Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
NM wrote:

I have to ask, How? Brindisi/Calais used to take me two long days
driving.

Jaguar XJR, and eyes open for Les Flics.

And I'm usually not the fastest thing on the roads.

--
Having problems understanding usenet? Or do you simply need help but
are getting unhelpful answers? Subscribe to: uk.net.beginners for
friendly advice in a flame-free environment.

A nice Jaguar XJR, and he is concerned about the environment....not, what a
surprise hes a true blue, Im ok Jack

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
. ..
iantheengineer wrote:

I actually work for a consultancy and not a local authority,

Name them so I can cross them off the list of places we do business
with.

--
Having problems understanding usenet? Or do you simply need help but
are getting unhelpful answers? Subscribe to: uk.net.beginners for
friendly advice in a flame-free environment.

We dont work for muppets like yourself!

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Philip Bradshaw" wrote in message
. ..

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
. ..
iantheengineer wrote:

I actually work for a consultancy and not a local authority,

Name them so I can cross them off the list of places we do business
with.

Sounds like a good move; my understanding is that anyone still using pcu
is
a tad out-dated.


Hmmm I suggest you are wrong the pcu is still in valid use, ask the authors
of Arcady, Picady and Linsig for starters, they all use pcus as well as all
of the base formulae behind them

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Paul Smith" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 8 Nov 2003 22:43:22 -0000, "iantheengineer"
wrote:

You're a TRAFFIC ENGINEER?

God save us all.

Okay Paul what are your views and ideas

Seriously?

Let the market decide. It will anyway.

All this modern interference wastes resources.

Transport engineering is about facilitating choice, not restricting
it.
--
Paul Smith
Scotland, UK
http://www.safespeed.org.uk
please remove "XYZ" to reply by email
speed cameras cost lives


Facilitating choice at the cost of everything else though??? If we widened
all of the roads and increased parking facilities and improved all junctions
where would we be. We would have wasted countless resources such as bitumen
and stone. We would encourage everyone to use their cars at all times
polluting the environment and wasting petro chemicals.

Hmm yes that would be a wise move, could you realistically see a modal
change through choice????

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Clive" wrote in message
...
In message , iantheengineer
writes

Yes they do I can produce the stats if required from ROSPA that have
been statistically proven to a 90-95% confidence interval, however no
doubt you will doubt these, I have given up with this NG. They seem to
think that government bodies sit thinking of ways to waste momey and
alienate the public, dont you think you are missing the bigger picture???
Who was it said. "There are lies, damn lies and statistics.?
--
Clive

and there lay another doubting thomas suffocated by the fumes from his own
car as he drove to the oxygen shop

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 15:50:32 -0000, "iantheengineer"
wrote:

It is known that the bus service always seems to operate on no buses for
ages then a fleet come along at once and this is due to the fact that
people
alighting on the first bus delay it so that the headway between it and
the
following bus reduces, and so on until the first bus is full and perhaps
skips a few stops, and then the second bus will take over until the first
bus is able to stop again. But if the system were saturated the first bus
would load up and set off then the second would load up and set off and
so
on, and the headways would remain overall similar with smaller variation.

It's much more boarding (and ticket sales) rather than alighting that
causes this problem; if off-bus ticketing were the norm (outside
London), and all buses larger than van-derived minibuses were fitted
with two sets of doors, this would be significantly reduced.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
is a valid email address, but is sent to
/dev/null.
Try my first name at the above domain instead if you want to e-mail me.

True and work is being undertaken to speed these issues up as you say the
ticketing issue is a problem, but off bus ticketing is a solution

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Chris Jones" wrote in message
...
We cant travel if the rate of increase in traffic continues

Traffic has only increased at the same rate as the number of driving
license
holders has increased - due largely to women getting their own cars more
these days.

Once the number of license holders flattens out (which it will in due
course), traffic should stop increasing so fast. If we built a decent road
network now, it might be able to serve us forever.



Are we really going to be able to limit licences? I cant see thsi unless we
have to start paying for them. I am sure the human rights brigade would have
plenty to say about allowing Eddie to have a licence but not George

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Chris Jones" wrote in message
...
Speed humps slow drivers down thus making accidents less likely and
less severe.

Not necessarily - they slow down for each hump and speed up in between -
so
they may well be going faster in between the humps than they would be if
the
humps weren't there.


They have been shown to reduce accidents through a reduction in speed. This
has been established and proven to be statistically significant.

As for speed limit in force at all times well if it wasnmt drivers would
get
confused, and is travelling at 20 over that distance such a problem??.

But as it's the school run parents who are usually the ones responsible
for
speeding outside schools, surely having a 24/7 20-limit is wasteful and
unnecessary?



