No cap as island’s vehicle population nears 90,000
Wednesday 8th September 2010, 2:28PM BST.
ENVIRONMENT is reluctant to introduce measures to cut car ownership locally.
There were 86,846 vehicles registered in 2009, 2,536 more than in 2008.
Seventy-one percent of those were privately owned, but the number also includes vehicles that are no longer in use.
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insane!!!!!!!!!!!
puts us as two times that of the US…..madness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita
Of course my maths might be wrong (never was any good but I think that means we have 1500 per 1000, which is twice as many as in the US!
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An increase in immigration will cause an increase in vehicles on the island. If the States want to reduce the amount of vehicles on the island, perhaps they should be making buses and alternative transport options available.
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If the issue here is too many cars on the roads then the number of vehicles registered on the island is relatively unimportant.
I have owned more than one car at any one time and there are probably many islanders that own several, but only one can be driven at a time.
Providing owners have garages or land where their vehicles can be kept, multiple ownership really shouldn’t be a problem, although I accept that it would be where parking is restricted.
Surely a more important statistic would be the number of current driving licences?
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When oil runs out that will be a natural cap -
but would be good idea to limit car use now; more
vehicles than people : bonkers.
ps I don`t own a car!!! Used to, found no need for one.
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Many unused (abandoned) cars can be found in the ‘car park’ (dump) of a certain ‘hotel’ (doss house), heading down to Petit Bot.
– the Parish eventually paid for the last lot to be hauled away, and will undoubtedly have to pay for the next lot, too.
Lovely sight for our visitors, and nice to know that if we leave our mess making an unsightly nuisance for long enough, the authorities (other tax/rates payers) will clear it up for us, free of charge…
talking of which, must go, I fancy my front lawn redoing, and am expecting the imminent delivery of 1/2 a dozen pigs, a traveller encampment and some dumped cars, which I’ll install, then just sit back and wait for the authorities to come along and sort it all out for me, gratis…
bargain!! ;0)
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There are buses and alternative transport options available already (look down, and most people will observe two feet at the end of their legs).
The fact is that we don’t want to use these alternatives for a variety of reasons.
It would be lovely to have a 24 hour bus service going all over the island every 10 minutes, but we can’t afford it.
So if we want to reduce traffic, we will be forced to look at disincentives to using the car, like:
massively more expensive fuel
paid parking
access restrictions to busy areas
road pricing
mandatory car-pooling schemes
housing development within town only
None of these are popular, none are vote winners, and so I’m willing to bet that in five years we’ll have even more traffic than we do now. Look forward to the 45 minute commute into town to work…
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Populism is the price of democracy, James.
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James……. you are right. We do have the alternative transport options but they could be greatly improved in order to create greater incentives to use them. And driving will have to become more expensive together with some of the other disincentives that you describe if we want to change this situation. However…. it would take progressive leadership! Do we have that?
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James has produced an excellent list of a tree hugger’s dream world
However before we embark on any one of those routes can someone in authority produce some proper facts and figures
86,846 vehicles registered which includes vehicles that are no longer in use… all a bit airy fairy to base future policy on !
GuernseySeasiderUK quite rightly suggests the number of driving licences would be a more useful figure,but even then there will be several hundred out of use due to suspensions,
illness,gone aways,age etc
A 14/4/10 BBC report lists the population as 62,274 with a working age population (16-64yrs) of 67.5%,or 42,035
On that basis every person of working age in the Island must own two vehicles! Le Andrew above doesn’t own one so somebody has more than his share
Surely someone within the overmanned Environment Department can be set the task of coming up with a set of workable/believable figures…if not get a couple of College lads to spend a week on work experience to do the job
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I may be wrong but just before leaving Guernsey in 2003 I remember the Guinness Book of Records ( it was probably the 2002 xmas edition) and Guernsey was quoted for 2 things :
Highest density of cars per sq km in the world (shocking)
and
Highest number of cancer related deaths
(in relation to population)
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One person,one vehicle on the road at any one time,its not vehicle numbers thats the problem,its people numbers, it does not take a degree to work that one out,wise up you lot who think otherwise.
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Since we all no longer have to traipse down to the VRLD once a year to renew our motor tax, I wonder how many of these 86,000 are actually in regular use ? ( or indeed still exist ? ) The number of taxed vehicles used to be the significant statistic ( I for one own a registered car that hasn’t been taxed or on the road for years !!!! ) – that statistic has now of course disappeared.
The total number of vehicles is of course by and large irrelevant – its how many are on the roads at once that’s the problem …..
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Its Not only the cars mateys its the amount of people that live on the island which are non local i think that should be sorted out asap, the island has become a big rat race.
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i know plenty of people with multiple cars motor bikes and not got a problem with that one person can only drive one of there cars or bikes at a time people have a right to collect what ever they like if its legal whats the problem. yes getting people to car share into town of a morning thats the main problem ,mum/dad works in town starts at 8 and the other works on the bridge and starts at 8 your going to have both with a car each both going to burn fuel so both paying road tax both paying every 10 years for there license . i happen to have a van for work i would like a nice car outside of work but nowhere to put one so i dont have one .
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Surely the ownership of cars isnt the probem, as has been mentioned in previous posts but the amount being used at any one time. The States should be actively providing incentives as to other methods of transport.
There are insufficient bus shelters for when the whether is very wet, there are almost no provisions for cyclists or pedestrians other that the painted white lines that have been appearing to separate cars from cyclists and pedestians.
Bicycle parking is insufficient, motorcycle parking is given little thought and there is an island wide issue with pedestrian safety when you leave any main road.
If car usage is to be reduced there have to be real alternatives – not just raising the cost of fuel to price the less affluent off of the roads… Cars are not just for the wealthy some people depend on their cars and this choice shouldnt be taken away.
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Which includes thousands of hire cars, lots of ‘plate’ log books along with people not being bothered to deregister cars; I’ve still got a logbook from a motorbike form the mid 80s; not a good figure, but not as bad as the headline rate suggests.
Effectively what Toby and Ray say.
Enter Francis Paul and the ‘we must have paid parking’ brigade!! Oh god!
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Oh for goodness sake, 86,846 vehicles – 62,000 population of which maybe only say 50/60% have a driving licence, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that this “Headline” figure while obviously a true fact is totally misrepresentative of the number of cars on our roads at any given time.
The hire cars not out on hire, the dead cars rotting in vinerys and yards, the multiple ownership families, It’s not uncommon for a couple living in the same address to have 4 or more vehicles, I have a car, a motorbike and a scooter but no one else is insured to drive them and I can only drive one at a time.
The polititians and eco fairies will no doubt jump on this news and portray it as clear evidence to introduce yet more crackpot scemes and draconian legislation upon the poor motorist.
The clearer indicator of vehicles on our roads is the number of issued valid driving licences, and even then not everyone who holds a licence drives every day nor all at the same time.
The real root of our perceived traffic problem is that all of the banks are built in Town forcing the hundreds of workers in Guernseys biigest employment sector to head to one area in the morning and leave it at tea time.
The answer is simple, make anyone who works in a bank take the bus..!!!
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Quite right – it’s not the total number of cars on the register that is the problem. It’s not even the number of cars being driven. The problem is concentrations of vehicles at particular times in particular places.
The classic example of this is the wet Monday morning at 8.30 just after school holidays have ended, on various roads approaching town.
If we would like to sort out this kind of problem we’re going to need to adopt pretty radical solutions, since relying on asking people to use the buses more clearly hasn’t worked.
And the problem with radical solutions is that they are painful, unpopular, and can never be entirely fair (remember the outcry of “I can’t afford to pay 10p an hour to park in town”?).
So we either get political leadership that pushes through change despite opposition (a la Ken Livingstone with London’s congestion charge), or, more likely, we get a situation of shrugging shoulders and chugging about at 3mph for 45 minutes each morning.
Yes, the possible ideas I mentioned in my earlier post sound like a “tree hugger’s charter” (I didn’t say I liked them!), but can anyone else here come up with some alternative ideas that will _really_ change behaviour?
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James…you are an Idiot or a States Member or possibly both… Hiking up prices for anything does not work nor banning advertising, and only would make one more reason why only the rich and not the ordinary working man can afford to live.
After all the government have never priced up or advertised drugs but they are still plentiful for those that want.
Also so called reduced pollution will never work in guernsey because all co emissions given will never be reached because thay are given at a vehicle at full operating temperature which 90% of vehicles on our roads never reach because of short runs low speeds stop starts everywhere etc etc.
We had more freedom when the ruddy Germans were here cor lumme!
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Thank you, StoneDeCroze, for your helpful comments.
Perhaps you could just clarify for me what exactly you are proposing that will reduce traffic congestion.
I missed it amidst your claims around idiocy and your allusions to the Nazis.
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“The answer is simple, make anyone who works in a bank take the bus..!!!”
What has paid parking got to do with the amount of cars on the Island? Does any one seriously believe people buy cars just to get to work in the morning?
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James
You mentioned that we need political leadership that pushes through change despite opposition, such as Ken Livingston
I presume you mean Ken Livingston the EX mayor of London
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Well its not safe for women to walk home alone at night,so I suppose they need a car.Also there are a lot of people who work shifts and hours when buses don’t run.
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As many people have already stated it is only possible to drive one vehicle at a time so the number of registered cars on the island is totally irrelevant.
Obviously the powers that be have not noticed that there is NO traffic problem at all when the kids are off school, you can get anywhere in the island within 15-20 minutes even at rush hour, if a good reliable alternative could be found to get our kids to school rather than the usual one car to each and every pupil rush hour traffic would be greatly reduced.
Another thing to look at would be the roadworks co-ordination policy, lately it seems that Environment have a habit of closing a load of roads in the same area, most of Castel parish seems to be shut at the moment!
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Unfortunately there is no easy answer -it’s all very well for people to suggest everyone use more public transport/cycles/walking but in my and many other cases there is not the time – I have to drop my eldest son at primary school, my baby at nursery and get to work within the space of half an hour (on a good day!) so a car is essential – this is the case for many working mothers over the island – so next time you see a single woman driving into town and comment,as many do, that there should be more car sharing etc you may want to check out how many car seats there are in the car! Some may then say fair enough let’s target people who do not have such pressing needs but then there is the argument that it is not fair to penalise them for having an ‘easier’ life. So you see no easy answer – I’d never make it as a politician ( mind you – on second thoughts….)
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Using the number vehicles registered in Guernsey as support to an argument for restricting vehicle ownership, must be flawed logic as it has no significance in road traffic or in fuel usage.
I guess a population that lives longer would contribute to more older drivers (adds more vehicles) but not necessarily driving at peak times.
I guess a population with high GDP, being more affluent than the past will have a larger proportion of new drivers which would add to the problem traffic at peaks times (work/home).
