Air Pollution

[alta-pete]

19 minutes ago, virginton said:

Given you've already conceded that your car use is not in fact essential and compulsory - see 'I no longer drive in Glasgow's ULEZ because mah car is too polluting' - then I wouldn't expect a Victoria Cross for your heroic sacrifice. 

Taxes do not factor in the enormous negative externalities caused by private car use: the price of carbon pollution; the price of air pollution on public health. That's before we even consider the cost of deaths/injuries from incompetent driving and the cost on public health from noise pollution.

If the automobile were invented tomorrow then no sane government or society would establish a free for all in consumption. You are sadly trapped in a 20th century mindset. 

I park on the periphery and walk. No medal is required. You’re clearly in one of your pissy moods. I’ll bid you good day. 

[Granny Danger]

I wonder how many times the OP has failed his driving test.  Three, four…?
 

[Jives Miguel]

2 minutes ago, alta-pete said:

I park on the periphery and walk. No medal is required. You’re clearly in one of your pissy moods. I’ll bid you good day. 

 

Why don't you just use public transport to the centre, and walk less?

 

Rhetorical question really, because I drive about my hometown for food shopping and going to the football and do the same myself. This is the main reason for me why the world is completely fucked in relation to climate change. People will simply just not accept their small conveniences being rolled back. There's no chance of folk giving up driving, giving up home delivery etc. The change of habits that would be required from society en masse is not happening, especially in the post-COVID lockdown age. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, 101 said:

In London however, why does anyone need to drive their weans to school in a massive diesel agricultural vehicle? Complete madness.

A good example of a city with adequate public transport to argue that private car ownership pointless, it also would usually take longer to drive than to use public transport in London although people that need carry heavy equipment about for work still require the use of vans ect.

People calling for it in Scotland must have a screw loose though, our public transport system is nothing short of pathetic and extortionate. 

[doulikefish]

1 hour ago, Ziggy Sobotka said:

Please bro, one more lane will fix it honest bro.

Ah los Angeles where there are no more lanes being built but actually has a decent public transport service that nobody uses 

[ICTChris]

Car ownership must be lower in London than almost anywhere else in the UK, surely?

I wonder about the gap between rhetoric and action on stuff like this. We have friends who live in a new build estate outside Edinburgh. They got rid of one of their cars but have found that without a car they are basically stranded in their estate, with barely any public transport available. I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t navigate a bus around the main streets there even if there was one. This estate was built a couple of years ago, why wasn’t a requirement for public transport included? Similarly my mother-in-law lives in a village that has massively expanded in the last few years due to new build houses, it’s probably more than doubled in size. She doesn’t drive and the bus service is absolutely terrible, pot luck whether it turns up, infrequent services. She’s retired so it’s just an annoyance to her but to people using it to get to work or school or wherever it is pretty much unusable. Of course, the whole place is a permanent snarl up of traffic.

But then, I live in a Edinburgh a city that has great public transport and most of my colleagues (when I worked in the city) would drive from the outskirts to the centre for work, some of them paid £10 a day for parking. Madness but they did it. I take my wee boy to his school and there are parents dropping off in cars - the catchment area is literally walkable. You could walk across the entire thing in 15 minutes. Insanity but people do it.

[101]

57 minutes ago, virginton said:

Nah, that's the classic passing the buck mentality that we do too often in Scotland. Too hard for us to do, but of course London should do something about their problem.

The reality is that the overwhelming majority of the Scottish population live in condensed settlement areas (the Central Belt being the largest), not in Caithness or North Uist. In the areas where Scots actually live there is ample density to provide mass transit at scale and phase out private car use.

We aren't even close to existing best practice yet though. Whereas the Netherlands already provides public transit on a 24 hour basis in its main areas of settlement, Scotland is still wedded to a 6-23 (if you're lucky), six day service, with a banger equivalent on the Sabbath. 

Public transit system has to get better, but to get people out of cars and therefore consider using car share schemes then you need regular services interconnecting with all other forms of transport and that seems unlikely in the next 10 years. 

