What is needed to get you out of your cars?

[Harry Angstrom]

Well yes obviously if you're going up massive hills you'll be knackered. The fitter I get the same pace I go, I'm trying not to work up a sweat, it's a way from a to b not a fitness thing for me.

I've never once had mud or water splash up when cycling, but I do have a dutch bike which is extremely practical and built for it.

Cycling is that for me. It adds to overall general fitness but I use the bike for getting somewhere never for just cycling.

I can use cycle lanes to get into middle of Newcastle, it's great. 10 minutes to Monument at my slowest.

 

[njmackem]

Love driving but it feels like we are arriving at a cross roads where cars as we know them at the moment (petrol, diesel and fun to drive) are about to go the final journey. Clearly this was always going to happen at some point with the finite nature of fossil fuels and of course pollution and climate change.

So question is what would need to happen to get you to abandon the car? When living in London I didnt use one at all Monday to Friday as the tube network was outstanding and it was far quicker to get about London and to work etc on the tube.....To travel back to Sunderland or anywhere else outside of the M25 transport was again not an option and it was back to the car.

Since arriving back in Sunderland I have had jobs where I have got there a couple of days a week running or cycling but have had to take much longer routes to get to work (50% longer than shortest route) to avoid the death trap roads.

In Sunderland I think all major roads having cycle lanes like in other cycle friendly EU states (not just painted lines) and a Metro that connected SR5 from Town End Farm to the town and up to Doxford International would be a huge success.

I get the feeling that lots of people would use alternatives if they were realistic, cheap and were equally as quick as cars. Am I wrong?

Honestly there is nothing that would get me away from my car. It’s essential for my business and virtually impossible to replace.

I’m open to electric, but need to see a lot more range availability before I would make the investment.

 

[cornish mackem]

Billions £ of infrastructure and longer hours of public transport

 

[pavarotti1980]

A 20 min cycle shouldn't need changing facilities! If you had protected routes no one would need a shower really, your pace drops significantly as there's no need to keep up with traffic.

In the meantime though it is necessary, even providing things like hairdryers for the lasses etc removes those small but important barriers to people giving it a go.

Do you work in your cycling gear or cycle in your work gear?

 

[Gingga]

Love driving but it feels like we are arriving at a cross roads where cars as we know them at the moment (petrol, diesel and fun to drive) are about to go the final journey. Clearly this was always going to happen at some point with the finite nature of fossil fuels and of course pollution and climate change.

So question is what would need to happen to get you to abandon the car? When living in London I didnt use one at all Monday to Friday as the tube network was outstanding and it was far quicker to get about London and to work etc on the tube.....To travel back to Sunderland or anywhere else outside of the M25 transport was again not an option and it was back to the car.

Since arriving back in Sunderland I have had jobs where I have got there a couple of days a week running or cycling but have had to take much longer routes to get to work (50% longer than shortest route) to avoid the death trap roads.

In Sunderland I think all major roads having cycle lanes like in other cycle friendly EU states (not just painted lines) and a Metro that connected SR5 from Town End Farm to the town and up to Doxford International would be a huge success.

I get the feeling that lots of people would use alternatives if they were realistic, cheap and were equally as quick as cars. Am I wrong?

No car = no job, its that simple.

 

[James]

Do you work in your cycling gear or cycle in your work gear?

Dress for the destination not the journey.

Feels like an inspirational instagram quote.

 

[PinzaC55]

Love driving but it feels like we are arriving at a cross roads where cars as we know them at the moment (petrol, diesel and fun to drive) are about to go the final journey. Clearly this was always going to happen at some point with the finite nature of fossil fuels and of course pollution and climate change.

So question is what would need to happen to get you to abandon the car? When living in London I didnt use one at all Monday to Friday as the tube network was outstanding and it was far quicker to get about London and to work etc on the tube.....To travel back to Sunderland or anywhere else outside of the M25 transport was again not an option and it was back to the car.

Since arriving back in Sunderland I have had jobs where I have got there a couple of days a week running or cycling but have had to take much longer routes to get to work (50% longer than shortest route) to avoid the death trap roads.

