I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
Well in the hamlet we now live in walking takes over four times as long to a useful place as driving and public transport not much better. In rural areas for most to get to work, their children to school, go to the shops, the doctors, a station etc a car is vital
Absolutely. You are now part of that very small minority that need a car. I have no issue with that at all!
Former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on Tuesday in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the first criminal charges to emerge from a sprawling federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power after losing the presidency to Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The indictment, filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington, accused Mr. Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States
NY Times
Good.
Nobody should be above the law. Not even a President, or former President.
Indeed but the US also has decided that there should be no constitutional bar for getting elected President, even if you are a convicted felon in jail!
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
Of course that's also credible by looking at the closest place of employment, rather than their own actual place of employment.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
One caveat - you don't get fit cycling the way I do it. 90 year old grannies move faster on a bike than my gentle amblings, so people still need to put effort in!
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as tr e Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
What well paid oil rig jobs?
Surely even you must admit there are tens of thousands of Scottish jobs in the oil industry
Indeed around 196,000 jobs are supported by the industry in Scotland
You're exaggerating by a factor of *at least* two, so far as I can see, and it's going down. The newe licenses won't make any difference for years, if they ever do.
Any money from oil goes to London and most of the workers on rigs are from England as well, Scotland gets shafted as ever
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
I recall one of the craziest Trump inspired lawsuits, I think in Pennsylvania, off the basis of entirely unproven allegations was seeking relief in the form of disenfranchising millions of voters. Which as the appeals court noted, even if there were some issues, would be a massively disproprotionate and unprecedented response. And rather made the point being to exclude the bits they didn't like rather obvious.
An extreme example, of the kind of "cherry-picking" that provided fatal to Al Gore's chances of prevailing in Florida, and thus the USA, versus George W. Bush in 2000.
By trying to get a hand recount of only PART of the ballots cast in the State of Florida. Which he was advised AGAINST by an actual election recount expert.
An error which, BTW, Democrats in WA State did NOT make in razor-thin 2004 governor's race when requesting - and putting down a million dollar deposit for - a full statewide hand recount. even though the Republicans THOUGHT we gonna do it . . . and had the state GOP party chair ready to pay for the REST of WA if Dems asked for a partial recount.
Note that today, that former Republican Party chair is a staunch Never-Trumper who has left the GOP.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as tr e Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
What well paid oil rig jobs?
Surely even you must admit there are tens of thousands of Scottish jobs in the oil industry
Indeed around 196,000 jobs are supported by the industry in Scotland
You're exaggerating by a factor of *at least* two, so far as I can see, and it's going down. The newe licenses won't make any difference for years, if they ever do.
Any money from oil goes to London and most of the workers on rigs are from England as well, Scotland gets shafted as ever
The second part of your comment on the workers is simply wrong.
Arguably, this by-election is more important for the next general election in England than it is for Scotland.
Really? How come? Not many SNP candidates in England. And neither Labour nor the Tory parties are representative of the ones in England.
Labour win and it sends a message to voters in England (and Wales) that Labour are capable of picking up seats in Scotland, thus reducing the risk of them having to do a deal with the SNP.
It's a tough thing for the average voter to calculate, so it would be a significant event.
In other words, Labour have adopted the exclusionist philosophy of the Tories, a doctrine of first and second class MPs?
No, The SNP want to break up the UK, voters in the rest of the UK would rather not have them in government in Westminster.
I woukd rather have any major group than tge SNP in power. It's not just that they want to break up tge UK. It's that they will actively govern against tge interests of a) the UK and b) the English. And also that they appear to be fucking nutters. I'm fairly agnostic on the matter of whether or not England or Scotland would be better off together or apart. I think a desire for Scottish independence a perfectly respectable position. But the SNP themselves are not to be trusted. Honestly, I'd rather have Corbyn in the cabinet than Sturgeon.
@cookie You are the f**king nutter, an ignorant arsehole who knows F**k all about Scotland , GFY you bellend.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Last one, but it is always nice to get candid info from behind the scenes I bet 90% of the officials who stood up to him in 2020 will back him now though.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
Well in the hamlet we now live in walking takes over four times as long to a useful place as driving and public transport not much better. In rural areas for most to get to work, their children to school, go to the shops, the doctors, a station etc a car is vital
Absolutely. You are now part of that very small minority that need a car. I have no issue with that at all!
Unless you live in the inner city where public transport is generally good you need a car or at least a bike, in small towns and villages and rural areas especially so
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Which is how relevant when urban A roads make up 10% of your journey?
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
It probably turns out to be a lot less cycle friendly than it looks once you begin trying to do so. That's my experience.
Places which put in place actual high quality cycling infrastructure tend to see a lot of people use it, and there are plenty of wetter and windier countries than the UK with much higher cycling rates.
What you are doing is pointing at a river, observing that nobody is trying to swim across it, and arguing that there is therefore no need for a bridge.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Which is consistent with journeys being a few minutes faster in a car than using other modes, if you're in the majority who live in conurbations, cities or towns.
Whether those few minutes are worth all the negative externalities is a perfectly valid debate, unless you are purely selfish.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
Well in the hamlet we now live in walking takes over four times as long to a useful place as driving and public transport not much better. In rural areas for most to get to work, their children to school, go to the shops, the doctors, a station etc a car is vital
Absolutely. You are now part of that very small minority that need a car. I have no issue with that at all!
Unless you live in the inner city where public transport is generally good you need a car or at least a bike, in small towns and villages and rural areas especially so
Agree! For 83% of it's very doable. That's why I want to make driving cheaper for people like you, while raising taxes on drivers in more urban areas.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Which is consistent with journeys being a few minutes faster in a car than using other modes, if you're in the majority who live in conurbations, cities or towns.
Whether those few minutes are worth all the negative externalities is a perfectly valid debate, unless you are purely selfish.
The irony is that those average speeds will increase as more people use public transport/cycle. I'm expecting a Christmas card from BR this year!
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Which is how relevant when urban A roads make up 10% of your journey?