For instance from Dunfermline it takes about 40 minutes to drive to Stirling but anywhere between 90 and 105 minutes to travel by public transport. Including up to 2 changes in Falkirk or 1 change in Edinburgh.

Traveling to Kirkcaldy is the same, 20 minutes by car over an hour by public transport.

It takes so long to get to these destinations as the public transport links are designed to ferry folk about their local area or to take them to Edinburgh or Glasgow. To counter this would need a route and branch change of public transport and how it opporates and it's cost.

Bus use will almost certainly be reaching modern high usage after the bus passes were expanded to young and old people. However private companies will continue to provide the worst possible service and max their profit. I would like to think if it was ran by the public then someone would take the time to link up the time tables so as busses and trains linked up which is essential and yet unlikely whilst in separate ownership. It would also stop the profiteering by bus companies on popular routes, £20 for a period return from Dunfermline to Edinburgh airport the equivalent journey in Hamburg was less than half the price.

But I don't think pure cost is the biggest block to public transport use, for me the 2 biggest blockers to public transport are frequency and range.

Can Scotland justify the expansion in rail network in particular? I'm not sure it can. We would require more rolling stock, let alone more lines to provide that service. The rail extension to Methil is welcome but falls short of linking up St Andrews. Whilst the UK prioritise projects like HS2 over resurrecting old rail routes then I'm not sure how much more the Scottish government can do.

Other cheaper benefits ought to be sought, increasing bus lanes on motorway hard shoulders throughout the central belt would be a quick win improving speed and reliability at peak times.

In the long term I think automation of public transit will see the changes we want but I don't see the move by any political party nor preparation by the unions to get ready for this so again a change in the next 10 years is unlikely on any great scale. I might have missed it but there seems to be no good reason not to run the Glasgow Subway 24/7 once the automation process is complete.

Lastly the subsidies need to change, aviation fuel is cheaper than rail fuel likewise the petrol duty freeze does nothing to incentives people out of cars and planes and into trains and busses. This for me is the crux banning things isn't where I think a country should be but providing level playing fields or making the sustainable modes of transport cheaper ought to be the way forward.

 

 

Probably not the best ordered post in the world but tl/Dr:

A lot has to change before a ban would work and the costs particularly whilst areas of public transit are in private ownership seem steep for a country with no borrowing powers, but we can absolutely make better use of what we have.

[VincentGuerin]

3 hours ago, 101 said:

A ridiculous wedge issue and it is true too much space in towns and cities are given over to cars.

Cars are also probably the only thing people expect to have a right to dump on public land, like you wouldn't buy a fridge too big for your house and leave it out on the street.

Private car ownership is here to stay particularly in Scotland where it's not practical to have fast mass transit systems round the country. 

In London however, why does anyone need to drive their weans to school in a massive diesel agricultural vehicle? Complete madness.

Public transport in cities is a relatively easy win in the grand scheme of things. It's (generally) shite in the UK, and the medium-term focus should be on making it so good that people who live in and around UK cities are incentivised to get rid of their motors.

I can walk to work (when I actually need to go in), but for a lot of my colleagues the connections to cover relatively short as-the-bird-flies journeys are laughable, so they clog the place up with traffic.

Rural areas are obviously more challenging and can be tackled later.

Edited September 21, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[AUcal]

Can't say I've done a specific study, or that I can point you in the direction of any particular transport agency studies (cause I can't be bothered right now). I do work in environmental / sustainability analysis though, so here's my 2p worth, not that it matters.

I don't think electric vehicles come close to offering the clean green benefits that car companies in particular want you to think they do. As others have mentioned, there are notable issues concerning the environment impact of the energy use in extracting some of what makes up the batteries. Also, in a sense, using an electric vehicle really just pushes the carbon emissions further back in the chain. Unless you can guarantee that all of that power is coming from a renewable energy source, then there's still notable emissions associated with your use of the vehicle. The more we move to renewable energy sources, the lesser that becomes.

