Stonehenge Tunnel legally blocked

[lpm]

Buckingham Palace?? Buckingham Palace!!

Most picnics are sitting in a car in a layby of the A38, the rain drumming down. Buckingham Palace is something beyond our imaginations.

[JQH]

...

You can't solve the climate crisis by asking people nicely to please do things a little bit better, please, if that's okay, sorry. Or even having a go at them when they do the wrong thing. Relying on individualism is an absolutely f.cked way of trying to solve climate change, and arguably helped exacerbate it in the first place. The entire concept of a personal carbon calculator was invented cynically by BP as a way of trying to shift the blame from massive organisations onto individuals - and it worked.

People will always act to save money if they have the choice to do so. Why the f.ck is it cheaper for me to drive into London? Having a government who thinks increasing price when demand drops off a cliff (as it did for the trains) doesn't f.cking help. Hit them (me) in the pocket and they'll start doing the right thing. But, mostly, focus on the big stuff, because it needs more than the general public to play their part.

This. Climate change is a collective problem which can only be solved collectively (which is probably why so many libertarians are denialists).

See also: Pandemics and How to Stop Them

[Millennie Al]

You want climate change priced into my car costs? I agree, so do I. But if it's only an intangible cost, then that's f.cking stupid - it needs to be hitting people in the face every time they fill up, every time they take a journey which could've been done in a less emissive way.

Fuel duty in the UK is 57.95p/l and then there's VAT on top of that. This is one of the highest in Europe (or, possibly, the hghest). How much harder do you want people to be hit?

[lpm]

Quite a bit harder. That fuel tax doesn't just cover carbon emissions, it also compensates for the other externalities - tailpipe pollution, noise pollution, congestion, loss of amenities, road maintenance costs.

If we want a change from the status quo, to shift people to walking, cycling, trains etc, then we need to change the tilt of the playing field. Pointing out the current tilt doesn't get us anywhere.

Give people advance warning so they have time to adapt, but tax the f.ck out of fossil fuel burning. Tell car manufacturers the first year VED on burners will be £2,500 from 2023 and £5,000 for cars that burn more than 150 g/km. Tell them it will double in 2027. Tell them the current -£2,500 EV subsidy will persist till 2030. Tell people petrol prices will be doubled to £2.50 a litre by 2030 so they have the info they need when choosing their next car purchase. Do similar with gas boilers. Insulation subsidies. Tell rail and bus companies to prepare for additional subsidies and prepare services to meet demand. Establish a record of flights taken per person to prepare for a new tax regime. Prepare for the coming per mile road pricing system.

Collectively we mainly make the right decisions when the economics point us in the right direction.

[WFJ]

Quite a bit harder. That fuel tax doesn't just cover carbon emissions, it also compensates for the other externalities - tailpipe pollution, noise pollution, congestion, loss of amenities, road maintenance costs.

If we want a change from the status quo, to shift people to walking, cycling, trains etc, then we need to change the tilt of the playing field. Pointing out the current tilt doesn't get us anywhere.

Give people advance warning so they have time to adapt, but tax the f.ck out of fossil fuel burning. Tell car manufacturers the first year VED on burners will be £2,500 from 2023 and £5,000 for cars that burn more than 150 g/km. Tell them it will double in 2027. Tell them the current -£2,500 EV subsidy will persist till 2030. Tell people petrol prices will be doubled to £2.50 a litre by 2030 so they have the info they need when choosing their next car purchase. Do similar with gas boilers. Insulation subsidies. Tell rail and bus companies to prepare for additional subsidies and prepare services to meet demand. Establish a record of flights taken per person to prepare for a new tax regime. Prepare for the coming per mile road pricing system.

Collectively we mainly make the right decisions when the economics point us in the right direction.

Taxes will only ever go so far towards effecting change, and can unfairly hit people in rural areas with no public transport infrastructure. If government actually wanted to create a shift towards public transport, cycling and walking, they could just ban car travel into widely-drawn town and city central areas. Keep key access routes open for buses, bikes and deliveries and make the rest pedestrian only. Blue badge owners could be allowed access and resident permit holders could drive on the required access routes and in sectors of the pedestrian areas, with 5 mph limits, but would not be allowed to cross sectors.

Unfortunately any government suggesting this would be unlikely to get a further term in office.

[lpm]

Taxes will only ever go so far towards effecting change, and can unfairly hit people in rural areas with no public transport infrastructure.

This always comes up and it's always misplaced.

