How can the commute to work be made easier?

Privatise the roads and put tolls on them. You'd be surprised at just how fast the congestion would disappear. Private roads used to be the norm rather than the exception and even now, private roads are better maintained, quieter and have an average faster travel time than the comparable private roads, including motorways.

However, I would expect governments not to do this but looks for more inventive ways of wasting our money and increasing taxes.

With technology moving on, video conferencing and 'dialling in' should be far more commonplcae than it actually is. I'm a computer programmer and apart from thhe occasional meeting that requires my presence (e.g. to be domonstrated a new product and be able to try it out with the designer), I should be able to work from home. I'm sure it's the same for many otehrs.

How can the commute to work be improved?

Easy

Re nationalise British rail. Subsidise fares through general taxation; if you make it the cheapest and best way to get to work people will use it in preference to the car.

You also do the same thing with the bus and coach network.

What you don’t do is tax car use, you subsidise the forms of transport you want people to use

#1 - That's because people avoid them and use the public roads instead. If you privatise all roads then travel would become much more expensive and the congestion would be just the same. Still, a few people will make a lot of money, which seems to be the usual result of privatisations and is somehow regarded by some as better than a lot of people getting a service. Quite why that's supposed to be a good thing is something I've never worked out.

Take the travel out of travel to work. It is an old remedy but it works well. Walk to school, cycle to the local shop. Take the cars off the road and, magic, no more travel problems. But then absolutely everybody needs to use a car per person to do everything these days, sooooo inconvenient to do otherwise and it would be ghastly to live near work.

A major issue in Edinburgh is the traffic lights being deliberately set up to create the maximum chaos and inconvenience for the local population.
Often you can be sitting at a red light for ages, staring at an empty road ahead.
The traffic system here has destroyed city centre businesses en-masse as the local population has abandoned the city centre in favour of retail parks like ocean terminal and craigleith.
There's almost zero "TO LET" signs in the retail parks, but they are springing up like mushrooms all across the city centre.
The traffic system here maximises chaos, pollution and inconvenience, and minimises commercial viability.
Unfortunately, the unelected people in the council administration get paid the same amount no matter how incredibly bad they are at their job, so the destruction continues year on year, slowly strangling the viability of the city centre.
Even the buses made a loss last year, it's sad to watch a once thriving community being turned into a commercial and social no-go zone.

I live in the Countryside.

Any improvements to the road network would be largely the responsibility of the local council.

And they're telling us that they are so short of funds that they are actually looking at cutting rather than improving local services.

So i can't see any huge improvements to the local road network in the near future.

1. Ban wide loads, slow convoys and lorries from all single carriageway roads and all but the inside lane of multi-lane roads between 0700-0930 and 1600-1800. Lorries overtaking each other cause huge amounts of congestion for no point whatsoever when they're only doing 2mph more than the vehicle in front.

2. Create HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes where possible, restricted to vehicles with more than one passenger to encourage sharing.

3. Impose road charging during peaks to discourage unecessary travel and reward staggered working hours.

4. Get fat parents to walk their fat children to school instead of driving short distances by enforcing no-parking zones around school entrances!

5. Open up the hard shoulder as an extra lane on motorways during peak hours (like they do successfully on the M42).

Stop brining in millions of immigrants and deport illegal immigrants - less people equals easier travel especially in London. The problem is that are so called planners ignore one of the main cause of over crowding on our transport

I expect the usual calls to Tax motorists off the road with Tolls/road charging and to subsidise public transport. Neither of these will work in the short to medium term.

Public transport is already overburdened. The railways simply couldn't cope with the increases in passenger volumes required. Add to the most homes and businesses do not have ready access to public transport.

As for road pricing this is based on the idea that we somehow have a choice about using congested roads in the rush hour. What would be more useful is to stop HGV's, farm and construction traffic etc using the roads during the 2 hour period morning and night this would free up capacity, deconflict traffic with radically different speeds and make it easier to ensure drivers take rest breaks.

Local councils use the road safety excuse to make travelling on roads as difficult and miserable as possible in a misguided attempt to drive people onto public transport which lacks the capacity to cope.

If you look at congestion, it's always in the places where 'road engineeers' have been messing about. Pinch points which force you into the path of oncoming traffic is senseless. Traffic lights which hold you up on empty roundabouts for what seems like an age are complete nonsense. Bus lanes which use up 50% of the roads capacity and are empty 99% of the time are a solution to a problem which only existed because the road was changed to create the problem. One way systems that force you to travel five miles around town instead of 20 yards down the road result in massive amounts of wasted time and energy not to mention the extra pollution. Speed bumps all over the place designed to cause extra wear and tear on vehicles, they're usually poorly constructed as well which results in the road breaking up around them and damage to nearby buildings.

Most of the congestion problems we have these days are due to people using computer models to design the various systems in order to meet some spurious political agenda. Instead of admitting their mistakes, they want to charge us even more.

Instead of dictating to us all the time, the people who design these systems should try listening to the people who actually have to use them.

'Public' transport needs to be back in public ownership with coherent and sensible timings of bus and train services, and direct point-to-point links - my daughter, for example, goes to school 7 miles away but buses take 1.5 hours and visit several other towns not on a direct line from Crewe to Middlewich. It also needs to be affordable - until recently the cost of a season ticket Crewe-Stoke on the train was the same as my weekly petrol purchase (which allowed choice of time, door-to-door service & other personal use).

As for roads - how about some actual thought being given to maximising traffic flow by good design and intelligent setting of traffic light sequences? I know several light-controlled junctions which operate far better at peak traffic flow times when the lights have failed, and light-controlled roundabouts where each set operates in complete isolation from the rest, evidenced by the 'drift' in and out of sequence. There are also many instances of sub-optimal arrangement of lanes at junctions causing clogging at even light loading. If I - complete amateur at road design - can see this, where are the professional planners and why are they not doing their job properly?

Making public transport much cheaper than using a car would probably make the biggest difference. But many people don't live an easy bus or train journey from work, and working from home isn't an option for most jobs either. People commute because they don't want to live near where their work is. So perhaps we could encourage businesses to relocate to parts of the country where the roads are less congested and affordable quality housing is available close to business centres?