In Sunderland I think all major roads having cycle lanes like in other cycle friendly EU states (not just painted lines) and a Metro that connected SR5 from Town End Farm to the town and up to Doxford International would be a huge success.

I get the feeling that lots of people would use alternatives if they were realistic, cheap and were equally as quick as cars. Am I wrong?

Speaking as one who neither drives nor cycles I think you are wrong. Many or most motorists would never give their cars up even if public transport was free and of course because we live in a capitalist country it will never be free it will only get more expensive. It is reckoned that we only have about 35 years of oil reserves left if we continue to use it at the current rate and then it will be gone forever. I won't be alive then but it would be interesting to see what happens.

 

[anth]

If I lived closer to work I'd cycle, an hour each way is just too much out of my day when I also need to shower and change at each end. The route between Sunderland and Newcastle isn't great (read that as totally shit), but I did it for nearly a year 5 days a week and apart from a few puncture's I was fine. However, now I have my motorbike I can do it in less than 25mins so really I need to be working less than a 20min cycle from home for the time difference to using the motorbike to be negligible. I can't see me ever using a car for going too/from work again, but I do need one for towing my caravan.

 

[Geronimo]

Family of 4 people. metro day ticket. Approx £15.

It's cheaper driving to town and paying for parking.
Metro / local buses should be £1 per journey regardless of distance.

 

[Redandwhitedust]

just catching up on this thread (how did a public transport rant thread pass me by originally)

re: the bolded part - £7 p/person - all day all zone Go NE ticket

whether you'd want to be on the bus for that long is a different question though

Lanchester to Durham by bus. Durham to Newcastle by train then Metro to Shields. There may have been cheaper options but as you said, thats a long ride on a bus. Even if we had done the £7 ticket, for three of use the car made sense both financially and in time sense

I try to use public transport when Im at their place. Its not badly priced if you only have one or two legs to your journey and can get a day pass. Especially if you are on your own and have to pay for parking.
But once journeys get longer or you add extra passengers, the car nearly always makes sense

 

[Deleted User 2893]

Complete truth, was cycling along North Hylton road the other day while doing a recce for new job, I nearly fell into some of the pot holes......Gonna have to take Hybrid bike (slower) because the road bike will get smashed to fuck on the pot holes etc.......As an aside, the level of negligence by councils is unreal, the number of cyclists who hit pot holes and are badly injured or killed as they are thrown from their bikes is ridiculous.


Used to run to work (11 miles) and didnt need showers as was as fit as a lop and rarely sweat.....These days I need a shower by time I climb the stairs to bed

I wonder how many of your colleagues would have agreed

 

[Morse]

I’m keeping my car until it’s no longer legal or financially possible to drive it.

Public transport will never completely replace cars. I’m all for park and rides for every city, preferably free, but that doesn’t get a a family plus their dogs to Hamsterly or wherever for the day. It’s also difficult to get a disabled person to and from bus stops. Then there’s getting heavy gear from A to B. I’ve never taken the freedom my car gives me for granted, and it’s not like I do a great many miles in a year, maybe 3-4K max, so I feel no guilt whatsoever burning a bit of fossil fuel.

Electric cars will replace fossil fuel burners over the coming decades, there’s no reason we should need to give up private transport. I just hope the gobshite, minority, anti-car lobby groups don’t get their way. Even when most cars are electric they’ll still be whining and lobbying against cars. It’s not our fault the bitter arseholes failed their tests.

 

[cornish mackem]

Speaking as one who neither drives nor cycles I think you are wrong. Many or most motorists would never give their cars up even if public transport was free and of course because we live in a capitalist country it will never be free it will only get more expensive. It is reckoned that we only have about 35 years of oil reserves left if we continue to use it at the current rate and then it will be gone forever. I won't be alive then but it would be interesting to see what happens.