I guess the problem is amplified by allowing the islands to be overcrowded compared to UK/France/Germany the list goes on.
Solutions:
1) Increase minimum driving age so that the young can get used to public transport (probably be cheaper for them).
2) Restrict population growth.
3) Get more people on bikes.
Ah problem, more bikes and buses create more slow moving traffic which results in more traffic queues which may be worse than before.
Lets just ban cars.
Then everybody can get a bus, but then hundreds of buses and thousands of commercial vehicles at peak times will create traffic problems as they need to avoid all the cyclists!
It’s not so simple, if your desire is to reduce congestion at peak times.
The environment is a different argument, however I look forward to a global personal allocation of usage, as Guernsey mileage must be relatively low compared most countries. I think we already pollute far less.
Now if we are talking politics of envy, then lets only allow one vehicle per home! Except, it is totally unworkable in an island where a large percentage of people are self employed.
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Well James… one way to help with traffic congestion around the town area would be to use a one way system ie using both lanes on some of the roads to get in, and others to get out,also get rid of the traffic lights along by admiral park and put in a roundabout, change some pedestrian traffic lights to walk over bridges as they would hardly need any maintenance and some I have seen are quite sculptural, as most of the congestion is caused by these, also I would have the furthest out away from town parking with the longest parking time and reducing the closer in town you get with one of the piers only 1/2 and 1 hour parking for those that just need to pop in for whatever they cannot get away from town area and maybe one pier paid parking for the rich and lazy, just some ideas. Oh and by the way James I was addressing you with tongue in cheek no offence meant
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Devils Advocate:
1) Increase minimum driving age so that the young can get used to public transport (probably be cheaper for them).
Perhaps we could have an age limit on the driving age too, say over 70s have to get public transport? Half of them go so slow it causes congestion.
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The idea that buses and cycles create more congestion at rush hour is hilarious.
Buses and cycles at 3am do slow traffic, since the average car could tootle round at 30mph without stopping, while buses keep stopping for passengers, and the average cycle travels at about 12mph.
But if you think rush hour traffic goes at more than 12mph I’m afraid you must live in some parallel universe.
Even if a rush hour bus only holds 10 people it will take up less road space than the equivalent number of cars, and of course it will occupy zero parking places. Similarly cycles take up a lot less road space and parking space than private cars.
If you want to imagine the effects of increasing the proportion of people who commute by bus, imagine replacing all the cars with the necessary number of buses. There would be more space on the road, and a higher average speed (and therefore shorter commuting times).
However, no one is going to go into work by bus currently in order to get there faster, because they’d be stuck in the same queue as all the private cars.
When each individual looks at the travel choices available, buses are slower, less convenient, and more expensive than using the private car they already have sitting just outside their house. So even though it would be better for us as a population if more people went by bus, as individuals that choice doesn’t make sense.
What drives people onto public transport, sadly, is the fact that the alternative is horrifically expensive or incredibly inconvenient. This is why people who commute into London mostly use public transport. If London decided to copy our system by removing the congestion charge (and road tax), reducing fuel prices, and providing free car parks in the city centre, can you imagine what would happen?
So again, I want to make the point that we’ll only achieve change by making things unpleasant for private car users. And that won’t be popular, so our politicians won’t do it. So instead we will, year on year, go slower and slower and waste more of our lives sitting pointlessly in traffic. And because this will happen very gradually, we’ll hardly notice it, and it’ll seem normal.
If you catapulted a driver from 1960 into today’s St Peter Port, they’d be appalled at the deterioration and demand change. But this problem has sneaked up on us so gradually that we all think it’s normal, and we’ll let it keep getting worse without doing anything.
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James
Lots of good points.
However if your 1960′s driver materialised at L’Ancresse at say 10am rather than 8.30am on a weekday his journey into Town would probably take him an extra two or three minutes only.
Everybody seems to be so uptight about the ‘rush hour’as if that was the norm during the rest of the day.
Please take it from someone who no longer has to suffer the rush hour,traffic during the rest of the day is really quite bearable.
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M.O.T. ….. half the cars would fail.
Driving licence from 21-70 years of age.
Scooters only from 16-18, larger bikes after that if required.
Large subsidy offered to new Electric car users/buyers, and paid for by the petrol/deisel users (including the boat owners).
Heavier fines/bans for drink/drugs/speeding, and failure to update vehicle records … name change, moving, scrappage etc..
Just my two pens’worth ….
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@james
thanks a lot for your idea pricing people out of town what about those of us that live in town and work out of town where do we park of a night time living in town not by choice either we cant afford to live in a nice house outside of town, and the people bringing these ideas about have allocated spaces in town.
slight diffrent topic wonder how much the tender for runway is going to be bet they over spend, sorry just poped into me head so is this some way of diverrting public attention bringing up traffic ermmmm?
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i agree there are too many vehicles on the road overall and this causes some problems in itself, more to some than others.
but … i have no doubt that the biggest problems are massively eased if everyone just dropped their average speed by 5 mph at all times.
I challenge everyone to try it, practice it, learn it and stick to it.
the biggest problem is not the number of vehicles but the way we drive them.
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I agree for the most part with James – St Peter Port in particular has a real problem especially at rush hour. I live in Town and so am lucky enough to walk to work in the mornings (between 8am and 9am) along the Grange and to see the empty buses crawling along whilst at the same time seeing people (usually men) sitting alone in their 4x4s is completely frustrating and galling. Yes I appreciate that not everyone likes to get the bus and that the times are often not convenient, especially for those in the finance industry who want to go home later than the last bus (which is usually around 6pm to 7pm) but Guernsey people need to make some sort of an effort to do something to solve the traffic problem especially at peak times. How about the Park and Ride for example? Other places with high density traffic volumes have tried to reduce traffic flows, so why can’t we?
Yes any scheme (paid parking, tax on private parking under office buildings, congestion charge, etc etc) will be unpopular but if Guernsey people are so committed to the environment as they say they are (I seem to remember a very vocal group of people who were successfully ensured a complete U Turn in relation to a certain incinerator earlier this year on environmental grounds) then it should receive at least grudging support from the population. An incentive could be that, by paying for parking or driving into town, those funds could be spent on improving public transport such as later running buses or even alternative means of public transport.
Slightly off topic, I suspect the real answer lies in our party political system with absolutely no incentive for our Deputies to propose anything remotely unpopular – as there are no political parties they do not act collectively and thus are always thinking about their own political careers rather than the will of their collective political party. If they did act collectively, rather than constantly in-fighting with each other and u-turning each other’s approved proposals, then perhaps something might get done. So come on States members, let’s hear from you on this issue!
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Ray – I can concur.
Travelling is relatively troublesome, although there are times when groups of cyclists can help build up a good stream of traffic behind them and matters can be made worse with the oversized buses passing large commercial vehicles.
I very rarely ever find myself in any type of traffic jam. So for the largest proportion of a weekday, no significant traffic problems for me!
On the odd occasion, I have seen what happens when there is one long queue along the front, and noted a large number of vehicles were commercial, which I assume could not be banned.
Incidentally, when I did live in London, I found that the rare bus strikes actually made the traffic flow quicker and for purely selfish reasons I looked forward to the next bus strike.
As a society, the problem has been created, by having a large number of work places in one area.
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Matthew says.. “St Peter Port in particular has a real problem especially at rush hour”
Sorry, but this is nonesense! Even at rush hour. We do not have a traffic problem in Guernsey. Yes, it gets busy during the rush hour but so does everywhere in the world. It’s just a fact of life, and even during the rush hour, it only takes 20 mins to get from one side of the island to the other.
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James & Matthew:
I agree with you both. Matthew…. your central paragraph describes the traffic strategy….. as was. Unfortunately, our present Enviro Dept is busy dismantling it by refusing to implement the measures required to fund it, and by increasing the cost of the bus fares, which is hardly going to inspire more people to use them.
There seems to be a common misconception that the definition of a ‘traffic problem’, is how long you sit in a traffic jam. If people overwhelmingly site ‘too much traffic’ or ‘too fast traffic’ as the key reason why they will not cycle or walk, or allow their children to do the same, then we have a traffic problem. In my experience, tourists also say that the volume of traffic is Guernsey’s biggest detraction.
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Surely this headline figure of 90,000 cars, is incorrect? When did the VRLD issue a Reg plate with say 90000 or even 80000 for that matter? There can,t be 20,000 un-registered cars kicking about? I for one haven’t seen them? The motor tax dept could produce some figures to say how many registrations there are? This would cover all of the cars driven, stored in garages, hire cars and ones sitting at the back of a vinery rusting away. This headline was basically just that a headline designed to cause panic.
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Rosie
It’s predictable that most of the anti-car lobby don’t reflect the car using population. Most are time rich their children having flown the nest, or have never had children and do not commute.
Your group along with the FXP’s group can afford to sit back and tell me how I move my family and get to work. You pick and choose how you get to town and/or use the roads. We, the work force, do not.
Your idealised view of how Guernsey will work is impractical and, without wanting to sound rude, slightly disengenuous because I suspect you don’t work 9 to 5 with a young family and don’t take into account Guernsey’s layout or weather.
You simply could not run a family life from a Guernsey Bus system – it’s impossible. And for someone who’s clearly got a head on her shoulders I’m surprised you don’t recognise that; more surprising the unwaivering environmental dogmatism you practice.
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Rosie – what traffic problem? It never ceases to amaze me that yours and others view on this assume that if anyone drives a car the car driver and it (the car) are in the wrong. Why?
Guernsey does not have a traffic problem!
Guernsey has a population problem – there are too many people. So lets tackle the cause and not the symptom.
This goes for the whole world too so lobbying people to use energy saving bulbs, use a grotty bus service or heating your house gerbil droppings won’t make a blind tinkers cus worth of difference if, at the end of the day, there are 3000 gazillion of us.
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Aah but Gilthead.Rosie might claim that the shennanigans that go on in the back seat of cars is a part cause of the gazillion numbers … so cars ARE after all at the heart of the problem.
You’ll never win an argument with a tree hugger
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To Greg and others – you have missed the point. The build up of traffic, as you say, happens all over the world although that is no excuse for not trying to do something about it. My point though was that the problem is that people are all too eager to travel to work in the centre of Town in their cars by themselves and are not willing to find alternative means of transport. My frustration is seeing the empty buses trundling along the Grange at rush hour whilst also seeing lots of cars with only 1 person in them. If no one is going to use them then we might as well get rid of them. Guernsey as a whole (and as an Island with apparently environmental concerns) needs to find a way to coax people out of their cars and onto alternative means of transport into Town. And before I am deluged with comments, I am not having a go at parents with kids to take to school/nursery etc etc as it is obvious that cars are needed for those journeys, this is more a plea to those people who travel directly from home to work on their own in their cars. It is these people who could need to act more responsibly and find alternative means of transport. This would have a dramatic effect on traffic flows within Town and elsewhere especially at rush hour and of course reduce pollution too.