Invest our road taxes into the transport system. Bring the railways back under public ownership. Stop building on Green land and instead, regenerate the inner city slum areas.

Many places where people work are not accessible by Public transport and never will be.

If all schools were 'good' schools, children would attend the school most local to their home, this would cut down on car use.

Remove all traffic lights, not only does the traffic flow more easily but drivers have pay attention, this might also cut down on accidents.

By providing a public transport system geared to the 21st century, accessible to all. Forget high speed for a few - concentrate on upgrading and developing the present system with frequent, reliable, clean, comfortable trains and buses. No one enjoys traffic jams, but the problem is that many commuters have no other option.

Remove the SUV driving, stressed out, have to have everything right now, mobile phone using ignoramuses, who plague the roads at 0800 and 1500hrs everyday. They can't have their little darlings walking or taking the bus to school can we?
If you have a baby on board badge, why do you drive like a fool?
Yellow Buses, it has to be the way. Me? I am writing this in a break from working from home.

In order to ease traffic congestion on the roads, why not revert to the old and trusted method of re-instating the railways to take the heavy loads that are now being sent. That would mean faster travel on the motorways and only local delivery vans being used to the shops.

Given that the UK for decades has not had a transport policy for decades, but a roads policy this is a bit rich! We've watched railway lines closed, rural (and no so rural) bus services axed whilst motorways, by-passes and more roads have covered the country.

So, stop building all those roads, renationalise the railways and reduce the highest train fares in Europe. The government appears to be running the East Coast line OK, I'm sure they can manage the rest as well. And people should consider walking, the bus and car sharing before they simply jump automatically into a car.

Certainly encouraging more flexitime working and teleconferencing would help a lot as well. Also, reversing the crazy situation where people are commuting from East Sussex to Basingstoke for work. Work closer to home, though that requires a shift in the sort of work we do. And perhaps if people weren't so driven by 'promotion' they wouldn't be taking jobs so far away to get the extra money.

One thought:- Raise the price of Car Tax by £1000 per vehicle. With each Tax disc include a 24/7 public transport travel pass. Ring fence the £20b or so raised for Public transport improvements.

starquin10 - obviously only the rich should be allowed onto the roads in your opinion then.

The only way to relieve congestion would be to re-nationalise and re-organise public transport so that it is efficient and regular. If you don't want a country that is going to end up 80% roadways, then you need to get people off the roads and not put more on.

Working from home is definitely the way to go. OK, it's not possible in all jobs: fireman, tree surgeons, and waiters are obvious examples of people who can't work from home.

But the vast majority of office jobs could easily be done from home now that we have technology like sophisticated telephone routing and VPNs. Even if most office workers just worked from home 1 or 2 days a week, that would take a tremendous amount of pressure off the transport network.

More staggering of working hours in congested cities will reduce public transport costs & bring down fares, and lessen road car congestion;
More working from home from programmers, accountants, service engineers, . . .
More public housing for essential service staff in congested cities will not only improve transport, but reduce crime, improve social cohesion;
There are loads of advantageous in tackling the congestion problem through changing the way work is done.

I don't fully understand how road pricing and tolls is supposed to make traffic move more smoothly.

Oh, I get it! They're NOT improving the situation; merely punishing the poorest in society and forcing THEM off the road to give US an easier life. It all makes perfect sense now. How very British. How very like the CBI.

Solution to this country's transport woes? Build proper European style metro systems in the core cities run pubically. Renationalise the buses, and trains. Encourage people to live closer to where they work. Offer alternatives! Stop with the stick and start with the carrot.

School buses, sort out the immigration problem, reduce the number of traffic lights in areas they dont need them, reduce the number of speed limit changes and increase the speed limits which for no good reason are being reduced.

Stop trucks for blocking every lane in 2+ lane roads with their 5mph overtaking. Reduce the speed police and their underhand tactics, remove speed cameras where they are only for money generating. Improve the roads! Fill the pot holes! Change the layout to be efficient! Thats why we pay tax! Lower the duty on fuel. People who can work from home should be given the option (cheaper for the business too).

Do all of that and we have major improvements in all our lives

Ah! This one doing the rounds again, is it? It's all been talked about before; its implications are wider than the work commute. But no one makes a move to change anything. It's going to need strong leadership to force companies to stagger their working hours; to allow more working from home via the machineries of digital britain Gormless Gord is always talking about. But I wouldn't honestly trust the government to be the leader. Gordon historian and his postman would try to slap in some ill-gotten legislation that would have the inevitable unintended consequences, rather than set an example, for instance, among public employees. Probably best if some big company set the example and showed us all the benefits so others would follow suit.

Of course, early retirement would solve a lot of problems.

The council in Edinburgh engineered it's own traffic problems, then stepped up to "fix" these problems by making it worse.

A lifelong job creation scheme for a few crafty folk...but not much use for the rest of us.

No car commuter could have failed to notice the huge difference when school is out.
The single most effective change that could be made to relieve congestion and pollution on our city roads is to have every school provide a bus service for students.

13. At 09:56am on 15 Mar 2010, Julian wrote:

Making public transport much cheaper than using a car would probably make the biggest difference. But many people don't live an easy bus or train journey from work, and working from home isn't an option for most jobs either. People commute because they don't want to live near where their work is. So perhaps we could encourage businesses to relocate to parts of the country where the roads are less congested and affordable quality housing is available close to business centres?

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The public transport argument is limited by the public transport. It rarely goes where you want, is expensive and often uncomfortable and overcrowded. I wont use public transport as it can never compare to the car. Car-pooling should be encouraged though which is far more efficient and wont cost the tax payer to keep running

The question which should be asked is, "how can travelling to work be reduced".

I work self employed for many companies and have been required to drive extensively to locations in Exeter, London, Aberdeen etc etc; during my employment, and in the course of interviews.
Approximately 60% of this travel is not neccessary as the work can be done from home, via the internet.
It is the shortsightedness of the employers that want this travel to take place and put the burden and costs on the contracted employee. Incentives instead of tax by the gov would be a positive move.

