‘No exodus from buses’ after 67% fares hike
Thursday 30th September 2010, 2:29PM BST.
BUS use remains steady despite a hike in fares.
Environment faced a backlash when it increased the standard fare from 60p to £1 on 1 August.
But in a response to its critics yesterday it said there had been no sign of the predicted mass exodus from the buses as a result.
And it released a statement yesterday to correct ‘misleading’ claims made publicly in a requete – which was later withdrawn – which had protested against the fare rise and the progress of the department’s transport strategy.
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I’m not surprised that bus use hasn’t decreased significantly since the fares “increase”.
I say increase in quotes, because for many the fare has actually DECREASED as the majority of bus users have now switched to using the Ormer Card rather than paying cash. Cash fare was 60p before, now people topping up their cards with 50 journeys only pay 50p a time!
Also, increased Ormer Card use has had the knock-on effect of reducing boarding times since it takes longer to tell the driver where you’re going to and then subsequently for the driver to “play the ticket machine like a piano” to find that destination and print that ticket out, when paying a cash fare. (they hate it when you forget to tell them where you’re going, as it’s time consuming and they have to issue the ticket to your destination now to gather statistics for the States)
Also, i think one of the other reasons that passenger numbers are not decreasing is because all the mad drivers that are being disqualified of late have to still get to work somehow, eh??
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see so much for the push bike nazis and their dumb predisions of peeps getting off buses. time to tax pujangs i reckon, why they get our roads for free?
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Has anyone realised how much it costs to run a bus and its driver?
£1 is not a significant amount for anyone to moan at.
Come on get a life
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Guernseasider
Have you actually used the buses? I am a daily bus user and am not sure why you think the fares have decreased. On the previous Wave and Save cards 50 journeys cost £15 = 30p per journey. On the Ormercards 50 journeys cost £25 = 50p per journey. That’s quite an increase.
I must also point out that there were 5 regular passengers who travelled to and from work on the same route as me but since ine increased fares have all jumped back in their cars. I’m sure the same can be said for some of the other routes too.
I’m of the opinion that Environment will only say what they think people want to hear.
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I’d wait for the September and October statistics before breathing the final sigh of relief. I think they’ve only looked at the August figures so far, the first month after the rise, which may not tell the whole story. For example, tourists (a significant proportion of August bus users) are very unlikely to be price sensitive when they would have booked their holidays before the rise had even been announced!
As Guernseasider points out, the Ormer card distorts things as well – people may not feel that they are really paying the higher price until the first time they top up their card at the new rate, which could be after weeks or months.
tooxar,
I think I get what you mean by predisions, but pujangs…? Whatever it is, taxing it is probably a great idea!
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ChrisJ
Come on eh? The figures demonstrate that the predicted disaster of the fare rises on passenger figures hasn’t materialised. I have some bad news for you, the Environment Department appear to have got it right.
That’s good, be happy. I was expecting your report regarding your ideal Transport Strategy last week; you’ve let me down :-(
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Neil
From my daily vantage point, a bus stop, I observe cars rolling in to North Beach. I’m there for ten minutes (waiting for a whole ten minutes!!).
At the very least I see half of the cars with smoke from the exhaust. This means the engine has not been running long.
This means that people parking in town are not running ‘essential errands’.
The whole argument about people ‘needing’ cars day-to-day is pure bunkum.
Some do, most don’t.
For the likes of Ray, who likes to rubbish everything, I don’t pay my taxes to be stuck in a traffic jam caused by selfish numbskulls.
No traffic problem? I’m in one every morning. In such a small island, Bob, that is simply rubbish.
Rubbish like your argument.
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dear tooxar – i have observed your posts for a while and conclude that u do not fit our small space where people have to behave in a half-decent manner in order to get on, survive, think a little a bit about the person next to them and generally have to consider the term consideration … do you? try the usa which has much bigger spaces where you can do what you like and join any nazi party you like!! bye!
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Kate:
My initial point was to highlight the increased number of people who have switched to the Ormer Card who were previously paying the 60p cash fare, and therefore are now making a saving.
I’m sorry to hear that your fellow commuters felt that paying an extra 40p a day was so extortionate that they have now decided to put 5 more cars on the, already crowded, roads.
Does it really cost less than the extra £2 per week they would’ve paid, to run a car here?
And in answer to your question about if I have actually used the buses?
Yes!
Every day.
I drive them!
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Guernseasider
You may drive buses for a living but how do you get into and home from work?
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Arnald
Glad to see you pay your taxes
Do you disclose your earnings from your new sideline as a motor mechanic?
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Ray:
I use the environmentally friendly method in getting to and from work. It’s called walking or taking the bus! I guess from Arnald’s observations that it’s something a lot more people could do if they had the drive (pardon the pun) to do it.
