"Road travel 'needs big overhaul' to avoid gridlock"

But please no more roadbuilding as an open invitation to those
suffering from incurable wanderlust.

"There needs to be a "radical overhaul" of road travel in the UK to
avoid future gridlock, the CBI business organisation has warned.

It said measures that need to be explored include staggered work
commutes, increased car sharing, and more working from home.

The CBI estimates road congestion now costs the UK economy up to £8bn
a year.

It warned this could more than double by 2025 unless more action is
taken to tackle the problem..."

Mo
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8566989.stm

--
UK Radical Campaigns
www.zing.icom43.net
Travel broadens the damage.

On Mar 15, 6:47*am, Doug wrote:

OT, as usual

"delboy" wrote in message
news:6d5f7b74-79c3-45ab-ae14-
--

Gosh! Doug has at last said something I agree with!

Labour Transport Minister Lord Adonis now wants to build a new high
speed rail link to the Midlands, despite several lines going in the
same general direction being closed down over the years. This will cut
through several beautiful areas of the Chiltern Hills and other
attractive bits of English countryside. Why can't we just improve the
existing lines to make them suitable for high speed trains?

I asked the same question many years ago when the Chunnel was opened to
great ridicule - 150mph in France, 100 in the tunnel, 50 in the UK (okay, a
bit of an exaggeration...) and was told that high speeed lines have to have
better foundations, the gradients/changes had to be carefully managed, curve
radii have to be wider to handle the greater forces, even with the better
suspension on high speed rolling stock, and the track separation needs to be
greater to prevent windows being sucked up by the vacuum caused by two
trains passing each other.

The total amount of work necessary to upgrade an exisiting track often made
it cheaper to build from scratch, and you can then plan the route to connect
where you want to connect, without compromising route optimisation by having
to use existing nodes.

May be all ********, but it seemed logical to me.

All the best

pOB

(Let's hope that when/if it something is built, then the operators will have
the same attitude to cycles that Eurostar do - who,in my experience, have
always been very, very helpful, both at St Pancras, and Gare du Nord)

On 15 Mar, 09:41, "PoB" wrote:
"delboy" wrote in message

news:6d5f7b74-79c3-45ab-ae14-

--
Gosh! Doug has at last said something I agree with!
Labour Transport Minister Lord Adonis now wants to build a new high
speed rail link to the Midlands, despite several lines going in the
same general direction being closed down over the years. This will cut
through several beautiful areas of the Chiltern Hills and other
attractive bits of English countryside. Why can't we just improve the
existing lines to make them suitable for high speed trains?

I asked the same question many years ago when the Chunnel was opened to
great ridicule - 150mph in France, 100 in the tunnel, 50 in the UK (okay, a
bit of an exaggeration...) and was told that high speeed lines have to have
better foundations, the gradients/changes had to be carefully managed, curve
radii have to be wider to handle the greater forces, even with the better
suspension on high speed rolling stock, and the track separation needs to be
greater to prevent windows being sucked up by the vacuum caused by two
trains passing each other.

Build the trains with stronger windows then?

The total amount of work necessary to upgrade an exisiting track often made
it cheaper to build from scratch, and you can then plan the route to connect
where you want to connect, without compromising route optimisation by having
to use existing nodes.

May be all ********, but it seemed logical to me.

All the best

pOB

(Let's hope that when/if it something is built, then the operators will have
the same attitude to cycles that Eurostar do - who,in my experience, have
always been very, very helpful, both at St Pancras, and Gare du Nord)

In which case I hope they bring their customer service up to to a
similar standard when things go wrong. I understand that when the
trains broke down in the Chunnel after encountering 'the wrong sort of
snow' in France, passengers where kept in the dark (literally) for
hours!

Derek C

On 15 Mar, 06:47, Doug wrote:
But please no more roadbuilding as an open invitation to those
suffering from incurable wanderlust.

"There needs to be a "radical overhaul" of road travel in the UK to
avoid future gridlock, the CBI business organisation has warned.

It said measures that need to be explored include staggered work
commutes, increased car sharing, and more working from home.

The CBI estimates road congestion now costs the UK economy up to £8bn
a year.

It warned this could more than double by 2025 unless more action is
taken to tackle the problem..."

Mohttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8566989.stm

--
UK Radical Campaignswww.zing.icom43.net
Travel broadens the damage.

There has been a huge proliferation of traffic lights appearing at
junctions previously operated on a 'give way' basis. This is also the
case for many roundabouts. Unless you were aware, they are programmed
to stop the traffic from flowing, not allow free movement of it. With
light sequences on multiple sets of lights close together, the
authorities have managed to conjure congestion from a volume of
traffic which would never normally create a flow problem by its own
weight.

I think they have been watching the original 'Italian Job' to get the
idea for gridlock.

I wouldn't worry though as the majority of cyclists don't take any
notice of traffic lights any way so perhaps cycling is the way to
solve this faux problem Doug !

On 15 Mar, 06:47, Doug wrote:
But please no more roadbuilding as an open invitation to those
suffering from incurable wanderlust.

"There needs to be a "radical overhaul" of road travel in the UK to
avoid future gridlock, the CBI business organisation has warned.

It said measures that need to be explored include staggered work
commutes, increased car sharing, and more working from home.

The CBI estimates road congestion now costs the UK economy up to £8bn
a year.

It warned this could more than double by 2025 unless more action is
taken to tackle the problem..."

Mohttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8566989.stm

--
UK Radical Campaignswww.zing.icom43.net
Travel broadens the damage.