Instead of stating,"increase road tolls"-"Road Tax"-" fuel prices" which is stated extensively on this page in the form of solutions, which in itself assists no one, look at the root of the problem.
The causations of Polution and accidents.
Ask how much of this work can be done from home on the internet, thereby eliminating the Fuel, Pollution and accidents? The technology is available,-USE IT.
Again this is pointing to the Gov inadequacy to plan ahead just like the road salt supply and potholes in the roads which we are now left with, (Again costs to the Council upping our taxes), inclusive of the financial catastophe which has been caused through short sightedness and absence of adequate planning. The slump just didn't happen, IT WAS CAUSED.

Not so much shortsighted and temporary self instilled blindness by the gov.

Several other countries restrict the use of certain types of commercial vehicles on their roads between 07:00-09:30 and 16:00-17:30, this seems to reduce congestion during the morning and afternoon rush hours, maybe a similar system could be brought in over here.

Another simple idea would be to encourage more people to use motorcycles or scooters, even if they're just using them for their commute. I used to use my motorcycle to commute to and from work and the journey time was a third shorter than the same journey by car and my bike used 1/3 less fuel than the car so I saved time and money while also helping to reduce congestion.

If we could get to the situation where a lot of our two car families are replaced with one car and one motorcycle families then we'd also reduce the demand on residential parking spaces too.

Spend more of the taxes raised on road use actually on the roads (the spending on the high speed rail link would pay for about 50 miles of new motorway to be built every year, which would have a far higher theoretical limit of passengers). Sort out the minor junctions and stop reducing dual carraigeways to a single lane. Most importantly rephase traffic lights to help the flow of traffic (it is only very recently that the policy of using traffic lights to cause congestion to increase fuel use and so revenue from fuel duty has been repealed).

I think the answer is too obvious to contemplate!

Remove all this "choice" stupidity from Hospitals, Schools etc and strictly enforce catchment areas. By doing this countless numbers of short (walkable or cyclable) car journeys would be removed.

This policy would also move us back to an era when communities supported their local facilities - all the time "choice" exists there is absolutely no incentive for anyone to get involved and improve what you have on your door step.

Next step would be to INCREASE all day parking charges to a minimum of £10 per day and DECREASE bus and train charges to say £4 per day - and give people a financial incentive to use public transport. The problem with this is that the motorist is being used to top up Council incomes!

These suggestions will never be taken up!

The only long-term way to solve this problem is to rethink the way in which we run our economy.

Why should we assume that it is ok to work miles from home? More local employment is needed.
What is the sense in trundling goods all over the country long distances, goods which could and should be available more locally?
Is it really beneficial to allow parents a free choice of schools if the consequence is longer distance school runs? Live nearer, and the kids might even be able to walk.

No good taking too much notice what the CBI thinks. The country would be entirely concreted over if they had their way.

I used to cycle 30 miles a day to work from a staffordshire village to Birmingham . It was difficult at times watching out for all the kamikazi your bike Cars. When you arrived at work you would have to bring your bike into the building to prevent your friends letting your tyres down and pinching the saddle....

Traffic lights are the biggest cause of congestion.More zebra crossings instead and cameras that will record if drivers dont stop for people crossing at them. make rail travel affordable and affordable parking at railway stations . Make bicycling attractive- compulsory bike lanes that are safely separated from heavy lorries etc.Provide carriages so that people can put their bikes on the train without prebooking .Make schools so good no one has to drive their children further than their local school, and then children can cycle if the cycle lane provision is made safe from heavy lorries /fast traffic.Villages need post offices and local shops and banks so people dont have to drive to a huge supermarket and buy everything in one go that needs a car to get it all home ..

This is a complex issue that will not have an easy outcome.
Rail is not an easy option as the infrastructure and operators struggle to provide a service as it is.
If we are to have a proper strategy using rail, it will take years to effect. To take people out of their cars to decrease congestion will take some doing as we have messed around with public transport for too many years.
Tolls are not the answer - they will just be seen as a revenue generating exercise and will not drive down numbers of cars on the roads.
You have to incentivise people to get out of their cars and at the moment, there is no incentive, so it must be created and that will take time.
Inventive measures required but can't see too much success in the short term.

If I were to travel by public transport to my place of work then I would need to do the following:

Walk to the Train Station - 20 minutes
Wait for Train
Catch Train to Stevenage - 30 minutes
Walk to Bus Station - 5 minutes
Wait for Bus
Catch bus to Ware - 40 minutes (only travels via villages

I have actually done this journey to check it out and with waiting times it took me 4 hours and a few minutes to do the journey. To get back was 31/2 hours - that is 7 hours to travel to and from work by public transport.

In a car it takes me 45 minutes to an hour to get there at an average speed of 55mph and I drive an economical car which means that my commuting expenditure is also considerably less than the cost of using public transport.

I say stuff the people who suggest that cars be heavily taxed, motorists be penalised and have everything slanted towards public transport .... they live in cloud-cuckoo land or probably live in Cities where everything is laid out on a plate for them and they live with silver spoons in their mouths!

Spend the vast amounts of tax from motorists on roads.

France has over double the road network of the UK for the same number of cars, it is the same with Germany.

How are we expected to compete when so much of our time is spent in traffic jams.

And for all those environmentalists who think we should use public transport, they need to live in the real world were people generate wealth.