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Neil. You always trot out this sob story of how hard it is to travel around with a young family as if that is a good excuse to keep the status quo. Your situation is hardly permanent….. kids don’t stay little for long… they grow up and before you know it they are old enough to take themselves to school by bike or on the bus. (At which point, you will probably wish that there was less traffic on the roads…. but hey ho!)
Both you & Gilthead jump onto anyone who dares suggest that Guernsey would be a nicer place with fewer cars on the roads, ….out come all these reasons why it mustn’t be considered, or God forbid, planned for! Accusations of ‘anti-car’ are bandied about, ignoring the fact that we all have and use cars, and have never suggested that they be got rid off, merely that they are used less.
I do not believe that it is just up to us to ignore the temptation of using the car for every journey. It is up to our Government to ensure that there are viable alternatives in place and that there are incentives for us to use them. And it is up to us, the public, to make sure that the government delivers that infrastructure for the benefit of the whole community.
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Well said Rosie and Matthew
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Rosie, I’ve illustrated practical realities that many many of my fellow Islanders deal with on a day-day-basis.
If your intention is to reduce car usage then these are things that you need to address.
I don’t “jump” and I don’t “trot”, I respond and engage – it’s a forum.
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Rosie – Guernsey would be a nicer place without a lot of things, not just cars!
If you can tell me how to use my car less I’d be very happy – well you can’t as its an unfair question etc.
However can you tell me how to approach Little Gilthead to inform him he can’t go to Beau Sejour on Friday evening with his mates to play football because someone has said that I can’t use a car anymore? No buses – the drivers are all in the pub by that time (walking one assumes).
Or what about nurses getting home or going to work? “Sorry” says the manager “the Environment people have banned cars because a polar bear has coughed”.
Our whole society is built around personal transportation – like it or not. Like I said treat the cause not the symptom.
I think you’ll find that most car journeys are not unessesary (if you banned Chavs and duffers that is – all for that!). Getting to work is necessary, for me, and it helps subsidise those who can and wish to use the bus service – quite happy with that.
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I realise this isn’t entirely related but what about all the cars that are driven on UK or foreign number plates? These cars should be re registered locally if the driver/owner is living and working here. This would bring in a decent amount of income which could help subsidise a better bus service
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I agree with people who have said it’s impossible to run a family’s life using the bus system for transport. However that does not mean that car journeys could not be significantly reduced by using the bus when it IS convenient. I know several parents who take their children to school by car even though the bus is a perfectly plausible alternative. The reason for this is that the kids prefer a lift to using the bus, not because of bullying or anything serious, just that they can’t be bothered to walk a couple of hundred yards to the bus stop and maybe have to wait for 5 minutes.
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See the Roffey page in 14/9/10 Press
I vote for option No 2
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it is about time the people and politicians of this island woke up and realised the depth and severity that the transport problem decends to. The figures are horrifying, more car per head of population on the planet and the highest cancer rate. Could there be a connection there??? possibly. The sooner that we rocognise the fact that motor vehicles are killing us very slowly with toxins the better.
There is also the issue of the way people drive around the island. Silly speeds. It suprises me that there aren’t more tragic accidents happing…frankly it is a miracle that more people aren’t killed on Guernseys Roads…but mark my words sooner or later there will be a terrible tragedy in Guernsey involving many poor by-standers because some idiot loses control of a car going too too fast in the wrong conditions.
To that end I feel that people with powerful cars and 4x4s and range rovers etc should be made to pay double and treble the amounts of tax and fuel. The speed limit is 35mph on this Island for a simple reason. People who can afford to buy giant cars that clog up lanes and cars with huge engines that can reach upto 150+ mph can obviously afford to pay for the pleasures that these cars bring. Meanwhile anybody who uses hybrids or electric cars should receive massive grants or subsidys towards the buying or upkeep of their vehicle.
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PW Fudgedonut,
Maybe the figures are horrifying but as many people have already said they are completely irrelevant, I’ve not met anyone who can drive more than one vehicle at a time even if they own three or four!
As for penalising people with bigger or more powerful cars I think that is an unfair idea, the owners of these cars are already burning more fuel and therefore paying more tax than those driving smaller vehicles.
What do you drive?
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Fudge, I agree about 4x4s but why should people with large engines contribute more tax? It’s their choice to have a large engine, and they pay the price at the pumps.
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Wow, there’s a lot of nonsense in this thread!
1. How does a 200mph Ferrari make any difference compared to a Toyota Prius to the “traffic problem”? It may be slightly larger, but it takes up pretty much the same space. (Unlike the giant buses we have which undoubtdly cause the traffic flow to be disrupted as everyone has to slowly mount the curb to let them pass).
2. More cars than per head of population..so what? Unless they are being driven remotely, they are not going to be contributing to the traffic “problem”.
3. Matthew, 3 days a week i take my son to nursery. There’s no bus stop near my house, there’s no bus stop near the nursery..so what is the solution? Even when i drive to work alone, the bus timetable is completely incompatible with my working hours (which are normal).
In my view, it’s about time the anti-car lobby realised we don’t have a traffic problem in Guernsey. We do have a problem with folk unable to comprehend the practicalities of real life. Of course Guernsey would be a nice place without so many cars..same as it would be with less houses, less litter, less noise and less people. But such is life!
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PW Fudgedonut
The very fact that you quite rightly complain about the speed some people travel at suggests to me that the roads are not clogged with traffic.You need a certain amount of room to be able to speed
It seems to me that if there are 86,000 registered vehicles on Guernsey then motor vehicle ownership must be VERY popular amongst the local population making them by far the majority … so back off and stop trying to impose your will on the rest of us you minority tree huggers
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PW Fudgedonut – so the future hybrid porsche can also receive a massive grant? or are advocating politics of envy!
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Neil.
And I don’t deny these ‘practical realities’…… never have. However, there is no benefit in using them as a reason for not improving the situation.
As a parent of small children, I am amazed that you do not see the benefits that would result if our roads were less dominated by private vehicles. It is not just an environmental argument driven by ‘dogmatism’ as you suggest ….. it is as much about the health, social well being and financial ability of our community, as well as sensible long-term planning for the future.
Our present system traps people into having to use their car…. wether they want to or not. You have said as much yourself. (though of course there are plenty only too happy to be ‘trapped’….. to hell with what the consequences of that are!)
There will always be some journeys for which only the car will do, as I have said ad naseum. Your present journey (delivering kids to nursery etc) possibly falls into that bracket. But there are plenty of journeys that do not have to fall into that bracket if only the alternative forms of travel were given greater support and encouragement. You would then emerge from the years of young children and forced car dependency much earlier if the infrastructure was in place….. and that will only happen if our Environment Dept show the cojones needed to tackle the problem.
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wonder how many small 4×4′s there a fiat panda that was just a thought on preconcived idea 4×4 are all big
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Rosie
You have a hard battle ahead of you. In my view we are in an Island that put its retail, offices, schools, major link from North to South, harbours and Major States building in the same square mile.
Unless we magically restructure Guernsey out of an island that was built from farm and cart tracks roads into some kind of system where there is a central place of work and a residential hubs I genuinely don’t see how any changes can be made.
Having lived in major a cities, I’d love to see covered trams and buses every 10 mins from home to place of work, but as a pragmatist there’s not a hope in hell of that ever happening in Guernsey. And again, only in my view, the bus system is about as good as it can practically get.
Guernsey is wedded to its car by virtue of its layout and weather.
‘forced car dependency’ – come on eh? It’s not a bloney smack habit!
Not to mention the political suicide for anyone that takes on the child carrying mums of Guernsey.
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I couldn’t agree more with Neil’s comments. I don’t think people in Guernsey generally make unecessary car journey’s (apart from the Bulwer Avenue crew!).
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Neil,
I think you’re sounding more dogmatic than your adversary here – the changes which can be made were agreed by the States in the 2003 traffic strategy. Successive States just haven’t had the bottle to get on and do the job.
Guernsey can be restructured without resorting to magic – every day people make decisions about where to live, where to shop, where to work and where to set up business. But it’s a long slog, and things aren’t helped by the fact that we’ve spent the first 6 years of the traffic strategy going in the wrong direction.
Even so, it doesn’t take any island restructuring to see that four buses on the road can carry the same number of people as a kilometer of single-occupant cars (at 25mph). Why should we be satisfied with the car, when the alternative has the potential capacity to transport an order of magnitude more people without causing congestion?
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Unfortunately, Neil, most have us have become too car dependent and this has affected the quality of life for all of us on this tiny rock. The vast majority of car owners/users are making car journeys that simply aren’t necessary when there are so many alternative means of transport available, from bicycles and buses to scooters and shanks pony.
Most of you who are critical of Rosie have ignored her central point, which is car USE. I try to drive my own car as little as possible. I find driving is largely an unpleasant experience in Guernsey and when the weather’s good I’d far rather be on two wheels or on my own two feet.
When my brother and I were small my late parents had two small children to transport around the island but they didn’t have a car. In fact they never learned how to drive in fact so we had to learn how to walk and cycle and catch the bus to school.
That was 40 plus years ago but these days we are breeding a generation of pampered, spoiled, overfed and under exercised little fatties who will be the middle aged heart disease victims of tomorrow, which is another side of the car dependency problem. What a difference it would make if we could persuade everyone to cut their car dependence/use by 10 or even 20 per cent.
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@ Chris J, we are satisfied with the car (v the bus) because of the freedom it gives us.
A bus doesn’t work if there isn’t a bus stop near your house.
A bus doesn’t work if you’ve got to drop children off at multiple locations.
A bus doesn’t work if you want to nip home for lunch.
A bus doesn’t work if you want to pick up something nice for dinner on your way home from work.
A bus doesn’t work if you play sport in the evenings.
I could go on..and on…and on…..
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ChrisJ
“I think you’re sounding more dogmatic than your adversary here”
That’s a fair cop.
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Greg – have you actually read my previous post? if you had then you will see that I admit that someone in your situation has no alternative than to use his car everyday to take his kids to nursery/school and then get to work. That is accepted, just as it is accepted that Guernsey is not going to have a public transport system akin to London or many European cities which will tempt the majority of people out of their cars. But what we do need to do, as I have said previously, is to get those people out of their cars who do not actually NEED to drive into town. That excludes you Greg, given your family situation. But it does not exclude the many many people who drive their BMWs, Porches, Honda CRVs etc etc on their own into St Peter Port. That in itself will reduce traffic flows at rush hour to acceptable levels in a small island such as this. I am not anti-car and nor am I a dogmatic environmentalist (far from it in fact) but I do think it is disgraceful that this island cannot do better on the public transport front to get those people who do not need to be in their cars out of them.