Firstly, taxation systems aren't about being fair. Secondly, if a city car burns a litre of petrol and a rural car burns a litre of petrol, there's nothing unfair about punitive taxes on both. Thirdly, living in a rural area has costs & benefits and living in an urban area has costs & benefits - for example a rural home might have view of trees but also slow broadband. Everything is a trade off and people make their choices.

Finally, if emergency climate policies come across as unfair then simply compensate elsewhere in the system. Subsidise rural public transport more in this instance. Give subsidised home insulation, give direct benefits and tax credits, invest in green jobs.

[WFJ]

Taxes will only ever go so far towards effecting change, and can unfairly hit people in rural areas with no public transport infrastructure.

This always comes up and it's always misplaced.

Firstly, taxation systems aren't about being fair. Secondly, if a city car burns a litre of petrol and a rural car burns a litre of petrol, there's nothing unfair about punitive taxes on both. Thirdly, living in a rural area has costs & benefits and living in an urban area has costs & benefits - for example a rural home might have view of trees but also slow broadband. Everything is a trade off and people make their choices.

Finally, if emergency climate policies come across as unfair then simply compensate elsewhere in the system. Subsidise rural public transport more in this instance. Give subsidised home insulation, give direct benefits and tax credits, invest in green jobs.

I am not saying that taxes on fuel should not be raised, but that they are an incredible inefficient way of effecting a change in behaviour. The world will always be full of idle people who decide to drive a mile or two to the shops, rather than cycle/walk, or drive across town instead of taking public transport, as the incremental cost of that single journey by car will always be low, whatever the tax is. If car use is to be changed, these journeys need to disincentivised in other ways.

[Bird on a Fire]

It isn't either/or. Sticks and carrots. Provide alternatives and penalise the old ways. Advance on multiple fronts.

The government is taking over operating the trains, which will give them the perfect opportunity to drastically lower ticket prices. At the same time they can subsidise new EVs, decarbonise the grid, invest more in buses and park and ride schemes, tax carbon emissions and so on.

Somebody popping to the shops (or the Palace!) isn't really the issue. Freight, commuting and other long-term large-scale issues are the important targets for policy.

[Woodchopper]

Any attempt to radically change consumption patterns over a short period is going to negatively affect many people.

All the possible methods involve inefficiencies and unfairness.

We can try to choose means which are relatively more fair and efficient.

Not acting because some people will be worse off is the way to do nothing.

[Fishnut]

As someone who doesn't own a car (which I suspect makes me a minority here) I've given public transport a fair amount of consideration over the years. I've come to the following conclusions:

We need more frequent public transport. One bus every hour or, for many rural places, one bus every day, does nothing to encourage people out of their cars.

We need integrated public transport. No more getting of the bus just to find the train has left the station and the next one isn't for half an hour.

We need cheaper public transport. I can travel from Bristol to London (117 miles, £2.95 on Megabus) for less than it costs me to get from my town to Bristol (10 miles, £3.85 on First Bus). That's ridiculous. (for comparison, the cheapest train ticket I can find for that journey is £36.30 which is why I rarely take the train).

We need more routes. There are so many places locally that are either completely or in practice inaccessible by public transport and my area is by no means unique. Journeys that take half an hour by car take 3 times as long, and require multiple changes, by bus. Some places simply don't have public transport. I'm not saying that we should have everywhere connected to everywhere else by a direct route, there's limits of course, but our current level of connectivity is pitiful.

We need more space on buses for non-typical passengers. Why not have downstairs just for wheelchairs, prams, bikes and mobility-impaired passengers and have everyone else sit upstairs, rather than the typical configuration of one wheelchair space which is also for prams and nothing for bikes at all? It unnecessarily puts pushchair and wheelchair uses in opposition, and makes travel much more stressful and unpredictable than it needs to be. You may ask why bikes should go on public transport but the government (in a remarkable example of actually saying something sensible) recommends it for rural areas. In Working Together to Promote Active Travel: A briefing for local authorities [PDF], they say,

One specific example which promotes physical activity is allowing cycles on buses, so people can get from one town or village to another and then use their bikes to get around at their destination point. (p18)

.
We need more flexible public transport. I understand the need for bus stops - they provide a specific location, timetable info and shelter (but see below) but I don't understand why they have to be the only place where passengers can be picked up and dropped off. I know that some after-hours services now allow people to be dropped off where they want along the route and it isn't practical for all routes at all times but there is definitely scope to improve flexibility in terms of pick up and drop off points.

