UKC

With all the talk recently about green taxes, polution etc etc , how many think they are likely to reduce or even give up car use.......or is it a case of everyone wanting "other" people to give up their cars.....

I think many of us talk the talk, but really want someone ELSE to actually reduce car usage

In reply to Kevin Livingstone: Giving up the car is too big a step for many people. If I lived in London or any big city for that matter then I probably wouldn't use a car. However for transporting the family more than a handful of miles its the best solution. However I have tried to reduce it. I absolutely will not use it for the school run or for local shopping. For any journeys I make by myself that are less than 10 miles I will use the bike.

This has cut my average petrol costs by a huge amount and must have cut my contribution to global warming.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone: Car usage could only be reduced if there was a viable public transport alternative. There would also need to be a shift away from out of town shopping superstores and malls back to the local high street.

I can't realistically see any of that happening until the environment starts to crumble and is past repair unfortunately.

Cx

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:
I only use my car for long trips that I can't realistically do on my bike, so that means that almost all of my urban travel is by bike.

Rob

In reply to keith_D:

Good work.

Since leaving home, I've lived abroad, been at uni and then lived in Manchester/London. I've got by at all of these by not having a car but hiring when/if I needed one. Not only has this saved me money but made sure that I didn't use a car for those short journeys that I would otherwise be tempted to.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

Funny, we were having a conversation this morning about how we should probably move the car just to make sure it's starting okay, now that the weather's turning cold and it's been about 2 weeks since the car was used. Our car usage has gone down a lot recently. Much of that has been work related, but we do also make a point of not using it for short journeys, and now that we're avoiding supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres, we don't have much need of it. We probably should do the calculation to see whether it's more cost-effective to rent on those few ocassions when we do need one compared with actually owning one.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone: one big issue is how far we live from work. I live four miles and can cycle, but mostly drive. If employers had rules about how close people had to live this would encourage less car travel.We could also encourage siestas. I kn ow people who regualrly travel 100 miles per day to and from work.

In reply to Clears:


The only way it can change is if individuals make choices to use said vehicles less, rather than wait for others to lead by example.

Of course you may well already be using your car less I can't tell from your post...

:0)

In reply to Clears:

That is also an excuse. Now I qualify for a pass I have started to use public transport a lot, and it makes me wonder why I didn't before. OK it isn't as comvenient as jumping in the car, and you are ruled by timetables, but its a great and stress free way of getting around. I also walk or cycle now for any journeys under a couple of miles. I still use the car, but a lot less than I used to. The public transport system doesn't cover everywhere you want to go, and there is huge scope for improvement, but to just ignore it because "it needs improving" is a lame excuse, which all of us, including me have hidden behind.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

I feel very smug that i gave my car up a few months ago and instead of driving 104 miles to work i run 3 miles to the train station and cycle 10 miles to my mates after work.
I also feel a whole lot better. I'm fitter and i kip on the train getting an extra 1 1/2 hrs sleep rather than trolling down the M6 for 2 hrs a day.

However this morning i was freezing my nadgers off and would have given anything for a gas guzzler with a power station rated heater.

Suddenly i don't feel quite so smug :0(

In reply to Trangia:

My wife and i took 2 kids on a 3 mile each-way bus journey the other week. Total cost £10. Cost in the car - about 50p. Obviously not counting running costs of the car etc but even so i was very surprised at the cost.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

Being honest, I'd be unlikely to *give up* my car - it's my escape route and it's my main luxury item in my life (though anyone who's seen my car would be hard pushed to apply the term 'luxury' to it) - I think that car sharing is the way forward though, especially as some of my friends don't have cars, and having company makes long journeys more fun.

In reply to biscuit:

You've hit the nail on the head. Public transport should not be in private ownership where profit is the objective. It sould be seen as a social service and subsidised accordingly, if nessessary from car taxes.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

I've toyed with the idea. I could do shopping without the car, but anything else would be impractical due to inconvenient public transport.

Visting parents: 10 min walk, 30 min bus, 5 min walk, 1hr 20 min bus. (over 2hrs, compared with a 40 min drive, not including waiting for connections)

Going to the wall: 10 min walk, 30 min bus, change to other bus, about 40 mins. (80 mins compared with 25 min drive)

Longer journeys would probably be more practical IF I could get to a train station easily without a car, and carrying a large rucksack! I'd love to be able to do my frequent Peak trips on the train, but I can't cycle along the motorway to Birmingham International station, and no WAY am I cycling through Cov traffic with a heavy, easy to overbalance rucksack, it would be suicidal!

In reply to biscuit: I'm interested to see how the economics of this work out, is this costing you more or less?

In reply to Kevin Livingstone: Can't do it. Apart from all the family running about that would be extortionate on public transport, I have a ton of Band equipment that needs transporting to gigs/rehearsals. Kayaks. - there's another thing that wouldn't go down to well on public transport. It's all very well trying to get people to give up the car but anyone that has a life outside their own street would struggle.

In reply to biscuit:

I think that car journeys with 3+ in a car is not so bad (as mentioned above it starts to get expensive on public transport with more than that). We need to encourage single drivers that could take public transport to swap over. All those cars queuing to get into cities with just the driver in make me laugh...











