South Of Sheffield Traffic Madness

[carosio]

3 hours ago, Planner1 said:

I suspect the logic that most people apply to that question is that they believe that the bus companies do make a profit, so if they were under public ownership, the profit could be used to provide more bus services on currently uneconomic routes or fares could be lowered.

Depends how big a profit they (public ownership) would want and how much of it would go to investment in the service; the bigger the profit, the better the service?

[Tony]

20 hours ago, Planner1 said:

I suspect the logic that most people apply to that question is that they believe that the bus companies do make a profit, so if they were under public ownership, the profit could be used to provide more bus services on currently uneconomic routes or fares could be lowered.

That's more wishful thinking than logic I'm afraid.  Most people  barely trust the council / SCR Mayor's Office to switch the street lights on, never mind to run an entire bus / train / tram company better than the private sector. The idea that public sector can magically transform public transport merely by eliminating profit from the equation is for the birds and promulgated by people with unfounded confidence in either their own ability or political ideology.

 

For comparison purposes, while I forget the actual number ISTR that TFL in Greater London made a loss of close to a billion pounds in the last reporting period. Let us not forget that the "loss" is actually money straight out of everyone's pocket.

 

There is no bus "profit" to reinvest, just bigger bills for everyone which are at the whim of politicians that eventually lead to a worse service subject to cuts when other political priorities take precedent. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Tony

[Justin Smith]

On ‎24‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 08:59, Planner1 said:

I think you are being very disingenuous here.

 

”We never spend any money on the alternatives”? “The alternatives are non-existent”?
 

What about the Supertram. Cost £230m.  Other cities like Leeds would love to have a tram system like ours.
 

We have also spent very substantial amounts on bus corridors and bus priority to improve the quality, speed and punctuality of bus services.

 

There’s also been a lot spent on cycling and walking and you can see the type of infrastructure the Council are now aiming for on Charter Row. Segregated cycle superhighway.

 

The cities like Leeds and Nottingham which have got cycle superhighways, bid for and won the funding for them through a specific government fund. Sheffield bid for money, but didn’t get anything on that occasion.

 

New facilities for sustainable travel need funding and the Council have bid to the government for over £80m from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, see:https://sheffieldnewsroom.co.uk/news/council-set-to-bid-for-85-million-sustainable-transport-pot/

 

There are alternatives, but the painful truth is that many car drivers would not use public transport even if it were free. The only way most will get out of their cars is if they are made to (eg access restrictions ) or are priced off the road ( congestion charge, very high parking charges etc).

If it really was free traffic congestion would disappear, particularly if the increased use of busses and trains led to more frequent services on more routes. The fact is that public transport is soddin` expensive, particularly if more than one person is travelling.

NOTE : I'm not saying traffic would disappear, but the decline in car usage would be enough to make traffic jams largely a think of the past. One slight problem you would have, if car usage dropped so car journeys were quicker than they are now, that would act to increase car use, but, on balance, I'm sure the there would be fewer cars on the road, particularly at peak times.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Justin Smith

[Planner1]

16 minutes ago, Justin Smith said:

If it really was free traffic congestion would disappear, particularly if the increased use of busses and trains led to more frequent services on more routes. The fact is that public transport is soddin` expensive, particularly if more than one person is travelling.

NOTE : I'm not saying traffic would disappear, but the decline in car usage would be enough to make traffic jams largely a think of the past. One slight problem you would have, if car usage dropped so car journeys were quicker than they are now, that would act to increase car use, but, on balance, I'm sure the there would be fewer cars on the road, particularly at peak times.

The studies I saw said the majority of car drivers said they wouldn't use public transport if it were free. Whether that would be the reality is a matter for conjecture. You'd need to reduce the number of cars on the road by maybe a quarter to a third if you wanted to achieve the same traffic conditions we see during the school summer holidays.

 

Also, evidence suggests that any increases in bus use tend to come from those who already travel by "sustainable" modes, like walking, cycling, light rail, not from car drivers. The only public transport which takes mode share away from car use is the tram.

 

Another issue would be where to find the money from. Most of the money given by government to local authorities for highways / transport projects is "capital" money and can only be used for building things / providing assets. It can't be used for "revenue" purposes, which is what would be needed for subsidising operational costs of bus fleets. So, you can't just use the money which would otherwise be spent on transport capital projects, because it's not eligible spend.

 

Public transport expensive? So is motoring. Motoring organisations put the cost of running a car at circa £3.5k a year. You could buy around three annual public transport passes for South Yorkshire for that: https://www.travelsouthyorkshire.com/SYConnectplusAnnual/ So, a small family could use public transport for a similar cost to running a car.

[dave_the_m]

My morning commute takes 15 minutes door to door by car, or about 45 mins by buses, or 55 mins by foot. If buses were free, I'd probably still choose to drive.

[e5c4p3]

On 31/12/2019 at 20:30, Planner1 said:

I’ve seen research which suggests most car drivers would not use public transport even if it were free.

Perhaps that’s because a bus or train that cannot be relied upon to turn up is not a viable option for some irrespective of the whether it’s free or not.

[Guest]

On 31/12/2019 at 13:47, Bargepole23 said:

The mess around Kelham Island is caused entirely by unnecessary car journeys. I can't see any progress being made either, because people are too lazy to either use public transport, cycle or walk.

 

Not everyone can, and not every journey, but most could some of the time.

Care to back that up with figures and facts instead of what you just happen to think? You have no idea what any of those people are doing. It's a major artery in/out of Sheffield. It's like saying people using the M1 are all entirely unnecessary car journeys.

 

I mix it up depending on what I'm doing. The quickest I can do it is by car, 25 mins door to door if I leave at 6:30am. Next is train; 20 mins walk + 15 mins train + 20 mins walk, followed by bus with the same walk but a 35 min bus journey.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Guest

[slh73]

1 hour ago, dave_the_m said:

My morning commute takes 15 minutes door to door by car, or about 45 mins by buses, or 55 mins by foot. If buses were free, I'd probably still choose to drive.

Same here. 20 mins motorbike, half an hour car, hour and a half on the bus & train (assuming they turn up/run on time). I wouldnt use them if they were free

[Guest]

On 31/12/2019 at 13:45, Planner1 said:

It shows they are trying to improve matters. Heard the one about needing to crack eggs to get an omelette? Yeah, there might be a few problems while the works are ongoing. It is rather difficult to dig the place up while keeping traffic running as normal you know.

 

Hardly a fair comparison when you are driving in a congested city centre on roads that are undergoing construction works and trying to compare it to driving in town half the size and on high capacity roads that are have  relatively light traffic. 

 

Personally, I go round the inner relief road  a fair bit and I haven't seen major issues with traffic. It was always busy at peak times and some lanes were prone to clog up due to turning traffic but that's why they re improving it.

Have you ever visited Doncaster city centre? I do every Friday morning and late afternoon. It has worse traffic than Sheffield at rush hour and on smaller roads.

 

Do you know if there's an end date to these roadworks? Currently some of the problems are due to them having closed off the lanes that are for traffic filtering onto other roads and them not having reopened them yet tbh.

[Longcol]

1 hour ago, probedb said:

Have you ever visited Doncaster city centre? I do every Friday morning and late afternoon. It has worse traffic than Sheffield at rush hour and on smaller roads.

 

Do you know if there's an end date to these roadworks? Currently some of the problems are due to them having closed off the lanes that are for traffic filtering onto other roads and them not having reopened them yet tbh.

No such animal - Donny's a town.

 

If any of the three main roundabouts gets snarled up the place grinds to a halt - it's been happening pretty regularly for at least the last 20 years.