It's relevant because you want to argue that the average speed on non-SRN roads might be higher than the DfT think it is. You need to go very fast indeed on Rural B-roads to make up for the 17.4mph on urban As, and the 20mph side streets you've been through to get there in the first place. By my maths you need to average close to 80.
As news of Trump's latest indictment for trying to subvert 2020 election was breaking, yours truly was casting my 2024 WA State Primary ballot.
Deadline is 8pm today if returned via ballot drop box, or postmarked today if returned via USPS.
Which is how I'm returning mine, via slot at my friend neighborhood post office.
Looked to make sure time was before next mail pickup (discussed earlier in UK context) to ensure that my ballot is received by election authorities in timely manner.
Only four things for me to vote on in August 2023
> King County "Veterans, Seniors and Families" low-income housing levy, which should pass pretty easily.
> King County Councilmember for my district; incumbent is not running, so seat is open, three on ballot with Top Two vote-getters advancing to general election
> Port of Seattle Commissioner, elected countywide, featuring incumbent and two challengers, with Top Two, with the moderate environmental incumbent highly likely to make the Top Two and also win in the Fall.
> Seattle City Council district member for my district, with incumbent and host of challengers, but will come down to incumbent, a progressive, and his main challenger, moderate backed by Chamber of Commerce.
As of just past noon today, ballots reported returned countywide = just over 285k of nearly 1.4m (22.7%)
Projected turnout countywide = 30% or about 415k, meaning that roughly 2/3 of anticipated ballots cast, are already returned.
First partial, unofficial returns will be posted this evening after 8pm, by King and other WA counties. With whats on the ballot a few judicial races, the rest local (county, city, school and special district) offices and measures (almost all taxes).
King county, good loyal name, I approve.
You are thinking of Kings County, New York, aka Borough of Brooklyn, New York City; which of course borders Queens Co = Borough of Queens.
King County, Washington was ORIGINALLY named for William Rufus King, a former US Minister to France and US Senator from Alabama, who was elected Vice President under Franklin Pierce, but died in office shortly after their inauguration. Which was just before King Co was created; note that Pierce Co (Tacoma) was created at same time.
HOWEVER, as is chronicled by wiki
On February 24, 1986, the King County Council approved a motion to rename the county to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (no relation to William R. King), preserving the name "King County" while changing its namesake.
The motion stated, among other reasons for the change, that "William Rufus DeVane King was a slaveowner" who "earned income and maintained his lifestyle by oppressing and exploiting other human beings," while Martin Luther King's "contributions are well-documented and celebrated by millions throughout this nation and the world, and embody the attributes for which the citizens of King County can be proud, and claim as their own."
SSI - BUT do also note, that one of Seattle's most iconic neighborhoods, is Queen Anne (Hill).
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Glad you brought up Oslo. Everyone cycles in Oslo do they? Well lets compare your version of reality in Norway, to the real reality of Norway.
Cycling makes up 4% of travel in Norway. Not all, not most, not a significant minority. Real Norwegian reality is 4%
Norway is a model for our future, I completely agree with you there. People overwhelmingly get about and get to work via electric cars. That is our future, thank you very much.
Lovely stuff.
PS people virtue signal in polls. "I don't cycle because its dangerous", is an easier option to tick than "I don't cycle because its cold, wet, too slow and I don't want to put the effort in".
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Which is how relevant when urban A roads make up 10% of your journey?
It's relevant because you want to argue that the average speed on non-SRN roads might be higher than the DfT think it is. You need to go very fast indeed on Rural B-roads to make up for the 17.4mph on urban As, and the 20mph side streets you've been through to get there in the first place. By my maths you need to average close to 80.
The DfT don't say the average is 17.4 they say the average on those roads is 17.4 but those aren't the only urban roads, and people going point to point in cars will drive on those roads only a percentage of the time, SRN or other, faster, roads will be used the rest of the time.
B roads aren't only rural. The B road I drive at 50mph through town on is urban, and 50mph. Trees separate the road from the cycle path for those that are that way inclined, yes the cycle path exists and is safe from cars.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Glad you brought up Oslo. Everyone cycles in Oslo do they? Well lets compare your version of reality in Norway, to the real reality of Norway.
Cycling makes up 4% of travel in Norway. Not all, not most, not a significant minority. Real Norwegian reality is 4%
Norway is a model for our future, I completely agree with you there. People overwhelmingly get about and get to work via electric cars. That is our future, thank you very much.
Lovely stuff.
I think I said Oslo, not Norway?
You're quite the slippery customer. Incidentally, Oslo achieved zero pedestrian deaths in 2019!
In 2017 there was a 70% increase in tolls across the city, in plans spearheaded by the Labour and Green parties, which led to a 6% decrease in traffic.
Car parking charges were also increased – by 50% in downtown Oslo and 20% elsewhere – although thousands of spaces have now been wiped out to make room for 35 miles of new cycle lanes.
The city has reduced speed to a maximum of 30km/h outside schools and started trialling “heart zones”, where driving is banned in areas around schools. Officials in Oslo hope to create 100 of these zones over the next four years.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Hmm. Its always fun to go and look at the figures when claims like this are made. Last figures I could find for Oslo are for 2016 and less than 10% of people commuted to work by bike. Copenhagen is around 40%.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Glad you brought up Oslo. Everyone cycles in Oslo do they? Well lets compare your version of reality in Norway, to the real reality of Norway.
Cycling makes up 4% of travel in Norway. Not all, not most, not a significant minority. Real Norwegian reality is 4%
Norway is a model for our future, I completely agree with you there. People overwhelmingly get about and get to work via electric cars. That is our future, thank you very much.
Lovely stuff.
I think I said Oslo, not Norway?
You're quite the slippery customer. Incidentally, Oslo achieved zero pedestrian deaths in 2019!
In 2017 there was a 70% increase in tolls across the city, in plans spearheaded by the Labour and Green parties, which led to a 6% decrease in traffic.
Car parking charges were also increased – by 50% in downtown Oslo and 20% elsewhere – although thousands of spaces have now been wiped out to make room for 35 miles of new cycle lanes.
