CONGESTION 101 - How it affects different groups: a thread.
Car users: they have to sit for longer in their car. It costs more in fuel due to extra journey time. No real inconvenience other than longer journey time

Rail Users: No real impact other than having to breath in the car exhaust fumes at the start / end of their journey

Bus Users: 1/ They need to stand at the (wet if no shelter)bus stop wondering when or if the bus will come. Real time info helps but when the bus is so far out of position, even this cannot cope 2/ The journey takes even longer. It cannot use rat runs like a car does either

3/ The bus fare increases even though the buses seem less frequent and the journey longer. This seems illogical to most 4/ A pleasant environment becomes less so. Tension is palpable due to the feelings of helplessness 5/ A willing user becomes a reluctant user

6/ A reluctant user becomes an ex user. This causes bus fares to go up even more or services to be cut

7/ The driver or operator gets the blame - understandably, they are the only point of contact they have. They cannot understand why driver or operator seem to feel it is not their fault. This causes yet more frustration

8/ Bus operator staff turnover increases due to low job satisfaction and higher stress levels. This makes recruitment difficult and training and skills top ups never get beyond a certain level. Bus users know this but don’t understand the reasons why

9/ Relationships between operators and local authorities become strained. Operators fail to understand why authorities don’t deal with the blindingly obvious

10/Bus users become invisible, even though they are a very large group of people and carry as much weight in the polling booth as a car user. Car users define almost all transport policy outputs. The job of marginalising bus users is complete.

This is a sorry tale.Local authorities must change how they think and therefore drive a change in attitudes of society as a whole. A bus user uses 1sqM road space on ave. A car user 7.5sqM. Often, serious congestion in a town or city is caused by less people than would fill a bus

This is for the doubters that car is the problem. The old adage that ‘too much of a good thing is a bad thing’ was never more true regarding the private motor car

Order of priority for road space. Most transport plans enshrine this....only to go on to ignore it

Another part of the problem is that cars have grown so much bigger than they used to be!

Can you imagine if we simply reversed priority and made all traffic lights constantly red. Cars would have to request permission to proceed. Sounds crazy, but in a city centre it’s is exactly what should happen.

Personally, I’d say that bus is too busy to be a pleasant experience and we should have two but you get the picture. Personal motor cars are exceptionally inefficient when road space is limited in towns & cities. Open roads are fine, but not in urban areas. The End