Well yes but as I said before to make it a temporary limit would make it
less likley to be obeyed. I am a parent and I certainly dont speed in
30/40mph zones never mind 20mph

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 20:27:20 -0000, "iantheengineer"
wrote:

Okay Paul what are your views and ideas

Seriously?

Let the market decide. It will anyway.

All this modern interference wastes resources.

Transport engineering is about facilitating choice, not restricting
it.

Facilitating choice at the cost of everything else though??? If we widened
all of the roads and increased parking facilities and improved all junctions
where would we be. We would have wasted countless resources such as bitumen
and stone. We would encourage everyone to use their cars at all times
polluting the environment and wasting petro chemicals.

Hmm yes that would be a wise move, could you realistically see a modal
change through choice????

If people don't want a modal change then it's absolutely barking of
planners to try to impose one.

Where's the evidence that a majority of people want to be "modally
changed"?

Neither do I think it's about "widening all roads" (etc).

More it's about not obstructing traffic and not obstructing free
choice with ill conceived schemes which do not benefit the majority.
--
Paul Smith
Scotland, UK
http://www.safespeed.org.uk
please remove "XYZ" to reply by email
speed cameras cost lives

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
. ..

IIRC they showed a change over the period of their degree, which is IIRC
four years, either that or it was a change since the building was
compelted, I forget it was close to 30 years ago. The glass they were
looking at was the covering of their own building which used very large
vertical slabs of glass.

It was the first time that I had heard that glass flows so I remembered
it for that reason alone.

It's news to the field of glass technology. The original story is about
cathedral glass that has flowed to be thicker at the bottom over several
centuries. In actual fact it was probably installed with the thickest edge
at the bottom.

I've seen apparently cool glass that has flown out of cracks in a lead glass
furnace, but not actually flowing. The viscosity at room temperature is so
high that it has a relaxation time of a few million years, so it must have
been heated for a brief period of time, and then cooled again. It is
physically impossible for cold glass to flow.
--
Terry Harper
http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...

Outside the UK (certainly in Western Europe), bus services tend to be
run sensibly. In the UK, London is the only place with a proper
planned, useful, well-run and good-value bus network. This is because
it was the only place in which deregulation was not carried out,
probably because the politicians all live/work there.

Try a similarly-sized town in the UK, and you'll see the picture is
not nearly as rosy. In Milton Keynes, while there have been a few
welcome improvements to evening/Sunday services recently, it is a sick
joke. I understand it is far worse elsewhere.

I would challenge your argument. in my view both Oxford and Brighton have
very efficient bus services, at reasonable prices like £2.40 or £2.70 for a
day ticket. Edinburgh has a similar arrangement, but cheaper, I believe. In
all of these, bus use is driven by the car-unfriendly nature of the cities.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"iantheengineer" wrote in message
...

If you read the earlier posts it is theoretical, the question asked was how
many buses *could* you get through a lane.

No it wasn't. It was about 'throughput of people'.

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 21:49:47 +0000, Paul Smith
wrote:


More it's about not obstructing traffic and not obstructing free
choice with ill conceived schemes which do not benefit the majority.

I firmly believe that there should be statutory minimum utilisation
requirements on all attempts to restrict access to the public highway.
Applied to bus and cycle lanes.


greg

--
$ReplyAddress =~ s#\@.*$##; # Delete everything after the '@'
The Following is a true story.....
Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"iantheengineer" wrote in message
...
"Nick Finnigan" wrote in message
...

Even at a bus every 5 seconds I don't see how you
can pick up any passengers; if any bus actually stops,
all the following buses would have to.

The same argument can be used for any mode though if a single lane with no
overtaking is installed as all traffic will be delayed due to stops by any
vehicle. This is why we have bus laybys in many places to prevent this.You
could argue that the car is less effective at this as it stops and can only
let a maximum of 4 people off before resuming the journey. A bus stops in
only a slightly longer timestep and can let a maximum of 72 people depart,
before it can set off So effectively you have the stop the depart and the
set off elements to measure. The stopping and departing are going to be
similar with a couple of extra seconds for the bus, but the efficiency of
the stop is far greater allowing a greater passenger per second exit ratio.

Why do you have to keep going on about cars?

What then are the best possible passenger per second
exit and entry per second ratios, how infrequently do you
have to have buses passing to allow that many passengers
to board at once, and does this help you to calculate the
maximum throughput of people, given that the buses
stop to pick them up using occasional laybys?

And how long and how frequent would these laybys be?

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
. ..
Terry Harper wrote:

It is physically impossible for cold glass to flow.