(Dare I say ……. paid parking?)
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Neil,
I’m afraid Environment disagrees with you – as their report says, ‘It is still very early days and quite a few more months data is needed before one can draw anything meaningful from the time series data’.
I’ve never predicted a disaster, and I don’t think a traffic strategy necessarily involves keeping bus fares artificially low. Plenty of jurisdictions seem to have viable public transport without huge subsidy. All I’m saying is that we should be cautious about concluding from these statistics that the fare rise will not have some effect on passenger numbers.
You could spin the numbers another way. The Environment Department says in its report that in the last four and a half years, ‘record bus passenger figures have been recorded for almost every month’. Up till August 2010 that is, in which ‘carryings were down slightly in the same month in 2009′. I’d like to see their actual figures.
Anyhow, I don’t think passenger numbers staying roughly steady is good enough – they need to rise a lot more. So, without further ado, with apologies for the delay, a suggested traffic strategy:
1. Public parking
Replace existing disc zones (both piers and kerbside parking) with (drum roll……..) – paid parking! Paid parking is the backbone of the 2003 Strategy and it has to happen – continuing to provide free parking where there is pressure for space is an inappropriate intervention in the market and represents a huge opportunity cost to the taxpayer.
I’d like to see paid parking run along the lines of the Westminster ‘pay but don’t display’ scheme, i.e. you pay for the period you want via mobile phone if you have an account (or at a machine if you are phoneless or want to pay cash) specifying your registration number, your numbered bay, and how long you want to park. There is no need to return to your car to display a ticket – traffic wardens carry hand-held devices which list what vehicle is permitted to be parked in each bay. You can also extend the parking period with returning.
The fee for parking should be phased in over a number of years – free or very cheap to start with as a replacement for the parking disc while problems are ironed out, rising to substantial hourly rates within a few years. There must be no flat rate ‘annual permit’ scheme other than for residents (in the vicinity of their home) and the disabled; this is one of the mistakes Jersey made, the problem being that once you hold a permit, you have to use your car as much as possible to ‘get your money’s worth’, whereas if everyone pays by the hour, you make the choice day by day of whether you will pay to park.
There’s no reason this should be a dramatically expensive scheme to administer, because much of the technology involved (e.g. the mobile network) already exists. But in any case the administration and billing costs of the scheme can be made neutral by contracting it out for a fixed term (e.g. 5 years). The contractor would be required to run it for nothing in the initial free period, in return for a transaction fee (which is incorporated into the parking fees) for the remaining time.
2. Private parking
Car parking provided by an employer to an employee should be deemed a taxable benefit based on fair market value.
The States, as the largest employer, should set an example by deeming States employees’ parking rights to be an optional benefit, so that they can chose to receive the benefit as additional salary if they forego their parking rights.
The above two policies combined will considerably strengthen the position of any private employee who wishes to ask their employer if they can cash out their parking rights in return for increased salary, but I don’t think it’s right to legislate for this as it’s not appropriate where employees have individually-negotiated packages of pay and benefits anyway.
3. Promoting Alternatives
- Environment should increase their surveying of traffic flows and maintain (or contract out the maintenance of) a traffic flow simulation of the island to enable it to assess the impact of any road closure, alteration to road layout or change to direction of traffic flow.
- Roll out further one-way + cycle contraflow systems of the type already used (very successfully) in the vicinity of St Sampson’s High. A considerable number of existing one-way roads can permit cycle contraflow perfectly safely (Arsenal Road, Monument Road, Upland Road for example). I’d like to go further and see some existing two-way roads become one-way + cycle contraflow in order to improve pedestrian and cycle safety, and make the car a less attractive option, but I’m not going to stick my neck out and say where such things should go, other than that the impact of such decisions should be tested using traffic flow simulation.
- Review the bus timetable. OK, when I say review, I mean incinerate it (or compost it) and start again from scratch to determine the optimum routes for the times and places people actually want to travel. Environment has done a good job of piling on extra services on the existing routes, but the routes themselves haven’t been reviewed since before Admiral Park was built.
- Vastly improve bus information. The lack of any kind of decent online journey planner or real-time bus information is a serious barrier to uptake by busy people who expect an instant answer to questions like ‘how do I get a bus to X’, ‘what’s the last bus which can get me home tonight’ or ‘my bus is late – exactly when is it going to be here’. Providing proper information systems also permits you to have more complex routes, as you are no longer limited to what you can easily explain in a printed timetable. At the moment the http://www.buses.gg site is so inaccurate it’s actually worse than useless. Even basic things are missing: I don’t think I could even tell you where half of the stops actually are, and get this, there is no map to show you!
- Provide better for buses and pedestrians in urban planning. Is there going to be a bus stand in the Leale’s Yard (assuming it happens)? OK, I’ve been writing for too long now to be bothered to look it up, but it should be a planning requirement that there is exclusive provision for buses in these places.