Having said that, the topic here is about air pollution. Importantly, air pollution in built up urban environments. In that context, electric vehicles are a far better option as there are no "at street" emissions, so to speak. We are still finding out about additional awful impacts of what gets chucked out the back of cars. Some of the more recent studies into the widespread health effects are pretty stunning. Therefore, low emissions zones that cover some of the most densely populated and visited areas of the country are, in my opinion, very beneficial and are symptomatic of the kind of positive steps we need to see in combatting the monopoly on transport that the fossil fuel industry has. 

But there are still significant problems in the product lifecycle and material sourcing capabilities of electric vehicle industries. I don't drive and haven't ever been in a home with cars, so I can't comment on the cost aspects and how that contributes to considerations. Can understand how it just won't make financial sense in some cases. I think an immediate ban as suggested would possibly do more harm than good, in a socioeconomic sense, in the immediate aftermath. However, we need more radical thinking on how we address this and I'd welcome some out the box thinking at the top level on the topic. 

Tbh, as the OP alluded to, I think the main problem with the general conversation on these issues is that they focus so heavily on private car ownership as if it's the only option as a society.

With governments that actually prioritised sustainable transport options as a key component of policy and regulation, I feel the general rhetoric around transport needs would be far less car-centric. The reason we live in a society where so many people feel that they desperately need a car is because we've been conditioned to think that way. As opposed to being encouraged to demand proper, long term transport solutions that serve to benefit the immediate needs as well as the long term health of citizens. 

Yes, some of our urban environments have been designed in a very car-centric way (thinking of those god awful new towns in particular) but I really don't feel it would be as hard as many people feel to start a shift. We just need people who care enough making decisions on it.

Also, Jeremy Clarkson is c**t.

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by AuAl

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

I passed my test first time.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

And now I drive a Lexus. Seriously, once you've driven a Lexus, public transport simply isn't an option any more.

[Central Belt Caley]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

I wonder how many times the OP has failed his driving test.  Three, four…?
 

Couldn’t pass the theory test IMO 

[Soapy FFC]

22 minutes ago, 101 said:

Public transit system has to get better, but to get people out of cars and therefore consider using car share schemes then you need regular services interconnecting with all other forms of transport and that seems unlikely in the next 10 years. 

For instance from Dunfermline it takes about 40 minutes to drive to Stirling but anywhere between 90 and 105 minutes to travel by public transport. Including up to 2 changes in Falkirk or 1 change in Edinburgh.

Traveling to Kirkcaldy is the same, 20 minutes by car over an hour by public transport.

It takes so long to get to these destinations as the public transport links are designed to ferry folk about their local area or to take them to Edinburgh or Glasgow. To counter this would need a route and branch change of public transport and how it opporates and it's cost.

Bus use will almost certainly be reaching modern high usage after the bus passes were expanded to young and old people. However private companies will continue to provide the worst possible service and max their profit. I would like to think if it was ran by the public then someone would take the time to link up the time tables so as busses and trains linked up which is essential and yet unlikely whilst in separate ownership. It would also stop the profiteering by bus companies on popular routes, £20 for a period return from Dunfermline to Edinburgh airport the equivalent journey in Hamburg was less than half the price.

But I don't think pure cost is the biggest block to public transport use, for me the 2 biggest blockers to public transport are frequency and range.

Can Scotland justify the expansion in rail network in particular? I'm not sure it can. We would require more rolling stock, let alone more lines to provide that service. The rail extension to Methil is welcome but falls short of linking up St Andrews. Whilst the UK prioritise projects like HS2 over resurrecting old rail routes then I'm not sure how much more the Scottish government can do.

Other cheaper benefits ought to be sought, increasing bus lanes on motorway hard shoulders throughout the central belt would be a quick win improving speed and reliability at peak times.

