Could banning cars from City Centres work?

[Ken H]

Oxford’s park and rides are pretty good in comparison then. Buses run 6am to after 11pm, though the frequency drops to half hourly towards the end of the evening.
The two councils are currently consulting on proposals to make private motor vehicle use harder in the city by adding more restrictions where only public transport are allowed through. So you can still access almost everywhere, but to get between two points in the city by car you might have to go out to the ring road and back in again.
https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cou...ion-and-improving-public-transport-in-oxford/
This follows on from the existing area that’s banned to private vehicles during working hours (8-6), hopefully they can do a better job of enforcement.

Yes. Increasing journey distances will help city centre pollution.

 

[158756]

Yes. You're correct with the operating times of park and ride. They seem to be geared around shoppers and traditional office hours. I think to attract more users, they need to take into account shift workers, and evening travellers. They need to run from very early in a morning to around about midnight really, and at intervals of no less that 15 minutes to be attractive to car users.

Lancaster's runs only every 30 minutes. A site in Aberdeen recently made the news for having just seven cars per day, for an hourly bus service.

 

[6Gman]

Definitely agree with this. No stranger to antisocial behaviour considering I'm in Glasgow and we have major problems with it. The worst things I've seen are all earlier in the day. Even things like drinking alcohol etc I've seen loads of times and that isn't ever dealt with either

Is drinking alcohol on buses banned in Glasgow ? Drunkenness or rowdy behaviour - antisocial yes. But drinking alcohol per se - what's the issue?

 

[PaulMc7]

Is drinking alcohol on buses banned in Glasgow ? Drunkenness or rowdy behaviour - antisocial yes. But drinking alcohol per se - what's the issue?

Its banned in public here completely. It's off putting for a lot of people to see anywhere on public transport. Happens a lot even early in the day

 

[6Gman]

Its banned in public here completely. It's off putting for a lot of people to see anywhere on public transport. Happens a lot even early in the day

Crikey! That's draconian.

(And I'm tee-total!)

 

[PaulMc7]

Crikey! That's draconian.

(And I'm tee-total!)

Yeah I'm tee-total too and I think it's a bit extreme. Problem is Glasgow is rife with alcohol related deaths and anti social behaviour caused by drinking so I understand why it happens

 

[coppercapped]

The very fact that roads are 'congested' with cars but cars are still used means that congestion is not an issue for those driving. It's also not an issue for pedestrians as cars generally do not drive on the footways.

I am lucky in that I have two bus stops on different routes into the town centre both within a hundred yards of my house and as a result I have a good service. If I lived a mile further out of town I would have a minimum fifteen minute walk, in all weathers, to a stop for a service which is, at best, half hourly. If people want to spend their money on their own transport to take the hassle out of getting to the town centre - then why shouldn't they? If they can't get there - because the only way is to use a bus which by definition cannot serve suburban areas adequately - then expect the character of the centre to change dramatically as less money is spent there.

 

[Sprinter107]

Lancaster's runs only every 30 minutes. A site in Aberdeen recently made the news for having just seven cars per day, for an hourly bus service.

I think that if its poorly sited, or poorly advertised it wont do any good. Some Cities have really well patronised Park and Rides. These are essential if traffic is to be banned from City Centres.

 

[Bald Rick]

I think now is the time that some cities will push car free centres. Madrid has already done it, as has Oslo in part. London has a car free day in the centre on Sunday.

I do wonder if we are close to the time where London could declare an ‘engine free’ week, and only allow cars / vans / taxis that are zero emission into certain areas (the West End for example, or the City). About 15% of London black cabs are now zero emission; this time next year it will be 25% and it becomes more realistic.

 

[HSTEd]

Buses are expensive, slow and unreliable.

Until you solve that, people will be loathe to use them.

 

[Ken H]

Buses are expensive, slow and unreliable.

Until you solve that, people will be loathe to use them.

I got a no 10 leeds bus to beeston the other day. Only free seat was offside downstairs - didnt want to go upstairs. But it turned out it was the sunny side. On a full bus in the sun it got very hot. Not ideal.
I was only wearing a shirt (and trousers!)

Got a 2 back. Seemed to take an age. Dawdling up Dewsbury Road.

Wandered round Leeds. Ended up down the markets, then got a 40 back to the stn. But no stop between Duncan St and Infirmary St, both a long way from the station.

 

[PaulMc7]

Buses are expensive, slow and unreliable.

