BP 6 and 7 - Transport ...

Transport?! It's dire, let’s move on, please?

From personal experience it seems to me that if you mention transport to people, they instantly moan about everything that makes it hell or the immensely long journeys they have to take commuting to and from their work or place of study. Even I tend to try to avoid it sometimes because it’s such a complicated issue. But from where I'm standing, it tends to get people worked up easily about their own issues regarding transport.

My own views on transport vary massively depending on what about transport you want to ask about. I hate public transport but I know it’s the way we will have to go as a functioning economy as it takes us away from high car dependency and all of its problems, health being one of them [1]... Transport is a problem we need to address otherwise it will get out of hand and could come at a time when we might need to focus on other matters... I also think that public transport should be for work and commuting rather than the exceptional journey to transport the majority rather than the minority.

There is Deffinatly a problem with the transport system at the moment. It all lies around the problem of car dependency which most people know about. Lots of data being published at the moment are showing a continual trend of increasing car usage even though it contributes to some of the biggest problems associated with transport [3]. People say they will use public transport if the quality is better, but to improve the services investment and demand has to be high enough, which isn't the case because of the large amount of car usage [4]

I think they do because the environmental and social downsides [5] are relatively small (climate change not included) compared to the dependency of the economy on fast and convenient travel which motorized transport provides. Thinking about climate change then there are far too many variables and unknown answers about the impact of reducing motorized vehicle usage directly to climate change and would need to consider the ever changing results of that phenomena.

However after saying all that, that question should never be spoken again! Ever! It allows people to say yes giving them an escape point so no progress is made over the issue, once they have already decided that the benefits outweigh costs. What we should be saying is do the benefits of other modes of transport outweigh their respective costs greater than that of motorized transport? That way if people say no then at least we know there is no alternative. However if they say yes though then we can look at the alternatives and know more can be done.

Get rid of "car dependency" and increase massively public transport and more environmental ways of transporting people and goods. Easier said than done though right? In an ideal world I’d say do it and they all would, but people have different expectations of public transport, different needs surrounding transport and different ways of adjusting to it all. I think it’s best to continue with micro scale plans where businesses sort out their employees and the councils sort out the bigger plans with roads and actually setting up the transport. Do it slow enough so if something bad does happen then it can quickly undo itself and then try again, otherwise people may wish they hadn't put you in charge.

1) BBC Online news page on Exhaust Emissions: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/medical_notes/336738.stm
2) BBC Search list for problems with Oil dependency: http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?scope=all&tab=all&q=oil+dependency+problem
3) DfT – Roads, vehicles and congestion: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trends/current/section1rvc.pdf
4) Environment City Leicester : http://www.environmentcity.org.uk/article.asp?

5) Cities for Children – The Effects of Car Usage on Their Lives: http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/1348/