Oh well you live and learn. It's a shame when something that you had
thought you had learned has to be unlearned, but I'll forget that
factoid. Hmm now what made a bunch of uni students think that they were
measuring glass flow? Desire to please their lecturer?

Not impossible. I recall one examination where someone asked the examiner
afterwards what was the correct answer. His reply was that there wasn't one.
Candidates were required to record the start and finish times of their
experiment, which involved a time-dependent reaction. If they were on the
curve, OK, if not, they got marked down. If you repeated the test a number
of times, and got varying results, there was a temptation to apply Cook's
constant.
--
Terry Harper
http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 20:33:11 +0000, iantheengineer wrote:
Are we really going to be able to limit licences? I cant see thsi unless we
have to start paying for them. I am sure the human rights brigade would have
plenty to say about allowing Eddie to have a licence but not George

The population of the UK remains steady, so the maximum number of licenses
remains steady.

This of course is a flaw in the anti-car brigade's logic. They say build
more roads you get more Traffic, but fail to realise that the absolute
maximum amount of traffic on the roads in car hours per day is equal to
the population * 24.

If you build a western Birmingham bypass and it fills up, traffic on the
M5/M6 will decrease, howeveR more local commuters will use the road,
reducing traffic on local residential roads, which is good.

Think of the chaos that could be caused if the M5 over the river Avon is
closed for 6 months. Suddenly 4 lanes of traffic, including 2 long
distance lanes, is sent through Bristol. I don't know about traffic
planners, but in my industry we have redundancy, and don't run our systems
at anywhere near 100%.

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 23:49:05 +0000, Greg Hennessy
wrote:

More it's about not obstructing traffic and not obstructing free
choice with ill conceived schemes which do not benefit the majority.

I firmly believe that there should be statutory minimum utilisation
requirements on all attempts to restrict access to the public highway.
Applied to bus and cycle lanes.

I have major doubts that there's such a thing as a soundly justified
bus lane.

I also think it's potentially dangerous to create non-aspirational
privilege for classes of road user.
--
Paul Smith
Scotland, UK
http://www.safespeed.org.uk
please remove "XYZ" to reply by email
speed cameras cost lives

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

In message , Chris Jones
writes
When North sea gas runs out, what are we going to do then to replace
it, the best source of heat for the community.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3161414.stm


What has this got to do with my original question. Where do we get gas
when the north sea runs dry?
--
Clive

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

In message , iantheengineer
writes

Unlike rainfall we have another alternative with traffic we can
restrain the source if we choose, which along with the other tools
including where necessary road building will help the road system cope
with the traffic.

As for your example of stones deflecting well thats a new one on me.
Subsidence is due to the mines or other underground tunnel etc
gradually collapsing and what normally happens is failure of the
foudation leaving a crack visible in the supported wall either through
the blocks or the mortar joints whichever is the weakest. Stone and
concrete are strong in compression but weak in tension so as you get a
force acting on one side causing compression in one face through
bending, you get tensiile forces on the other face which normally
resulst in cracking and subsequent failure. I daresay that stone will
deflect to a degree but this would be unmeasurable to the naked eye.


Very interesting (yawn) what has this to do with railways?
--
Clive

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

In message , derek
writes

Professor Unwin, I assure you that around here I can show you stone
(most likely millstone grit) walls that have deflected (The stones
have bent it's not that the all the motor joints have broken and the
wall is just a collection of stones in formation) by about an inch in a
5 foot run under their own weight and the weight of the stones above them.

DG
As a totally uneducated moron, please explain the connexion between
deflected walls and railways?
--
Clive

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 22:37:59 +0000 (UTC), "Terry Harper"
wrote:

I would challenge your argument. in my view both Oxford and Brighton have
very efficient bus services, at reasonable prices like £2.40 or £2.70 for a
day ticket. Edinburgh has a similar arrangement, but cheaper, I believe. In
all of these, bus use is driven by the car-unfriendly nature of the cities.

....while MK has a poor bus service because it is very car-friendly,
despite the Council's best efforts to stop this.

Smaller towns, however, don't come off well.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
is a valid email address, but is sent to /dev/null.
Try my first name at the above domain instead if you want to e-mail me.

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 02:06:22 +0000, Clive
wrote:

In message , derek
writes

Professor Unwin, I assure you that around here I can show you stone
(most likely millstone grit) walls that have deflected (The stones
have bent it's not that the all the motor joints have broken and the
wall is just a collection of stones in formation) by about an inch in a
5 foot run under their own weight and the weight of the stones above them.

DG
As a totally uneducated moron, please explain the connexion between
deflected walls and railways?