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I’m sorry Matthew but how do you know those people who drive in on their own haven’t already dropped a child of somewhere, or have to pick up a child on their way home, or have errands to run after work?
And if there are people who are just driving straight from home to work and then back again in the evening without deviation, are you suggesting they use a bus service that is barely adequate, and only serves the main roads?
Plus, there is no real need to address this, as there isn’t a problem! Due to the stupid amount of road works taking place at present, it took me 20mins to drive to work from the west coast this morning at 8am. Whuilst this is longer than normal, there is nothing unacceptable about this. It will take me about 10mins to drive home again at 7pm this evening. There is nothing unacceptable about this either!
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Yes quite right, let’s just get on with our own tiny lives and not bother about everyone else…..
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If I can address each in turn…kevin we used to have a 1 litre run around.
GG: Bigger engines leave a larger Carbon Footprint (Which Guernsey is probably near the top of per head of population as well!)
Ray: There is an obvious problem with the population of cars when it takes less time to walk 2.5 miles than it does to drive! ie castel to town at certain points in the morning/afternoon.
The idea of my post is to highlight the idea that we are poisoning ourselves with Carbon Monoxide emissions. I am not Anti car, they are tools but the problem is that is this island they are over used tools.If we absolutely need to use cars then it would be a good idea to get people into the habit of buying and using Electric and Hybrid cars and walking or using bikes. Little places like Guernsey do not NEED so many cars. The rather spurious argument that people can only drive one car at a time is a moot point. There is a vicious circle of laziness when it comes to cars ie I need to drop the kids off which leads to the attitude I must drive my my kids to school because there is too much traffic on the roads and it isn’t safe for them to walk. The problems we have in the morning and evening night make the islands transport system a bit of a joke really.
As for the tree hugger jibes I would be interested to find out in which area these people live because if it anywhere near the sea(I realise we are on an island and therefore we are all close to the sea but I mean in relative terms)…environmental concerns should be very high on your list because rising sea levels are fairly serious issue.
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Greg,
Yes, the car gives almost everyone of driving age those freedoms. It does also cost everyone in various ways. We all have to pay for the cost of car-worthy roads and public parking, we have to bear the cost of reduced safety for cyclists and pedestrians, put up with more noise, more pollution, worse public health (which costs us all, even if it’s only drivers who are fat), the atrocious negative effect traffic has on urban amenity in general and thousands of man-hours wasted every day by people sitting in queues.
The car has to be part of a mix. However, you need policy intervention to get the mix right. The reason is that the costs of private car use are not borne just by the car user, they hit everyone, however they travel. The car destroys the incentives for anyone to find another way, which pushes us all into our cars for every journey, even the ones it isn’t appropriate for. Without policy interventions (like bus subsidies, paid parking, congestion charging, dedicated bus/cycle routes, etc.) we arrive at a solution which is laughably far from optimal.
The intractable paradox of the car is we don’t gain the freedoms you cite because of the car – we simply lose the ability to have those freedoms without the car. We do not as a society spend less time travelling because we now have cars, we largely just go further to do the same things that we would have done anyway. Plainly if we all resolved to ban private cars tomorrow, those freedoms would all be magicked to our doorsteps before you know it.
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Yes, it would be lovely if more people got into the habit of driving electric cars, or walking, or cycling. Or if people encouraged their children to walk or cycle to school.
But experience should tell us none of this is going to happen. We’ve been hoping people will use the buses or cycle or walk for years. They don’t, because a) they’ve got the car habit, b) cars are convenient and cheap, and c) other modes of transport are less convenient.
So the only way it’s going to change is if those parameters get altered. Buses, cycles, and walking can’t realistically get much more convenient. So we’re left with making cars less convenient and more expensive.
As plenty of people commenting on this forum have demonstrated, any such suggestion is going to be met with complaints and resistance. So it’s not going to happen.
Get used to your long commutes, traipsing around looking for a parking spot, and wasting a good part of your life sat on your bum listening to the radio surrounded by car fumes, because I’m afraid that is the depressing future we are all going to have. Sigh.
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Matthew,Fudge,Rosie etc
My car use today 15/9/10 … I went to the Chouet green tip and recycling bins
I had to use the car as it’s too far to walk,I couldn’t load everything onto my bike and the bus journey would entail bussing to Town,then catching a bus as far as L’Ancresse crossroads and then back to Town to catch a bus towards Bordeaux …
and you want me to give up my car ?
Go take a hike
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Matthew, what do you mean by “Yes quite right, let’s just get on with our own tiny lives and not bother about everyone else…..”
We don’t have a traffic problem, and maybe it’s time you realised it! Do you exepect to be able to drive wherever you want on the island at a steady 25mph/35mph?
PW Fudgedonut, you might well think “The rather spurious argument that people can only drive one car at a time is a moot point.” but it’s a fact. Traffic congestion is a symptom of a certain number of drivers on the road at any one time. If we had 150,000 cars on the island, any congestion we have now would be the same.
And because of the small number of miles travelled per year in our cars due to the size of the island, i’d suggest our carbon footprint derived from motorvehicles is less than elsewhere. Of course air travel carried out by islanders would change the overall carbon footprint, but isn’t this thread about the nunber of cars in Guernsey?
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@PW Fudgedonut
i live in town work for my self drive a van all be a 2.8tdi i do the school run take my gran at the age 90 to the forest stores for her shopping and freash meat her choice (plus surporting local traders) yet some seam to think i got no need for a large van / big engined vechile id love a better car for my family cant afford one no where to park it struggle with what i have owning more then one car/bike GET REAL what was the war about freedom wer’nt it ? or do we bring in communisem ?
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Carbon Footprint – Surely the day will come when the EU will dictate what the maximum ‘footprint’ per person will be. So those who drive relatively lower mileage (ie: Islands) will offset that against for example more air travel.
However, higher mileage commercial vehicles will be greater polluters with large engines such as buses and lorries etc..
If the island only had electric cars, traffic problems and parking would still be an issue.
Now where’s Porsche……
The Porsche 918 Spyder prototype combines high-tech racing features and electro-mobility with the performance of a thoroughbred super sports car to offer a fascinating range of qualities. These include, first and foremost, an emissions level of just 70 grams/km CO2 combined with fuel consumption of three litres/100 kilometres (equal to 94 mpg on the New European Driving Cycle); a feat outstanding even for an ultra-compact city car, yet truly remarkable when combined with the performance of a supercar. Acceleration from 0-62mph is achievable in just under 3.2 seconds, a top speed of more than 198mph, and a lap time around the Nurburgring Nordschleife of less than 7:30 minutes – faster than the Porsche Carrera GT.
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Chris J, the problem with your example policy interventions are that they are just not applicable to Guernsey.
The main points of this whole argument are that the usual transport solutions do not work when applied to Guernsey, and (more importantly) we don’t really have a trffic problem!
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0850 am to 0900 am (approx) today September 16.
Having cycled with a friend from the UK around the northern coastal paths, we decided to make a B-line for Town for a coffee.
At about 10 to 9 we came across the first sign of the logjam at Crossways. Dozens and dozens of vehicles snarled up all the way along the Military Road, St Clair Hill, down to the Half Way and all the way to the temporary traffic lights at St George’s Hall.
All but a few of these vehicles were occupied by just one person, the driver, and as we flew past the lot of them my mate could not contain his incredulity.
“What a bunch of mugs, what a bunch of muppets,” he said. “This is madness.”
I told him most people didn’t think we had a traffic problem and he looked at me as if I was insane as well.
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Greg, I don’t get where you are coming from – in what sense is paid parking, for example, ‘not applicable’ to Guernsey?
And when you say we don’t have a traffic problem, do you meant that it’s not true that thousands of hours are wasted every day by people queueing (and trying to park), or that it is true but it’s not a problem?
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ChrisJ, paid parking won’t achieve anything apart from add to the burden of the lower paid town worker, and possibly harm the retail sector.
Unless you combine it with an efficient public transport system, it won’t drive (no pun intended) people off the roads. And the geography of Guernsey means an efficient public transport system is virtually impossible.
You say “thousands of hours wasted” every day? I’m sorry, but what a load of rubbish! Are you suggesting that the islands productivity is being held back by this? How come London seems to cope, when the average commute is a hell of a lot longer than it is in Guernsey?
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Greg you remind me of the story about the man falling to earth with a failed parachute…he keeps repeating to himself over and over “So far so Good. So far so good.” Your insistence that “there is no traffic problem on the island” is worryingly delusional. An island this size should not have “A big drive home” as Island Fm puts it. The island is 30.1 Square miles, for crying outloud.
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PW Fudge Donut, unfortunately if you listen to Island FM and use their “Big Drive Home” as proof of a traffic problem you really shouldn’t be posting on this thread. I suggest you’d be better off in the States, contiually changing your mind about paid parking and the incinerator.
The island may be 30.1 square miles, but we have 65,000 people on it, “for crying out loud”….. It’s about time that you and your fellow worriers took time out for a reality check.
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Neil:
Hard battle….. yes! Not necessarily because of the practical difficulties because with a will, they could mostly be overcome. The problem is that there is so little inclination to make the improvements because no-one wants to look at the bigger picture and see what the consequences of continuing like this will be. As the cost of living rockets up, just wait to hear the squealing as everyone complains that they can’t afford to live in Guernsey, and I will wager the loudest will be some of those on here that cling to the idea that Guernsey does not have a traffic problem. (there is none so deaf as those who will not hear!)
We forget how small (physically) the island is….. it is such a shame that our aspirations are so low and sadly, we will all pay the price.
Good posts ChrisJ & James…… at last intelligent arguments, explained well….. although I don’t agree that busses couldn’t get much more convenient… I think they could get better and must do if they are to become a truly viable form of transport.
Ray…. sorry, but generally, I can’t be bothered to answer your posts because you clearly don’t take any notice of what is said. No-one has said that you should give up your car or not use it for journeys when the alternatives will not work ….. try to keep up!
