Islabikes new range

"Roger Merriman" wrote in message
. uk...

i have family/friends back in wales and a house so i'm back and for a
fair bit, with the fact that there is two of us and the prices of the
trains, easy £200 compared to barely £40 pounds you do have the toll
charge.


Are there no cheap tickets that you can get by booking in advance (super
advance I think they are called)?

"Roger Merriman" wrote in message
k...
Daniel Barlow wrote:

Ace writes:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:31:20 +0100, "wafflycat"
wrote:
what happened in the interim
to get us so utterly dependent upon cars?

People found out what a tremendously useful, convenient and fun thing
a car can be. Despite certain Canute-esque attempts to deny it, that
remains, and will continue to be, the case.

That can't be it. I find a bicycle to be "tremendously useful,
convenient and fun", but I'm a long way from being utterly dependent
on it. I imagine you'd say the same about motorbikes. Others might
feel that way about eating in restaurants. Yet as a country we don't
seem to have a bike-dependency (for either kind of bike) or a
restaurant-dependency culture.


-dan

things need to be really congested or very close for a car not to be the
easier option, certinaly with supermarkets or work, even out in greater
london,


It is not necessarily just the congestion, parking a car can be an awful lot
more difficult than parking a bike.

On Thu, 18 Sep, Ekul Namsob wrote:
Ian Smith wrote:

But last time I did it my family south London to Edinburgh was cheaper
by train than just the petrol cost (ie, exclude capital cost of the
car, exclude road fund licence, exclude insurance, exclude maintenance
and tyre wear and wear-and-tear - just the straight at-the-pump cost)
for a family of four.

Out of interest, when was this journey? In my experience, weekend travel
is routinely ludicrously expensive. Indeed, I've usually found that the
car wins as soon as more than one person is travelling over any
significant distance.

It was midweek up and midweek back, about a month ago.

regards, Ian SMith
--
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|o o|
|/ \|

Daniel Barlow wrote:

JNugent writes:

You might be 101% cortrect in all of that, and yet it still does not
undermine that porevious poster's statement to the effect that a car
can satisfy all of the (non-pedestrian) land transport needs of a
reasonable person leading a reasonably ordinary life.

So far we seem to be up to:

"Cars can do {almost} everything for {almost} everyone provided
they're 'reasonably ordinary', not counting congested cities and
excluding journeys better made on foot, and are not always the perfect
or best choice even then"

"Reasonably ordinary" means "not an astronaut, sea captain, time-reveller,
international tourist living on an island, etc".

Where did the reservation about cities come in? Cars, as I understand it, are
frequently used in cities, whether "congested" (WTMM) or not. I'm sure I saw
a few today. I certainly don't agree with your suggestion that cars are not
used in cities.

I may have missed some of the other qualifications proposed/accepted,
as I kind of lost track of some of the subthreads in all the
excitement. When we have finished a comprehensive analysis, though,
perhaps we can return to the original question that this was posed as
an explanation for, which as I recall asked about our "utter
dependence" on the things. With all those caveats inserted, the
revised version looks like a much poorer explanation.

I didn't comment on "dependence". Neither shall I, since there is no point in
doing so. Whether or not we should be dependent on "modernity" is a
subjective matter, and I'm equally sure that those who prefer to live in
homes without mains water or sewerage (not wishing to be dependent on the
regional water authority) and with no electricity (generating and supply
companies) or gas (think up your own analogy) have room to talk about
"dependency".

No-one else has though.

Why does it matter? Because there are people who will seize on the
statement in its original form and see it as a justification for the
way things should be, not just as an explanation for how they are.

Not I, as I have been at pains to point out.

What I cannot work out even now is how many self-proclaimedly intelligent
people could possibly have imagined that the PP was claiming something that
he plainly was *not* claiming and could not be taken to have been claiming.

Are nerves really that raw when cherished superstitions are challenged or
stretched?

Result: we will move even further into a car-centric culture and your
originally ludicrous example of using a car to pick up a sandwich from
the shop across the plaza will begin to seem quite normal.

As you know (or should know), I actually suggested that as an example of a
situation where a car would *not* be used. Why are you participating in the
erection of this succession of strawmen? Do you actually even realise that
you're doing it?

Dont laugh. People are already complaining that when they drive half a
mile to the end of the road for newspaper and cigs they can't find a
parking spot, and therefore something must be done.

Are they?

"JNugent" wrote in message
...

I didn't comment on "dependence". Neither shall I, since there is no point
in doing so. Whether or not we should be dependent on "modernity" is a
subjective matter, and I'm equally sure that those who prefer to live in
homes without mains water or sewerage (not wishing to be dependent on the
regional water authority) and with no electricity (generating and supply
companies) or gas (think up your own analogy) have room to talk about
"dependency".

Mmm. Done without mains gas for last two houses, mains sewage on the on
before last and mains water on the current one.

The water tastes great in our bike bottles, and the gas for the hob (13kg
propane cylinders) gets carried from the depot on a bike trailer by my
wife - see, on topic :-)

Adam Lea wrote:

"wafflycat" wrote:

Rhetorical: what happened in the interim to get us so utterly dependent
upon cars?

