Re: Green and Accessible Public Transport
Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2021 1:03 am
I’ve spent more on servicing and parts for my bike than I paid for it, which was £20. I’ve spent considerably less than I would on a new bike though.
Well, their previous model seems to have been pretty feeble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On0DGcDlc though par with U locks is a low bar to clear.
There are already huge penalties for driving a car. The fuel is very heavily taxed, the vehicle requires an annual tax, you must pay for insurance, there are individual toll roads and toll areas (such as parts of London), you must pay for an annual inspection for cars once they're three years old, etc.Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 6:43 pmAnd the government should be prepared to back the incentives to use public transport with penalties for driving a car
If a person is using public transport to go to work why can't they pay their fare from their salary?Oh and as an aside - disabled bus passes should be usable at all times, not just after 9:30. Technically I'm eligible for one, but don't have one (I live in walking distance of work, and it's not worth applying for for the other journeys I do). But making them only usable after 9:30 means disabled people can't normally use them to travel to work. Disabled people have enough barriers to being in work already without that one as well.
Hm. Mine is actually the Silver model, so even less trouble than that. At least that video was made since I got it, so I don’t feel like a complete idiot for not doing that particular search.Millennie Al wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 5:53 amWell, their previous model seems to have been pretty feeble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On0DGcDlc though par with U locks is a low bar to clear.
Obviously not enough of a disincentive to get people out of their cars and on to public transport it would seemMillennie Al wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 6:04 amThere are already huge penalties for driving a car. The fuel is very heavily taxed, the vehicle requires an annual tax, you must pay for insurance, there are individual toll roads and toll areas (such as parts of London), you must pay for an annual inspection for cars once they're three years old, etc.Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 6:43 pmAnd the government should be prepared to back the incentives to use public transport with penalties for driving a car
Because often people with disabilities often face more barriers in their daily lives than able bodied people, including financial ones. Allowing people with disabled bus passes to use them at peak times would help encourage more disabled people back in to work. And it assumes that disabled people are automatically going to only be travelling at off peak timesMillennie Al wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 6:04 amIf a person is using public transport to go to work why can't they pay their fare from their salary?Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 6:43 pmOh and as an aside - disabled bus passes should be usable at all times, not just after 9:30. Technically I'm eligible for one, but don't have one (I live in walking distance of work, and it's not worth applying for for the other journeys I do). But making them only usable after 9:30 means disabled people can't normally use them to travel to work. Disabled people have enough barriers to being in work already without that one as well.
The best protection is to park it near more desireable bikes. As in that joke about running away from a bear.
In many cases that's because public transport is not good enough. In places where is is good - such as London - it is very popular.Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:38 pmObviously not enough of a disincentive to get people out of their cars and on to public transport it would seemMillennie Al wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 6:04 amThere are already huge penalties for driving a car. The fuel is very heavily taxed, the vehicle requires an annual tax, you must pay for insurance, there are individual toll roads and toll areas (such as parts of London), you must pay for an annual inspection for cars once they're three years old, etc.Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Tue Dec 28, 2021 6:43 pmAnd the government should be prepared to back the incentives to use public transport with penalties for driving a car
The barriers are supposed to be handled by the Personal Independence Payment. If you think it's acceptable to force the able-bodied onto public transport to get to work, then why does a disability mean you get the same service free? The time limit is there precisely because it is intended to discourage people using public transport at peak times if they don't need to. So, for example, if it is a trip to the dentist or a leisure activity, you can arrange it to be at an off-peak time.Because often people with disabilities often face more barriers in their daily lives than able bodied people, including financial ones. Allowing people with disabled bus passes to use them at peak times would help encourage more disabled people back in to work. And it assumes that disabled people are automatically going to only be travelling at off peak timesMillennie Al wrote: ↑Thu Dec 30, 2021 6:04 amIf a person is using public transport to go to work why can't they pay their fare from their salary?
I would certainly hope so, as that's a side effect of people getting richer.
That's because public transport is hideously expensive.I’m not sure the same can be said about public transport.