In the long term I think automation of public transit will see the changes we want but I don't see the move by any political party nor preparation by the unions to get ready for this so again a change in the next 10 years is unlikely on any great scale. I might have missed it but there seems to be no good reason not to run the Glasgow Subway 24/7 once the automation process is complete.

Lastly the subsidies need to change, aviation fuel is cheaper than rail fuel likewise the petrol duty freeze does nothing to incentives people out of cars and planes and into trains and busses. This for me is the crux banning things isn't where I think a country should be but providing level playing fields or making the sustainable modes of transport cheaper ought to be the way forward.

 

 

Probably not the best ordered post in the world but tl/Dr:

A lot has to change before a ban would work and the costs particularly whilst areas of public transit are in private ownership seem steep for a country with no borrowing powers, but we can absolutely make better use of what we have.

I live in a village just outside Dunfermline and it has a good regular direct bus service to Glasgow that takes just under an hour. However, if I want to go to Edinburgh, which is half the distance of that to Glasgow, I need to get a bus to Dunfermline then train or bus to Edinburgh. By bus it takes about an hour and 15 mins at the best, the train should be quicker but you need to walk from the bus station to the train station, a 10 or 15 minute walk (up a long steep hill if you want to go from the train to bus station). The limited stop bus from Dunfermline bus station stops at every stop through Dunfermline and Rosyth until it gets to the park and ride, thereafter it hardly stops, but more than half of the time on the bus is taken up going from Dunfermline to the Ferry Toll.

(As an aside when getting the bus from Dunfermline to Edinburgh, If you buy the ticket in the bus it's about £7 return, but if you try to buy it on the Stagecoach app you can only get the £11 day rider ticket.)

 

 

[Soapy FFC]

1 hour ago, ICTChris said:

Car ownership must be lower in London than almost anywhere else in the UK, surely?I wonder about the gap between rhetoric and action on stuff like this. We have friends who live in a new build estate outside Edinburgh. They got rid of one of their cars but have found that without a car they are basically stranded in their estate, with barely any public transport available. I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t navigate a bus around the main streets there even if there was one. This estate was built a couple of years ago, why wasn’t a requirement for public transport included? Similarly my mother-in-law lives in a village that has massively expanded in the last few years due to new build houses, it’s probably more than doubled in size. She doesn’t drive and the bus service is absolutely terrible, pot luck whether it turns up, infrequent services. She’s retired so it’s just an annoyance to her but to people using it to get to work or school or wherever it is pretty much unusable. Of course, the whole place is a permanent snarl up of traffic.

 

My mate used to live in Almere Haven in the Netherlands which looked to me a new town type of place. It had a dedicated bus lane system that was separate from the road network, and it ran though all the various districts in the area. Where the bus lanes crossed the normal road, traffic lights stopped the cars to allow the bus through, and buses linked in with the train services.

Compare that to Winchburgh, which is currently undergoing a major expansion. They are still arguing about reopening a train station on the main Glasgow/Edinburgh line that runs though the village. There are no new bus services as yet, and the existing bus service is very unreliable. However, they have built a new motorway junction so it's easy to commute by car from it.

[Alert Mongoose]

And just to add Beeching should have been sent to prison for one of the worst crimes of recent times.

[GHF-23]

There are so many things you would do differently if you were designing a transport network from scratch now:

• Redesigning the road network to better bias buses
• Ending the failed experiment to put hundreds of millions in the pockets of Soutar et al for a shitey service and taking the buses back into public ownership
• Improving and expanding the rail network
• Extending the trams right across Edinburgh instead of the nonsense it currently is (I'll settle for reopening and expanding the suburban railway)
• Some sort of better transit in Aberdeen (not fussed about this one actually)
• A cable car from the Caird Hall to the top of Dundee Law
• Making driving as miserable as possible for anyone who lives in a built up area of our major cities unless disabled
• Making every city centre essentially buses/trams and pedestrians only

It gets quite exciting and I'm sure a lot of these things would be achievable for a government that had the will. But ultimately I'm sat in an office just now with two folk who live 4 miles away from our office in Edinburgh and the idea they would get the tram or bus to work rather than drive every day gets them breaking out in a cold sweat. And after home owners and retirees as we've seen with the ULEZ stuff these are the people actual governments in this country least want to piss off. 