There are several quick fixes, none cheap but effective. School buses are required with free travel for all kids under 16. The free bit is the key, this makes it attractive to all families. Back this up with yellow lines outside every school in the UK, enforcable between 0800 to 0900 and 1500 to 1600 and with all council traffic enforcement officer outside schools at this time. Next, reopen railway lines that were closed in the past thirty years. The cost of this is not very much in comparison to a high speed line. The real cost is in rolling stock. Perhaps some of the old stock form the 80's and 90's is still available, in storage somewhere? Run services rush hour only, no contractual obligation on the TOC's to run all day. Freight must be put onto rail and canal and this must be made tax efficient. Road hauliers may squeal but just look at the M6 any time of the day and it is nothing but trucks that could be running on rail.
As for the roads, drivers pay a fortune already to use them though I agree something should be done.A start would be to stop all lorry movements between 0700 to 0900 and 1600 to 1800 every weekday. No tractors, JCB's or other slow moving vehicles at these times. Any roadworks must be completed on time else extreme penalties for the companies carrying out the work. No more mile after mile of cones on motorways with no work going on. All cones lifted if work has ceased. Finally, fit cars with a tracker, not for pay as you go but for time of driving. Offer tax incentives for drivers to drive at different times; do you see how this is a 'carrot' rather than a 'stick'? Driving outside of the rush hour and you get a rebate on your fuel tax. This is the approach to have, not just battering drivers because they are an easy target.

I'm all for taxing roads, as long as the tax is introduced as a replacement for our current road tax, not an addition to it - otherwise we're just being asked to pay for the same thing twice.

However, the simplest thing to do would be to add road tax to the cost of fuel - the more you drive, the more you pay. This would then make people think twice about whether their journey was necessary, or whether there was a cheaper alternative.

My commute to work would be much improved if the fuel duty was slashed! A future fair for all, how is it fair to pay car tax, 70% fuel duty and then VAT ontop of fuel duty, thats double taxation. Switch off average speed cameras when they are no workmen around. Free school buses, that would make a massive difference to the roads, get the people carriers out of the way. Middle laners, dont drive in rush hour, you cause accidents. Cut the price of public transport. I would agree with road tolls or pay as you drive but only if they lost the road tax and fuel duty (these are road tolls anyway).

Massive investment in public transport infrastructure. Reinstate the rail lines removed by Beeching. Price public transport so that it is cheaper then private transport.

This will encourage people out of their cars and will leave the roads free for commuters who really need to drive their own car.

Others have already noted the terrible effect of the school run on congestion.

I would like to make 2 suggestions to help ease school run congestion:

1. Make it illegal for kids to go to school by car if their school is within 5 miles of where they live (they should easily be able to cycle up to that distance, if not walk). A fine for the first offence, confiscate the car for the second.

2. Make it illegal for kids to attend a school more than 5 miles from where they live, except in rural areas where there is no school within 5 miles.

I can drive easily in the mornings and afternoons when the schools are closed for holidays.
When they are open, its tailbacks galore.
So the traffic on the road is not du to people going to work, but those on the school run.
Thankfully, I work from home so I do my utmost to avoid the school run drivers who park so inconsiderately near school gates.

A package of measures:

1) Stop the archaic 9am/5.30pm insanity. In many areas it's all down to schools. In school holiday times the problem all but disappears. Stagger school start/end times by 15-30 minutes among the schools in each locality. Similarly, there is no need for shops to all open and close at exactly the same moment, or for offices to open at 9am. Every possible step should be taken to spread out the rush hour more.

2) Spread out and stagger school holidays far more. There's no real reason that schools across the nation all have to be on holiday at the same times - within the same local areas perhaps, but not nationally.

3) Slow moving traffic (tractors, diggers etc) and wide loads should not be on the roads between 7.30am and 9am and again between 5.0pm and 6.30pm. This was one of the proposals in the "Citizens Charter": Remember that?

4) The Government should offer incentives for "job swaps" which save on commuting. Each day people doing identical jobs pass each other on their commutes down the same roads. Probably tens of thousands of such insanities happen each morning and afternoon. Someone should provide a discovery mechanism to allow these people to find out about each other, and benefit from doing a job swap that reduces commuting miles. The government should operate a voluntary scheme that people can register with and give employers tax breaks or grants for allowing swaps to happen.

5) People should be encouraged to use video conferencing and audio conferencing as substitutes for travel-to meetings. Home working should be encouraged, and government should be offering small incentives for doing more of it. The few remaining employers who cling on to the 1970s "if you're not in the office, you're not working" ethos need to wise-up and focus on results, not activity.

6) The increased use of public transport should be encouraged (but not mandated) where possible. In and around big cities this is fairly easy, since the commuter routes are fairly well defined and distances are less. Outside cities, this is far more complex and public transport is not really a viable solution - and policy needs to recognise this.

7) Commuters who use BIG cars for a one person commute should be ridiculed and vilified even more than they are now - and perhaps even penalised. Nobody needs to commute in a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow (yes, some people do! I've seen them daily, on the M4 into London). Since many families now aspire to own more than one car, perhaps there should be incentives for buying small cars that you can prove you use for a daily commute?

Alan T

Its simple
1. No commercial vehicles over 3.5 ton between 07:00 - 09:30 and 16:30 - 18:30
2. Out side lane of the motorway for cars with 2 or more people in and motor cycles only. No lorries and vans.
3. Get rid of the speed cameras on the motorways and dual carriage ways. It is fair enough to slow traffic down on normal A roads and in built up areas but its just a stealth tax on dual carriage ways and motorways.

If you want people to use the train, it needs to be cheaper and more reliable. Buses do not help the environment on congestion, so replace them with an electric trolley car systems in town, this could take people to a reliable and cheap rail system that could connect towns and cities.

Put more tax on petrol. This will ensure that only rich and well-to-do people can afford to travel by car and the problem will be resolved.

People who can't afford a decent sized 4x4 shouldn't be allowed to use the roads during peak times.

People do not need to go to work in offices everyday anymore. It is quite an absurd idea that we are still doing this. Tax breaks for employers to encourage homeworking. For the right person with the right job, it is a much more efficient way of working and it helps to restore work / family balance.

The rise of business to business social networks combined with the maturing of VoIP, Video, broadband and other communication technologies means that communications of all types on a wider basis will have a positive impact on traffic levels over the next decade. I bet government will do little to support it though.

The only real solution is to reduce the reliance on cars. More people will use public transport if it is cheap, convenient and they are not treated like cattle which means more public transport. The added benefit is that people who really like to drive will have clearer roads to drive on. Other benefits include less pollution.