The city has reduced speed to a maximum of 30km/h outside schools and started trialling “heart zones”, where driving is banned in areas around schools. Officials in Oslo hope to create 100 of these zones over the next four years.
Yes, I notice you were slippery and said Oslo, when I've made the point countless times that the UK isn't London. Norway isn't Oslo either, that goes without saying I thought.
So you want a policy for the UK, lets look at Norway, great, I agree. And that policy is *drumroll* a future of electric cars.
Lovely stuff. The Norwegians have this right. 👍
Though I'd love to see some data showing that "everyone" in Oslo cycles as you claimed. Considering only 4% of Norwegian transport is cycling, and 20% of Norway lives in Oslo, I'm curious how you reconcile that data. Or was it just another lie/exaggeration?
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Hmm. Its always fun to go and look at the figures when claims like this are made. Last figures I could find for Oslo are for 2016 and less than 10% of people commuted to work by bike. Copenhagen is around 40%.
Pretty good! More people commute by bike than car in the City of London now, so there is serious competition.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Hmm. Its always fun to go and look at the figures when claims like this are made. Last figures I could find for Oslo are for 2016 and less than 10% of people commuted to work by bike. Copenhagen is around 40%.
Pretty good! More people commute by bike than car in the City of London now, so there is serious competition.
I am pretty sure if I lived in London I would not bother owning a car. Just hire one when I wanted to go out if the city.
That said I absolutely detest living in cities or even big towns so not something I am likely to have to consider.
Labour should therefore win Rutherglen by a comfortable 14% margin in the by election, more with Tory and LD tactical voting for Labour.
Indeed Labour gains in Scotland combined with the Labour majority in Wales could ensure a Starmer Labour majority in the UK overall even if Labour fall short of a majority in England
A MONTH ago.
Not after the latest SKS news.
It's about as useful as a kipper with the meat eaten and left out for the seagulls for a week.
SKS? The last month, full stop. Plus it's so touching to find you still haven't grasped the concept of subsamples and statistical error ranges, working to within one percentage point for your learned conclusions.
Oh dear, the poor Scots NAT not only finds the SNP now almost as unpopular in Scotland as tr e Tories are in England. Yet even worse the supposed 'progressive' Scots love their fossil fuels even more than the English what with those well paid oil rig jobs and need to keep warm in winter
What well paid oil rig jobs?
Surely even you must admit there are tens of thousands of Scottish jobs in the oil industry
Indeed around 196,000 jobs are supported by the industry in Scotland
You're exaggerating by a factor of *at least* two, so far as I can see, and it's going down. The newe licenses won't make any difference for years, if they ever do.
Any money from oil goes to London and most of the workers on rigs are from England as well, Scotland gets shafted as ever
The second part of your comment on the workers is simply wrong.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Glad you brought up Oslo. Everyone cycles in Oslo do they? Well lets compare your version of reality in Norway, to the real reality of Norway.
Cycling makes up 4% of travel in Norway. Not all, not most, not a significant minority. Real Norwegian reality is 4%
Norway is a model for our future, I completely agree with you there. People overwhelmingly get about and get to work via electric cars. That is our future, thank you very much.
Lovely stuff.
I think I said Oslo, not Norway?
You're quite the slippery customer. Incidentally, Oslo achieved zero pedestrian deaths in 2019!
In 2017 there was a 70% increase in tolls across the city, in plans spearheaded by the Labour and Green parties, which led to a 6% decrease in traffic.
Car parking charges were also increased – by 50% in downtown Oslo and 20% elsewhere – although thousands of spaces have now been wiped out to make room for 35 miles of new cycle lanes.
The city has reduced speed to a maximum of 30km/h outside schools and started trialling “heart zones”, where driving is banned in areas around schools. Officials in Oslo hope to create 100 of these zones over the next four years.
Yes, I notice you were slippery and said Oslo, when I've made the point countless times that the UK isn't London. Norway isn't Oslo either, that goes without saying I thought.
So you want a policy for the UK, lets look at Norway, great, I agree. And that policy is *drumroll* a future of electric cars.
Lovely stuff. The Norwegians have this right. 👍
Though I'd love to see some data showing that "everyone" in Oslo cycles as you claimed. Considering only 4% of Norwegian transport is cycling, and 20% of Norway lives in Oslo, I'm curious how you reconcile that data. Or was it just another lie/exaggeration?
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Which is how relevant when urban A roads make up 10% of your journey?
It's relevant because you want to argue that the average speed on non-SRN roads might be higher than the DfT think it is. You need to go very fast indeed on Rural B-roads to make up for the 17.4mph on urban As, and the 20mph side streets you've been through to get there in the first place. By my maths you need to average close to 80.
The DfT don't say the average is 17.4 they say the average on those roads is 17.4 but those aren't the only urban roads, and people going point to point in cars will drive on those roads only a percentage of the time, SRN or other, faster, roads will be used the rest of the time.
B roads aren't only rural. The B road I drive at 50mph through town on is urban, and 50mph. Trees separate the road from the cycle path for those that are that way inclined, yes the cycle path exists and is safe from cars.
You are double counting the SRN, now. You want to include it in the average of non-SRN journeys used to achieve the total average? And you think speed on urban B-roads is significantly higher than speed on urban A-roads? Does that seem likely?
Is the cycle path free of parked cars, debris, blind entrances, fallen trees, random gaps, and space shared with pedestrians which is not recommended for any cyclist exceeding 15mph?
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
I do understand it. But if 90% of your journey is SRN [or other high speed equivalent], while 10% of your journey is Local Roads, then what is the average speed you travel at?
Lets change it to a mathematical formula.
F = Speed on Strategic Roads and other Fast Roads L = Speed on Low Speed Roads S = Speed
0.9 F * 0.1 L = S
Find the value of L and F, work out S.
You acted as if S = L by ignoring the fact that bulk of many journeys is on fast roads, not slow roads, which are deliberately only used for the end part of journeys.
That isn't the case for the average motorist though. The split between Motorway plus Rural A, and Urban A plus Minor Roads, is close to 50/50.