We need better bus and train shelters. Public transport "shelters" are a joke. If your stop has one (and most don't) they are likely a wire-framed plastic box with air gaps at the top and bottom, an entrance that spans half the front side and a narrow, sloping metal bar that is supposed to be a seat but is nothing of the sort. A seat allows you to take the weight off your feet, these do not. The shelter is supposed to protect you from the elements but doesn't to any meaningful extent. I'm not saying we should have double-glazed centrally heated shelters at all stops but we need something that keeps people dry and allows them to sit down while they wait for their bus.

We need better information on bus routes, timetables and pricing. Very few people are going to go from using their car all the time to giving up their car and using the bus all the time without a transition period in between. But actually using the bus as a novice isn't always that easy. Bus stops rarely provide maps of their routes, just names of different stops and those aren't always easy to interpret which makes planning or confirming your journey more difficult. Most stops don't provide timetables. I know that only certain stops are timed and others are more flexible but that doesn't mean you can't provide the timetable and a route map so that people can work out when the bus is due. And with the bus tracking technology more stops should have the live digital displays. Pricing is getting more rationalised so the specific stop you get off at doesn't matter so much, and buses are getting better at taking card payments, but pricing isn't easy to find. Why aren't the cost of single and day tickets advertised on stops with the timetables?

I love public transport and I know that the problems we see here in the UK are not unique to us. I also know that things like integrated networks of buses, trains, trams etc are unlikely to happen while we have a competitive system of different companies all vying for customers. There's an old Yes, Minister episode where they discuss the difficulties of integrating bus and train networks. 40 years later nothing has changed. And customers lose out. Ultimately I think we need to stop seeing public transport as a way to make a profit off of people but as a public good and something that facilitates people to go places and make profit for others. (Well, really, I think we need to find an alternative to our current capitalism but that's a whole other discussion).

[discovolante]

I agree with all of the above, especially integrated transport (and I'd sort of include space for bikes on that, I would definitely be encouraged to cycle more if I could pop my bike on a bus as well). Got to say for all the moaning, one thing I did appreciate about London was the public transport. I could go pretty much anywhere at any time and not really have to worry at all about how I'd get there or back, it was an absolute doddle. Not perfect but pretty good. However much less so for people who aren't able bodied (particularly at rush hour I imagine, squashed full buses ahoy) which is a massive shame and I hope there are improvements on that front.

[dyqik]

Bike transport by buses doesn't have to take up any space inside that could be used for wheelchairs and prams.

Boston buses (including trolley buses) have racks on the front of the bus that can take four or so bikes.

[Fishnut]

Bike transport by buses doesn't have to take up any space inside that could be used for wheelchairs and prams.

Boston buses (including trolley buses) have racks on the front of the bus that can take four or so bikes.

Very interesting! That's not something I've seen but sounds like an excellent idea

[dyqik]

Bike transport by buses doesn't have to take up any space inside that could be used for wheelchairs and prams.

Boston buses (including trolley buses) have racks on the front of the bus that can take four or so bikes.

Very interesting! That's not something I've seen but sounds like an excellent idea

Googling, it's actually two bikes on the current ones. I've seen four on some buses, but that might have been Copenhagen rather than here.

[monkey]

Bike transport by buses doesn't have to take up any space inside that could be used for wheelchairs and prams.

Boston buses (including trolley buses) have racks on the front of the bus that can take four or so bikes.

Very interesting! That's not something I've seen but sounds like an excellent idea

Googling, it's actually two bikes on the current ones. I've seen four on some buses, but that might have been Copenhagen rather than here.

Think I've only ever seen two racks on the front in the US, but I've never been to Boston. It's two here. It seems to be something that is much appreciated by the users, it extends the range that someone can travel hugely - which can mean better job and housing opportunities for many.

[IvanV]

Fuel duty in the UK is 57.95p/l and then there's VAT on top of that. This is one of the highest in Europe (or, possibly, the hghest).

It was, but then we didn't put up fuel duty, not even for infllation, for over a decade. We are now kind of upper-middling rather than one of the highest, at least for petrol. It varies with the exchange rate from day to day. But a clear gap ahead of us are Italy, Netherlands and all the Nordic countries. Roughly on a level are France and Ireland (and Switzerland, bizarrely omitted from the source link below).

But we do have one of the highest diesel prices in Europe, though that won't last for very long if the present not-going-up-even-by-inflation policy is extended.

Source

It is a terrible conundrum. Since decarbonisation necessarily makes life more expensive, then, without some kind of mitigation (ie redistribution), that must hurt the poor however we arrange it.