The is no shortage of good ideas for making public transport better. For an example see

https://www.bettertransport.org.uk

I don't understand where all this congestion is coming from.... I just use the slow lane, it's by far the fastest and is mostly empty.

If you put tolls on the motorways and major routes you will do two things.

1. increase the price of everything in the shops, as transport costs will rise.
2. force vehicles on to local roads through built up areas and villages.

You will also increase the use of fake number plates as people try to avoid it, and what about foreign cars on the roads, they will simply not pay... Lets cut MPs wages and perks and save the same amount of money there. I bet only MPs would be against that....
Stop hitting the every man with these taxes pretending to be green taxes. If you earn over 1 million pounds a year you should pay £700000 in tax, I am sure they could live on £300000 a year, if they don't like it leave we wont miss you. Give the every man his life and liberty back, let him earn the money he needs to live. let him travel with out hindrance at every turn.

Is your journey really necessary? They'e just closed one of the main sections of the inner ringroad here in beautiful York, to mess about with a gas pipe and hey presto: the regular congestion has melted ayay. they should keep it shut. Business, and everything else is running pretty much as usual. I walk to work and, apart from the whiff of leaky gas the situation is much improved. It's more interesting for those on the open-top tourist busses too: they get to see the sink-estates on the diversionary route!
I reccommend the coments about improving rail, too (oh: I can't). Spending billions on HS2, top be used by thousands, and a pittance on local services that would take tens of millions off the roads: why?

Housing development goes on apace south of Middlsbrough, many hundreds of houses have been added in the last ten years, but the roads remain an unchanged. The worst bottleneck is caused by a handful of Victorian houses which should have met a demolition bulldozer decades ago.

Between Nunthorpe and Middlesbrough centre - a distance of only three miles - there are nineteen (19) traffic signals, and in places the road is only one lane each way. Every work day at the rush hours thousands of vehicles travel this stretch of road, to say the traffic crawls in and out of town would be to an over-estimate of its speed.

Just before Cleveland Council was abolished, they proposed - as a going away grand gesture - a motorway standard road bypass into Middlesbrough costing £77 million for three miles of road, this naturally met with extreme hostility from Middlesbrough council tax payers, who would have carried the whole cost, the scheme was dropped.

What we lack is a co-ordinated transport system.

No amount of weasel words and sound bites from our politicians at elecion time will solve anything if all the words are just political spin. The only time we ever see our MP's out and about in their constituencies is at election times, if they had to endure each day our traffic problems the problems would be dealt with.

Allow left side overtaking on the motorways and in one fell swoop you will solve motorway congestion. At present 66% of the traffic is trying to drive on 33% of the road.

>No car commuter could have failed to notice the huge difference when >school is out.

That's because parents have a week off to be with their kids or go on holiday with them. So you get two people off the road in one go (mother and father).

Walk to work? Don't think so. I chose to live where I do as I like the area. My work it 10 miles away. By the time I walk there, it'll be time to walk home. Not easy when you have to carry files, laptop other work related paraphanalia with you.

Cycle? No chance. 3 VERY busy roads and motorways between home and work. Apart from the fact I don't look good in lycra.

Home to office during term time takes 40 minutes. outside of terms time 15 minutes. Provide transport for school children from home to school. Ban scrummies driving little Johnny to school and then spending 10 minutes gassing with roadside car doors open. Yes it does happen and one of these days I'm going to have an old scrap car and that door is going to be "taken out".

Public transport. Now owned by Private companies who only have their bottom line at interest, not the public.

Road network. Generally, motorways and major A roads are fine. Saying that I recently had to drive from London to Scotland on business. There must have been 100 miles of roadworks up the M6, and about the same down the M1. I'm sure this is making the roads better, but come on, plan better. Local roads are managed by the county councils and they really don't give a hoot about them.

So making commuting better? Well, try working from home. i do 2 days a week. It saves fuel costs, office costs and I get more work done with less disruptions.

Give the jobs to people that live in the area! lol
I know this is stupid but i often wonder" what would it be like if buses had their routes, trucks had theirs, cars the same and motor bikes theirs. Who would move the fastest?
Can't also help wondering why we have spent so much doing up the canal network if nobody is using them!!

At 09:37am on 15 Mar 2010, starquin10 wrote:
Privatise the roads and put tolls on them. You'd be surprised at just how fast the congestion would disappear. Private roads used to be the norm rather than the exception and even now, private roads are better maintained, quieter and have an average faster travel time than the comparable private roads, including motorways.

It seems that starquin10 may be member of the "loony left tax everything (especially motorists) solution to all our problems" brigade.

If there is no viable alternative then toll roads are a heavy financial burden on those who have to travel by car, not everyone lives in a city with an underground and regular bus services.

Agree with post#12 @0956 on 15 March. 'megan'

In addition: Someone please explain, why did anyone think that zebra crossings on roundabout exits for vehicles was a safe idea for anyone???!

Roundabouts were designed for smooth, efficient traffic flow with simple basic rules for the traffic?

Motor vehicles are usually the cheapest and most convenient way to move people and goods around, if there is no congestion. So if we want less congestion, which at the moment is the main constraint on vehicle use, other constraints must be introduced.

This should be done on a push pull bases. Cheaper and more convenient bus, train and transport services, in public ownership so that they can be run to suit the users rather than the share holders and bosses of private companies, are required. Paid for by increases in fuel tax, and congestion charges large enough to really deter unnecessary vehicle use.

One problem is that once depreciation and overheads like tax and insurance are paid, the marginal cost of motor vehicle use is small. Road tax should be abolished and revenue raised by increased fuel tax alone, and insurance rates should depend on mileage.