- Establish a PR account with a clever-clever ad agency. I’m not deluded (as some anti-car peeps are) that carrot and stick (which is what most of this is) will just work. It won’t. We like cars. We like having time to themselves. Even if that means sitting in traffic 40 minutes a day or having our breakfast in Salerie car park. We think that buses are for stinky people, and that if we cycle for more than 5 minutes we have to shower and change all our clothes. The reasons we stick to our cars aren’t as rational as we like to think. This is a peculiarly Guernsey problem I think, and it needs smart people to crack it.
OK, I’ve banged on for long enough. I could go on – these are just the things I think should happen right now, but for the long haul there’s plenty more (like excluding cars in urban areas) which you really can’t do until you are pointing in the right direction. I know you said you wanted this all costed out, but frankly that’s impossible for me to do, because I haven’t stipulated the level of charging, and the statistics I’d need don’t exist in many cases, and have to be established by survey. Don’t know why I’m worrying though, it’s not as if anyone has read this far anyway…
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Arnald
The topic is about the predicted and threat of Requete regarding fare rises along with the pillorying of the Environment Department.
It was predicted by a minority that any rises would be disastrous for continuing moves to encourage people to use public transport.
That clearly hasn’t happened. The Environment Department got it spot on.
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ChrisJ for Environment Minister. Well put together!
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Hi ChrisJ
I’d take issue with a number of your points, of course one being paid parking, but we aren’t going to agree so let us not go over old ground.
As for taxing private car parks, you may or may not remember that the then IDC of the 80s demanded that any new office builds would incorporate enough car parking spaces for staff; so I don’t see how they can be now taxed for doing what they were asked.
My general criticism of your piece would be ….you guessed it….it’s all about commuters. It doesn’t deal with the commercial traffic, nor the child carrying mums of the Island. In short, as I’ve said before any solution should be fair and equitable, not picking on us poor mugs who drive into town because we have to.
But to be fair to you it’s easy for anyone to criticise (or just say ‘no’), the challenge is actually coming up with solutions, which you have tried to do. How you then carry along the public and the politicians is another story.
Thanks for your response and engagement. Good luck
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Guernseasider, could you try to drive your bus a bit more carefully next time? Some of you lot are miserable gits and we have to get on the pavement and out of your way, you don’t even say thanks!
I don’t take the bus as it’s cheaper for me to run a motor car.
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ChrisJ
Some good stuff in there
My first alarm went off re the part about paid parking machines for those people who refuse to have a mobile phone
Some of the roadside parking areas such as Anne’s Place and St James Street,New Road St Sampsons cater for about half a dozen vehicles at a time.Having to set up a parking machine at these small sites would be very costly although they would obviously work well on the piers
There is an excellent 128 page July 2010 report available by Googling Jersey Sustainable Transport Policy
Crammed with interesting facts and figures such as the Jersey States subsidise their bus company to the tune of £7,000,000 per year for which they get a return of £3,000,000 in bus fares
12,000 people commute into St Helier by car each working day whilst 900 use the bus between 8 – 9 am each work day
St Helier has 4,000 off street parking spaces for public use but there are a further 7,000 non residential private spaces
12% of Jersey households do not have access to a car
When the schools are on holiday peak time car movements are reduced by 15% leading to a 50% reduction in congestion
An up to date traffic report from a similar island
Well worth a read
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ChrisJ – so when we’ve taxed car drivers out of their vehicles how do you propose to fill the tax void then?
I know! Increase bus fares.
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ChrisJ – some very interesting ideas.
But you know what? They won’t be introduced, since there’s no political will to do anything that will bring out complainers. I don’t see a local version of George Osborne anywhere…
I came into work by bike today. I had to wear waterproofs, just in case, but I overtook around 50 cars, each with one lonely individual in (and of course, each of them just “has to drive in”), I’m a little bit fitter as a result, and now there’s lovely sunshine so the journey back home will be quite pleasant.
I keep hoping a few other people will see me and make the change themselves – not necessarily every day, but at least when it’s not raining and they haven’t got a ton of shopping to pick up.
You can but dream…
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the buses are far to big for this island.
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Gregory Gregson:
I’d like to know the full details of exactly when the last time I drove less than carefully was, as your comment implies.
Do I hear a hint of “Tar” and “Brush”? Are all G.P.’s murderers in your book now because of Harold Shipman?
Don’t forget that buses too must “get on the pavement and out of the way” should the road be too narrow to pass. And I, not being one of the “miserable gits”, always raise a hand in thanks to the drivers who anticipate the need to reduce speed and pull over in good time. Nobody on a bus has a seat belt so it takes longer for buses to brake safely. Please remember that the next time you cut a blind corner at speed!
