| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re::Short term parking at Ealing Broadway Station | |
| Posted by: | Michael Brandt | |
| Date/Time: | 25/02/10 18:41:00 |
| This just shows how backward the mentality in this country has become. Public Transport cannot with the best will in the world be accessible and convenient for all. Having recently been banned from both the underground and buses for carrying my worktools (which are in a secure case) on both Health and safety and that they exceed the value of TfLs liability cover. Beware laptop users, this could mean some of you as well). I, until last month, used tubes and buses daily out of Ealing but have now reverted to the car after some 9 years. All I can say is that for the fist time in years, I have got home in time to have a life after work. Delays, particularly to the west, have got out of control. The 65 is hopelessly delayed from roadworks the length of the route. The Piccadilly line spends entire vacations outside Acton Town. The District line...well a Royal progress moves faster. When it's good it's great, but it is now such a rarity that it cannot be counted on as being the norm. There has been far too much fiddling with the various systems mainly to meet political motives and this has driven down quality and comfort and allowed in a culture of negativity and myopic pedantry. A lot of really good improvements all seem to fall flat at the final hurdle and projects just never seem to get finished or maintained. Remember 'Bus Plus"? In the US, where Car is King, eyebrow raising leaps are being made. The attitude of 'can do' prevails and they get on and do it. Whole bus fleets have been running on low emmission gas for nearly 12 years. Metro's and trams are being built and used because they are mega cheap ($1.90 gets a ride the same distance as Victoria to Gatwick in Atlanta) In Tokyo, since 1995 every cab runs on LPG. Now the move is to LPG electro-hybrids. We are still on diesel and, because it is a bigger polluting fuel, the latest brainwave is to penalise residents who own a diesel car. But it is black cabs that make up the highest group of daily diesel vehicle movements followed by vans and light HGVs. The wrong move again. but it's an easy target. But this nutcase mentality of 'no-one should use cars' does not exist in places where progress is being made and working well. It is making the car part of a feeder pool. Car sharing lanes are the norm and park and ride and kiss and ride drop offs are mandatory in all development plans. True, we have far less space, but why should there not be a proper pick up and drop off at Ealing Broadway and other stations.? Why not proper bus shelters as well.? South Ealing station - a busy interchange has no bus shelter and barely any light at the Southbound stop, it has to be one of the most exposed busy stops in London. And yet no-one at TfL can even manage to come up with a solution even though their 1933 predecessors managed it cheaply and effectively. Too many at TfL are blinkered by arrogance and politics. It has become Ken's Frankenstein and Boris is afraid of it. As for those who hate cars, I've noticed several politicians over the years stand up and pontificate at meetings on why we should have our car use curtailed only to see them slipping out the back and getting into....a car. "I have to use a car because my work is important' to quote one now deceased councillor. So the rest of us are irrelevant. It has to be a fair balanced mix Trains, Bus, Car, Bike, Bicycles and Foot. |