I've never understood the absolute necessity of businesses in London to all be within a mile of each other: most of the congestion in London, on the roads and the tube, could be removed if businesses weren't all located in central London. This probably saved a lot of time and money up to 20 years ago, but today it's just ridiculous. With the internet, we can work from anywhere. Obviously, for some jobs, a physical presence in a particular location is a necessity, but so many office jobs could be done from home or anywhere on the planet. I'm freelance, and most often work from home: I have some clients I've never even seen face-to-face. But sometimes, I still get clients who want me to work in their office, which means a daily commute into central London, the whole rush-hour-packed-carriages nightmare, all to do exactly the same work I could have done at home, often on equipment or software not as good or up-to-date as my own. Even then, I only see the client at the initial briefing, who leaves me to get on with it. They could easily have briefed me over the phone and left me at home. What does it matter where we are physically, if the work gets done on time?

As for public transport, why is the "answer" so often suggested to penalise the motorist, attempting to force them onto public transport? Surely the answer is to improve public transport, encouraging rather than forcing? People will always choose the easiest, quickest, cheapest and most comfortable option: at the moment, our public transport is the hardest, slowest, more expensive, and inconvenient way to get to work.

Go to Berlin, see how a real integrated transport system works, come home.
Start lobbying your MPs to get one here.

The way we plan our housing, and the growth in population are key factors that it is going to be hard to do anything about. As more and more houses are built further and further from the places of work, so congestion, fuel use and costs to the nation must rise. Any so called 'green' housing units will be offset by the extra distance to where the work and the hypermarkets are located.

We should be building our houses at a much greater density per hectare. My estate has incredibly tiny houses with incredibly wide grass verges. We are going to have to pack together, as in the older suburbs, to reduce journey times.

We need to get back to local shops, but to do that we must move away from the hypermarket model. Same for schools.

Junction 10 at Walsall at 07.30am in the weekday mornings, is a total nightmare! If roadworks or no roadworks, makes no difference. It takes about 20 minutes just to get to junction 9 it's like trying to squeeze something very thick, into a bottle neck! When it's very bad, traffic ligts are turned on. Think would be a good idea if Mondays & Fridays NO lorries be allowed, to use junction 10 between 07.00am to 08.00am to give us a chance, to get to work or if they must use lorries at that time, to only use the slow lane! I'm SURE this would make a BIG difference.

Wouldn't it be better for the CBI to focus on how our public transport infrastructure can be improved and made more cost effective. Hi-speed tram links running every five to ten minutes are a great way to travel. Why do we not have more of them?

As for roads and gridlock hasn't this been a problem that has always been dealt with the WRONG way?

In my last job I received a small transport payment on top of my salary because I used the train to work. However, as the firm didn't have its own car park, it offered a free workday season ticket for a local car park, which was worth about £300 pa more than the transport payment I was receiving. The firm refused to increase it, so there was an incentive not to use the train. A second incentive not to use the train came in the form of the transport payment being taxed. Those receiving the car park ticket were not taxed on it. So: how about firms being more enlightened about these incentives? Also, how about changing the tax structure to tax car parking at work and to offer tax relief on season tickets for trains, buses and park and ride schemes? I now work in London and pay about £300 a month just to get to work. And I couldn't do my job closer to home although I can work from home one day a week. And that's another problem - the train fare structure penalises those who don't work in the office full time. We need more carnets and discounts for regular commuters who don't need a season ticket. As for the school run - get rid of lotteries which send a child who can walk to school to a school 5 miles away and get children to go to their closest school.

In the early 1980's the population of Britain was 52 million. It is now 62 million and it is estimated that in 20 years it will be 70 million.
If we want to stop congestion we need to halt population growth.
The Government publishes the General Household Survey. This reveals family sizes. The dare I say it "indigenous" population has 2.3 children on average. Therefore the shift from 52m to 70m in one generation is not due to large family sizes. It is therefore due to net immigration exceeding emigration.
Nothing at all racist but if we want to limit congestion we need to control immigration.

It’s hardly surprising we’re in this mess. Parents can’t walk their children to school because their child is likely to be randomly matched to a school on the other side of town. Local industry has been destroyed to the extent that people aren’t able to walk to work any more in many areas – there may be no jobs going in their town or village so they have to travel every day. I’m one of the lucky ones that can walk to work, but that’s only because I live in the middle of a large city.

This problem is a symptom of the degeneration and breakdown of local communities. Fifty years ago, more jobs were localised and people spent far less time trying to get about. But then the bottom fell out of the manufacturing industry, the mines closed, the high street started to degenerate, rents in town shot up, businesses had to move to cheaper out of own sites, the population skyrocketed and here we are. Privatising roads is just going to stretch people even further. It will force people to choose between staying in employment and opting out of working altogether, because if your expenses for getting to work are so high that you’re barely better off than you would be on the dole what’s the point of working?

2. Make it illegal for kids to attend a school more than 5 miles from where they live, except in rural areas where there is no school within 5 miles.

Hmmm, good idea, unfortunately in the town I live in, all the schools are over 5 miles away. So how is this going to work. I am glad you added to this sentence too. I lived in the country and had a 20 trip just to get to secondary school. Primary school was 10 miles away.

Simple have a National Public transport service that is efficient, comfortable and reliable. It would mean renationalising it but then it was always a mistake to privatise it.

They do this I believe for public sector workers in one US state: 4 day weeks, 9 or 10 hour days. I suppose you could extend it into other sectors so different people do different 4 days. You then reduce the number of commutes for each person as well as the daily total number of commuters; this would cut down on travel/fuel bills and maybe child care. This also allows people who would normally be at work the opportunity to access services they would normally only get to at luch time or on days off.

The added bonus of 3 days off is more time for the family!!

If business was more "grown up"it would be possible to cut out at least 50% of commuter travel and allow people to work from home.Its not as if the technology isnt in place.Take 50% of the communter cars off the road and for those who had to travel to work-life would be less stressful-mind you the train companies,buses and taxi companies would probably all go bankrupt but you cant have everything can you?Lets live,work and go forward in the 21st century and stop using the 20th century as an excuse to carry on day to day in a very inefficent old fashioned way.

40. At 10:41am on 15 Mar 2010, Dr Prod wrote:
". . . Next, reopen railway lines that were closed in the past thirty years."
Sorry Doc, I think you'll find it was between 45 and 55 years ago: who knows where the time goes, eh?