Right so half the time already you accept that motorways play into it. So automatically then half the time, the SRN is relevant.
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
DfT measures suggest the average speed, including traffic jams, on urban A roads, is 17.4mph.
Which is how relevant when urban A roads make up 10% of your journey?
It's relevant because you want to argue that the average speed on non-SRN roads might be higher than the DfT think it is. You need to go very fast indeed on Rural B-roads to make up for the 17.4mph on urban As, and the 20mph side streets you've been through to get there in the first place. By my maths you need to average close to 80.
The DfT don't say the average is 17.4 they say the average on those roads is 17.4 but those aren't the only urban roads, and people going point to point in cars will drive on those roads only a percentage of the time, SRN or other, faster, roads will be used the rest of the time.
B roads aren't only rural. The B road I drive at 50mph through town on is urban, and 50mph. Trees separate the road from the cycle path for those that are that way inclined, yes the cycle path exists and is safe from cars.
You are double counting the SRN, now. You want to include it in the average of non-SRN journeys used to achieve the total average? And you think speed on urban B-roads is significantly higher than speed on urban A-roads? Does that seem likely?
Is the cycle path free of parked cars, debris, blind entrances, fallen trees, random gaps, and space shared with pedestrians which is not recommended for any cyclist exceeding 15mph?
If 50% of journeys have the SRN then to find the true average you need to mix that 50% in with the 50% that don't at the relevant ratio (in this case 50/50 it seems) to find the overall average, absolutely. That's not double counting, its finding the actual average.
As for whether dedicated faster B roads are faster than A roads, yes, it does seem likely. Urban B roads set to 50mph absolutely are faster than urban A roads set to 30mph. The urban A roads typically are those going through towns etc that are slower as a result, whereas the urban B roads in my experience are faster trunk roads for getting from point to point and as they have less built up around them they have higher speed limits.
Yes, the cycle path is a dedicated cycle path. Separate from cars, trees and pedestrians. Including parked cars that would need to mount the kerb and drive through the trees to park on the cycle path. Living in a new town, almost all roads have been built with cycles in mind. Its great for those who want it, and it keeps the bikes safe, off the road, everybody wins.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
Mad Bart The Road Warrior
You still don't understand, do you? Average speed on SRN means average speed on SRN. It is not capable of meaning average overall speed of journeys part of which may be on the SRN. This would not be challenging for a seven year old.
From memory (and I'm sure Bart will correct me if I'm wrong), he lives in an estate just off a fast road. It's not a model that works everywhere, but it works for him I'm sure.
Most journeys (and especially most journeys affected by LTNs) don't get anywhere near the SRN- they are way shorter. Here are some UK government stats on travel times to a basket of useful places (schools, shops, hospitals) in different types of settlement.
Milages will vary (boom tish), but car drivers don't seem to be saving that much time, and major connurbations and urban towns'n'cities don't seem that different.
That chart comprehensively shows that cars are the most efficient point to point in all settings, far superior to public transport and cycling.
This chart makes it clearer by breaking out the averages more too to show that car is king.
Though I'd point out that it is also measuring I believe to the closest of each of those and a lot of people won't be driving to the closest. You may have a close place of employment that employs hundreds that you can cycle to at only a few minutes slower than a car but if your personal place of employment is much further away then that doesn't help you much. And it is at further distances when the car gets to pull onto the Motorway (or comparable) that the speed differential really kicks in.
Yet more evidence we need better public transport and cycling provision!
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
Yes, its already credible today, but very few choose it as its inefficient.
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
False, I'm afraid (I'm spotting a theme here!).
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
Bollocks. Its because people are choosing not to do it.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Wrong. It's the danger posed by drivers. All the polls show it.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Glad you brought up Oslo. Everyone cycles in Oslo do they? Well lets compare your version of reality in Norway, to the real reality of Norway.
Cycling makes up 4% of travel in Norway. Not all, not most, not a significant minority. Real Norwegian reality is 4%
Norway is a model for our future, I completely agree with you there. People overwhelmingly get about and get to work via electric cars. That is our future, thank you very much.
Lovely stuff.
I think I said Oslo, not Norway?
You're quite the slippery customer. Incidentally, Oslo achieved zero pedestrian deaths in 2019!
In 2017 there was a 70% increase in tolls across the city, in plans spearheaded by the Labour and Green parties, which led to a 6% decrease in traffic.
Car parking charges were also increased – by 50% in downtown Oslo and 20% elsewhere – although thousands of spaces have now been wiped out to make room for 35 miles of new cycle lanes.
The city has reduced speed to a maximum of 30km/h outside schools and started trialling “heart zones”, where driving is banned in areas around schools. Officials in Oslo hope to create 100 of these zones over the next four years.
The nearest stat I've been able to find is "80% of the Norwegian population having access to a bike".
Which doesn't say how much they use them, of course. Or for what journey length, which warps "share by distance travelled" stats. The idea isn't to use a bike for every journey or it doesn't count
But that's what some choose to ignore. For some journeys, a car is absolutely the appropriate way to do it. But for others, it's a really dumb choice that makes everyone's lives worse- including the driver. And then we're left with judgement calls about where the crossover is, what we do with that information and whether tweaks and nudges that can push the crossover one way (a new Romford Freeway) or another (making some roads access only for cars) are worth doing.
I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.
This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.
Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.
ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.
Cars are supremely efficient.
There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.
Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.
No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
Nonsense, like usual.
1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.
2) Check this out:
Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.
I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.
As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.
Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.
If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.
An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.
Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.
The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.
Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?
In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.
I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦♂️
Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.
It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.
The truth could not be further from that.
The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".
But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.
So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
2.3 Average speed on urban and rural roads On urban classified Local ‘A’ roads, average speed was 17.4 mph in 2021. On rural classified Local ‘A’ roads, the average speed was 34.3 mph in 2021. Despite the differences in speed between the two road types, drivers on urban and rural Local ‘A’ roads may perceive changes in speed levels differently.
Per your link: The average speed is estimated to be 58.9 mph
There's more than just A-roads available. Indeed A roads are often the slowest of the roads.
