appears to dictate that
they are unwilling to be held ransom by the vagaries of public
transport, are much more likely to make singleton journeys. They don't
ant to be held ransom to car-sharing either.

The amount of space occupied by a small number of travellers is
discussed in another branch of this thread.

Being stranded, missing meetings, failure of public transport to
deliver on its timetable...

Given that the worst, most unreliable and slowest form of public
transport in London, the bus, is bound by exactly the same
infrastructure as the car (in fact, slightly better given bus lanes)
quite how so many people would come to the conclusion that their car is
better despite the roads being full to bursting already is beyond me.

Because many of them have travelled from far enough away that a train is
the alternative. And having been stranded, and missed an important
meeting, once too often, revert to the car.

Perhaps they don't care for logic. Perhaps they all have complex
journeys that would take four bus rides. Perhaps they don't give a toss
about other people using buses who do have a brain cell. I dunno. But
what I do know is that I still don't understand how people come to the
solution of the car, given that it's clearly no better anyway.

Because it's door to door, and runs when they want it to - not on some
mythical once-every-15-minutes that tuns out to involve half an hour
waits in the rain once too often.

Yes, there are a lot of people in the suburbs who drive to the shops
and back. I'm sure they weren't counted in the survey, which was
about long distance commuting to jobs in Central London.

The thing is that a lot of what I perceive isn't in central London. The
congestion charge thankfully go rid of a lot of that. What I see is car
usage in the suburbs, zones 2-3 etc, where the congestion charge should
be extended to.

Is that on the trunk routes that most of the commuters are using?

People actually drive long distances into central London?

What's "long"? There are very large numbers who drive more than 50
miles.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
Quite the reverse. The people whose lifestyle appears to dictate that
they are unwilling to be held ransom by the vagaries of public
transport, are much more likely to make singleton journeys. They don't
ant to be held ransom to car-sharing either.

Well, victims of the system or just misguided idiots, I guess that's a
matter of opinion.

What I do know is that they render the London environment worse by their
selfishness through making PT (the bus network specifically) less
reliable and performant, worsening air pollution, and general anti
social aspects of car use etc etc

Because many of them have travelled from far enough away that a train is
the alternative. And having been stranded, and missed an important
meeting, once too often, revert to the car.

Sorry Roland, but I really cannot believe how an individual would
possibly think driving into central London would be quicker than getting
a train in. I guess a few are novices and might not have tried the
train. But if that were the case there must be a hell of a lot of
novices around (given your figures).

Because it's door to door, and runs when they want it to - not on some
mythical once-every-15-minutes that tuns out to involve half an hour
waits in the rain once too often.

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London now?
Central London?

Are we even talking about London? The picture you paint is not one I
recognise. Although I do agree about the ridiculous labelling of 15-min
frequency trains as such things as "metro" services. Need to double at
least before they're that.

Is that on the trunk routes that most of the commuters are using?

Anywhere that's congested.

What's "long"? There are very large numbers who drive more than 50 miles.

I think you answered above - I'd consider long to be a journey where
rail becomes the best bet.

In message , at
14:24:45 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
Quite the reverse. The people whose lifestyle appears to dictate that
they are unwilling to be held ransom by the vagaries of public
transport, are much more likely to make singleton journeys. They don't
ant to be held ransom to car-sharing either.

Well, victims of the system or just misguided idiots, I guess that's a
matter of opinion.

No, just busy businessmen who have found from painful experience that
their means of transport is the best on offer.

Sorry Roland, but I really cannot believe how an individual would
possibly think driving into central London would be quicker than
getting a train in. I guess a few are novices and might not have tried
the train. But if that were the case there must be a hell of a lot of
novices around (given your figures).

It's true. When you look at reliable door-to-door times, the car wins.

Not everyone's lifestyle is the same. As an extreme example, what would
you think if the PM was half an hour late for his questions in the House
of Commons because of problems on the Northern Line? And is paying him
about £100 an hour to sit on a tube train better than having him in a
car and reading his briefing papers in peace?

Somewhere between the PM and "do you want fries with that" is a
crossover line. It seems to be 90:10. I suggest you'd have a very
difficult time making it 95:5, and would be better employed making sure
it didn't degrade to 85:15.

Because it's door to door, and runs when they want it to - not on
some mythical once-every-15-minutes that tuns out to involve half an
hour waits in the rain once too often.

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London now?
Central London?

Close enough for most of the purposes we are discussing. And an awful
lot of the cars in *central* London have drivers.

Are we even talking about London? The picture you paint is not one I
recognise.

The people in the cars will typically live in the stockbroker belts.

What's "long"? There are very large numbers who drive more than 50 miles.

I think you answered above - I'd consider long to be a journey where
rail becomes the best bet.

So highly dependent on how close to a viable station the person lives.
Just the difficulty of parking near many of them rules them out as "P&R
for London".
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
It's true. When you look at reliable door-to-door times, the car wins.

Source? Or is this a Jeremy Clarkson style "a car can beat a jet
fighter, if I have a five month headstart and the jet has no wings" claim?

Not everyone's lifestyle is the same. As an extreme example, what would
you think if the PM was half an hour late for his questions in the House
of Commons because of problems on the Northern Line? And is paying him
about £100 an hour to sit on a tube train better than having him in a
car and reading his briefing papers in peace?

Somewhere between the PM and "do you want fries with that" is a
crossover line. It seems to be 90:10. I suggest you'd have a very
difficult time making it 95:5, and would be better employed making sure
it didn't degrade to 85:15.

But what about when the actions of the ten effect the PT QoS and QoL for
the ninety? Because of the scalability (that word again) the system
would work better if we got it to 95:5. 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).

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London now?
Central London?


Close enough for most of the purposes we are discussing. And an awful
lot of the cars in *central* London have drivers.

I really do not believe this. How many people work in the City? How many
people park there? I'd be surprised if the figure is as much as 10%.

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

....

Door to door? There's parking space outside every door in London
now? Central London?
Close enough for most of the purposes we are discussing. And an
awful lot of the cars in *central* London have drivers.

I really do not believe this. How many people work in the City? How
many people park there? I'd be surprised if the figure is as much as
10%.

A lot of them are driven to work, or drive to work. Otherwise this
conversation would not exist.
--
Roland Perry

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.

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

Dan Gravell wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 16 Feb 2005:

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.

And there are some people who are simply too scared to use public
transport, reckoning that they'll be mugged, robbed, raped or otherwise
inconvenienced whenever they use it. I know a young woman of 18 whose
mother has simply never allowed her to use public transport in her
entire life, which I find very shocking. But Dad is a policeman, and
Mother says that "Dad tells them" all the dreadful things that go on, so
the young woman has probably never been on a bus or train in her entire
life. I am not easily shockable, but that did shock me!
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 23 January 2005 with new photos

In article ,
Dan Gravell wrote:
Sorry Roland, but I really cannot believe how an individual would
possibly think driving into central London would be quicker than getting
a train in.

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.

I guess a few are novices and might not have tried the
train. But if that were the case there must be a hell of a lot of
novices around (given your figures).

We did that too; frankly the biggest turn-off is carting the bags
rather than the time.

Are we even talking about London? The picture you paint is not one I
recognise. Although I do agree about the ridiculous labelling of 15-min
frequency trains as such things as "metro" services. Need to double at
least before they're that.

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.

What's "long"? There are very large numbers who drive more than 50 miles.

I think you answered above - I'd consider long to be a journey where
rail becomes the best bet.

That can be remarkably short, sometimes.

--
Mike Bristow - really a very good driver

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.