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Some great ideas in ChrisJ’s post however more funds would need to be raised for an effective integrated transport strategy. As well as paid parking, I think that we should bring back the annual road tax. Vehicles should be scored to find the level as which they pay. Large heavy vehicles (that seem to be multiplying by the minute) would score badly as would vehicles that emit a lot. The smaller, lighter and cleaner the vehicle, the less they would pay.. Maybe, electric and low emiting vehicles would pay nothing or at least very little. I would also introduce a one-off registration fee or importation tax…. again on a sliding scale as above.
As well as the one-way & cycle contra-flows that ChrisJ suggests, I think there are also roads that could be made no-through roads to motorised traffic…. particularly roads that are used as rat runs. These short-cut roads would then make attractive routes for cyclists and pedestrians.
Town could do with more cycle racks and some covered ones wouldn’t go amiss. (Has anything happened to Woolies yet??? I think that building could make a great site for a glorified bike store, along the lines of the Mud Dock in Bristol….. somewhere you can store your bike while you are at work, can get it fixed / serviced if need be. Lockers, showers and maybe upstairs a bar / coffee shop / restaurant with views across to Herm. see Mud Dock, Bristol … http://www.mud-dock.co.uk/bikeshed/31_philosophy.html )
I agree with comments about the bus service. Real-time info a must as is increased frequency, and covered bus shelters in some of the more exposed sites.
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Rosie
Re your 12.02am post (12.02 am!)
Bring back road tax.Would that be on top of the petrol tax which replaced it ?
Is this the early signs of ‘mission creep’ I mentioned earlier?
After you’ve had a short siesta this afternoon have a look at the Jersey Sustainable Transport Policy.It’s certainly better than anything our lot have produced in recent years
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Paid parking is an unfair tax,some people need to use a car for work as they work outside of bus operating times or routes.Some workers are also on call,or have to use their car to travel to different places during the day.The increase in fuel tax has encouraged some people to get smaller cars or use motorbikes.Also the lack of parking spaces helps to encourage people to walk or take the bus or use a push-bike.Some people want paid parking because they think if they pay to park then they should be able to get a space.In Jersey paid parking has led to more cars going into town and more and more car parks being built,I think Guernsey has less of a problem,as long as we can keep the population down to around what it is now.
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Ray.
12.02am… peace and quiet! What my kids call ‘stupid o’clock’!
I am afraid that yes….. I don’t think that they should ever have removed road tax…. it was another useful tool to have in the box. I said so at the time. I also think that we should have the introduced petrol tax because that means the heaviest users pay most. Sorry….. I know that you will be howling with disapproval but there you go! It certainly is not ‘mission creep’ as you put it but simply a pragmatic approach to raise revenue to put towards an integrated transport scheme, while at the same time penalising those that choose to travel in ways that have the biggest anti-social effect on the island. Everyone could still drive…. we would all just be more encouraged to be more thoughtful about ‘how’ and ‘when’ we do.
I will try to get around to reading the Jersey Policy as you suggest.
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Rosie – why is an electric car less anti social that a petrol powered one? So I can buy a Tesla (an electric version of a Lotus Elise – and flies) and pay no road tax (or fuel tax) but not a diesel Fiat Panda?
What about hybrids? Tax on them? Is a Lexus RX450h less anti social than the Panda?
I totally admire your sentiment and ideals but its just the practicality…
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Thanks all for your responses. In the spirit of Matt Fallaize, here is one suitably epic reply:
Neil,
I am familiar with the planning situation re office parking. Unless you think that could lead to successful legal challenge to deeming private parking to be taxable, I wouldn’t worry about it. It might well be a political hurdle, but I imagine the States would get the same sort of grief over almost any tax change. They do still successfully manage tax overhauls, most recently with TRP, and the same sorts of objections could be raised about that.
And yes, my scheme does ‘pick on’ commuters (or at least those commuters who continue to opt to use their cars). Frankly I don’t have any shame about that, because if alternatives are available and appealing, then many commuters will find they do not ‘have to’ drive. I don’t have any sympathy for the view that commuters have more right and more need to drive than commercial vehicles (who in any case are always minimising travel because it hits their bottom line) and busy mums (who, especially if they have very young children, really are currently hamstrung by their circumstances and a lack of alternatives).
If I were to extrapolate an ideology from this, and get a bit rhetorical in the process, I would say that movement is good, but to maximise its value, it must be done as efficiently as possible. Vans and trucks carrying goods, tools and labour to the places they need to be are indispensible. Buses carrying office workers around in the most efficient way possible are a massive improvement on the same people travelling in cars. Communications networks capable of getting the brains working together without even having to move the bodies are even better.