38. At 10:31am on 15 Mar 2010, Menedemus wrote:
"If I were to travel by public transport to my place of work then I would need to do the following:
Walk to the Train Station - 20 minutes
Wait for Train
Catch Train to Stevenage - 30 minutes
Walk to Bus Station - 5 minutes
Wait for Bus
Catch bus to Ware . . "

Why don't you just move to Ware? There will be somebody in ware who's doing the same journey as you in the opposite direction, doing a similar job to you in your home town. Multiply that up all over the country and hey presto: broken Britain (transport division).

Did you know that average car occupancy is 1.2 travellers per vehicle? that dosn't change much in the commuting peak, making road efficiency 26% max. If a railway were that efficient it would be closed. A single phase of traffic on Gillygate handles about 35 cars, which fills the road from one set of lights to the next. That's less than the capacity of a single bus.
Yes, I am a transport strategist, and yes: I've simplified it a bit for you. Now it's time for my oatbran.

Spend money on maintenance of existing roads only. Apply road tolls to all major conurbations. Stop all new road and motorway building in favour of investing heavily in light and heavy rail schemes such as Crossrail, Thameslink and the various town centre tram and metro schemes. Complete the electrification of all main lines. Increase the loading gauge whenever opportunites arise to permit the expansion of rail freight and thus reduce lorry traffic. Don't waste money on HS2 and other high-speed intercity railways, the UK does not have the geography to make them worthwhile. Don't waste money on new runways for purely domestic or European services, build a second channel tunnel instead.
Stop the subsidies which simply go to support TOC shareholder dividends. Bite the bullet by re-nationalising the railways and making them affordable once again..

Today's roads are designed to maximise congestion. The politicians don't think new roads/more lanes will solve a congestion problem. They claim "If we build more roads, it is just more roads to become congested." THAT IS THE NATURE OF POPULATION GROWTH.

I can understand the limited space available for roads in london, but if ministers were to step outside of london, say a place where there aren't even dual-carriageways. To claim these shouldn't have roads expanded to ease congestion is complete tripe.

Roundabouts get replaced with traffic lights (so that there is a fairer distribution of wait-times), but it results in halted traffic even when no traffic flows and delays between changing lights. When the power to them is cut, no-one knows what to do.

The use of traffic lights for pedestrian crossings (the one the schoolkids press buttons on but walk on past anyway), instead of zebra-corssings. Speed-bumps. Proposing changing speed limits to 20mph in urban areas.
Abandoned Roadworks, that have no-one working on them but still have a string of speed cameras along the only-open half-speed lane.

There are still pot holes on a major dual-carriageway in my area from the freeze in January, which cause tail-backs every morning.


IF ROAD TAX WAS SPENT ON ROAD IMPROVEMENTS - THERE WOULDN'T BE A CONGESTION PROBLEM. [At least not outside of london]
Don't let the government fool you into thinking you need to pay more tax to fix the problems you're already paying tax to solve!

Introduce proper flexi-time and encourage remote working whenever possible....that should be a start....

52. At 11:01am on 15 Mar 2010, SmokeyBates wrote:
I don't understand where all this congestion is coming from.... I just use the slow lane, it's by far the fastest and is mostly empty.

--------------------------------------
I agree.

It is astounding how many motorists drive in the overtaking lane when there is nothing to overtake. I think they must be members of the Centre Land Owners Club (C.L.O.C.).

I am sure that poor lane discipline contributes to a lot of congestion.

And while I'm at it , why do so many motorist fail to use their indicators?

According to the supermarkets, there are closer to 80 million people living in the UK than the 61 million official figure.

So let's round up the 19 million illegals - it's really not that hard to spot them - and instead of housing them in nice flats while we cross the T's on their deportation papers, put them to work building roads, schools and hospitals to pay us back for all the services that they've been stealing.

If you introduce road tolls, more fuel duty, higher VAT on both, what will you achieve?

Not everyone works in offices. Or can car share.

Majority of essential service workers work shifts (and way beyond (unpaid)the end of their shift) and unsocial hours when public transport is either unavailable or 'unsafe'?
These workers rely on their cars to get to work on time and in all weather to look after you and me?! These workers get 'average' pay .. why would you make them pay more tax than they already do? Plus, majority pay parking charges on top? Think again anti-car idealists?

Furthermore, hospital and local authority executives have reserved parking for their new, expensive and emission-friendly cars?!!!

If we had a rail network that was up to the task, most of the HGVs could be taken off roads!

In the cities make it compulory no go zones for cars and lay on cheap bus travel and less expensive trains too.
Us poor motorists are allready taxed to the hilt in every way.

There is no easy answer. People who commute don't necessarily just use their cars for going to and from work. They may use it for purposes prior to work, immediately following work, or during the working day e.g. medical appointments, gym, shopping, etc. They need the convenience that their cars give them. Public transport, even if it were free, isn't necessarily a cure-all either. Health and physical ability may also be a factor for using the car, transporting heavy or bulky goods. I'm sure you'd be very happy standing in the rain waiting for a bus, getting soaked by passing HGV lorries driving through the puddles, standing on on the bus/train and it being full of fragrant passengers, carrying shopping, bulky packages, screaming kids, listening to the beat eminating from the headphones of nearby passengers or listening to their conversations on their mobile phones and the endless myriad of mobile ringtones, etc. I think you'd soon be longing for the dry, perfumed, tranquility of the traffic jam with onboard entertainment of your own choice.

More busses and more trams and ban cars in inner cities. Have more internet meetings with web cams and stop all these reps and business men from travelling all over the country and ruining our lives. Let us not go back in history and have toll roads where only the wealthy can afford to travel.

Re-nationalise public transport.
More cycle-paths.

I have to commute to work 70 miles each way. I appreciate that this is not environmentally friendly and believe me I look for alternative jobs closer to home. The personal cost to me is huge at around £400 per calendar month

I have had my name down on a car sharing website for two years without a single enquiry.

My current Journey by car takes on Average 90 minutes without delays

The same journey by public transport takes 3 hours without delays. The cost would be around the same.