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Martino
I take your point about one person per car,but you have scored a rather cheap shot with the length of the tailback on this particular day.I presume by the way that you cycled along the footpath to pass the vehicles in the narrow Route Militaire/St Clair/Vale Road
Radio Guernsey reported that it went back along Bulwer and South Side as far as the Bridge
You mentioned the cause … more bloody roadworks with no prior warning
If such tailbacks happened everyday perhaps then we could claim to have a traffic problem although I bet the essential low paid Town workers approaching from the South and West couldn’t believe their luck at finding so many empty parking spaces
I see that paid parking has finally surfaced on this thread.Can someone,anyone,prove to me that paid parking has worked in Jersey? ( Forget London and Outer Mongolia comparisons… Jersey is about as close as you’re going to get to our situation )
By ‘worked’ I mean of course the fallacy put forward by so many Guernsey tree huggers that it has actually got commuters out of their cars in Jersey
As far as I can see when I have been there they have just the same single occupant vehicle tailbacks as we do (twice a day)despite their five ? multi storey car parks
The only difference between their inbound and outbound journeys is that if you are not provided with private parking by your employer the cheapest way for car commuters is to buy a
season parking pass at £107.46 per month
Before you say it,of course the very cheapest way is on foot followed by cycle.No doubt a few hardy Jersey people do make that choice and so will a few Guernsey people but the emphasis is on the word ‘few’
Jersey has had paid parking for 20-25 years.As a stealth tax on the working population I’m sure it’s raised quite a few million pounds but it hasn’t made one jot of difference to their school term time traffic ‘problem’
That of course won’t make a jot of difference to the Guernsey tree huggers who will continue in their quest to ‘un-invent’ the car
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Ray…I for one am not saying “Give up your car” I understand the problems of moving the recycling and of course I applaud your efforts. Please do not think that I feel there should be NO cars on the island. Same goes to Tomb…try reading what I am saying and not jumping to over defensive conclusions. Here is the long and the short of it. We are running out of oil, there is plenty of scientific proof to document this…when the planet gets seriously LOW on oil, petrol prices and shipping prices will be unfathomably high. Food prices will rise and the cosy lifestyles we all enjoy will change immensely. What I am saying is if we change now, as individuals, as an island, as a nation, as a planet…there is hope. If not, when we run out of oil we head back to the Dark ages and that is not an exaggeration.
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Well, yes, Ray we did have to cycle on the footpath some of the way, diverting back onto the road when there wasn’t much oncoming traffic/when we came across the odd pedestrian and when we happened on a bus or lorry half straddled on the footpath, barring our way.
However, during the sections of our journey when we were on the footpath we were doing nothing more illegal than practically every car, bus and lorry driver does every day on this island.
All in all it went rather swimmingly for us in this sea of vehicle bound frustration. Not so much a case of uninventing the car as re inventing the bicycle – by far the superior form of transport on this particular occasion as my friend and I proved so ably.
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Ray,
You, Sir, are defeatism incarnate! Jersey screwed up by spending the parking revenues on multi-storey car parks instead of car alternatives, and then wondered why the roads were all clogged up. So they build a new road… Can you guess what happens next…?
Perhaps Guernsey can learn from their mistakes.
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ChrisJ, you seem to have a decent grasp of the subject, so would you mind explaining how you would improve public transport (perhaps aided by parking fees) so that it became an attractive option for people?
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Rosie
You have no idea how relieved I am to have your blessing to use my car.Now lets try to discover who you are really after
Too many cars on the road? Yes, but only twice per day.No major problem during those times of day at Vazon or L’Ancresse so you must have your eye on the working class people heading into Town.You must know Town … the place where the States of yore allowed all the office buildings to be concentrated in one small area
You must know about working class people … the young ladies who are there to serve you in the shops … the hundreds of States employees who keep the island running ( no scrub that,a lot of them will have parking supplied,although it’s tough titty on those who get turfed out from Grange House when the Deputies take over their free slots )… the thousands who keep the finance industry going and pay their tax and insurance which goes towards your pension
( apologies if you are not yet of pensionable age but you seem to have so much time on your hands to interfere with ordinary people’s lives that you surely cannot work for a living )
A large percentage of those workers obviously use their cars to get to work in the mornings but and it’s a BIG BUT, which of them have a truly workable opportunity to use alternative transport?
Would you,in winter, excuse the shop worker who lives a mile or so from her ‘home’ bus stop ?
Would you excuse the bank worker who is supplied with on site private parking?
Would you excuse the worker who goes home for lunch ?
Would you excuse the worker who has to drop off and fetch their young child at play school but has to work to make ends meet?
Would you excuse the parent who doesn’t even work in Town but drops off a schoolchild with half a ton of books and sports gear each day?
Would you excuse the Commercial drivers who seem to make up a considerable number of vehicles in the daily commute along Les Banques?
Whether or not you would excuse any or all of the above how are you going to be able to pick them out from all the others?
The ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’ mantra
wears a bit thin when it’s used ad nauseam
Time to face up Rosie. HOW do you propose separating those who genuinely need to use their cars for work and those who have really workable rather than pie in the sky alternatives?
No problem if you don’t feel the need to reply
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Martino
Did your friend know the reasons why there was so much traffic this morning? or did you fail to tell him?
maybe he wouldnt have been so quick in calling all these people muppets?
he sounds like a right muppet to me.
i`m with greg on this one.
I live in town and have to drive through it everyday and i dont see it as a problem, but anything can be a problem if thats how you choose to see it.
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Greg, of course Island FM’s “Big Drive Home” isn’t PROOF… I didn’t say it was. It is, though, an indication of the troublesome culture we have on the island. My point is there shouldn’t be “a big drive home” The Island is something like 4.3 miles by 5.5 miles give or take a little.
Why isn’t there a “Big Walk Home?”
The proof of the traffic problem is in walking past lines of cars moving at snails pace in the morning. The Proof is trying to find parking spaces in the morning. The proof is children being unable to play properly or safely because ofthe amount of cars parked a in a clos or street. Yet more proof greg will be the ever increasing petrol prices. The proof is the serious health problems with obesity and other health and fitness related problems because quite simply people just do not know how to use their feet other than to work the accelerator. The proof is there to be seen by all. All the things I have just mentioned are, I am afraid, PROBLEMS. They stem from TRAFFIC. CARS are TRAFFIC therefore there is a Traffic Problem in Guernsey. It doesn’t get anymore obvious does it?
Or are you going to deny all the above as well, which not only is well documented but it blantantly obvious by simply opening your eyes!
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As more people switch to hybrid and eventually non petrol vehicles, those left with petrol engines will eventually either walk, ride a bike or be rich enough to pay the higher fuel prices.
However, with everyone driving a non-petrol vehicle, traffic jams and parking will still be an issue and the fuel duty/tax intake will have to be found from elsewhere!
Incidentally, does anyone know how many Guernsey garages can supply dozens of kilowatt-hours in a matter of minutes from a specialised high-power outlet?
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To the problem denyers…It makes me laugh that people are saying “if it weren’t for the road works then there wouldn’t be such a big tailback…
Here is a little term you seem blissfully unaware of “Cause and Effect”
The Effect of millions upon millions of tonnes of motor vehicles driving over the surface of the road CAUSES the road surface to wear away. The EFFECT of the road surface wearing away CAUSES the need for, aforementioned, road works The EFFECT of road works CAUSES tailbacks over 3 miles long. Whether you like it or not. CARS, and more specifically individual road users, are the problem. Another term: “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” Less cars…less road works. More Cars More Roadworks. Pretty simple isn’t it?
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Yes bcb I did tell him that the traffic lights had made it worse but he knows the island well enough because he was born here and used to live here. He still thinks the level of traffic for such a weeny little island is mad and I agree with him.
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Ok, PW Fudgedonut, let’s go through the points you think are proof, and i’ll show them to be complete rubbish!
“The proof of the traffic problem is in walking past lines of cars moving at snails pace in the morning”. Rubbish. During the morning rush hour, every town and city is going to see a reduction in traffic speed. In Guernsey it is only really noticeable during term time and when there are roadworks taking place. It took me 8mins to get from the West Coast to town today at 8am. A busy rush hour is NOT a traffic problem.
“The Proof is trying to find parking spaces in the morning. ” Rubbish. Plenty of parking spaces in town. OK, the 10hr spots fill up on the North Beach quite early, but if you are worried about obesity why are you moaning about having to walk from the Salarie or Havelet?
“The proof is children being unable to play properly or safely because ofthe amount of cars parked a in a clos or street.” Hahaha, what a load of rubbish. Kids shouldn’t be playing in main streets, and most clos i know see plenty of kids playing. Plus, with such beautiful beaches why would you want to play in the street?
I agree that children are becoming obese, but that is not a link to the traffic problem! That is not the fault of the car, that is the fault of the parents!
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Greg
Following on from your remarks about obese children yesterday’s Daily Mail (super paper that)carried an article from an Aberdeen University Professor who is adamant that people are no less active today than they were twenty years ago ( He doesn’t go back as far as the fifties as several contributors seem to want us to )
For example children who are driven to school have much more time to run about the playground and children watching TV in the evening has merely replaced activities such as reading or listening to the radio
I’ll stop there as poor old Fudge will be busting a blood vessel by now
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PW Fudgedonut
Why does it make you laugh? are you implying the tail backs would be the same without the road works?.
Some of us dont see slow moving traffic at rush hour or looking for a parking space as a problem, You do but thats your problem :)
Yes the traffic situation can be better but your making it out to be far worse than it actually is imo,
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Thank goodness I am leaving this island soon. This particular topic has reminded me of how the general attitude of Guernsey people makes my skin crawl. I vote we send you ALL off to the UK, to see how little you actually need to rely on the “Car”.
I have managed without using a car at all Monday to Friday, despite having to take my son to school, my daughter to a separate pre-school, and myself to work. So, by careful planning, I have managed to do all the “impossible” things that it is implied cannot be done without a car. Grow up. The majority of posters here are lazy, self obsessed and doubtless overweight. With a little foresight it is entirely possible NOT to use a car so regularly.
I do use a car. Twice a week MAX. It means I need to be a little bit more organised, and it also means that my children and I have to choke on the fumes of YOUR cars 5 days a week, but hey, we manage.
Ta to the lot of you car huggers for making our daily march so unpleasant. Sickening.
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Had to nip into Town this morning (Saturday).
Nothing special.I could have ordered what I needed off the internet.Took the car and got back home within 45 minutes
OK hands up I could have used the alternative … a bus … but I doubt that I would have got back home till this afternoon.
Sorry,not at all practicable.
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Ray
The fact that you ‘doubted’ means you didn’t look into it. Your argument is void. Come back when you’ve researched the times then you may have a point. The very fact that you automatically chose the car for ‘nothing special’ highlights what others have been saying.
Try again.
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Ray – the silence from Rosie is deafening!
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Belinda
Oh Belinda, I was waiting for the typical “guernsey people attitude bit” so do you realy think when you see all that traffic crawling along there is no one from the UK or elsewhere in any of those cars?.
I think its you that needs to grow up if somthing such as this can make your skin crawl and be pleased you are leaving Guernsey.
And if you think elsewhere is any better at rush hour then i think you will be in for a bit of a shock.
Do you know any of the posters on here? never mind the majority? i bet most are hard working and and not overweight?.
Hope your happier in your new country (not being sarcastic either).