(Here comes the rhetoric…) Cars sat in car parks are useless. It’s dead space and dead time. Try standing in the middle of North Beach car park for an hour on a weekday, and see if you feel inspired at the end. It would be bad enough if it weren’t for the fact that it’s potentially some of the most valuable real property in the island, and we’re frittering it away! Hence why we need to ‘pick on’ the car parking space where the pressure is greatest.
Gregory Gregson,
You said: I don’t take the bus as it’s cheaper for me to run a motor car.
I say: Everything I’ve ever said on this topic, followed by a big fat QED.
Ray,
Yes, some zones will be tricky to deal with – it’s hardly a deal-breaker though, I can think of at least four passable solutions. Option 1: Just keep them as disc zones if they are too expensive to cater for (they would be markedly more popular though if they are the only free places to park for miles around – we’d have even Neil clamouring for paid parking!) Option 2: Bite the bullet and provide the machines anyway – they don’t have to be at quite the 6:1 ratio you suggest, and don’t forget in other expensive jurisdictions they manage to stump up for an electronic parking meter for every single space! Option 3: Do nothing – if people want to park there, they have to use a phone or walk quite a long way (don’t forget the disabled won’t have to). Option 4: Sell people a device for this purpose. It doesn’t do calls, you just keep it in the car (or wire it into the car) and it only talks to the network when you need to park. There’s no shortage of commercial companies doing this sort of work.
Having said all that I don’t really want to get into a further discussion about this. The problem with this is that we’re getting into a lot of nitty gritty detail when, would you believe it Ray, there are people around who still deny we have a traffic problem at all! :-)
And this isn’t a cop-out, but I don’t have time right now to read a 128 page report – if you could however summarise how you think the figures you’ve mentioned (which no doubt I would find the report supports) are relevant to the present discussion, that will move things forward a lot quicker.
Gilthead,
Delighted that you recognise that this scheme might even have the slightest chance of ‘taxing car drivers out of their vehicles’ to the extent that the tax revenues actually collapsed – I only wish it were that simple!
But to address the question, ‘if tax revenues start falling would you raise bus fares to meet the costs of running the buses?’ Well, I wouldn’t rule it out – buses have to be paid for, and you can argue they shouldn’t be subsidised by people who cycle, walk or just sit still. But if you ever got to that stage, then half the North Beach won’t be needed for car parking any more – so lease it out to a developer to build some awesome civic amenities. A new Odeon Cinema springs to mind… Something for the young people, instead of spinning doughnuts, eh?
James,
I think there is the political will (by which I assume you mean amongst the current deputies). I think the majority acknowledge there is a problem here which must be tackled, and there is a firm core who are prepared to face down the complainers to take action. These sorts of proposals will come back to the States eventually, because with no action at all, the traffic problem is only going to get worse.
Part of the problem is that in debate, the proposers get mired in exactly the kinds of arguments we see in this forum all the time, and they often fall short in the clarity of their response. Frequently they resort to specious arguments about polar bears and 4×4s – and then you know it’s lost, because if you are going on about 4×4s then you are clouding the issue with your prejudices, and if you are going on about the polar bears then you probably don’t know what you are talking about.
It’s great you ride your bike, and I’m glad it keeps you fit. But I’m afraid by doing so you also create one extra space in the road for some 4×4 to fill (no doubt driven by a highly disreputable person, leaving trails of polar bears hacking and spluttering in their wake). So if you want to make a real difference you also need to carry on bashing this debate out where you can, and exposing the canards (on both sides of the argument).
Rosie,
General agreement from me re no-through roads, I actually hadn’t thought of that one. Having looked it up though I see these are used in other jurisdictions, sometimes enforced by concrete bollards. That much is quite cheap. If you have cash sloshing around you can have motorised bollards to operate only at certain times, perhaps with transponders added to permit certain classes of vehicle at all times.
There are a number of other concessions which could usefully be extended formally to cyclists and cost nothing: E.g. permission to cycle through pelican crossings on red (at jogging pace and giving absolute priority to pedestrians of course), permission to cycle through closed roads (with similar caution where necessary) and permission to use temporary one-way systems in the contraflow direction (this just needs slightly different temporary signage). It would also be nice to have some clarification on the Police’s position regarding cyclists who overtake queues of stationary or very slow moving traffic (which is technically prohibited in the highway code, but widely practised, and accommodated by most motorists).
I cannot agree with you about motor tax however. It was a dreadful administrative burden, doing away with it was absolutely the right thing. Putting the tax on fuel automatically taxes the worst polluters in exact proportion to the emissions, and encourages people to make fewer journeys, which motor tax won’t do. If the transport strategy needs additional funding, place it on fuel tax, and hypothecate the tax so it is absolutely transparent that it is paying for road maintenance and reducing traffic and parking congestion by subsidising car alternatives.