I'm curious how many cyclists travel at 58.9 mph?
LOL, the 58.9 is STRATEGIC roads. Motorways and a few serious trunk roads like the the A303. Entirely irrelevant to your claim. Local urban A roads, 17.4 MPH. Most town roads are not A roads. All are subject to speed limits of 30, probably soon 20. The lived experience of anyone who drives or cycles in their local town confirms that 17.4 is pretty good going in a car, and matchable on a bike (if you are going the same way as a car, you expect to both pass and be passed by it repeatedly).
Living in the real world of towns, I drive down strategic A roads all the frigging time at either 50mph and 70mph.
Most of my time driving is 50mph or 70mph. That's the entire point of the word strategic, the 20mph or 30mph is for local traffic, the A to B is 50mph or 70mph typically.
Can you never admit to making a mistake? The above is an exhaustive map of strategic roads as defined. If you are in Warrington your claim can only be true if you literally live on the M6 or M62. which nobody does.
Do you need to live in the M6 or M62 to get from A to B? Or [and this may be a novel idea to you] can you drive onto and off the motorways to get about?
If someone wanted to drive from say Winwick to Widnes would the only option be to drive along A roads or would getting onto and then off the motorway be an option?
And what would be the speed limit of say the Weston Point Expressway once you get off the motorway?
According to Google Maps that's 11 miles, 15 minutes by car, 57 minutes by public transport, and 48 minutes by bike.
What about say Winwick to Frodsham? Again A roads only, or do you think you might be able to get on the M6, M56 and use local roads only for the first and last distance?
According to Google Maps that's 22 minutes by car, 1 hour 27 minutes by bike and 48 minutes by public transport.
So tell me again please how cars are slower and less efficient than bikes and public transport?
What happens on PT, stays on PT.
Since when?
Or do you just not want to admit you're wrong?
Jesus, mate, how much caffeine or meth do you do in a day? Just calm down. You HILARIOUSLY misread the average speed on motorways as the average speed, period: 58.9 MPH (implying that traffic on the actual motorways must be doing about 220 to compensate for all the 30 mph zones). I haven't the energy to discuss Winwick to Frodsham routes. Cars do an average of 17.4 in town on non-strat A roads, per the dept of transport and per everybody's experience(and that's averaged over 24 hours including 2300-0600 when you usually can do 30 in a 30 zone, so correspondingly less in daylight hours). I am not sure what we are arguing about? Anywhere people can and do 50 mph is no place to be on a bike. Places where 17.4 is the average, they are good.
No, 58.9 mph is the average. Motorways [and comparable roads] are simply a part of the route, the main part of the route, for typical travel. Hence why the average of 58.9 mph exists.
The idea that anyone in the North West getting about does not use the motorway network or other high speed limit roads for doing so is just farcical and not based on reality. That is their entire purpose!
Non-strat A roads is a tiny portion of travel only used for minor, local travel, not commuting. That is the point. 🤦♂️
And you can't do 30 all the time on a 30 at night because of traffic lights, that's why local travel is always less than the speed limit. But its also why you only travel on roads with traffic lights for the last part of travel, and not the entire journey. Though all travel should stop at traffic lights on a red light, including cyclists, so the actual travelling will indeed be 30 even if the average is not.
Of course other non-motorway roads exist that are higher than 30 and are available and used by drivers. B roads frequently are faster than A roads so will be the preferred route and are excluded from your data.
You may not have the energy to discuss example routes, but the simple fact is if you bothered to you would realise why what you are writing is so frigging stupid, the local A-roads make a tiny fraction of the actual route which is why an entirely reasonable 22 minute commute is achievable for travelling a distance of 20 miles - which works out at an average of 55 miles per hour, which is extremely close, rounding-error difference really, to the national 59 mile average.
If we'd used your total cock and bull bullshit claim of 17.9 miles per hour average then a 20 mile journey should have taken well over an hour, not 22 minutes. It simply does not take over an hour to travel 20 miles. 🤦♂️
The strategic road network (SRN) is arguably the biggest and most important piece of infrastructure in the country. Its 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads are at the core of our national transport system.
Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families.
My cock and bullshit 17.4 mph claim is equally easily confirmed. This is monty python black Knight stuff.
My working hypothesis: you are so wired on nescafe that it feels to you as you trundle down Warrington high street with a death grip on the steering wheel of your Ford fiasco at a brisk walking pace, that you are screaming along in the high 90s.
From your own text.
The SRN is the arteries that "ensure commuters make it to work every day" but you want to pretend it doesn't exist for commuters because it doesn't suit your agenda.
Lets face it, you didn't understand what you're talking about and have been called out.
Yes I use the SRN regularly to commute. I also use fast B roads etc, that are within towns that do not appear in A road statistics.
Excluding arteries from commuter times, that exist in large part to serve commuters, is just a lie. You are lying, you have been called out. Stop it.
That's mad. It is marketing flimflam. The whole quote reads
"Its many arteries connect our major towns and cities, ensure commuters make it to work every day, and help millions of us visit our friends and families." Awww. It has no bearing on the fact that the srn is only motorways plus arterial dual A roads. Many commutes are not at all on the srn. No commute is entirely on the srn. You misunderstood what srn means, bellyflopped, and are too wired to admit it.
Are you really this thick?
I said that the bulk of typical drives is on faster moving roads (such as the SRN, or high speed limit B roads) with the last mile being on slower local roads.
So no shit Sherlock that no commute is entirely on the SRN, that's what I said myself you dingbat.
That's why the average travel speed is 59mph not 70mph.
First and final mile or two on slower roads, rest of journey on faster roads, that's the sensible way to commute, and that's how you get the average of 59. Which is why that example 20 mile commute takes a typical 22 minutes, rather than 18 minutes or over an hour.
Yes many commutes won't use the SRN, although a very large number do, but they may use higher speed limit B roads instead, again excluded from your data.
Do you understand it yet? Or do you need pretty pictures instead of words to get it through that skull of yours?
The data allows us to reach an approximation.