Public transport is very much a ‘postcode lottery’. I generally work about 15 miles away from where I live and it costs me £10.60 a day on public transport. Include the price of parking and that’s significantly less than driving would cost. Admittedly there aren’t many parts of the country where that is the case.Millennie Al wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:18 amI would certainly hope so, as that's a side effect of people getting richer.
That's because public transport is hideously expensive.I’m not sure the same can be said about public transport.
At that price, it sodding well ought to be unsnippable. I have seen them in the flesh and they look unsnippable.
If the inflation adjusted cost of motoring stayed the same, then what you say is clearly true. I not sure why you would hope it to be true.Millennie Al wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:18 amI would certainly hope so, as that's a side effect of people getting richer.
I found something which suggests from 2011-2021 the average new car increased from £27.7k to £38.6k. But looking at this, I think the methodology is not very good, it doesn't use an actual database of car purchases. Whereas the earlier study had access to a sample of actual car purchases provided by car finance companies.
Not everyone with a disability is eligible for PIP. A person with epilepsy, for example, may have seizures often enough to prevent them from driving, but unless you need help at least 50 per centof the time you wouldn't qualify. Should someone be financially penalised for a medical condition that is beyond their control?Millennie Al wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:15 amThe barriers are supposed to be handled by the Personal Independence Payment. If you think it's acceptable to force the able-bodied onto public transport to get to work, then why does a disability mean you get the same service free? The time limit is there precisely because it is intended to discourage people using public transport at peak times if they don't need to. So, for example, if it is a trip to the dentist or a leisure activity, you can arrange it to be at an off-peak time.
If getting free travel makes the difference, then the job is so badly paid it is not really worth having (unless there is some other non-monetary benefit, such as gaining experience). And consider it the other way around, a person might be disabled and yet have a very well paying job, so why should such a person have their travel subsidised?Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:30 pmAnd I notice you say "if they don't need it". If people need to get to work at peak time, then they do need to do it. Being able to have a disabled bus pass usable all the time might be the difference between someone being able to afford to be in work and not (and thus claiming benefits which cost more than the bus pass)
Because it's a really tiny tiny cost in the grand scheme of the things government spends money on and the entire concept of conditionality has led to a culture of punishment, paranoia and mistrust rather than respect, and a culture of society and mutual support.Millennie Al wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:40 amIf getting free travel makes the difference, then the job is so badly paid it is not really worth having (unless there is some other non-monetary benefit, such as gaining experience). And consider it the other way around, a person might be disabled and yet have a very well paying job, so why should such a person have their travel subsidised?Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:30 pmAnd I notice you say "if they don't need it". If people need to get to work at peak time, then they do need to do it. Being able to have a disabled bus pass usable all the time might be the difference between someone being able to afford to be in work and not (and thus claiming benefits which cost more than the bus pass)
Preach!discovolante wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:07 amBecause it's a really tiny tiny cost in the grand scheme of the things government spends money on and the entire concept of conditionality has led to a culture of punishment, paranoia and mistrust rather than respect, and a culture of society and mutual support.
For some disabled people, the ability to have any kind of a job is hugely important to their quality of life, and their disability may be such that it is going to be a poorly paid job.discovolante wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:07 amBecause it's a really tiny tiny cost in the grand scheme of the things government spends money on and the entire concept of conditionality has led to a culture of punishment, paranoia and mistrust rather than respect, and a culture of society and mutual support.Millennie Al wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:40 amIf getting free travel makes the difference, then the job is so badly paid it is not really worth having (unless there is some other non-monetary benefit, such as gaining experience). And consider it the other way around, a person might be disabled and yet have a very well paying job, so why should such a person have their travel subsidised?Cardinal Fang wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:30 pmAnd I notice you say "if they don't need it". If people need to get to work at peak time, then they do need to do it. Being able to have a disabled bus pass usable all the time might be the difference between someone being able to afford to be in work and not (and thus claiming benefits which cost more than the bus pass)
so assuming he doesn’t think there’s some terrible regulatory failure or market distortion underlying this, he believes public transport should be much more generously subsidised for everyone.Millennie Al wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:18 amThat's because public transport is hideously expensive.
