Adrian Stott wrote: > "Bru" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> What a load of tosh! > > Phew! What you've written contains so many false assumptions, it's > hard to know where to start. So I'll take them as they appear. > >> The presumption that tolls will reduce traffic presumes that people are >> making avoidable journeys. > > Almost all journeys are avoidable. Instead of going to mail a letter, > you could have used email. Instead of going to the shops four times a > week for small purchases, you could go once and buy the lot. Instead > of driving to work, you could work from home via the internet or move > closer to your job and walk to it. Instead of driving to your cottage > in Wales, you could take the train(or sell the thing) ...
OK. Let's start with each of these: a) I walk to post a letter b) we buy our small purchases from the village shop c) I do my supermarket shops when I am driving to and from work (my work is on two sites, one of which is within walking distance of home, one of which isn't). I do 2 or 3 days a week at each of them. d) there are good reasons I can't work from home. e) My house is with walking distance of (one of my two places of) work. It's also within walking distance of schools for my children and we are on a bus route into town, which is essential as my wife cannot drive for medical reasons. Was I to move within walking distance of the other place of work neither of these would be true. f) The bus stops quite literally outside my house and my place of work. It is scheduled to take 45+ minutes, at peak times it's closer to an hour. I can drive it in under 20. As I can't get a return bus ticket at a time that allows me to do any work on the days I'm at the other site, it ends up costing me more to buy tickets than the officially worked out cost per mile of running my car. Oddly, some of us actually have thought about it, and tried to do it. You live near London. If I had my way no-one who lived within 50 miles of London would be allowed any say in transport matters, as they have no idea of the reality of life for the remaining 90% of the population. I think that's enough, don't you?