I didn’t make a fuel tax rise a core part of my scheme though because I don’t think the demand elasticity of bumping up fuel tax is that brilliant. In the UK I think the short-run elasticity is about -0.25 (so even doubling fuel pump price would only cut consumption by 25% in the short term, and will cut actual journeys by even less). In Guernsey it’s probably less effective still because you can’t drive far enough to burn anywhere near as much fuel, in terms of a proportion of the capital cost of your car!
I. Le Page,
I suspect you’ve not read my original post on this thread as I addressed many of your points there, and I don’t want to start repeating myself so soon.
I will pick up on one thing though: ‘the lack of parking spaces helps to encourage people to walk or take the bus or use a push bike’. Yes, it does. It also causes people to go to extraordinary lengths to secure a space: causing congestion by driving round and round all the car parks; ’space hovering’, which is the appallingly anti-social practice of causing a huge tailback in your efforts to bag a space while you hover over some poor person desperately trying to collapse a buggy and put their children in the car; arriving in Town an hour or more before you start work and having your breakfast in your car; parking in a 3-hour space and leaving your office to go and change the clock (technically illegally); or just running the gauntlet and risking a ticket. Paid parking replaces all (or most of) the time-wasting and uncertainty with a payment, which can then be put to use to give everyone an alternative, and encourage them to take it.
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Gilthead.
I am suggesting a pincer movement. Vehicles to be scored on various criteria to assess how much they pay. Small, light with little or no emissions pay the least. Score badly on any of those elements though and you pay more. You would just need 4 or so bands for each criteria…. a computer could sort it all out.
ChrisJ…. I hear what you say, but I still think that motor tax would be a useful, if not vital, tool in the box. Pollution is not the only thing that we are tackling here. Large heavy private vehicles are starting to dominate our roads…. I think that they must be breeding. Large heavy vehicles take up more than their fair share of the road space forcing others onto the pavements…… frequently they take up more than one parking space. They are far more intimidating to cyclists and pedestrains, and so must be responsible for discouraging more people from walking and cycling, and being heavy, they will contribute more to the wear and tear of the road surface. They are doing nothing favourable for Guernsey….. as a community, they are making us look like idiots. A variable motor tax would enable us to collect money from people who insist on driving these vehicles so helping to redress the balance, while at the same time, I believe such an annual tax would discourage many from buying them.
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Rosie – a pincer movement? Sounds like a plan.
I still say its not that easy though and I also think that you and ChrisJ are confusing pollution with congestion.
Yes pollution needs to be reduced – no argument there. However before you start taxing Range Rovers we need to tackle badly maintained vehicles first – so that’s an MOT then. A badly maintained small car will pollute more than a well maintaied big one. This would also include ALL commercial vehicles including buses who’s old tech monster diesels pump out mind boggling amounts of Carbon.
So we’ve got that cleared up. Now we can tax large vehicles in CO2 bands as you suggest. No problem there.
The polluter also pays in terms of road usage i.e. fuel burnt.
Congestion – a bit more tricky that. The easy route is to reduce population. Or massively increase the volume and frequency of buses. which also isn’t going to happen.
So I shall continue to pootle around in my fuel sipping, low emmission car. Sorry.
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ChrisJ – a very well thought out post, with many excellent points.
This bit made me laugh though :-
” concessions which could usefully be extended formally to cyclists and cost nothing: E.g. permission to cycle through pelican crossings on red”
Plenty of cyclists do this anyway; is that why you used the expression “extended formally”?
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Gilthead,
I don’t think I’ve argued for any of the things you are suggesting I have – I guess you haven’t actually read my previous posts, or if you have read them, you haven’t understood them.
I liked this though – ‘congestion [...] the easy route is to reduce population’. What do you suggest, a cull?!
Why do you say massively increasing the volume and frequency of buses isn’t going to happen?
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If only there was a massive increase to the volume and frequency of buses then I believe there would be more bus use. As it stands there really is nothing to entice people to ditch their cars in favour taking the bus. Especially not at this time of year with the bad weather and dark mornings/evenings almost upon us. Who wants to stand around for half an hour (or more) in the cold/wet/dark to wait for a bus?
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Jeff,
Thanks for the positive comments.
Yes, a lot of cyclists already will just ride straight through a red light, often without due care. However, it seems daft that a law-abiding cyclist has to sit stock still at any pedestrian crossing on red, even if there clearly is no pedestrian in sight, in order to avoid the ire of drivers and possible prosecution.
Technically they can dismount and walk over, but it seems a bit daft to insist on this rather pointless bit of theatre…
Just floating an idea really, it’s not hugely important…
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“However, it seems daft that a law-abiding cyclist has to sit stock still at any pedestrian crossing on red, even if there clearly is no pedestrian in sight, in order to avoid the ire of drivers and possible prosecution.”