...as I go past on my bike or on the bus.

In reply to CJD:

Agree re car sharing. The weekend after next, I'm meeting some friends for a weekend in the Lakes. One person is getting the train to Coventry from Cambridge, another from London. I'm meeting them from the train, picking up the bloke from work near Birmingham, and 4 of us car sharing from there.
The combination of car share and public transport works out the most efficient for all of us, both in cost, time, and environmental considerations.

I DO feel a bit guilty driving up to the Peak on my own midweek though, I'm sure there must be others in Coventry who want a day out climbing, and share car, but I don't know of any yet.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone: I would love to have the option. Unfortunately as I have a 30 mile round trip to work and no public transport (rural area) I have little choice in the matter. The first step in reducing car use would be to invest in a decent network of rural public transport, much of which has been closed down over the last half century, from rural railways to bus services.

In reply to Trangia: I think it depends on where you are in the country as to whether public transport can really provide a viable alternative at present. The operators need to put alot of effort into enticing people into using their service over the convienence of the car. from what I can see the operators are currently doing very little to convert people.

Recently I looked at the timetables for getting from my house to the city centre on a Sunday and it was predicted to take nearly four hours with several changes.

It's a half hour car journey so which is the sensible option given that we don't all have the time to devote to using an expensive and time consuming public transport system.

I try to find compromises, driving to the local train station and catching a train isn't perfect but it however a start.

Cx

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

I gave in an bought another car a few weeks ago.

I will probably only use it a few times a month for going into the hills etc.

I will still cycle to work throughout the winter the same way as I did last winter.

Andy

In reply to graeme jackson:

I disagree...whilst I certainly see the point about kayaks and band stuff (had similar problems myself), I think we need to encourage a reduced car dependence when we can... I know that when I have a car, I am sorely tempted to make journeys that I easily take on public transport normally.

Carolynr - agreed re inconvenience of public transport sometimes (esp with getting across London with a mountain bike+75litre rucksack full of climbing and camping gear).

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

Who thinks that

a) the focus should be put on urban public transport?
b) the focus should be on rural public transport?

I believe that it is all about the cities, and city-city high speed train links (just writing a presentation on this at the moment), with public transport networks branching out to nearby towns and villages. If we can get the people (generally commuters who make the same journey every day) who drive in cities onto public transport, there will be a lot more revenue to then spend on improving it country wide.

In reply to Clears:


Yes, it would be, IF it didn't now cost £6 to park at Coventry train station! Parking for rail users used to be free, or heavily discounted at many stations. It was policed by giving tokens in return for showing a train ticket, so the driver would exit from barriers. It made far more sense than doubling the cost of a train to Birmingham!
Cost is a huge problem generally. This week I have to be in London twice. Leaving Coventry just after 8.30, to get there in time for meetings, would cost me about £80 return, plus the £6 parking. No chance of cheap advance tickets since a) I didn't know about the meeting until Saturday and b) the cheap tickets only kick in after about 10am. So I drive 20 miles to Leamington, and get a £26 ticket. Saving me money, but once again, needing the car!

In reply to Trangia:

Totally agree. Certainly most people cannot completely give up their cars, although perhaps those who live / work within a few short miles of each other and the public transport is available probably could, a.k.a. city folk.
I live in a semi rural area and on my current contract I get to work by part car and then train (Basically no parking at work, not that I'd want to sit in the traffic to get there)
But I completely agree that the rail network should be state controlled.....but MUST be efficient (discussion for another thread)
The rail is the infrastructure of the nation.
If the Swiss can do it , why can't we ?

Perhaps we should have lost WW2 and then rebuilt from scratch ?

In reply to Caralynr: It would be the same for me at Solihull station but I use the 'local' local station so it's free. I suppose the Coventry equivelants would be Canley, Tile Hill or the like. Don't they have free parking?

I know what you mean about train to London though, bloody stupidly ridiculously expensive on the main line into Euston. Like you I use the Chiltern line and save a bomb. It's not a convienent when you get to London but the price difference more than makes up for that!

But hey at least you are making the large part of your journey using public transport so it may not be the greenest option but it's far from being the environmentally worst.

Cx

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:


Aha, so the terrorists are actually advocating a reconstruction of our public transport sector.

In reply to Caralynr: Tell me about it.....see my other post. The system should be subsidised as a national operation.

My last job I worked in the city......£280 each month for the train fare plus £3.50 a day to park at station......trouble is I did not have any choice working in London.....not now though

In reply to Kevin Livingstone: I spent thirty years working in London commuting by public transport. I travelled about thirty five miles each way and my life style was hardly a bed of roses; leaving home at six each morning and returning after six in the evening, filthy and uncomfortable trains, lack of punctuality. There is one important aspect that public transport is never able to satisfy and that is the ability to transport anyone from precisely where they want to leave from to precisely where they want to go, in comfort and at times that suit the passenger.

In reply to Castleman:

Wry smile!