The averaged product of the distance travelled data tables and the free flow average speed data tables suggests an average speed in free-flowing traffic of 51mph for all car journeys.
The statistic that of 600 hours spent driving per year for the average motorist, 100 of those hours are lost to traffic, tells us we should multiply that by 51 by 500 to get the total distance travelled, and divide it by 600 to get the average speed including traffic delays.
That suggests the average motorist travels at an average speed of 42.5mph.
Maybe we need to invert this argument to help BR understand.
If all of us followed BR's example, and stopped cycling, walking, or using the bus or train to get to work, what would happen to traffic?
Would it get better? Or would it get worse? Would average motoring speeds get faster, or slower?
In Edinburgh, that's 174,000 people. We know about 75% of cars are single occupant, so that coverts to around 150,000 extra cars, in addition to 90,000 at the moment. An increase in traffic of 165%.
Even in rural Moray, there are about 25,000 people who don't drive, converting to around 22,000 extra cars. That's on top of 23,000 cars at the moment. An increase in traffic of about 95%.
It would require mammoth road building projects, to the cost of billions of pounds, to induce that kind of demand. Is that BR's policy?
My policy would be to spend about a trillion, if not hundreds of billions on expanding and improving our road infrastructure over the next decade. Improving our infrastructure is one of the primary things the Government should be doing.
Considering 90% of transportation happens on the roads, we should be spending 10x what we spend on everything else on our road network and we are spending hundreds of billions on rail projects, so why not trillions on the roads? Creating new arteries would result in a tremendous return on investment and unlock great growth potential.
I've never advocated everyone stops doing anything other than driving, that's bonkers and a windmill you're tilting at as its not my position at all. My position is we should have the infrastructure to cope with all modes of transportation, but that driving is for people in towns by far the most efficient. But not everyone is going to drive. I don't drive every journey. If I'm going to the pub I walk, because its (a) in walking distance and (b) I don't drink and drive.
If I'm going to the Co-Op, I walk.
If I'm going to the park, I walk.
If I'm travelling a distance, I drive. As do 90% of others travelling.
Induced demand is bullshit, given walking will always exist, cars, vans etc on roads already account for 90% of travel distance, you can't induce demand far above 90% anyway. What you can do is is improve capacity - and extra demand comes from population growth not from being "induced".
Fair enough! £1 trillion on roads. Just don't expect anyone to believe you or vote for that, particularly when images like this exist - a brand new highway in Egypt (they put a bridge over the beach!):
It looks like it was built with the aim of hosting a Grand Prix and becoming the new Monaco.
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
Immigration lawyer required. Her dad can pay for it as he's buckled.
The MP can't do anything as they can't change the rules and there is apparently no legal migration route for the familiy.
There is a thriving business on Telegram selling the identity of dead Ukrainians to Russians who then use it to refugeegrate to the EU.
The whole system is designed to keep people out by delay, confusion, obfuscation, incompetence and opacity. This is a rare example of some part of torystan working as intended.
"There was a time when immigration forms to the United States asked the would-be visitor whether he had come to assassinate the President. Someone I know wrote ‘Sole purpose of visit’ in reply, but the immigration officer, instead of taking this as a satire on the absurdity of the question, took it very seriously. More recently, visitors have been asked whether they have ever been involved in genocidal activities or intended to become so in the future, the desired answer to which question was not very difficult to guess. And six months after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September, 2001, I received an official form in the prison in England in which I worked as a doctor—a copy of which I wish now I had also kept—asking me whether I had ever been a terrorist or intended to become one in the future: and I was warned that if I did not reply to these questions, presumably with the right answers, I would be sacked. What struck me most forcefully about this idiocy was that it was not spontaneously generated, that there must have been persons paid from the public purse to devise such questions, persons who probably considered that they were very hard-working and even overworked"
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
Immigration lawyer required. Her dad can pay for it as he's buckled.
The MP can't do anything as they can't change the rules and there is apparently no legal migration route for the familiy.
There is a thriving business on Telegram selling the identity of dead Ukrainians to Russians who then use it to refugeegrate to the EU.
The whole system is designed to keep people out by delay, confusion, obfuscation, incompetence and opacity. This is a rare example of some part of torystan working as intended.
Obtaining a lawyer certainly sounds like sound advice. A lawyer/firm with the proper expertise.
"There was a time when immigration forms to the United States asked the would-be visitor whether he had come to assassinate the President. Someone I know wrote ‘Sole purpose of visit’ in reply, but the immigration officer, instead of taking this as a satire on the absurdity of the question, took it very seriously. More recently, visitors have been asked whether they have ever been involved in genocidal activities or intended to become so in the future, the desired answer to which question was not very difficult to guess. And six months after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September, 2001, I received an official form in the prison in England in which I worked as a doctor—a copy of which I wish now I had also kept—asking me whether I had ever been a terrorist or intended to become one in the future: and I was warned that if I did not reply to these questions, presumably with the right answers, I would be sacked. What struck me most forcefully about this idiocy was that it was not spontaneously generated, that there must have been persons paid from the public purse to devise such questions, persons who probably considered that they were very hard-working and even overworked"
Sounds like the verbiage of which article speaks, was mandated by Congress, in its wisdom or otherwise.
Long history of this in USA from (at least) the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
Which gave the President authority to order the deportation of any alien (terrestrially speaking) he deemed "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States."
I've just had a long chat with with my Siberian friend. We had a brief chat, our first in over a fortnight, on Sunday when she was in Kazakhstan. She was on her her way back from seeing her family for the first time in over three years
She's a British citizen / UK passport holder and has been for nearly fifteen years. She desperately wants to get her family out of Russia
She thinks it's impossible because they wouldn't be able to get visas to come here permanently
Her family is her parents, her sister and niece
Her Dad has property and business interests, with a bit of time to sell up he could support himself and Mum. Her sister is an excellent linguist who currently teaches English and Russian to kids in Siberia. She could probably teach English grammar to English kids
They hate Putin and want out
How hard would it be for them to come here permanently?