1. We removed one third of the rail network.
2. We privatised a lot of the bus services, resulting in the closure of bus
routes that were useful to many people, but weren't profitable enough.
3. Living standards have risen to the point where a car is affordable to the
masses, instead of just the rich. Once this happens planning policies tend
to assume that driving will be the default option so build shops, facilities
that are out of town and difficult to get too without a car.
4. The out of town facilities, with their large, free car parks become so
popular that the smaller local shops (easily accessible to people on foot)
can't compete so go out of business.
5. With the loss of the local shops, people have to travel much greater
distances to get their food. In many cases this means they now have to drive
(so much for the freedom of the car!).
6. Longer working hours means that people have to make fewer, larger trips
to the shops because they don't have the time to make lots of journeys.
7. As car use has expanded, development has sprawled out rather than
following the rail/bus routes so that many suburbs don't have viable public
transport alternatives. Also, businesses now locate near bypasses and
motorways and thus cannot be accessed very easily other than by car.
8. Road planning has favoured trying to maximise the throughput of motor
traffic, often at the expense of making the alternatives (walking, cycling)
less safe/convenient which discourages these alternatives.
9. The type of vehicle you drive seems to be an indicator of status.
Bicycles are seen by some as "poverty transport".

You're more or less right (with reservations about one or two of the
processes you describe).

Is there a downside to any of this (apart from the effects on train-spotters)?

Or, OTOH, is there something wrong with citizens being able to travel (say) a
hundred miles door to door at the drop of a hat, without having to seek
permission from anyome else, and to be able to do it well within two hours?

Adam Lea wrote:
"Roger Merriman" wrote in message
k...
Daniel Barlow wrote:

Ace writes:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:31:20 +0100, "wafflycat"
wrote:
what happened in the interim
to get us so utterly dependent upon cars?
People found out what a tremendously useful, convenient and fun thing
a car can be. Despite certain Canute-esque attempts to deny it, that
remains, and will continue to be, the case.
That can't be it. I find a bicycle to be "tremendously useful,
convenient and fun", but I'm a long way from being utterly dependent
on it. I imagine you'd say the same about motorbikes. Others might
feel that way about eating in restaurants. Yet as a country we don't
seem to have a bike-dependency (for either kind of bike) or a
restaurant-dependency culture.


-dan
things need to be really congested or very close for a car not to be the
easier option, certinaly with supermarkets or work, even out in greater
london,


It is not necessarily just the congestion, parking a car can be an awful lot
more difficult than parking a bike.

And parking a bike (lawfully and without peremptorily just using up private
space that rightly belongs to someone else) can be an awful lot more
difficult than not having to park it at all (by either not going or by going
on foot or by PT).

Are you going to argue against bike-use (in favour of pedestrian and/or PT
travel), or is that completely different?

Phil W Lee wrote:
JNugent considered Thu, 18 Sep 2008
17:47:06 +0100 the perfect time to write:

Phil W Lee wrote:

JNugent considered:
It does not militate against what the PP wrote. He didn't say the car was
better (though for most people, the vast majority of the time, it clearly is).
Or rather, they have been mislead into believing so, and never give
any alternative any thought.
That might or might not be a true statement, but it is unrelated to the PP's
claim either way. Your claim does not have to be shown to be untrue in order
for his to be true, and if yours is true, it does not mean that his is untrue.

The correct version of the statement would be:
"For some people, over a few journeys, it might be"
Why so competitive?

The PP was not making a normative statement, but a straightforward factually
descriptive one.

For a "factually descriptive" satement, it was remarkably light on
facts.

It was a statement made on Usenet, not a thesis in a learned journal.
Everyone who criticsed him knew what he meant but chose to pretend that he
meant something other than what they knew him to mean.

And what was the point in that?

Who reflected badly from it? Him, or those who were erecting obvious (and
sadly, predictable) strawmen?

Clive George wrote:
"JNugent" wrote in message
...

I didn't comment on "dependence". Neither shall I, since there is no point
in doing so. Whether or not we should be dependent on "modernity" is a
subjective matter, and I'm equally sure that those who prefer to live in
homes without mains water or sewerage (not wishing to be dependent on the
regional water authority) and with no electricity (generating and supply
companies) or gas (think up your own analogy) have room to talk about
"dependency".

Mmm. Done without mains gas for last two houses, mains sewage on the on
before last and mains water on the current one.

The water tastes great in our bike bottles, and the gas for the hob (13kg
propane cylinders) gets carried from the depot on a bike trailer by my
wife - see, on topic :-)

;-)

"JNugent" wrote in message
...

And parking a bike (lawfully and without peremptorily just using up
private space that rightly belongs to someone else) can be an awful lot
more difficult than not having to park it at all (by either not going or
by going on foot or by PT).

Are you going to argue against bike-use (in favour of pedestrian and/or PT
travel), or is that completely different?

In situations where it is impossible to park a bike legally or without
causing inconvenience to other people then yes I would but to be honest I
have never come across such a situation in my lifetime so far.