To be honest you'd be better asking that in uk.railway. This is a
thread about Britain's Crap Roads. ;-)

DG

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

"iantheengineer" wrote in message
...

"Philip Bradshaw" wrote in message
. ..

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
. ..
iantheengineer wrote:

I actually work for a consultancy and not a local authority,

Name them so I can cross them off the list of places we do business
with.

Sounds like a good move; my understanding is that anyone still using pcu
is
a tad out-dated.


Hmmm I suggest you are wrong the pcu is still in valid use,

As measure of the impact of larger vehicles on road congestion perhaps, a
measure introduced long before bus lanes became common.
In your expecting 900bus/hour/lane?
Oh my.
I would have thought a consultant engineer choosing to opine on buses would
have breadth of knowledge sufficient to recognise operational capacity as
relevant and have regard to demerits like block-back and junction capacity
reduction caused by bus lanes.
No matter; each to their specialities.
Drains was it?

ask the authors
of Arcady, Picady and Linsig for starters, they all use pcus as well as
all
of the base formulae behind them

Indeed.
Your use of pcu..?

Welcome to uk.transport BTW.

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

In message , Chris Jones
writes
To commute is to waste, in both time and resources, the more we
reduce commuting the easier it will be for the people who have
to travel to get around.

True. Nobody likes commuting to work, I'd rather not have to do it. But with
the way the job market is these days, I can't just keep moving house every
time I change jobs, or I'd never get the chance to settle down anywhere.


Let's step outside this for the moment, even if you live next door to
your work, you are still commuting. It's just a matter of distance
surely. The higher paid the job, the longer the commute becomes
viable.
--
Clive

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

In message , iantheengineer
writes

"Clive" wrote in message
...
In message , iantheengineer
writes

Yes they do I can produce the stats if required from ROSPA that have
been statistically proven to a 90-95% confidence interval, however no
doubt you will doubt these, I have given up with this NG. They seem to
think that government bodies sit thinking of ways to waste momey and
alienate the public, dont you think you are missing the bigger picture???
Who was it said. "There are lies, damn lies and statistics.?
--
Clive

and there lay another doubting thomas suffocated by the fumes from his own
car as he drove to the oxygen shop


I hope you're not pointing your finger at me... I'd give up my car if
you want to provide the sort of cover and frequency enjoyed in London,
instead of our stagecoach once a week.
--
Clive

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

In message , iantheengineer
writes

Gritting / salting should only be undertaken when absolutely necessary.
The only guide that is given is the weather forecast, so occasionaly it
gets salted when it doesnt needs it ans not salted when it should.
Salting has to be done when the ice is forming, not before or after. If
you salt too early it gets washed and trafficked off. If you salt too
late you need 40g/m2 as opposed to 15g/m2. Local authorities normally
have a limited stock for the whole winter ( blame the accounting
systems of the country) so they can normally only go out a limited
number of times a year (ridiculous I know) so the decisions are not
taken lightly.

I hope that explains things a little and restores at least a little
confidence in your lha.

Kindly tell Copeland council, they say they have run out of money to pay
for gritting teams in the winter.
--
Clive

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

In message , iantheengineer
writes

Well yes but as I said before to make it a temporary limit would make
it less likley to be obeyed. I am a parent and I certainly dont speed
in 30/40mph zones never mind 20mph

Instruct the police to do away with variable speed limits and the south
west portion of the M25 then.
--
Clive

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 20:17:41 +0000, Huge wrote:
And moving jobs closer to home rapidly becomes economically unviable.

Take a 50% pay cut? I think not.

Indeed, not physically viable either. I work in a building that has over
5000 employees working Around the clock, as well as up to 1000 members of
the public. All of those people Are needed within 3 minutes walk from each
other. To house those 5,000 people (plus their family) you need 5,000
homes. 20,000 people also need Shops to shop in, parks to play in, cinemas
to unwind, schools, hospitals, the list goes on.

All of those things then need people working in them.

Before you know it you need a small city to keep one building going -
you'll Have commuting anyway.

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 09:28:56 +0000, Clive wrote:

When North sea gas runs out, what are we going to do then to replace it,
the best source of heat for the community.

Politicians

Britains Crap Roads, Answers wanted
 

Are we really going to be able to limit licences? I cant see thsi unless
we have to start paying for them. I am sure the human rights brigade
would have plenty to say about allowing Eddie to have a licence
but not George

You're missing the point - we don't have to limit the number of licenses -
they will naturally flatten out when everybody who wants one has one. The
current growth is largely due to most young women getting their own licenses
now, whereas a large number of old women never had a license. Therefore,
although the population is remaining roughly stable, the people dying out
didn't have licenses whereas the younger people who replace them do have.