Indeed and would go as far as to say that insisting that cyclists always ride on the road getting in the way of traffic is equally daft. Many of our pavements are clear and wide enough to allow a cyclist to do short or long bursts – common sense and all that.
Something that strikes me as particulalry daft is the insistence that cyclists ride up the Val de Terres. The footpath is not used, there is only one driveway, the site lines are reasonably clear, so why not allow them to ride on that, at least on the upward leg.
Cyclists out of the way allow for the free movement of traffic.
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Neil,
I’m with you in the case of the Val de Terres even if only in the interests of safety, because of the obvious difficulties and risks of overtaking. If it will fit, a dedicated cycle path (up only) is the solution.
But giving cyclists too much access to the limited pavement space we have risks turfing the pedestrians off (or preventing them from getting on). They may then get into their cars instead, which is not going to help the free movement of traffic!
Promoting the alternatives means giving the alternatives more space, not less. What you are proposing would strengthen the feeling that cyclists do not have the right to be on the road, and that pedestrians do not have the right to exist at all, which is not a good thing.
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ChrisJ
To save on rent, I decided I should move my office from town, to my home, so that all my staff dont have to brave the morning town commute and also have access to parking spaces.
They cannot get 1 bus to my house, its 2 at least for all of them. And most of them live up north and my house is very south, so it would be unfair to expect them to cycle or walk.
Do you think its fair that my provision of a car parking space for them should now be taken out of their pockets?? Or am I expected to subsidise their pay?? Hence negating part of the reason for moving from town.
Also, do you propose to tax me, for parking in my own driveway??
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ChrisJ
Having skimmed the Jersey Policy report again,and avoiding all the compulsory waffle in such documents,I cannot avoid the conclusion that despite 30 years of paid parking and millions spent on subsidising the bus service
THE CAR IS STILL KING IN JERSEY
Before you shout ‘defeatist incarnate ‘ again I ask the question .. should we therefore even consider embarking on the same failed policies?
The report concentrates almost entirely on the twice daily rush hours caused by commuting into and out of St Helier,and to no small extent by the school run.( They do not seem to be overly concerned with the 30 movements per hour on their equivalent of our Vazon coast road)
Their problem is much the same as ours in that the majority of their labour intensive office space is centred in their Town area
What you pointed out in an earlier post is that Jersey foolishly set out over the last thirty years to provide parking spaces for a large percentage of those 12,000 daily commuters in 8,800 cars and vans by providing 4,000 public paid parking slots, with the bulk of the remainder being supplied privately,and in many cases free, by employers
Despite the ever increasing paid parking charges (now a minimum of £107 per month season ticket) the long term car parks are always full before 9am , and the morning rush hour is ever present,thus leading to this no doubt very expensive investigation into what has ‘gone wrong’,and why the car is still king
The authors have cottoned on to the fact that when the schools are on holiday traffic numbers reduce by 15% and ,more importantly, traffic congestion reduces by 50% ( I would guess that exactly the same figures would apply to Guernsey)
The report’s aim is therefore to reduce overall traffic movements by 15% over the next five years by ‘encouraging’ more cycling,motorcycling,walking and bus use with the MAIN target being a 15% reduction in the peak time commuter traffic
I fear that the word ‘encouraging’ is the killer here
People … 17 year old students,working mums,househusbands,old age pensioners like (love?)their cars and I am at a loss as to what manner of ‘encouragement’(carrots)would entice a worthwhile percentage of them to leave their car in the driveway when faced with a ‘lengthy journey’( probably in the region of a quarter of a mile in Guernsey standards!)
Opposite of carrot of course is stick
The paid parking stick in Jersey clearly has not worked despite it’s ever increasing price over the last thirty years. Paid parking is looked upon as the ‘norm’ in Jersey and despite the short term howls of protest at each price hike the long term car parks still fill up before 9am each day
So,what stick would work in Guernsey?
As a person who does not have to commute into St Peter Port my first thought would be to do the exact opposite of Jersey and drastically REDUCE the number of long term parking slots in Town.If the long term spaces on North Beach, Salerie and the Odeon are not there in sufficient numbers commuters would not have to be ‘encouraged’to find another way,they would be FORCED to find another way ….. with car sharing probably top of the list
A few extra parking controllers might be needed to punish clock changing in the short term spaces but hitting them hard with £50 on the spot fines would soon ‘discourage’ that practice
I rest my case
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Chris
“What you are proposing would strengthen the feeling that cyclists do not have the right to be on the road” – No it wouldn’t, that’s all in your imagination.
Moving on…….
Pavement space isn’t limited, there are miles and miles of under utilised pavements here. Of course riding the pavement in town is daft, but the one from the Airport to L’Eree? Hardly ever used, clear lines of sight. Vazon Martello tower to Grande Mare? Why not? Any of the pavements that is the race track of Kings Mills to the Felconte- no problem.
