• HeartyBeast@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    11 months ago

    They work well in the UK for people visiting a city. I’m not sure they work for residents. Parking for around 2 million vehicles surrounding London would be … something. Even 1 million

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      11 months ago

      If you’re living in a city you shouldn’t need, and thus have, a car. Cars are for people living in the middle of nowhere but still needing to get around in a way that isn’t covered by collect taxis, for everyone else there’s public transport and a rental once in a while.

      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        As someone who cycles to work and uses public transport where possible, there are still plenty of occasions where a car is very useful and a rental wouldn’t cut it.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          11 months ago

          Then public transport infrastructure isn’t good enough. Also things like shop locations, e.g. noone is going to haul beverage crates in a tram so there’s got to be stores with a proper selection within handcart to cargo bike or bike trailer distance, same goes for parcel pickups. And the roads have to be designed so that people feel safe using those methods.

          I’d even go so far that in the vast majority of cases where you’d need a motorised vehicle you then want a van, not a car.

          • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            11 months ago

            Agreed. Once we’ve changed shop locations, redesigned the roads, revolutionised public transport I’ll definitely look into it.

    • gigachad@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Honest question, does London have intercity trains or busses? I mean 2 million sounds like a number for this public transport thingy people sometimes talk about

      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Yes it does. So lets have a look. Let’s say I want to take my family of four down to Devon to see my folks this weekend. On trainline, the cheapest return fair is £239, at not very convenient times. Better times brings the price to £362.

        Add in the price if tube and bus at either end and you are looking at about £400 (a bit over $500) to get down there for the weekend. It’s expensive? Yes it is - and partly because of the limited capacity on rail.

        Now that could absolutely could be improved with additional rail infrastructure - but not by this weekend.

        Of course, if I was travelling by myself - that’s about £66 return and I have done that in the past rather than driving