I've told her she should write to her MP and ask for help and advice, but I'm not sure how to help beyond that
Does anyone have any thoughts?
Sounds tricky to me assuming the family have no British links.
We’ve brought in employees from former Soviet states in recent years but the sponsored visa is key, and they take time.
Much easier I assume to go somewhere like Armenia or Azerbaijan, Turkey, maybe UAE. In the EU given fathers business perhaps Cyprus.
There’s a large Russian community now in UAE. So long as you’re not on any sanctions lists, it’s easy to set up a company and get a bank account out here, and everything can be done in English. You can then either sponsor or employ your family members. There’s probably opportunities for teachers of English and Russian as well.
Good to hear that more Russians with means are looking to get out of Putin’s hellhole. There can’t be a lot left there any more.
"There was a time when immigration forms to the United States asked the would-be visitor whether he had come to assassinate the President. Someone I know wrote ‘Sole purpose of visit’ in reply, but the immigration officer, instead of taking this as a satire on the absurdity of the question, took it very seriously. More recently, visitors have been asked whether they have ever been involved in genocidal activities or intended to become so in the future, the desired answer to which question was not very difficult to guess. And six months after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September, 2001, I received an official form in the prison in England in which I worked as a doctor—a copy of which I wish now I had also kept—asking me whether I had ever been a terrorist or intended to become one in the future: and I was warned that if I did not reply to these questions, presumably with the right answers, I would be sacked. What struck me most forcefully about this idiocy was that it was not spontaneously generated, that there must have been persons paid from the public purse to devise such questions, persons who probably considered that they were very hard-working and even overworked"
"There was a time when immigration forms to the United States asked the would-be visitor whether he had come to assassinate the President. Someone I know wrote ‘Sole purpose of visit’ in reply, but the immigration officer, instead of taking this as a satire on the absurdity of the question, took it very seriously. More recently, visitors have been asked whether they have ever been involved in genocidal activities or intended to become so in the future, the desired answer to which question was not very difficult to guess. And six months after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September, 2001, I received an official form in the prison in England in which I worked as a doctor—a copy of which I wish now I had also kept—asking me whether I had ever been a terrorist or intended to become one in the future: and I was warned that if I did not reply to these questions, presumably with the right answers, I would be sacked. What struck me most forcefully about this idiocy was that it was not spontaneously generated, that there must have been persons paid from the public purse to devise such questions, persons who probably considered that they were very hard-working and even overworked"
An immigration attorney explained to me that the purpose of these questions is simply to allow the authorities to immediately deport people on the basis that they had lied on immigration forms, rather than going through the courts.
A corollary would be the Albanian car wash guys in the UK: if they signed a doc saying they would not work, and are then found working, you can get rid of them pronto, rather than having to go through more tortuous procedures.
Comments
But I've been making the point of SRN or equivalent fast roads.
Urban A plus Minor Roads will have faster than 30mph roads in it though too. As I have said repeatedly, many of the faster roads in towns are often the B roads that can often be set at 50mph plus so that will be in your other 50. I may use the motorway for commuting but don't for taking my kids to school, but most of my journey to the kids school is at 50mph by using the B road, which you've classed as a minor urban road.
And here is another startling graph - cycling is a credible way of getting about for a very large majority. With all the carbon emissions, air pollution, fitness benefits that brings
I'm pro-choice. If more want to choose it, great, but people don't want to. Lets encourage it all we want, but the superior efficiency of the car (plus the convenience of not getting rained on) means it will remain a niche pursuit which is why it carries passengers less than 1% of the total km of cars.
Of course that's also credible by looking at the closest place of employment, rather than their own actual place of employment.
It's mainly because people don't feel safe on the road. Hence the need for 20mph limits, segregated cycle lanes, much harsher penalties for drivers.
And you sly dog - that graph was not weighted for the population size of the local authorities.
I would also like to apologise - I was claiming earlier that it is 80% of people who live in urban areas. It's actually 83%. Woops!
By trying to get a hand recount of only PART of the ballots cast in the State of Florida. Which he was advised AGAINST by an actual election recount expert.
An error which, BTW, Democrats in WA State did NOT make in razor-thin 2004 governor's race when requesting - and putting down a million dollar deposit for - a full statewide hand recount. even though the Republicans THOUGHT we gonna do it . . . and had the state GOP party chair ready to pay for the REST of WA if Dems asked for a partial recount.
Note that today, that former Republican Party chair is a staunch Never-Trumper who has left the GOP.
I bet 90% of the officials who stood up to him in 2020 will back him now though.
People can choose to ride a bike all they want. If they're choosing not to, then waving a magic wand won't change that.
Where I live is extremely cycle friendly. New build area, all built with cycling in mind. And still next to nobody cycles. No qualms with those that do, but waving a magic wand doesn't suddenly make wet, windy England a place that people are going to abandon their convenient and efficient cars for bikes.
Especially if they want to get to work at a bit of a distance, which those stats show that cycling is terrible for compared to cars.
Oslo is cold and everyone cycles. Same in Copenhagen, Amsterdam etc.
It's great - the graph shows that you arrive shortly after all the drivers, and you save loads of money, get fit, leave some room on the roads for those who need to work (commercial drivers, disabled folk), do your bit for the environment.
Lovely stuff.
Places which put in place actual high quality cycling infrastructure tend to see a lot of people use it, and there are plenty of wetter and windier countries than the UK with much higher cycling rates.
What you are doing is pointing at a river, observing that nobody is trying to swim across it, and arguing that there is therefore no need for a bridge.
Whether those few minutes are worth all the negative externalities is a perfectly valid debate, unless you are purely selfish.
King County, Washington was ORIGINALLY named for William Rufus King, a former US Minister to France and US Senator from Alabama, who was elected Vice President under Franklin Pierce, but died in office shortly after their inauguration. Which was just before King Co was created; note that Pierce Co (Tacoma) was created at same time.
HOWEVER, as is chronicled by wiki
On February 24, 1986, the King County Council approved a motion to rename the county to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (no relation to William R. King), preserving the name "King County" while changing its namesake.