The simplest answer, if you want to avoid more road building (on the
basis we can't seem to manage the roads we do have) is to "do
something" to break the 9-5 culture which dominates the business
mindset.

Yes, flexible hours are not practical for some roles. But that's not
the point. If you can just shift 5% of the road traffic away from the
7-9 and 4-6 slots, you will halve congestion overnight. Think of how
much quieter the roads are in half-term.

Over the years, I have worked for a few companies, and had interviews
with many more. In my role (IT development) I could easily work from
home, and/or in a flextime pattern. Not one of 50 companies I have
asked allows (or in some cases knows about) flexible working. I scream
with rage when I read about these wonderful home-based flextime roles,
because they are rare as hens teeth in the real world.

So, given that we look to governments to "do something" then how about
a subtle tweak to the tax system to reward companies that provide a
clear flextime/home working policy for a given proportion of their
staff. This would kick a few plcs into touch (as they would have to
explain to shareholders why they weren't minimizing their tax burden)
and also stimulate a few smaller companies.

Every time I have floated this idea, no one has come up with any
showstopper reasons why it wouldn't work (oh, "we don't do things that
way" is not an arguement, just a statement). And yet nothing. I have
used this to develop my "if it mattered" test for politicians of any
stripe.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:57:10 -0700 (PDT)
Jethro wrote:
The simplest answer, if you want to avoid more road building (on the
basis we can't seem to manage the roads we do have) is to "do
something" to break the 9-5 culture which dominates the business
mindset.

If school and working hours were 8-4 so there was equal working time before
and after midday we could dispense with the idiotic daylight saving nonsense
that we have to suffer every year and just stick to GMT.

B2003

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:57:10 -0700 (PDT)
Jethro wrote:
The simplest answer, if you want to avoid more road building (on the
basis we can't seem to manage the roads we do have) is to "do
something" to break the 9-5 culture which dominates the business
mindset.

If school and working hours were 8-4 so there was equal working time
before
and after midday we could dispense with the idiotic daylight saving
nonsense
that we have to suffer every year and just stick to GMT.

What's that got to do with road congestion?

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:57:10 -0700 (PDT)
Jethro wrote:
The simplest answer, if you want to avoid more road building (on the
basis we can't seem to manage the roads we do have) is to "do
something" to break the 9-5 culture which dominates the business
mindset.

If school and working hours were 8-4 so there was equal working time
before
and after midday we could dispense with the idiotic daylight saving
nonsense
that we have to suffer every year and just stick to GMT.

Yes I've always wondered why our lives tend to be arranged asymmetrically
about midday rather than having the same number of working hours before and
after. I wonder how the 9-5 hours came about. Schools seem to have shifted,
judging by the hoardes of school children I see walking home in the middle
of the afternoon whereas I was still at school until 4:30 at their age -
unless there was Games in which case we stayed until 5:30.

On 17 Mar, 09:57, Jethro wrote:
On 15 Mar, 06:47, Doug wrote:


But please no more roadbuilding as an open invitation to those
suffering from incurable wanderlust.

"There needs to be a "radical overhaul" of road travel in the UK to
avoid future gridlock, the CBI business organisation has warned.

It said measures that need to be explored include staggered work
commutes, increased car sharing, and more working from home.

The CBI estimates road congestion now costs the UK economy up to £8bn
a year.

It warned this could more than double by 2025 unless more action is
taken to tackle the problem..."

Mohttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8566989.stm

--
UK Radical Campaignswww.zing.icom43.net
Travel broadens the damage.

The simplest answer, if you want to avoid more road building (on the
basis we can't seem to manage the roads we do have) is to "do
something" to break the 9-5 culture which dominates the business
mindset.

Yes, flexible hours are not practical for some roles. But that's not
the point. If you can just shift 5% of the road traffic away from the
7-9 and 4-6 slots, you will halve congestion overnight. Think of how
much quieter the roads are in half-term.

Over the years, I have worked for a few companies, and had interviews
with many more. In my role (IT development) I could easily work from
home, and/or in a flextime pattern. Not one of 50 companies I have
asked allows (or in some cases knows about) flexible working. I scream
with rage when I read about these wonderful home-based flextime roles,
because they are rare as hens teeth in the real world.

So, given that we look to governments to "do something" then how about
a subtle tweak to the tax system to reward companies that provide a
clear flextime/home working policy for a given proportion of their
staff. This would kick a few plcs into touch (as they would have to
explain to shareholders why they weren't minimizing their tax burden)
and also stimulate a few smaller companies.

Every time I have floated this idea, no one has come up with any
showstopper reasons why it wouldn't work (oh, "we don't do things that
way" is not an arguement, just a statement). And yet nothing. I have
used this to develop my "if it mattered" test for politicians of any
stripe.- Hide quoted text -


Totally agree with you Jethro. For most of the day the roads are not
congested, except for the 7.30 to 9.00 am and the 16.30 - 18.00 rush
hours.

The last (multinational) company I worked for insisted that you
arrived at 08.30 or not more than 15 minutes earlier, and left at
17.00 on the dot, quoting Health & Safety as the justification for
this! This seems to be a fairly normal practice nowadays.

One of my previous (UK) employers had a good flexitime scheme that
allowed you to avoid the worst of the rush hours, and to build up time
credits so you could take the odd day off and not have to commute at
all. The system had core periods when you had to be there, and you had
to work at least a minimum number of hours a month. Seemed to work
very well and gave good productivity from happy workers, not ones that
where stressed out and kn*ckered from travelling in the worst of the
rush hours.

Derek C