[basementer]

Bike transport by buses doesn't have to take up any space inside that could be used for wheelchairs and prams.

Boston buses (including trolley buses) have racks on the front of the bus that can take four or so bikes.

Yep, buses in Wellington (at least the ones on the routes that I regularly use) have front bike racks. And the Matangi trains that came into service in 2011 have one carriage per pair with step-free access and separate areas for bikes and wheelchair / pushchair users.
Not hopeful about the public transport in the small town I'm moving to, though.

[Millennie Al]

Tell car manufacturers the first year VED on burners will be £2,500 from 2023 and £5,000 for cars that burn more than 150 g/km. Tell them it will double in 2027.

That makes absolutely no sense. The harm you are trying to mitigate depends on the amount of fuel burned, so should be taxed on that basis.

Tell them the current -£2,500 EV subsidy will persist till 2030. Tell people petrol prices will be doubled to £2.50 a litre by 2030 so they have the info they need when choosing their next car purchase. Do similar with gas boilers. Insulation subsidies. Tell rail and bus companies to prepare for additional subsidies and prepare services to meet demand.

We have elections no less frequently than every five years, so no government can honestly say these things.

Establish a record of flights taken per person to prepare for a new tax regime.

If two flights are taken by the same person, the effect is exactly the same as if they were taken by different people, so why do you need to track who takes which flight for taxing them?

Prepare for the coming per mile road pricing system.

If the damage is done by burning the fuel and not by the distance travelled, why do we need a per-mile pricing system?

[bjn]

Fwiw, Mrs PD and I went to central London yesterday for a picnic. It was cheaper and easier to drive in than it was to take the train. To London. If that's true, of all destinations, then public transport pricing policy is f.cked.

On the other hand, rumour has it that free travel for rail employees is coming back, so maybe I'll be taking the train a bit more after all.

For two people it probably is cheaper to drive. But I hope you calculated in depreciation, wear and tear, MOT, climate change etc and didn't just use the fuel cost. Cars are more expensive than just fuel. Part of the problem with public transport costs is that the user sees all of the PT costs, but doesn't notice the hidden car ownership costs. I suspect there are hidden subsidies that don't get seen too.

This. Usually, depreciation is one of the largest costs per kilometre driven. Which isn’t paid until the vehicle is replaced.

It’s not really seen as a marginal cost of use, unlike petrol. So most people don’t factor it in because it’s not an immediate cost. I had a friend who would ask people to share costs on long trips, but he would include depreciation as well as petrol. He was seen as being a bit of a dick about it, so most people tried to ride with anyone else.

[bjn]

Bike transport by buses doesn't have to take up any space inside that could be used for wheelchairs and prams.

Boston buses (including trolley buses) have racks on the front of the bus that can take four or so bikes.

I’ve seen that in California as well.

[Millennie Al]

We need more frequent public transport.
We need integrated public transport.
We need more routes.

Leaving these for completeness. Technically, you're advocating mass transport rather than public transport. That relies on many people wanting to travel on the same route at the same time, which is common in cities and suburbs, but can be rare in some rural areas.

We need cheaper public transport. I can travel from Bristol to London (117 miles, £2.95 on Megabus) for less than it costs me to get from my town to Bristol (10 miles, £3.85 on First Bus). That's ridiculous. (for comparison, the cheapest train ticket I can find for that journey is £36.30 which is why I rarely take the train).

Yes, it is utterly ridiculous. As far as I know, Megabus is unsubsidised, so they must charge a reasonable price (but note that they sell different seats at different prices, so everyone doesn't get the headline price).

We need more flexible public transport. I understand the need for bus stops - they provide a specific location, timetable info and shelter (but see below) but I don't understand why they have to be the only place where passengers can be picked up and dropped off.

Because every extra stop is a cost to all the passengers on the bus who aren't using it. This means that arbitrary stopping makes sense when the bus only has a few passengers, but fixed stopping is needed when it is popular.

On a similar note, buses used to be more efficient as it took less time for people to get on and off. There were at least two reasons for this: people didn't pay on entry because there was a conductor to collect fares, and (some) buses had no doors, so you people could start getting off before the bus had fully stopped (and, of course, could get off at any time the bus was moving slowly enough which added unofficial stops at places like traffic lights). Though the doorless buses were, of course, pretty useless for things like wheelchairs.

We need better bus and train shelters.

That's mostly driven by the desire to avoid providing shelter to homeless people.