In reply to Trangia: That is also an excuse (re public transport)

Not really. There is one bus in the morning and one in the evening to where I work. If I miss either i would be stuffed. If the bus company miss the bus out (which they sometimes do if they are short for more popular routes ) i would be stuffed. One evening (before i gave up and got a car) 6 of us were left waiting for the bus - or any bus to anywhere by that time - which never turned up on a bitterly cold and dark friday evening in snow.

In reply to Psychopathic_Barbie:

where you work is an absolute joke for public transport, iirc, and the amount of people alone in their cars is incredible... industrial estates in rural environments - great idea in principle, but in practice... even the roads in to that place aren't exactly brilliant for the size of the trucks that use them.

In reply to Castleman:
The public transport system was mostly intact after the war. It got mugged in the fifties and sixties. Never mind we got lots of cycle paths where the trains used to be......

Giving up the car would be very hard for us. We both work in locations where the public t/port would add at least 90 mins each way, nipper has to be transported to nursery, and like most of the people on here I wil put my hand up to actually using a car to get to those remote places we all love and dream about during the week.

If I lived and worked in say Edinburgh or London I reckon my car would be idle most of the week, but like most of the country where we live and where we work makes it very difficult.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

The thing about car ownership is that it is very capital intensive - the biggest single cost of a motorist doing the average 10,000 miles is depreciation if they want a nice shiny new car (between 33% to 60% of purchase cost over three years).

It's not difficult to see that a new car owner, doing 10K will spend something like £7K a year doing that mileage.

That's £140 per week, which is a lot of money for public transport and most importantly taxis. For holidays you can hire a car for 2 weeks in the summer and still be quids in.

I've known a few people (all now OAPS or dead) who have never owned a car, even though they can drive. All have said they never bought a car cos they could save money by using 'publically available' (to include taxis) transport.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

TBH I couldn't imagine giving up my little scooter, for reasons of cost and time. When I work out my running costs for my scooter, including insurance, tax and MOT, it still works out at far less per day than it would cost me to get the bus one way into town (£1.30). Add to that the fact that it would take me so much longer to get anywhere - 30m instead of 12m to get to work, an hour (bus into town and then 30mm walk) to get to the wall instead of 20m - I wouldn't be happy about it.

But it's only a little scooter, fitted with a catalytic converter, and I don't create congestion. I get the train or I car-share when I go to the crag or visit my parents etc and I walk to a lot of places.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

After 10 years of regular driving I gave up the car 8 years ago and haven't driven one since.

Couldn't do it in the UK though.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

I like the idea of car-free cities.

http://www.carfree.com/intro_cfc.html

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

I'm moving to london so I can get to work by public transport. I've had enough of being stuck in traffic on the way to work and having to be nice and careful when I go out so I can drive back home sober. I'm keeping the car as I cant afford national trains (I dont plan ahead so dont get the cheap tickets).
p

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

I use public transport to get into Leeds every day, because the same journey by car would be more expensive, less convenient, and would take about the same amount of time. I also use the train quite a bit for getting about in the evenings.

However, I do have a car, and I don't think I would ever give it up completely - I could survive without one where I live, but getting to a lot of crags and fell races would be difficult, if not impossible, by public transport. Not to mention that a lot of longer journeys are often not even remotely worthwhile by public transport - to go and see my folks is an hour across the M62, which probably works out to about £6 in petrol, but the same journey by train would take well over twice as long and cost the same - and thats if there was only me travelling...


The car is bit of a luxury item for me, and an expensive one at that when you break the cost down, but I think I'd find giving it up completely a bit too restrictive.

In reply to Clears:

Fantastic if I lived in Canley or Tile Hill - the only areas of the city which DO have stations now! I'm up in Longford, and NO northern or western areas of Cov have decent transport links now. I either have to get right across the city to the main station and pay a fortune, or go to Nuneaton, again needing a car (and paying for parking) or a nightmare bus journey!
I lived in Leeds 10 yrs ago, and how I wish Cov had similar public transport. I never needed a car, the buses were frequent, and most suburbs had small train stations.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone: We took the decision that we only needed one small car between us, most people we know in a similar position economically seem to think they require a car each. Result to us is that public transport is very occasionally used.

In reply to Kevin Livingstone:

I have never owned a car but after having moved out to the country (if Whitstable counts as the 'sticks'! ) I am seriously considering buy one. I still work in the smoke and always use the train to get to work. It's not bad i always get a seat but does take 1 1/2 hours to do 50 miles..

The thing which I am now starting to appreciate is that it is really difficult to get cross-country once you move out of London without a car. My other half needs to get to Brighton on Saturday and the shortest journey by train is 2 hours 15 to go 70 odd miles. that is fairly hopeless and the last train to get back that doesn't involeve either 5 changes or going back via London is at half 4. Frankly it isn't good enough and can see the attraction of driving.

When I lived in Hackney I was a member of a car club which was really useful for the rare occasions I needed to pick up/drop off somthing I couldn't do by bike. It was reasonably cheap when using it for relatively short periods of time. But I drove up to Sleaford in lincs on 2 weekends last year and because of the way the mileage rate works it cost a whopping £422! I decided I would only use for 4 hours maximum after that and drive no moe than 50 miles. I think sort of scheme works and should be mucher wider than it currently is especially in smaller/more rural locations.