On 16 Oct, 12:56, Tony Polson wrote:
Jamie *Thompson wrote:





It may go unsaid as obvious, but crucial to achieving that aim is the
development of coherent integrated public transport schemes. A good
radial dawn to late night local bus network, feeding good transport
interchanges (preferably rail, but I'll be realistic and accept
express bus routes or somesuch are more likely in this day and age).
These express routes then need to run both radially towards regional
population centres (i.e. London, Birmingham, etc.) *as well as
orbitally around them*. As a case in point, it's criminal that it's so
damn difficult to do a 11-odd mile journey near me orbitally (on the
London periphery between the WCML and the ECML), with either several
mode changes required to zig zag up and down radial rail routes
through to the central zones (which you really don't need to be in),
or you just give up on rail and stay with the expensive, infrequent,
and unreliable local buses you were using to get to the station all
the way to your destination, though you will have to endure multiple
services usually, some of which become even less frequent past 6pm.
Even with the extortionate car parking charges it can still be cheaper
to drive than use public transport, which is somewhat disappointing.
By way of comparison, it's about ~20-30 minutes by car, but well over
an hour by public transport (buses).

Providing public transport on this scale would be horrendously
expensive, and it would be very poorly patronised in the late
evenings. *

There is no good reason why people who choose to go out late and who
are not served by a skeleton service of late night buses should not be
expected to pay for a taxi, which is public transport after all.

Perhaps. I'm spoilt in that regard that a pair of London bus routes
run between Watford and London right past my house, giving me an
public transport option to get home until 1:30am, with a very
reasonable for that time of night 30 minute interval (one of the
county buses mentioned in my earlier rant goes is 1 an hour after
6:30pm!). Both are extremely well used all day, expect for the last
service(s) which I imagine only exist to run buses back to depot. My
friends nearby but off the beaten track get bled dry a tenner a time
for a equivalent trip that costs me less than 90p. As such, I don't
feel the need to hang around in town with them drinking later than I
would like, just so I could split the taxi fare. Perhaps a
relationship with D&D offences and public transport provision that
could be studied

Anyway, that's all beside the point.

The main point I was going for of course being that the service in the
peaks needs to be sufficiently versatile and dependable to justify
leaving the car at home, which means at the very least the whole
morning peak from 6:30-10am and the evening peak from 5-8:30pm.
Weekends you need to cater for the shoppers. The only way to achieve
decent speeds is express routes, and that's essentially what we have.
Buses stop at every lamppost in town, metros stop at every town,
trains stop at major towns, and intercity trains stop at major
interchanges only. All you need is to have a web linking them together
somewhere other than zone 1 and the *sigh* Circle Line. That's why
public transport is so widely used in places like London...you can
generally get from 'a' to 'b' without having to go miles out of your
way via 'c' & 'd'.