We need better information on bus routes, timetables and pricing.

This is gradually getting better. It used to be quite difficult planning a route, but now Google Maps allows you to ask about a route and be given a way to travel using mass transit which takes into account timetables. I expect it will eventually cover pricing as well. If it showed the price for different modes of transport it could be both very useful and very entertaining (as it would be widely condemned by encouraging driving).

Ultimately I think we need to stop seeing public transport as a way to make a profit off of people but as a public good and something that facilitates people to go places and make profit for others. (Well, really, I think we need to find an alternative to our current capitalism but that's a whole other discussion).

We have tried that and it has been a failure. When it can be made to work, profits make it more likely that it will be made to work.

[Millennie Al]

Boston buses (including trolley buses) have racks on the front of the bus that can take four or so bikes.

How does that comply with safety regulations? Doesn't it mean that a collision with a pedestrian will cause serious or fatal injuries at even low speeds?

[lpm]

Tell car manufacturers the first year VED on burners will be £2,500 from 2023 and £5,000 for cars that burn more than 150 g/km. Tell them it will double in 2027.

That makes absolutely no sense. The harm you are trying to mitigate depends on the amount of fuel burned, so should be taxed on that basis.

It makes sense because it's the decision to manufacture a car that matters - make the car and it will emit it's lifetime's CO2 over the coming 10 to 15 years. It's locked in. That would only change if it's scrapped early, and obviously scrapping things early is bad economically and environmentally.

We don't really care when a machine emits its CO2 because that CO2 is going to remain in the atmosphere for 500 to 1,000 years. So assigning the machine's emissions to manufacturing decision date is more logical than assigning emissions to the subsequent day-by-day burning.

As an example, in 2008 I chose to purchase a new car and my decision will have triggered a Toyota factory to build a similar new car. On that decision day I committed a car into existence that would burn approximately 30 tons of CO2 before it dies. Maybe driving styles and types of journeys will flex that a bit, between 25 and 35 tons, but the fundamental outcome is inevitable - build that car and 30 tons of CO2 will follow.

So tax that initial decision the hardest, tax day-by-day burning less. Trigger Toyota factories to stop production of burners and start production of EVs.

It's a bit counter intuitive because we can't see the outcome over years. People only think about their own period of ownership, not considering how the car continues to exist over its second, third, fourth owners. The person who buys a new Range Rover is responsible for the car's entire lifetime's emission but will only think about their own fuel burning during the first three years. The initial decision maker should carry most of the tax burden.

I knew these outcomes in 2008 because I ran the maths on a spreadsheet with predictions of usage and fuel prices. But I'm weird. Real people never do that. Over the last 13 years I've driven 158,189 miles and burned 11,028 litres of diesel, which is 29.0 tons of CO2, and the car's still got a little way to go before it's dead. The manufacture of the car itself emitted something in the region of 6 to 8 tons of CO2, showing how fuel efficiency is more important than manufacture. I've averaged 65.2 mpg over 13 years, translating to 114 g/km, which compares to the car's official score of 119 g/km. In cost terms, the car cost £10,500 (thank you credit crunch of 2008) and I have burned approximately £13,500 worth of fuel and spent around £8,500 on maintenance, tyres and insurance.

[dyqik]

Deleted

[IvanV]

It makes sense because it's the decision to manufacture a car that matters - make the car and it will emit it's lifetime's CO2 over the coming 10 to 15 years. It's locked in. That would only change if it's scrapped early, and obviously scrapping things early is bad economically and environmentally.
...
I knew these outcomes in 2008 because I ran the maths on a spreadsheet with predictions of usage and fuel prices. But I'm weird. Real people never do that.

Very sane post.

Denmark is the European country where they tax new car purchases extremely heavily. The registration tax is 85% on cars up to €26,500, and 150% on the excess value over that. And I think VAT on top of that. Unfortunately, such policies are typically very difficult politically to bring in. I can't see the present UK Cakes and Greenwash administration doing anything like that. They want their voters to think they can afford to drive an SUV, and be green.

I hope it is possible to be real as well as weird. I also built a spreadsheet to inform my last car purchase. As a result, I chose the most expensive engine option, because it burned less fuel, and reckoned it would pay for itself in about 10 years, 12 years in some sensitivities. Since the car is now 16, I reckon it did. It is not by any stretch a "performance" model. But, yes, the majority of the population are not going to do this. Many people choose their cars on quite different grounds, and are influenced by what lies between their legs in a material proportion of cases.