It’s not about cost, it all comes down to start time. My start time is 08:30 in the morning and public transport cannot get me there on time as the first train is 06:00. It cannot be done.

The cost of staying up is around £80 per night costing £15,360 per year. I am not a politician who gets it all back. I get nothing from my company to assist in any of the travel or subsistence.

Simply put, there is no alternative for me to use.

How about congestion charging organisations at peak times rather than individuals. When businesses and schools start seeing congestions bills rolling in, hours will be staggered without hesitation.

To all the comments saying "just price everyone off the road": Some people need their cars for their jobs, by hiking up the price of using the road YOU will just have to pay more for everything. Companies will pass on their logistics costs on to the customer - this will include everything from your food in the supermarket, takeaways, anything in the high street, plumbers and builders, technicians and services etc. Anything that requires a vehicle or delivery will eventually be passed on to you.

I say come down harder on those abusing the priviledge to drive. If you're caught without insurance, a licence, MOT, drink driving, scrap the car rather than just fine so they don't do it again and reduce the cars on the road. Bring down the cost of public transport. My bus and train fares are frightening. However, if road pricing comes into play these will simply go further up. So much of my wage already goes on travel. If the prices go up any further I will be better off sitting at home and letting the tax payer pay for my easy lifestyle. If that what you want Gordon then go ahead and privatise the roads.

41 says "However, the simplest thing to do would be to add road tax to the cost of fuel - the more you drive, the more you pay. This would then make people think twice about whether their journey was necessary, or whether there was a cheaper alternative. "

Blimey, if fuel gets anymore expensive, we will need safes on our cars to hold it, not fuel tanks. we will not need to rob a bank, just hijack a fuel tanker and you will be set for life.

Where I live congestion wasn't a huge issue (we have A roads and B roads). If your commute is timed right and you leave slightly before the school rush it wasn't too bad at all. Outside of the 8am-8.30am traffic our traffic flows fine.

HOWEVER once the local MP suggested a congestion charge in our area the traffic lights around certain busy roundabouts and the motorway bridge were not longer in sync. This did begin to cause congestion and traffic backing up as some lights would only allow three cars through before going back to red when about 10 cars used to get through. Or certain roundabouts were not synced so traffic backed up around which did not happen before.

Get in some experts to monitor the traffic and even something as simple as ensuring the traffic lights are programmed to result is maximum effiency before going straight for the taxing. Don't price people off the roads or you will just give them a reason not to travel into work.

9. At 09:55am on 15 Mar 2010, grainsofsand wrote:
Stop brining in millions of immigrants and deport illegal immigrants - less people equals easier travel especially in London. The problem is that are so called planners ignore one of the main cause of over crowding on our transport


Completely agree, get our indigenous population back to work and stop importing cheap labour, also decentralise systems again. When I was born, mothers gave birth at home, then the local hospital, now they have to travel 30 miles to the nearest maternity hospital. Kids went to the local school.
Getting everyone to travel further for everything they require, would not have anything to do with the tax revenue on petrol and diesel would it. Think how much the government would lose if EVERYONE in the country made the dicision to stop buying it?

71. At 11:30am on 15 Mar 2010, martin622 wrote:
2. Make it illegal for kids to attend a school more than 5 miles from where they live, except in rural areas where there is no school within 5 miles.

Hmmm, good idea, unfortunately in the town I live in, all the schools are over 5 miles away. So how is this going to work. I am glad you added to this sentence too. I lived in the country and had a 20 trip just to get to secondary school. Primary school was 10 miles away.

- - -

A local council must BY LAW (The Education Act 1944) provide free transport to any child attending their CLOSEST school if it is 3 or more miles away (for secondary students) and 2 or miles away (for primary school students) from their home. This is usually in the form of a bus pass and a place on a bus serving the school. You are actually in a better financial position is your child is attending their closest school more than 3 miles away from your home and get a free bus pass rather than driving them yourself.

Typical that the CBI want to price people off the roads while calling for reductions in corporation tax?

The primary problem is too many people for the size of our road nextwork, caused by too much immigration. A secondary issue is planners giving approval to development that can only be reached by private transport, while councils condem drivers for working/shopping at the development. Thirdly, the policy of school 'choice' means, by definition more people do not live near enough to there 'chosen' school to walk.

However, I do not agree with road pricing, in principle. Those who call for it here should ask themselves what they would do if the price set was just too high for them personally, rather than assuming it would only price 'other people' off the road.

Simple. Get a job near your home or move to where your job is. Stop commuting large distances.

By not being charge 6.20 for a return bus ticket to the station or 6.40 to park for a day at the station. Then being charge over 30 for a return ticket to london (45minutes and 14 stops on a slow train). IE nearly 40 a day just to get to work! Next year the journey will cost me a pound a minute!

But then again i live in rural kent so i have to pay for the high speed line that i can not use.

Agree with all posts referring to the chaos caused by the 'school runs'?

Yes, bizarrely, their absence during school holidays is always a pleasure and almost post-apocalypse; or like everybody left town overnight? Even when working early shifts, it's still, after all these years breathtaking the difference it makes?

Our children went by school bus, to a local school, because of separation of our area by a dangerous major trunk road. Children of parents in our same area who chose other schools in local villages did drive their children as they did not have the option of a school bus.

Stop forcing the private train company's paying the HM Treasury ££££££ and use this money to REDUCE the fares.

Also the Local Bus network need to be made cheaper - £3.00rtn for a 5 min bus ride - I would rather pay the £1.20 car park charge

HS2 should conect directly to the channel tunnel, allow freight trains and the tunner lorry trains to run all the way to the midlands, Also link the midlands air ports with heathrow and gatwick. That was short fall freight flights can be abolished, lorry drivers will take their break traveling to train through the tunnel and up to the midlands. Park and ride locations can be set up for air travelers!

Win Win Win.... Execpt this goverment has opted for a pasanager only solution that removes little traffic off the roads

My Partner who doesnt drive, says heavy goods, should ALL be sent by rail or canal! In the mornings when I am stuck on the motorway to work, I agree!