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Belinda
Sounds like your annual insurance premium works out at about 50p per mile. Good planning indeed
Are you one of those mothers who abandons her child at the school gates at about 8am?
Hope your not going to Devon or Cornwall where if you happen to miss the bus there will be another one in a couple of days
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Arnald
The tablets must indeed be working!
You have actually posted a comment which does not entail twinning the local finance industry with the scum of the earth
But,hands up again, you got me fair and square about not consulting the bus time table
It wasn’t raining or blowing a hooley this morning so I could have left my £15,000 car in the drive,walked to the bus stop just over half a mile away,waited several minutes at the stop in case the bus was either early or late,sat in any one of the twenty five empty seats,got to the bus terminus in half an hour or so,walked to the top of Mansell Street to get what I needed,walked back to the terminus,waited for the bus to depart,got back to Bordeaux in half an hour or so,walked back just over half a mile to my home to find my £15,000 car still in its place in the drive,collapsed in my armchair happy in the knowledge that I had done my bit to save a Polar Bear,only to read in the Daily Mail that China has commissioned another six coal fired power stations in the last week
All that for only two quid,which just happens to be 50p more than the ‘nothing special’item I needed to collect
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Ray
Thank you
But you demonstrate again the fallacy of the car hugger meme.
You would choose to take a car worth a substantial amount of money to go and buy something ‘not special’ because, due to you having acquired a car, you did not have to plan ahead – or plan the purchase as part of a wider excursion. This highlights an unbalanced reliance on short-termist thinking.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that undermines a wider desire to a sustainable society.
Would it have made any difference if your car was worth ten pence?
The argument, however, is not about off-the-cuff necessity. It’s about the inevitability of journeys that we as members of a functioning society make every day.
If we can’t plan an efficient use of resources for such a mundane occurrence, it stands to reason that individuals are unable to have a grasp of long-term social needs.
You have put it in a nutshell.
As it happens, the social connotations of unneeded and wasteful use of physical resources are precisely the arguments against promoting the risible practices of aggressive tax ‘management’.
It’s called joined up thinking.
You won’t win with your smarm.
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Ray:
Who am I after??? All of us. Most of us have cars…. if you bother to read my posts, you will see that my argument is simply that we should ALL be more thoughtful about how and when we use our cars and remember that the convenience that they offer us, comes at a price that the rest of the community has to pay.
I don’t agree that the problem in Guernsey is just twice a day, or that it is just confined to the area around town. Nor do I think that a traffic problem is just defined by how long the traffic jams are….. but you would know all this if you read my posts. Nor do I think that the present infrastructure is sufficient to encourage most people out of their cars…… the States need to do more to adjust the incentives and disincentives to encourage us all to use our cars less and to make it easier for us to do so. But again, you would know this too if your read my posts…. so 99.99% of your post is yet again reiterating points that have been covered… whipping yourself up into a state of misplaced fury.
Re your question about private parking for finance workers….. if paid parking came in, I would see no reason why private parking should also not have to be paid for…. maybe as a taxable benefit and certainly civil servants at Frossard House should have to pay.
I don’t deny Ray, that there is a lot to like about being able to walk out of your house, jump into your car and whizz around the island, whenever and wherever you want. But there has been a huge price to pay in terms of what it has done to the island. I therefore don’t think that it was ever a good idea to have allowed it to happen….. Guernsey is not big, it is a perfect bicycle sized island. If instead of allowing uncontrolled car use to escalate over the last 40 years, through dirt cheap fuel prices and free parking, Guernsey had instead developed its cycle and walking routes, and an excellent bus service, and limited the parking, we would never have got into this pickle. It would have been a case of ignorance being blissful. Now that we have got here though, it will be far more painful and difficult to deal with it, because, in the same way as taking a favourite toy away from a toddler creates a lot of screaming, the same happens when there is a suggestion that we should use our cars less because we have tasted what it feels like to use them all the time.
The cost of living is going to rise hugely in the near future. I believe that Guernsey needs to prepare itself for that. The most important things that we should be able to afford, is to feed ourselves and our families good quality healthy food, and we should be able to keep ourselves warm. Travelling though, should be a place that we can save money by the choices we make. We can do that by choosing to use our cars less and by cycling and walking more…… however in Guernsey, that is not the case because people daren’t cycle because the roads are too busy and the pleasure of walking is ruined by the same, and the bus service is not frequent enough to make it viable enough for many. (The Environment Dept is compounding the problem now, by also making it an expensive form of travel). The result is that everyone thinks that they should each own their own car for the practicality it offers, and that seems to have escalated into it also becoming a status symbol. As Neil has said…. to change this will be a challenge, but I think that we are idiots if we think we can just go on like we are. We will all pay the price of inaction.
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Dave.
I don’t look at this blogg every day hence the delay before my reply to Ray. Although Ray is quick to accuse me of having time on my hands, I think his point would be better made of himself, who judging by the frequency and timings of his posts, seems to be at this all hours of the day and night. Must dash…….
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Arnald, yet you support empty buses driving around the island all day.
Using your logic, should the bus service not be shut down until such time as the demand was there to operate at full capacity all day?
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Arnald
Sorry mate.That went right over me ‘ed
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Rosie
I’m just finding myself a suitable form of entertainment for the time when us ordinary folk are banned by the efforts of the minute minority into giving up car ownership altogether .. after all there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go in Guernsey
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Steve
I didn’t say or imply anything of the sort. You are merely twisting something out of nothing.
If the service were better used then the buses wouldn’t be empty! It is fantastic that the States have kept this public necessity going for so long, considering the attitudes that are ill-informed on fora like these.
Ray
I can’t be surprised that you do not understand basic rationale. Stick with the pithy one-liners. They’re popular.
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Ray:
“….. giving up car ownership altogether.”…….. and thus Ray, you demonstrate once more the futility of trying to explain an argument to you……. you just refuse to hear or understand the message. You perfectly illustrate the problem we have.
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Well done Arnald you succinctly and ably destroy Rays arguments. Ray if you wanna look clever then you could learn alot from Arnald. The reason his reply went over you “ed” is simply because you cannot see further than the end of your car bonnet.
Another excellent post Rosie.
I sincerely hope that Deputies are following this post thread because the arguments are quite obviously forward thinkers versus backwards dullards in my opinion. Sadly it seems the latter are who the politician to pander to these days
Greg:
Guernsey isn’t the UK.I am not sure if you have noticed yet but it is a very very small island. If you haven’t tried yet you can actually walk from one side to the other in less than 2 hours. You can walk round the entire island in less than 10 hours. Its amazing, those things at the end of your legs are called feet. They were designed specifically for walking.
This is Guernsey
It doesn’t need to be like “every town and city” as much as you patently want it to be.
You have obviously been to (or come from) the UK many times Greg and seem more than willing to accept the reality presented by the embarrassingly ineffiecent and poor quality transport system that the UK’s cities have to offer. Let me ask you a question have you ever been to any of the more forward thinking cities in Europe? They have integrated transport systems that support hundreds of thousands or 1 million plus inhabitant “for crying out loud” 65000 aint that much by the way.
Btw your Rubbishing claims on my previous post don’t really wash. Quoting someone verbatim and then saying “Rubbish” does’t qualify as an argument. A 4 year old could do it.
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Fudge Donut, if you post a load of rubbish then you deserve that as an answer.
And I see you’ve managed to keep the same level with your post at 11.30pm on the 19th. I spend a lot of time walking, I live by the beach and spend a lot time walking there with my children.
But walking is not practical to get to work for me, and it isn’t for most people. And i’ve been to plenty of forward thinking cities in both Europe and the rest of the world who have great public transport systems.
But they are cities, we are Guernsey….if you can’t see the difference then it’s not worth debating any further. A 4 year old would probably be able to comprehend it though…..
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you know , sometimes i worry about all the people who simply cant live without their cars …. imagine if it broke down, or was involved in a accident , and was off the roads for a few weeks ….
because you would be stuck in the house, eeking out the dwindling food left in the cupboard. Education ringing up daily to ask why your kids arent going to school. and of course you will be unemployed because you will have been sacked for not turning up to work ….
I know from experience that you CAN get around Guernsey without a car … but I agree totally that using one is infinitely easier quicker ( mostly ) and more convenient.
a car is a luxury item … it is just the fact that owning and using one is relatively cheap that makes us think it isn’t ….
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Rosie
I take your point,but perhaps you should take mine
I DO NOT TRUST YOU
Tree huggers and their ilk have a habit of ratcheting up their campaign from simple ,often acceptable beginnings,but like a Jehovah’s Witness,once they have managed to get on that first step the campaign is ratcheted up ever so gently over the coming months,even years until their main goal is achieved
That is the problem I have
I do not want to give you any encouragement whatsoever to gain that first foothold and if that means I have to keep repeating what I suspect is your real ambition then so be it
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Fudge
I don’t want to look clever,I just want to live my life in peace away from the ever increasing barrage from people who form themselves into little semi-official groups and constantly chip away trying to impose their will on the majority
If there are 86,000 vehicles registered in the Island then the vast majority of people own at least one.If you actually USE one of those 86,000 vehicles rather than leave it in the drive then you have to accept that you are part cause of any congestion
But that’s not good enough for some amongst the tiny minority.Some want more bicycle lanes but can’t say where.Some erect Ruette Tranquille signs with no force of Law.Others want to stop pavement surfing on our narrow roads.That does have the force of law but can you imagine how the island would grind to a standstill if everyone came to a complete stop,rather than slow down to a crawl every time they met a bus on our ‘designed for horse and cart’ roads
We now have someone invited over to advise us to remove legal and essential road signs
You say you can walk the width of the island in 2 hours.No doubt that’s true but are you really suggesting that as a serious alternative to leaving the car in the drive?
Please give us the low down on the integrated transport systems which support hundreds of thousands or even one million plus inhabitants in the more forward looking cities in Europe
If you are talking about trams,trains,underground systems,then I’m afraid it’s you who is trying to look clever .. and failing miserably
PS I think I would rather live in sin with GG than try to learn anything from Arnald
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Ray,
That argument is bunk – it’s a particularly extreme form of the ‘slippery slope’ fallacy. It’s like saying ‘we should oppose all clean air legislation because some of the people who want that actually want to get rid of all industrial civilization’.
Yes, there probably are such people, and yes, Rosie might even be one of them. But their existence doesn’t make your argument valid.
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Quick question? Could the people who feel that we have a “traffic problem” please define what we need to do to no longer have the percevied problem?
Average journey time in the morning of less than 10mins? Always 10hr spaces on the North Beach? Average waiting time at the Queens Road filter of 3mins?
To have any sort of coherent transport strategy, one needs to have some sort of goal. All we seem to have is a wishy washy group of poeple moaning about a problem that only exists in their minds, and with no actual real and achievable plan to change the “problem”.