Until you solve that, people will be loathe to use them.

Running a car is far more expensive though? As far as unreliability goes there's nothing that can usually be done 99% of the time. Especially in Glasgow we have a major congestion issue and that's something only the council can sort but fail to do so

 

[Ken H]

Running a car is far more expensive though? As far as unreliability goes there's nothing that can usually be done 99% of the time. Especially in Glasgow we have a major congestion issue and that's something only the council can sort but fail to do so

mebbe for 1 person. but if there are 2 or more the bus becomes expensive.

 

[HSTEd]

Running a car is far more expensive though? As far as unreliability goes there's nothing that can usually be done 99% of the time. Especially in Glasgow we have a major congestion issue and that's something only the council can sort but fail to do so

You are not competing against a levelised cost of travel though.
You are competing against the marginal cost of using the car for each and every journey.

Congestion is inherently problematic for buses and if they are going to compete it has to be solved

 

[Sprinter107]

Buses are expensive, slow and unreliable.

Until you solve that, people will be loathe to use them.

Buses are cheap in my area. An all day ticket for up to 5 adults is £8.00. And that's on as many buses as you can cram in, for quite a wide area.

 

[PaulMc7]

You are not competing against a levelised cost of travel though.
You are competing against the marginal cost of using the car for each and every journey.

Congestion is inherently problematic for buses and if they are going to compete it has to be solved

It's a council and government job to solve it though that's the problem. People also need to get realistic and plan ahead when they use public transport though too. Majority of the people who complain about buses being late are the same ones who give themselves 10mins for a 20 min journey which isn't ever going to happen

 

[PaulMc7]

Buses are cheap in my area. An all day ticket for up to 5 adults is £8.00. And that's on as many buses as you can cram in, for quite a wide area.

Yeah it's fairly suited for families here. There's nothing like that for just adults but I think an all day for 2 adults and 2 kids is £8.50/9 for our city zone and the network one is £10/11

 

[AlbertBeale]

If you do the sums, in many urban areas car use decreases overall mobility - any time saving for the car user is outweighed by the total time lost (in lots of little bits) by all the people who are slightly slowed down by the presence of that extra vehicle on the road. In other words, the users of private cars where I live - central London - are effectively stealing time from all the rest of us. (NB only a very small minority of people moving around central London at any given moment are in private cars; most - discounting necessary freight/service vehicles - are on foot or bike or some form of public transport. But that tiny minority is intimidating, poisoning, and slowing down the rest of us.)

Selfish I call it.

And then add in the environmental imperatives and getting almost all private cars out of many urban areas is a no-brainer.

End of rant.

 

[PaulMc7]

If you do the sums, in many urban areas car use decreases overall mobility - any time saving for the car user is outweighed by the total time lost (in lots of little bits) by all the people who are slightly slowed down by the presence of that extra vehicle on the road. In other words, the users of private cars where I live - central London - are effectively stealing time from all the rest of us. (NB only a very small minority of people moving around central London at any given moment are in private cars; most - discounting necessary freight/service vehicles - are on foot or bike or some form of public transport. But that tiny minority is intimidating, poisoning, and slowing down the rest of us.)

Selfish I call it.

And then add in the environmental imperatives and getting almost all private cars out of many urban areas is a no-brainer.

End of rant.

100% agree with this

 

[HSTEd]

Buses are cheap in my area. An all day ticket for up to 5 adults is £8.00. And that's on as many buses as you can cram in, for quite a wide area.

Unfortunately in real life people don't travel in indivisible groups of five and don't 'cram in' journeys into a handful of days

 

[Sprinter107]

Yeah it's fairly suited for families here. There's nothing like that for just adults but I think an all day for 2 adults and 2 kids is £8.50/9 for our city zone and the network one is £10/11

That's still not too bad really tho, when you add in tbe cost of car parking, plus the cos of a congestion charge, if Glasgow ever decide to introduce one.

 

[Sprinter107]

Unfortunately in real life people don't travel in indivisible groups of five and don't 'cram in' journeys into a handful of days

No you're right, not everybody does. But for one person a day ticket is only £4.80, or £4.00 after 9.30. The 5 persons for £8.00 is great for a group of friends or a family out for the day.

 

[PaulMc7]

That's still not too bad really tho, when you add in tbe cost of car parking, plus the cos of a congestion charge, if Glasgow ever decide to introduce one.