 

 

[effeffsee_the2nd]

I live in Scotland's 5th biggest contagious urban area with a population over100k, I work at said areas biggest single employer. I live 7 miles from said place of work.

There are no direct buses. I would have to get one from my house to Falkirk town centre then another out to Grangemouth which would take over an hour in total.

the above option is not available for my morning shift change time of 6am

I can and have cycled to work during nicer weather where the trip is only 6 miles due to a nice shortcut not available to cars

 

That's my 2 options. car or bike

 

Interestingly. my 1.6 diesel honda gets 65mpg & is a band A for (emissions based) VED but is NOT compliant for Glasgow's LEZ, but my partners petrol astra gets a poor 30 mpg and is a band D for road tax, IS compliant. I get that diesel emissions are worse but surely when there's more than double the amount from a petrol it should cancel out?

Edited September 21, 2023 by effeffsee_the2nd

[101]

36 minutes ago, Soapy FFC said:

I live in a village just outside Dunfermline and it has a good regular direct bus service to Glasgow that takes just under an hour. However, if I want to go to Edinburgh, which is half the distance of that to Glasgow, I need to get a bus to Dunfermline then train or bus to Edinburgh. By bus it takes about an hour and 15 mins at the best, the train should be quicker but you need to walk from the bus station to the train station, a 10 or 15 minute walk (up a long steep hill if you want to go from the train to bus station). The limited stop bus from Dunfermline bus station stops at every stop through Dunfermline and Rosyth until it gets to the park and ride, thereafter it hardly stops, but more than half of the time on the bus is taken up going from Dunfermline to the Ferry Toll.

(As an aside when getting the bus from Dunfermline to Edinburgh, If you buy the ticket in the bus it's about £7 return, but if you try to buy it on the Stagecoach app you can only get the £11 day rider ticket.)

 

 

Yes I agree the bus connecting Dunfermline and Glasgow is brilliant, but it can still get snared up coming into Glasgow, more bus lanes at that part of the journey would be good.

Putting trains directly from Dunfermline to Alloa might help bring the train time down into Edinburgh but a bus would be the only way from Crossford etc down to the coastal railway.

1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:

I can walk to work (when I actually need to go in), but for a lot of my colleagues the connections to cover relatively short as-the-bird-flies journeys are laughable, so they clog the place up with traffic

I'm not sure how you encourage people to walk and cycle more, I'm the same if in Edinburgh I typically walk round, back home I walk to the shops to get my groceries but plenty folk drive a very short distance. Stopping that imo is key to improving air quality.

[AUcal]

28 minutes ago, Alert Mongoose said:

And just to add Beeching should have been sent to prison for one of the worst crimes of recent times.

Aye. Completely horrendous planning.

The increased isolation and deprivation those decisions contributed to are still sadly so very present.

Edited September 21, 2023 by AuAl

[ICTChris]

32 minutes ago, Soapy FFC said:

My mate used to live in Almere Haven in the Netherlands which looked to me a new town type of place. It had a dedicated bus lane system that was separate from the road network, and it ran though all the various districts in the area. Where the bus lanes crossed the normal road, traffic lights stopped the cars to allow the bus through, and buses linked in with the train services.

Compare that to Winchburgh, which is currently undergoing a major expansion. They are still arguing about reopening a train station on the main Glasgow/Edinburgh line that runs though the village. There are no new bus services as yet, and the existing bus service is very unreliable. However, they have built a new motorway junction so it's easy to commute by car from it.

Neither of the places I mentioned were Winchburgh but both are pretty nearby and I assume the same applies to there.  

One thing I had never encountered until I started working down here was that there are loads of people who are really snobby about buses and would just never consider getting a bus anywhere, ever.