Just realised I never responded to these posts. There is absolutely no way I'd consider commuting by motorbike on my current route. It actually wouldn't save a lot of time, at least if ridden sensibly, as for the vast majority of my route to work the road is quite narrow and winding for an A road - no chance of motorbike safely overtaking for most of the route and where it's possible, on the few short stretches of dual carriageway, a car can pass too. If I tell you that a single cyclist can cause significant tailbacks because it is so hard to pass them, I think that will give you an idea. Not sure if it would help once I reached Uxbridge, it might a little, especially when trying to escape its clutches at the end of the day, but I don't think the benefit would be enough to make it worth while. Plus, people frequently drive like idiots, the roads are in a shocking state with nasty potholes distressingly common, and I don't particularly want the bagkitten to lose her mother in a motorbike accident.Martin_B wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 4:43 amOn the down side: far less safe, less protection from the elements, still not able to read (which was something bagpuss mentioning doing on the train/tube). But if you get a bike bagpuss, get a leather jacket with "Hells Bagpuss" on the back!Millennie Al wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:50 amHave you considered a motorbike? At 125cc it should have considerably better fuel consumption (e.g. https://www.fuelly.com/motorcycle/suzuki/vanvan_rv125 ) while also making the journey faster as you can get through traffic better.bagpuss wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 3:14 pmFor me, and I'm sure for many others, it's the journey time that makes driving so much more appealing than public transport. Even with the moving traffic jam that is the A413 and the barely-moving traffic jam that is Uxbridge, it's still quicker for me to drive than to go by train/tube, even though that's a pretty easy journey too (one train, one tube, less than 20 mins total walking time at the ends). There's just no way that buses can compete with cars, even if you can do the trip on a single bus, because they have to keep stopping, and also rarely go by the most direct route.
But while express buses are indeed very much a thing, for the majority of people they won't go from righty by where they live to right by their destination. So you have to factor in the time it takes to get to the start of the express bus route and then from the end to your destination.IvanV wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:53 amNo, they don't have to do that. And in middle-income countries where lots of people use buses, because there aren't many trains or they are very slow, and car ownership is still relatively low, much better bus services are available. Places like Chile, for example, have far better bus services than are available in this country.
Just as trains can have slow, medium and fast services, so can buses. And if you have the demand, then it is worth it. And the fast services can be proper fast services - like the London-Oxford bus you might know, which is a rare example of that working in this country. (And some of the services around Oxford are also unusually good - I have friends in Abingdon, and they benefit from a very good express bus services to Oxford.)
But there isn't the demand on Aylesbury-Oxford, to take an unpleasant experience that may be familiar to you, to have a proper regular express bus that literally runs nonstop from Oxford to Aylesbury with only a handful of well-chosen stops at each end; as well as an intermediate grade one that has some small number of additional stops in Haddenham, Thame and Wheatley, plus a slow one that reproduces what the current "express" does. And in a place like Chile, these things would run every 20 mins because there would be demand for it.
I only meant to say that buses don't have to be as completely sh.t as the journey often is in Britain. Car vs Public transport will always have the issue you cite. Only when there is some special disadvantage to the car, like taking it into the centre of London, does that alter.bagpuss wrote: ↑Tue Jan 04, 2022 4:15 pmBut while express buses are indeed very much a thing, for the majority of people they won't go from righty by where they live to right by their destination. So you have to factor in the time it takes to get to the start of the express bus route and then from the end to your destination.
And distressingly often, you may have to even go in the wrong direction to do so. And all of those things mean that unless you do indeed live right by the start and are going to somewhere right by the end, driving is almost certainly more appealing.
Not at all. I find it very difficult to believe that it is inherently so expensive - that somehow there is no economy of scale from taking several bus passengers together or even a train load. Bit if it really is the case that public transport costs more to provide an inferior service, then the logical thing to do is to limit it to those who have no reasonable alternative - no treat it as a money pit to throw more and more into.nekomatic wrote: ↑Tue Jan 04, 2022 2:55 pmI note that Milennie said
so assuming he doesn’t think there’s some terrible regulatory failure or market distortion underlying this, he believes public transport should be much more generously subsidised for everyone.Millennie Al wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 2:18 amThat's because public transport is hideously expensive.