And it took 12mins from the west coast to town today, at 7.50am. Bloney traffic eh?
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You’ve rumbled us Ray.
We will not stop until we achieve total island domination…
until every last four wheeled internal combustion powered privately owned vehicle has been banished from our shores…
until every islander is forced to use a bike or a bus or a horse and cart to get around this rock…
Seriously, what a load of old paranoid rubbish. Can’t speak for anyone else but all I’d like to see is a significant move away from our near total reliance on the motor car. What a difference it would make to the quality of life on this island if we could cut down significantly on our car use. That’s all I’m saying and I think that’s all Rosie and the others are saying as well.
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Greg,
Good question. How about public car parking always available in all the major town car parks, and a doubling of road peak capacity (in terms of passenger movements per minute)?
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Greg – a traffic problem is more vehicles ( not just cars note ) on a particular road at one time than it can handle, thus causing slow movement or jams.for definition , a jam is traffic that is stationary for more than half the time , slow moving is traffic travelling at less than half the speed limit.
From my observations this means WE have a traffic problem around Town between 0800 and 0900 on weekdays ( especially term time ) and between 1700 and 1800
we have a traffic problem around all schools every morning and afternoon
we have a traffic problem at Admiral Park and L’Aumone just about all day on Saturdays
if you travel outside these times and areas then you wont notice the problem
as for a solution , i can see 4 main ones
a widen all the roads around the problem areas to multiple lanes, or add more roads
b move all the things people are desperate to drive to somewhere else
c change the times people have to get where they are going
d get people to not use their cars
a and b are pretty much impossible on a small island., and c would require a level of organisation and cooperation unheard of in Guernsey.
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ChrisJ, there is already generally availability in the town’s car parks, and I would hazard a guess that if the daft little car spaces are removed and the 10hr parking removed from North Beach then this would be achieved anyway. (And before the “when-i-was-a-lad-my-mum-only-had-a-morris-minor-and-i’ve-got-18-brothers mob start shouting, I don’t believe that the little car spaces are enough to encourage people to buy that sort of car, but maybe there is evidence to prove me wrong)
Doubling peak capacity is probably a bit more troublesome, because i doubt anyone (ie the States) could measure it accurately as one would need to factor in school holidays as well as the continuous policy or roadworks.
But still, it’s good to think of a goal. Did the States?
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Greg
See page 20 of 20/9/10 Press.An aerial shot of Vazon Coast Road.Shadows suggest early afternoon.Total traffic.. two cars!
I wonder if the drivers of those two out of the 86,000 registered vehicles have planned ahead,or have combined their journey to coincide with a wider excursion, or is this yet another example of an unbalanced reliance on short-termist thinking
I DON’T GIVE A FIG !
All I see in that photo is proof that we do not have a traffic problem
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ChrisJ
No. It’s like saying so many everyday words have had to be removed from the dictionary because they are no longer deemed PC
It’s like saying that Health and Safety has become a self generating monstrosity in the last few years where Police had to watch a child drown because they had not done a life saving course,or where the plastic police can’t even help a child across the road because they haven’t been trained
It’s like saying that that even the British Parliament is afraid to speak out against the creeping ‘Muslimification’ of British society for fear of upsetting someone.Where Christmas cards are taboo for the same reason.Where Halal meat is now the norm in some British establishments without warning to the paying customers
Where offering a woman a seat or holding a door open can lead to accusations of sexism
Where Human Rights legislation drawn up to prevent the horrors of World War 2 ever happening again have been highjacked by weasel mouthed lawyers
I’m starting to get purple in the face now so I’ll stop there
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Toby, thanks for your answer. I think you’re definitions are far too wide though, especially when you consider the low speed limits in Guernsey. But even so, i seriously doubt that when there are no roadworks that 50% of a journey tme is spent stationary. But again, if it is, is that a problem on a 15 min journey. I don’t think it is.
From your a,b,c,d, don’t you think d is just as impossible? Do you have any suggestions?
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Greg,
You misunderstand about the car parking. I mean that car parking of any duration should be generally available, so someone who wants to park their car for 10 hours should be able to park it for 10 hours. Getting rid of all the 10 hour spaces on North Beach won’t achieve that!
To measure passenger movements, you have someone stand at each side of the road with a counter, doing a rough headcount of the number of people who pass in each direction over a few minutes. You control for school holidays, roadworks, weather, time of day and so forth by noting the circumstances when you do your first measure, and adjusting for these circumstances when you do your subsequent comparisons.
None of this is remotely difficult to do, and it’s not even particularly time-consuming to collect meaningful numbers. It would certainly be much more meaningful than knowing that there are 90,000 registrations in the DVLA’s database.
And yes, the States did define its goals in the 2003 Traffic Strategy. A summary is here:
http://www.gov.gg/ccm/general/press-releases/2003/march/states-asked-to-approve-integrated-transport-strategy.en
If you make a few assumptions, those goals amount to much the same things as mine.
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11 mins to get home from centre of town to west coast, leaving at 5.45pm tonight. Average speed 19mph.
I’m sorry to be so sweeping, but anyone claiming that signifies a traffic problem is just wrong.
Toby, you might have to narrow your time bandings down to 1700-1730, and 0830-0900. And then does a whole hour of congestion each day really tell us there is a problem that needs fixing? Although we’ve not seen any actual suggestions from any posters, i imagine that they are all going to come at some cost to either us all or the motorist (beyond the tax we already pay at the pumps, which already penalises the polluter).
With regard to Admiral Park, surely that is caused by shoppers visting two large retail outlets. By the very nature of the type of visit people are making, what other alternative is there to the car?
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But ChrisJ, there are always 10hr spaces available in town! Ok, maybe not on the North Beach, but then we have to be realistic!
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Greg,
I see no reason why ‘always 10hr spaces on the North Beach’ is not a realistic aim?
I assume you are not denying that Town has a problem with the lack of parking availability? People (often retailers) routinely lobby for this problem to be solved by providing even more car parking in Town. I don’t agree with that solution, but the existence of the problem is incontestable!
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ChrisJ, I personally don’t think there is a problem with parking in town. It can take maybe 10 mins to find a space during lunch time on the North Beach, but such is life!
But I believe your aim of always free 10hr spaces on the North Beach is unrealistic because demand for these spaces will always outstrip supply, even if we had a decent bus system. There will always be people who have to drive to work in their cars, and I believe this number is great than the number of spaces available.
I notice that no-one has come up with any suggestions how to solve the traffic “problem”?
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Greg,
At the risk of repeating what others have already said many times before: the answers to your questions already appear earlier in this thread!
Even your fellow car apologist Stone De Croze came up with a realistic solution to 10hr parking availability – ‘one pier paid parking pier for the rich and lazy’. Sounds to me like revenue for nothing eh? Kerching!
Anyhow, see you on the ‘car free week’ thread…
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Greg
My option d is not impossible – it can be achieved by using public transport, car sharing, cycling, walking.
I would agree however that as things are in Guernsey it isn’t going to happen.
As regards your view of the problem – just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. If you are in the right ( or wrong ) place at the right ( or wrong ) time the trouble does start as early as 0800 – and continues after 0900 as well. And that does sometimes mean spending ( more than )half the journey time standing still. What is a 5 minute journey during the clear periods of the day can take up to 20 minutes in the misnomered rush hour – and yes I do consider that is a problem. maybe not serious, maybe envied by the major cities of the world, but a problem none the less.
Most of Guernsey’s traffic problems are caused by Field of Dreams syndrome – we build things and then boy do they come – usually individually by car …..
It is possible to go shopping without a car – I know, I’ve done it. It is possible to walk yourself and the kids to work and school ( in my case its actually quicker than driving … ). You can get to the Mallard and back by bus if you wantto see a film – but it is slower and less convenient than taking your car, so everybody does just that.
There is a very good model on the island, that has worked for years, that demonstrates how you can coerce people out of their cars – paid parking.
How many people do you know who park their cars at the airport when they fly off on holiday ? Next to none I would imagine, because for more than a couple of days it costs far more than even the most expensive alternative ( getting a taxi ). And so, motovated by cost, the majority find another way ( bus, bike, taxi, a lift from a mate ) rather than the convenience of their own car…..
Perhaps we should all campaign to have this outrageous charge to park our cars on States land abolished…..
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I’m sorry ChrisJ, but there is nothing on this thread that resembles a strategy that will reduce traffic. All that there is are “suggestions”, but nothing that is more than a vague idea.
And for the record, 13 mins to town this morning, leaving at 7.55am. :)
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Greg,
So let me get this straight – your latest argument is that because nobody on this thread has spontaneously devised a fully-researched and costed transport strategy for reducing car use, therefore no workable strategy can possibly be conceived?
Is this not what we pay politicians and the civil service for?
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No Chris, I just (quite reasonably) asked the brigade who believe we have a traffic problem what they would do to get rid of it.
And there have been no serious suggestions, which pretty much sums everything up…..
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Toby, if it’s quicker to walk somewhere (or even only slightly longer) then of course it makes sense to walk.
And yes, car sharing is a good idea and should be promoted more strongly. Yet there is no particular drive to promote this.
But if one can drive from the west coast to centre of town in 13mins during the rush hour, then we cannot claim to have a traffic problem. It took my 3 mins to drive from St James to the Doghouse last night at 17.45pm….that is a main arterial route, and that is not a traffic problem!
I don’t think your paid parking at the airport theory is valid. Most people will have travelled to the airport by someone elses cars, be it a friend or a taxi. That means the same car journey is made from their home to the airport and back again. It hasn’t reduced the number of journey’s at all.
If i take a taxi to work everyday instead of driving, my actions are not taking a car off the road. They are just replacing my car with a taxi.
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Ray:
For goodness sake. Your posts are depressing enough but your last one to me reached new heights…. or should that be ‘low’. A really pathetic way to say you are not going to consider someone elses reasoning, and are going to keep your head buried in the sand with your very narrow views…. lazy! I wonder what my ‘main goal’ as you put it, is!
I notice that in the next post you imply that the Ruette Tranquille are a waste of time since they are not enforceable by law and that pavement surfing is fine, which indicates to me that you are not content with the cars present domination of the roads but would like to have that priority even more entrenched. If you want to apply some slippery slope theories, they would be better applied to yourself.
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Greg…Ray..
My point was about population size. 65 000 people should not be hard to manage for a transport system. The clue in the term “integrated transport system” is the word INTEGRATED. That means bus, cycle, car, motorbike. Whilst it would be silly to spend millions upon millions on a tram system…a simple change in culture toward bicycles and walking for many drivers would change the roads immensely.
