In message , at 21:21:35 on Tue, 10 Dec
2019, tim... remarked:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message news:IcBsO7XkW67dF
...
In message , at 12:55:29 on Tue, 10 Dec
2019, tim... remarked:


"Roland Perry" wrote in message newsVw+cX8hmp7
...
In message , at 18:45:13 on Mon, 9 Dec
2019, tim... remarked:

you seem to be arguing that trucks hauling trailers, as opposed
to flat beds with a container on top, are somehow different on
their effect to other road users

don't see that distinction myself

The distinction is whether or not they can be abstracted from the
road by sticking them on a train.

for me, the distinction was the fact that you claimed it's an urban
myth that there's a minimal number of "containers" using road

No, I said it was an urban myth that *more* than a handful of
containers were using the road.

you need to explain how that's not the same thing

Because the public apparently look at curtain sided HGVs with UK
domestic brand logos, and identify it as a container that's arrived
from the Far East at Felixstowe (and should be on a train)

I had already understood that point

but how is "(not) more than a handful" different to "minimal number"?

You've got yourself tied in a knot (again). The urban myth is that the
A14 project exists so that:

trucks can save 10 mins on their way from Felixstowe instead of
putting the containers on trains where they should be.

Most people won't distinguish between containers and trailers

they are both annoying vehicles to have surrounding you and they
have both come off the ferry.

Not off the container ships. And probably not off the completely
separate RORO ferries. If you look at the HGVs on the A14 they are
predominately domestic-domestic.

even if they are, they are still using that route as a proxy for
M25/A1 that they used to use

What has that got to do with moving containers onto rail?

nothing

the point is that people see "trucks"

and it is the trucks that they want taken off the road (were possible)

your fixation with people wrongly calling them containers has blinkered
you into thinking that they only want the containers removed

The previous poster confirmed my view that local people (wrongly)
believe the port traffic is a crucial, or even significant, contributor
to the traffic congestion:

trucks ... on their way from Felixstow instead of putting the
containers on trains where they should be.


trying to tell people that "there aren't many containers off the
ferry" without making it clear that you aren't counting most of the
trucks because they are trailers, is daft

See above; I wasn't claiming that.

still don't see it

What's "it"? Containers on the A14, in which case I'll agree with you.

I still don't see that people only want the containers off the road,

See above.

so that you can say "but they are" because they have wrongly identified
trucks pulling trailers as flat bed containers

you're just scoring points in a logic exam, not adressing the actual problem

Which problem do you have in mind: easing the congestion itself, or
identifying the causes of the congestion?

You can't do the former properly, without having first done the latter.
Otherwise you end up with "solutions" that turn out to be white
elephants, or which have the commonly observed phenomenon of simply
moving the jam to somewhere else. That latter isn't inevitable, but is
merely a symptom of a poorly designed solution.

--
Roland Perry