The motion stated, among other reasons for the change, that "William Rufus DeVane King was a slaveowner" who "earned income and maintained his lifestyle by oppressing and exploiting other human beings," while Martin Luther King's "contributions are well-documented and celebrated by millions throughout this nation and the world, and embody the attributes for which the citizens of King County can be proud, and claim as their own."
SSI - BUT do also note, that one of Seattle's most iconic neighborhoods, is Queen Anne (Hill).
Cycling makes up 4% of travel in Norway. Not all, not most, not a significant minority. Real Norwegian reality is 4%
Norway is a model for our future, I completely agree with you there. People overwhelmingly get about and get to work via electric cars. That is our future, thank you very much.
Lovely stuff.
PS people virtue signal in polls. "I don't cycle because its dangerous", is an easier option to tick than "I don't cycle because its cold, wet, too slow and I don't want to put the effort in".
An unconvinced economist writes:
https://twitter.com/elerianm/status/1686503198209736704
B roads aren't only rural. The B road I drive at 50mph through town on is urban, and 50mph. Trees separate the road from the cycle path for those that are that way inclined, yes the cycle path exists and is safe from cars.
You're quite the slippery customer. Incidentally, Oslo achieved zero pedestrian deaths in 2019!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-and-oslo-cut-pedestrian-deaths-to-zero
In 2017 there was a 70% increase in tolls across the city, in plans spearheaded by the Labour and Green parties, which led to a 6% decrease in traffic.
Car parking charges were also increased – by 50% in downtown Oslo and 20% elsewhere – although thousands of spaces have now been wiped out to make room for 35 miles of new cycle lanes.
The city has reduced speed to a maximum of 30km/h outside schools and started trialling “heart zones”, where driving is banned in areas around schools. Officials in Oslo hope to create 100 of these zones over the next four years.
So you want a policy for the UK, lets look at Norway, great, I agree. And that policy is *drumroll* a future of electric cars.
Lovely stuff. The Norwegians have this right. 👍
Though I'd love to see some data showing that "everyone" in Oslo cycles as you claimed. Considering only 4% of Norwegian transport is cycling, and 20% of Norway lives in Oslo, I'm curious how you reconcile that data. Or was it just another lie/exaggeration?
https://kingcounty.gov/depts/elections.aspx
NOTE the official county logo, top left corner.
That said I absolutely detest living in cities or even big towns so not something I am likely to have to consider.
The actual workers are all British.
Don't you love that @Eabhal ?
Still searching for data that includes cycling to compare, but yes, Norway does look like a model for me that I'd be pleased with.
This is what I care about: https://news.stv.tv/east-central/boy-3-dies-after-being-hit-by-car-which-mounted-pavement
You misunderstand me entirely.
Lets have a future where almost everyone drives their electric car about as they please, and the 'cool kids' can get about on a bike if they want to.
I'm fine with not being cool. Live and let live.
Is the cycle path free of parked cars, debris, blind entrances, fallen trees, random gaps, and space shared with pedestrians which is not recommended for any cyclist exceeding 15mph?
As for whether dedicated faster B roads are faster than A roads, yes, it does seem likely. Urban B roads set to 50mph absolutely are faster than urban A roads set to 30mph. The urban A roads typically are those going through towns etc that are slower as a result, whereas the urban B roads in my experience are faster trunk roads for getting from point to point and as they have less built up around them they have higher speed limits.
Yes, the cycle path is a dedicated cycle path. Separate from cars, trees and pedestrians. Including parked cars that would need to mount the kerb and drive through the trees to park on the cycle path. Living in a new town, almost all roads have been built with cycles in mind. Its great for those who want it, and it keeps the bikes safe, off the road, everybody wins.
So no, the electorate won't let you drive about as you want.
Yes the electorate does let me drive about as I want within the law, as can the rest of the electorate almost all of whom drive themselves too.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8228709
Which doesn't say how much they use them, of course. Or for what journey length, which warps "share by distance travelled" stats. The idea isn't to use a bike for every journey or it doesn't count
But that's what some choose to ignore. For some journeys, a car is absolutely the appropriate way to do it. But for others, it's a really dumb choice that makes everyone's lives worse- including the driver. And then we're left with judgement calls about where the crossover is, what we do with that information and whether tweaks and nudges that can push the crossover one way (a new Romford Freeway) or another (making some roads access only for cars) are worth doing.
The MP can't do anything as they can't change the rules and there is apparently no legal migration route for the familiy.
There is a thriving business on Telegram selling the identity of dead Ukrainians to Russians who then use it to refugeegrate to the EU.
The whole system is designed to keep people out by delay, confusion, obfuscation, incompetence and opacity. This is a rare example of some part of torystan working as intended.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4132385-trump-teams-comparison-of-indictment-nazi-germany-is-shameful-anti-defamation-league/
"There was a time when immigration forms to the United States asked the would-be visitor whether he had come to assassinate the President. Someone I know wrote ‘Sole purpose of visit’ in reply, but the immigration officer, instead of taking this as a satire on the absurdity of the question, took it very seriously. More recently, visitors have been asked whether they have ever been involved in genocidal activities or intended to become so in the future, the desired answer to which question was not very difficult to guess. And six months after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September, 2001, I received an official form in the prison in England in which I worked as a doctor—a copy of which I wish now I had also kept—asking me whether I had ever been a terrorist or intended to become one in the future: and I was warned that if I did not reply to these questions, presumably with the right answers, I would be sacked. What struck me most forcefully about this idiocy was that it was not spontaneously generated, that there must have been persons paid from the public purse to devise such questions, persons who probably considered that they were very hard-working and even overworked"
https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/standards-and-judgements/
Long history of this in USA from (at least) the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
Which gave the President authority to order the deportation of any alien (terrestrially speaking) he deemed "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
Good to hear that more Russians with means are looking to get out of Putin’s hellhole. There can’t be a lot left there any more.
A corollary would be the Albanian car wash guys in the UK: if they signed a doc saying they would not work, and are then found working, you can get rid of them pronto, rather than having to go through more tortuous procedures.