Look i want to be able to cycle around but I do not, quite simply because I have come close too many times to being totalled by by idiot car drivers. I wonder how many times other cyclists have put up with the same nonsense..ie drivers overtaking on blind corners, overtaking with no room to do so at 50/60 mph. Intimitdating cyclists by revving their cars when a bit of patience would see them get past 50 yards down the road?
It makes me wonder Greg when you talk about the time it takes you to get into town…how many times are you puting other peoples lives into risk as you are travel in such an amazing time into town. Do you give cyclists respect?
Also Ray you mentioned the Vazon Road in the middle of the afternoon…eh aren’t most people at work??? Just a point mate.
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Fudge Donut, I’m a keen cyclist myself and find the disregard for cyclists by motorists in Guernsey is shocking. I easily see one incident a week where a motorist overtakes a cyclist with zero thought and suddenly has to pull in to avoid an oncoming car. I’m surprised more cyclists are not killed.
However, that is a problem with the standard of driving in Guernsey and it not anything to do with a traffic problem.
Cycling should be encouraged more in Guernsey, but even with more dedicated cycling lanes it’s not the best solution for everyone. We don’t have shower facilities at my work, so it’s not use for me (for example).
BTW, as for amazing times, 11 mins to Vazon from town is well within the speed limits. Although it took me 23mins today, as I decided to leave a bit later (8.10am) and use the most direct route. I still think that is acceptable for a journey to work during the rush hour.
But i did think of the alternaives…..
1. Walking. Would have taken me about 1.5hrs. Yes, it was a beautiful day and the walk would have been nice, but having 2 kids to prepare for the day doesn’t give me the luxury of an extra hour.
2. Cycling. Would have been at work a bit quicker, but no shower……
3. Bus. Longer journey time as the bus stops are not where i would want to start or finish my journey.
4. Jet pack. The most obvious solution! :)
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Greg,
Ye said:
‘No Chris, I just (quite reasonably) asked the brigade who believe we have a traffic problem what they would do to get rid of it.
‘There have been no serious suggestions, which pretty much sums everything up…’
If by ‘serious suggestions’ you mean ‘suggestions I would support’ then that’s hardly surprising considering your prejudices which are evident from your postings.
That aside, you’re going to have to throw me a bone here and do the summing it up for me – what conclusion do you expect people to draw from the lack of any suggestions you feel able to describe as serious?
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ChrisJ, i’d suggest that the lack of suggestions means people on the whole realise our geographical nature rules out most options. Anyone can say “improve the bus service” or “get more people cycling” but there seems to be a serious lack of suggestions on how that can be done. But, as you’ve mentioned previously, maybe that should be left to our wonderful politicians….
Or, the truth might be that most poeple don’t believe we have a problem and are content with the status quo?
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Rosie
You’re right.Having read back over some of the stuff above I do seem to have strayed beyond the reasonable
I would have gladly walked to the Moon with you
(well driven anyway)in the incinerator fight but you are now attacking something very precious to me .. the freedom to run my life as I see fit without overbearing interference
There are far too many little quasi-official minority groups each with their own agenda doing just that
Even though it won’t affect me in the slightest because I don’t work in Town my mind is absolutely set against paid parking which, of all the suggestions above,is probably the most likely to be the main plank towards curing the traffic ‘problem’ which seems to go away by itself between the hours of 9am and 4.30pm
Paid parking has not reduced the daily Jersey commute in the twenty or so years it has been established.It has just become the accepted norm to have to pay £100 plus per month to park in St Helier
In saying that I realise that you do not view the traffic ‘problem’ just in terms of the number of vehicles per mile at certain times of the day.You expand the ‘problem’ into health issues,affordability issues,green issues and suchlike
That is where you stray into the realms of interfering with people’s life choices,which is my main objection to your posts
By the way,you are in danger of trying to read my mind from my Ruette Tranquille post.Anyone who tries to exceed 20-25mph in a Ruette Tranquille, or any other narrow lane for that matter, needs his head examined,so although the signs do not have the force of law they make sense
Similarly pavement surfing.I’m not FOR it. I just see it as a necessary evil.Actually rather than having a car free week I would like to see everyone partake in a no pavement mounting HOUR.Then watch as the whole Island grinds to a complete standstill
On the matter of individual lifestyle choices you only have to look at car free Sark to see that they have a ‘problem’ with so many residents choosing to purchase and use tractors instead of cycling and walking
So it is clear that you have an uphill struggle,which you have admitted.No doubt you will continue to do your best but I cannot find it within me to wish you luck
Apologies again for straying over the top
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Hey Fudge
Thanks for the two lines re the Vazon Coast Road
You have proved the whole fallacy of there being a traffic problem by saying that there are only two cars on the road in the middle of the afternoon because everybody is at work
That photo could have been taken at any time between 9am and 4.30pm for the very reason that the ‘problem’ only exists for the short time that people are driving to or from their place of work each day
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The fact is, there are to many cars on the island, and theres no getting away from it,plus the pollution that nobody seems to mention, your all just looking for excuses again, basically what it all boils down to is your all to lazy to walk, try the use of your legs thats what there for .
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Ray,
I don’t think the people stuck in the mile-long sub-walking-pace queue of cars I passed on my way to work yesterday morning will feel that the traffic problem is a ‘fallacy’ just because the roads are clear at the times when they don’t need to drive anywhere.
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How about, all those drivers frustrated by being in traffic jams, leave their cars at home and walk or ride a bike to work. Thereby getting to work quicker(!?) and allowing all those who are more patient to drive at peak times.
Surely, more drivers would get frustrated by having to follow behind large numbers of cyclist’s over the whole island, going to and from work at peak times, so more may decide to leave their vehicles at home.
Therefore, the answer is action (ride a bike – walk) not moans of frustration!
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I surrender Ray. Your logic is surpassed only by the sharpness of your wit and reparte. I honestly can go on no longer because my brain is capsizing at the mind boggling complexity of your statement.
Arguing with you Ray is like trying to teach a 5 year old to play chess. As he waves your King about triumphantly after moving his pawn 8 spaces up the board…you can only smile and think to yourself “aw bless his cotton socks, he doesn’t undertand the rules” At least the child has an excuse. You on the other hand have none…putting words into someones mouth again is another immature argumental technique. It doesn’t work, I doubt anybody reading that post is vauguely impressed by the point that there are no cars on Vazon road because there are no cars on Vazon Road. Its the other side of the Island for a start. The vast majority of the Island is either at school, at work or at home. The only thing the photo proves is that there were two cars on the road at that particular moment. You are clutching at straws mate. Your logic is kind of embarrassing.
This is the end of my posts on this thread, it has run its course. We are going round in ever decreasing circles. Good Luck winning friends and influencing people in the future. I look forward to agreeing with on something down the road.
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devils_advocate,
I have just posted about that point on this thread:
http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2010/09/21/car-free-week-makes-poor-start/#comment-76857
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Hey Fudge
You’ve done it again.There’s no need to put words in your mouth.You have now admitted that the ‘problem’ only happens on one side of the Island
I agree 100% but I would also add that even on THAT busy side of the Island between 9am and 4.30pm traffic is quite bearable
You should try to get out more during the day
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ChrisJ
I would expect that those people stuck in the slow moving line are thinking to themselves ‘I wish those thirty drivers ahead of me had walked,cycled or caught a bus’ which is exactly what the thirty drivers behind him are thinking
Each driver in that line knows before he sets off from home what to expect.Despite that he has made that concious choice and has to accept that he is part of the perceived problem
What he may not realise is that once he and the sixty other drivers ahead and behind him are tucked away at their desks in the square mile of ‘deskland’ the problem melts away
I thank you for the last few words on your post…’just because the roads are clear at times when they don’t need to drive anywhere’
I applaud the word NEED
There are a whole host of reasons why someone might NEED to drive in to work rather than walk,cycle or bus
Someone on another thread poked fun at Deputy Sirett for saying on air at the start of no car week that he needed his car that day.That poster deliberately forgot to say that the Deputy had to attend the interview at North beach,then fetch his wife from the airport and then attend a couple of meetings
Walk?… Cycle?…. Bus?
I don’t think so
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Ray:
Apologies accepted and I appreciate being able to at last read a post that lays out your argument without resorting to emotive phrases. Thank you!
Freedom….. important I agree, but with it comes responsibility. Responsibility that in excercising our right to freedom of choice, we do not impact badly on others. Excessive car driving is preventing others from enjoying their freedom to cycle and walk, both forms of transport that create less negative impacts on our health, wealth and environment (& so arguably should be the forms of transport given most encouragement.). It is impacting on peoples freedom to enjoy unpolluted air. It is preventing us from enjoying Guernsey as we think Guernsey could be, and in the long run, will cost our community a lot of money…… I would like the freedom to opt out of that but am unable to.
So ‘freedom’ is a double edged sword.
Paid parking…… Jersey’s mistake has been to constantly raise the quantity of parking available to meet demand. My sister lived there when they planned their first multi-story with promises that it would be the only one….. I gather they now have 5. So you are right…. cost is not the only driver needed to change behavoir. Charging for parking would however, provide some of the income needed to fund an up-graded bus service so that the frequency of service could make bus travel a viable option for many more journeys. (I also believe it should be kept as a very cheap form of travel.) Then we would all have a choice….. travel more expensively by car, which on the downside creates negative impacts to Guernsey’s environment and to the rest of the community (who don’t happen to be in that car), but on the plus side, gives the person using the car, convenience and fantastic practicality for some journeys. Or, we could choose to travel cheaply by bus or bike, create less (or no) impact on Guernsey’s environment and community….. but on the downside, will not provide the practicality needed for some journeys. This, I believe, would still allow us to use our cars, but would make us more thoughtful about how and when we did.
I don’t agree that this is ‘interferring’ with peoples ‘life choices’, as you put it…. but the opposite. I think that it is enabling them. It would allow people to avoid some of the costs that are on the way….. sure as eggs are eggs. Our present system does not give people that ability to choose as has been repeated countless times on this thread by all the people who have stated that they ‘have’ to use their car for this or that journey because cycling, walking or catching the bus are not viable options.
Re pavement surfing…… if we had more encouragement to buy narrower vehicles, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Personally, I really resent having to damage my wheels by climbing onto the pavement because of the excessive number of over-sized vehicles that crowd our roads. I don’t mind getting out of the way of a bus, but if a private vehicle takes more than its fair share of the road surface, then in my opinion, they can squish themselves into the hedge if necessary. Again, people buy those vehicles because they have the ‘freedom’ to do so, but they ignore the impact their choice has on others.
Agree with you re Sark. It is only a minority but their choices are impacting too heavily on Sark’s ambience and environment so the whole community will suffer.
I therefore think that they should deal with it.
Delighted that you were in agreement re the incinerator debate….. and I hope that you realise that that battle is still not over! Groan!
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