There will be alternatives but I don’t feel we do enough to encourage people to give up their cars. 3 of us from Liskeard to Sunderland on the train ( return) going tomorrow normally costs about £1000! I can drive it in my pickup for about £160. Where’s the incentive?
Just outside Liskeard ( where I live)to Derriford Hospital where I work takes 2 hours and costs about £12. It cost me about the same to drive but it’s an hour each way in the car.
We have centralised many services ( especially living rurally)which means that without our own transport we have made them unattendable as places of work or to obtain those services. People now travel lots further for work than before and I don’t know many people at all who can walk or a short cycle into their jobs like our parents did

 

[DaveH]

Speaking as one who neither drives nor cycles I think you are wrong. Many or most motorists would never give their cars up even if public transport was free and of course because we live in a capitalist country it will never be free it will only get more expensive. It is reckoned that we only have about 35 years of oil reserves left if we continue to use it at the current rate and then it will be gone forever. I won't be alive then but it would be interesting to see what happens.

Good point on that one. To many a car is a status symbol and says a lot about who you are. Why else do some people spend hours polishing their object of worship, or adding things like stupid exhausts? In one interview I did involving the group exercise, each person had to stand up and say their name, where they were from, the car they drive and where they currently work. Car was before current work and things like qualifications etc were not mentioned. I could see the reaction from a couple of the panel being impressed by the people who had a good car and unimpressed by those with an average one. I did get the job despite my ford focus - the job was shit like.

People love roaring away at junctions, throwing their car dangerously around junctions and I do think that some people actually like getting annoyed at other drivers. Those people don’t look at their cars as a practical thing, it is an extension of their very being. They will not give them up, in the same way they will be the last to self drive.

 

[Yankee Mackem]

Bring back all those train lines that we're stupidly closed in the 50s and 60s.

 

[JohnSmithUK]

Bring back all those train lines that we're stupidly closed in the 50s and 60s.

Pity we built on a lot of them.

 

[pillars of hercules]

To reduce emissions and traffic volume the government should ban HGVs from motorways between 7am and 7pm and invest in regional rail freight hubs where electric hgvs could take shipping containers to and from.

I would personally struggle to do without my vehicle because of work.

 

[DaveH]

To reduce emissions and traffic volume the government should ban HGVs from motorways between 7am and 7pm and invest in regional rail freight hubs where electric hgvs could take shipping containers to and from.

I would personally struggle to do without my vehicle because of work.

In India they have long trains of flatbed trucks that lorries are driven onto. Seemed like a good idea to me, there is so much traffic comes through Dover, up through Kent and all the Dartford delays then up the A1 north. Makes you think if we did the same with about 5 stops, another train to the southwest etc, it gets lorries off the road, adds more efficient transport for the bulk of the journey and cuts out a lot of the logistic issues of unloading and transferring - just drive off.

 

[pillars of hercules]

In India they have long trains of flatbed trucks that lorries are driven onto. Seemed like a good idea to me, there is so much traffic comes through Dover, up through Kent and all the Dartford delays then up the A1 north. Makes you think if we did the same with about 5 stops, another train to the southwest etc, it gets lorries off the road, adds more efficient transport for the bulk of the journey and cuts out a lot of the logistic issues of unloading and transferring - just drive off.

It would take years to sort out and cost a fortune, but would massively reduce congestion

 

[PinzaC55]

There will be alternatives but I don’t feel we do enough to encourage people to give up their cars. 3 of us from Liskeard to Sunderland on the train ( return) going tomorrow normally costs about £1000! I can drive it in my pickup for about £160. Where’s the incentive?
Just outside Liskeard ( where I live)to Derriford Hospital where I work takes 2 hours and costs about £12. It cost me about the same to drive but it’s an hour each way in the car.
We have centralised many services ( especially living rurally)which means that without our own transport we have made them unattendable as places of work or to obtain those services. People now travel lots further for work than before and I don’t know many people at all who can walk or a short cycle into their jobs like our parents did

But who are "we" ? If you mean the British people we have no say in anything. "We" voted 3 years ago to leave the EU but we are still in it because our political - Bosses - don't give a flying fuck what "we" want. Everything that "we" used to control in a sense through nationalisation is now owned by global companies and we have no control over it. Labour , the Tories and the Liberals are so close that they might as well merge into one party and have done with it. They are currently throwing £50 billion ++ taxpayers money at HS2 because that's what "they" want and they have managed to persuade a large slice of the public that that's what "we" want and even if we decide we don't then tough titty. Elect a government led by Corbyn or whichever wanker is in charge of the Liberals and HS2 will still go ahead.