Minimum charge here for parking is at least £3 an hour in most places and nobody really goes into the city centre for a short time

 

[Sprinter107]

I think weekly and monthly passes in my area are very good value too from what I've read. As I work shifts, the bus isn't a viable option for me, but if peoples perception of the bus could alter, perhaps with the anti social problems being reduced, in some areas, they may save money.

 

[coppercapped]

My home town of Reading has the third highest bus use in the country outside London, in terms of kilometres travelled/head of population/year coming after Brighton and Nottingham.

Yet still there is a lot of traffic on the roads, sometimes even 'congested'...

Where there are concentrations of people there will always be congestion - this was as true in Ancient Rome as in Victorian London. It goes with the territory.

Even if vehicles were non-polluting at the point of use, there would still be congestion because - outside the centres of large cities - the advantages of personal transport which goes from where one is to where one wants to get to outweigh any direct financial costs of owning one's own wheels. My time also has a value and if I can do a journey in a quarter of the time that I could do it on public transport then I probably will. I also save the time on the return journey.

I realise that at some times of the day my journey will slightly delay those of other people - but I accept that this also works in reverse because the advantages outweigh the delay.

Like the poor - traffic congestion (and crowds of people) will always be with us. It is a feature of city living.

 

[HSTEd]

Buses have to be immune from congestion to be attractive.
They also need off board ticket sales/payment to speed up loading.

This implies a large scale BRT system unlike anything in the UK.

Even the vaunted Manchester scheme retains archaic payment systems and has no means to avoid the most congested 800m on the route (the Curry Mile that can take three minutes to traverse or 30 depending on the alignment of the stars)

 

[AlbertBeale]

My home town of Reading has the third highest bus use in the country outside London, in terms of kilometres travelled/head of population/year coming after Brighton and Nottingham.

Yet still there is a lot of traffic on the roads, sometimes even 'congested'...

Where there are concentrations of people there will always be congestion - this was as true in Ancient Rome as in Victorian London. It goes with the territory.

Even if vehicles were non-polluting at the point of use, there would still be congestion because - outside the centres of large cities - the advantages of personal transport which goes from where one is to where one wants to get to outweigh any direct financial costs of owning one's own wheels. My time also has a value and if I can do a journey in a quarter of the time that I could do it on public transport then I probably will. I also save the time on the return journey.

I realise that at some times of the day my journey will slightly delay those of other people - but I accept that this also works in reverse because the advantages outweigh the delay.

Like the poor - traffic congestion (and crowds of people) will always be with us. It is a feature of city living.

It's a feature of city living which is a choice - by individuals and by society. It's a very common human situation - people do what's best for themselves, and in the process make life worse for everyone else; if no-one made that choice (or wasn't able to) then everyone, including that person, would be better off overall. So how do we get people to act for the greater good? Given that it's in their interest to do so (even if it doesn't feel like that to them in the very short term), then it's a matter - in a sense - of people behaving rationally. And less selfishly.

 

[edwin_m]

I'd say we need a step change in public transport provision, especially buses, which are excellent in some areas and dire in others but above all not really integrated with each other or anything else. Then a congestion charge could apply within built-up areas with high-quality park and ride sites on each main road just before the start of the chargeable area.

 

[PaulMc7]

I'd say we need a step change in public transport provision, especially buses, which are excellent in some areas and dire in others but above all not really integrated with each other or anything else. Then a congestion charge could apply within built-up areas with high-quality park and ride sites on each main road just before the start of the chargeable area.

Could do with this in Glasgow tbh. We don't have park and rides at all with the exception of train station ones and none of them are particularly brilliant

 

[158756]

Buses have to be immune from congestion to be attractive.
They also need off board ticket sales/payment to speed up loading.

This implies a large scale BRT system unlike anything in the UK.

Even the vaunted Manchester scheme retains archaic payment systems and has no means to avoid the most congested 800m on the route (the Curry Mile that can take three minutes to traverse or 30 depending on the alignment of the stars)

Assuming you're referring to the Leigh Busway, those routes terminate short of the Curry Mile? They do suffer from terrible congestion in the city centre though - one day this week it all came to a complete standstill in the evening peak, there's pictures of queues of buses delayed for up to 2 hours and the jams affected the trams as well. In the case of Manchester, through traffic in the city centre really should be discouraged, but a congestion charge is impossible because the over ambitious scheme already failed at the ballot box.