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Old December 11th 19, 02:19 PM posted to uk.transport.london
Roland Perry Roland Perry is offline
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In message , at 08:58:44 on Wed, 11 Dec
2019, tim... remarked:

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).


No

I was just asking you how your correction of my comment was any
different to that which I posted?


I can't help you any further on the un-knotting.

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.


Can't say that I've ever seen anybody claim this (except boltar) so it
certainly isn't a factor in my posts


As you've stumbled into a conversation between me and Boltar, what *is*
a factor in your posts other than to agree with either him or me?

It's also a topic which has cropped up over and over again in
newsgroups, this idea that the A14 would be fine if it wasn't for the
port traffic.

I've driven that road many times. I know why it needed to be updated.

But I also know that the number of trucks on the road is far more than
a handful.


Port traffic containers was the subject. Not trucks completely
disassociated with the ports.

And I will confess that I would have suggested that these trucks had
come from the Essex ports, and I would have probably suggested that
they were containers.

I'm quite happy for you to correct me that they are not containers, but
even so, the trucks are there and they must have come from somewhere.


Ordinary domestic trucking between suppliers, warehouses and customers
(many of whom are shops).

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.


would that have been boltar - you know his claims have no credibility

and there's no evidence that the post came from someone with local knowledge

It just came from someone with a "goods should be carried by rail"
prejudice (and to be fair there's nothing actually wrong with thinking
that)


He was quoting what I believe to be mis-informed locals.

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.


doesn't help because you're the one who's gone done the path of not
understanding the point


I completely understand the point I was making, which is that it's
absolutely not the port traffic which is congesting the A14.

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?


the cause, or more specifically establishing what percentage of the
cause is trucks.


I gave the figures earlier. On the section of A14 in question, 1/7 of
vehicles are a truck, and 1/30 vehicles has a source/sink east of
Cambridge on the A14.

If we assume (which I didn't) that the east-of-Cambridge traffic has the
same truck/non-truck ratio, that's 1/210. And of that half a percent of
the traffic, most of the trucks will be servicing routine commercial
end-points in south Norfolk, and Suffolk, which aren't the ports.

You can't do the former properly, without having first done the latter.


At no time in this thread have I been discussing anything other than
counting "trucks" on the road

so any other points are irrelevant


What you mean is, you are posting at cross purposes.
--
Roland Perry