Terry Harper wrote:
On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 01:06:41 +0100, Dave Arquati
wrote:


Terry Harper wrote:

It may not solve M25 congestion, but it would allow individuals to
avoid it by encouraging park and ride.

Park and ride to where? If to central London, then those individuals
won't use the M25 for the greater part of their journey. The M25 has
encouraged a whole host of local and medium distance orbital journeys
which are extremely difficult to address with public transport.


A large part of then M25 traffic is transferring from one motorway to
another. It draws traffic out from the inner area, and in from the
outer sector, simply because there are no better alternatives. I went
to a family funeral in Sunbury on Tuesday, and my route took me via
the M23, then M25 and then M3. Before the M25 I would probably have
gone A272, A24, A244 then A3 to the Scilly lsles, then via Hampton
Court bridge, or else over Walton bridge from Esher. Both shorter
routes, but much more congested and taking considerably longer.

People heading in towards London are frequently looking for somewhere
to leave their cars and continue by public transport, as many threads
on this board will testify. Depending on their ultimate destination,
they may well use the M25 to get to another motorway, which is a
better approach to that place than is ploughing through the centre. In
other cases, they would like a railway line which gets them to their
destination. Only Thameslink offers a cross-London route for this
purpose, ignoring the West London Line as being orbital.

There is such a huge variety of origins and destinations for these trips
that Thameslink itself will make little difference to M25 traffic. AFAIR
about half of traffic on the M25 is long-distance, with origins and
destinations nowhere near the M25, and the other half is short or medium
distance trips around the south east. Thameslink 2000 may provide a
direct route from Croydon to St Albans, Dartford to Enfield etc. but
despite providing an alternative for those trips, it does nothing for a
huge variety of other trips. An illustrative exercise might be to take a
single origin like Croydon and list all destinations (or more
realistically, all towns above a particular size) within 15 miles of the
M25, and then count how many of those destinations can be reached using
Thameslink - or indeed any rail service with one or no changes.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 23:54:28 +0100, Dave Arquati
wrote:

Terry Harper wrote:

On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 01:06:41 +0100, Dave Arquati
wrote:

Terry Harper wrote:

It may not solve M25 congestion, but it would allow individuals to
avoid it by encouraging park and ride.

Park and ride to where? If to central London, then those individuals
won't use the M25 for the greater part of their journey. The M25 has
encouraged a whole host of local and medium distance orbital journeys
which are extremely difficult to address with public transport.

People heading in towards London are frequently looking for somewhere
to leave their cars and continue by public transport, as many threads
on this board will testify. Depending on their ultimate destination,
they may well use the M25 to get to another motorway, which is a
better approach to that place than is ploughing through the centre. In
other cases, they would like a railway line which gets them to their
destination. Only Thameslink offers a cross-London route for this
purpose, ignoring the West London Line as being orbital.

There is such a huge variety of origins and destinations for these trips
that Thameslink itself will make little difference to M25 traffic. AFAIR
about half of traffic on the M25 is long-distance, with origins and
destinations nowhere near the M25, and the other half is short or medium
distance trips around the south east. Thameslink 2000 may provide a
direct route from Croydon to St Albans, Dartford to Enfield etc. but
despite providing an alternative for those trips, it does nothing for a
huge variety of other trips. An illustrative exercise might be to take a
single origin like Croydon and list all destinations (or more
realistically, all towns above a particular size) within 15 miles of the
M25, and then count how many of those destinations can be reached using
Thameslink - or indeed any rail service with one or no changes.

You didn't read what I said in the first place, did you?

It may not solve the M25 congestion - no rail-based plan will ever do
that, but it will solve a problem for many car drivers and take them
off the M25.

The One-Day Travelcard is a blessing for any journey inside the M25
with a destination withing Zone 6. As you ought to be aware, virtually
every journey involves at least three modes of transport, counting
walking as one mode. Multi-mode transport is a way of life in the
urban scene.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org

Terry Harper wrote:
On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 23:54:28 +0100, Dave Arquati
wrote:


Terry Harper wrote:


On Fri, 08 Apr 2005 01:06:41 +0100, Dave Arquati
wrote:


Terry Harper wrote:


It may not solve M25 congestion, but it would allow individuals to
avoid it by encouraging park and ride.


Park and ride to where? If to central London, then those individuals
won't use the M25 for the greater part of their journey. The M25 has
encouraged a whole host of local and medium distance orbital journeys
which are extremely difficult to address with public transport.


People heading in towards London are frequently looking for somewhere
to leave their cars and continue by public transport, as many threads
on this board will testify. Depending on their ultimate destination,
they may well use the M25 to get to another motorway, which is a
better approach to that place than is ploughing through the centre. In
other cases, they would like a railway line which gets them to their
destination. Only Thameslink offers a cross-London route for this
purpose, ignoring the West London Line as being orbital.

There is such a huge variety of origins and destinations for these trips
that Thameslink itself will make little difference to M25 traffic. AFAIR
about half of traffic on the M25 is long-distance, with origins and
destinations nowhere near the M25, and the other half is short or medium
distance trips around the south east. Thameslink 2000 may provide a
direct route from Croydon to St Albans, Dartford to Enfield etc. but
despite providing an alternative for those trips, it does nothing for a
huge variety of other trips. An illustrative exercise might be to take a
single origin like Croydon and list all destinations (or more
realistically, all towns above a particular size) within 15 miles of the
M25, and then count how many of those destinations can be reached using
Thameslink - or indeed any rail service with one or no changes.


You didn't read what I said in the first place, did you?

It may not solve the M25 congestion - no rail-based plan will ever do
that, but it will solve a problem for many car drivers and take them
off the M25.

I did read what you said, but I disagree that it will solve a problem
for "many" car drivers. My original point was that not only will it not
solve M25 congestion, it will make virtually no difference whatsoever. I
think that the effect on car drivers will be pretty negligible.

I could be wrong - for all I know, loads of motorists want a train
alternative from Sutton to Enfield or Dartford to St Albans!

The One-Day Travelcard is a blessing for any journey inside the M25
with a destination withing Zone 6. As you ought to be aware, virtually
every journey involves at least three modes of transport, counting
walking as one mode. Multi-mode transport is a way of life in the
urban scene.

Since every journey involves walking (well, for those who can walk, I
guess...), there's not much point in debating the multi-modality of
journeys that involve walking.

I'm lost; where were we?

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...

I could be wrong - for all I know, loads of motorists want a train
alternative from Sutton to Enfield or Dartford to St Albans!

Well, I live in St Albans and have been to gigs at the Mick
Jagger Centre in Dartford :-)

Seriously, though, I don't think that building more roads or
railways is the answer. Having spent much of the past two
years commuting between St A and places like Camberley or
Basingstoke, the question that always comes to mind when
sitting in 8 lanes of stationary traffic on the M25 is "How many
of these journeys are really necessary?"

Mine certainly weren't - with a decent IT infrastructure and a
different attitude on the part of my employers, I could have
done much of my work from home or from somewhere local,
being much more productive and less polluting.

Ideally I'd like the Government to set aside the money it would
waste on widening the M25, and use it instead as a carrot to
encourage employers to change their working practices - maybe
even subsidising the installation of broadband, video-conferencing,
etc - to cut down on unnecessary travelling.

Since that isn't going to happen, the sooner they introduce
road charging, the better. That might make employers
reconsider the wisdom of having a large number of
employees travelling around every day.
--
Garry Smith