There’s hundreds of places where cyclists could pop on to the pavement causing no risk to themselves or other road users.
It’s as big an issue as you want to make it.
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“If it will fit, a dedicated cycle path (up only) is the solution.”
PS, you’re doing it again, over complicating the issue with mention of a separate cycle path. You’ve already got one, it’s called a pavement.
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Neil
How very thoughtful.NOT.
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Ormerman,
The rate of tax might be quite low in your case. Assuming parking is in reasonably abundant supply in the area where you live, the fair market value of renting out your spaces is likely to be relatively low.
There’s not much more one can say about your situation without getting very specific. I think it’s fair to say that your move was partly a commercial decision for you – it improved your employees’ conditions, and I imagine it also reduced your rent bill. My hope is that a proper traffic strategy would give you the opportunity to improve your bottom line further by doing business in Town again, with your employees able to travel quickly and easily by much cheaper means than operating their own car.
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Cycling on the pavement is not the answer, for a number of reasons.
It’s already bad enough in Guernsey for pedestrians. Allowing cyclists to use pavements makes it worse.
And cycling on pavements or so-called cycle ‘paths’ encourage car drivers to believe that cyclists should not be on the road at all.
If I had a pound for every time a motorist between town and the Halfway turn has honked at me, gesticulated, or shouted “get off the road”, I’d be very rich.
Why do they do that? Because they see the so-called ‘cycle path’ and believe that I should be on it, not on the road. Or even that since it’s there, I am somehow illegally using the road!
That despite the fact that the path
1) is useless for anyone wanting to turn inland at any point,
2) is too narrow to use safely by cyclists going in opposite directions or by any cyclist pulling a trailer,
3) frequently has pedestrians walking in it,
4) has Give Way signs marked telling me to stop numerous times before each junction and bus stop,
5) has buses parking in it at bus stops,
6) has cars turning across it in several places,
7) has a sea wall so low that if there was a collision you’d be straight over onto the rocks below, and
8) when it’s high tide and windy is soaked with corrosive salt spray.
It’s basically a death trap put there so that car drivers don’t have to put up with cyclists.
Please spare us from any more ‘cycle friendly’ initiatives like it.
It is in marked contrast to the contra-flow cycle lane in the one way system past St Sampson’s school. There’s a cycle lane that actually encourages people to use their bikes, and increases safety.
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Neil,
‘A Pedestrian’ is right – you are showing yourself up a bit here. You cannot safely cycle on a pavement with blind openings at any significant speed (and you will be doing significant speed going from the airport to L’Eree). It’s a surefire way of killing a 5-year-old.
And no, it’s not just in my imagination. Societal acceptance of a cyclist’s right to use the road would be significantly eroded, because the changes you propose would strengthen the expectation that cyclists should prevent themselves from holding up traffic.
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I’m largely with Neil on this. There are times when I take to the pavement on my bike to stop angry/impatient motorists queueing up behind me. That stretch from the Dorset Arms to the top of the Terres a prime example. Another from the old Best Foods (Tussie Mussie Flowers) up to the garage at Ville au Roi. And also up Mont Arrive to Beau Sejour. More often than not I get toots of appreciation from car drivers for not holding them up. And (A Pedestrian take note) I simply hop off again/give way when I come across a walker on pavements like these. It’s called common sense.
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Chris
“It’s a surefire way of killing a 5-year-old”
You’re doing it again, rather than discuss your point in a sensible manner, say that pointing out that the downwards speed to L’Eree might be unreasonable due to safety issues and suggesting say, to Plaisance and further ignoring the Vazon and King Mills suggestions you revert to “killing a 5 year old”.
Oh boy!
I’m here all week
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Neil has a very good point re underused pavements, certainly in the out of Town environment
Martino would have experienced this when he quite sensibly but illegally utilised the pavements on his cycle during the great Route Militaire / St Clair / Vale Road hold up due to road works near the Foresters Arms recently
I remember that former Chief Minister Mike Torode broached the subject a few years ago but it went no further
It would be interesting to read comments from motorists about how many pedestrians they observe on pavements at Val des Terres,Ruette Braye,Le Vauquiedor,Castel Hill,Landes du Marche,Route Militaire and all points further away from the Town area ( Incidentally I firmly believe that the majority of central Town pedestrians are actually walking to or from their parked vehicles anyway)
It would need a change of law so that pedestrians would always have priority on a pavement
What scuttled Mike Torode’s idea was the danger that the more stupid amongst the cycling fraternity would just pop out into the roadway without looking when avoiding pedestrians
Streets such as Hateville/Pedvin Street/George Street etc,where house doors sometimes open directly onto the pavement would be unsuitable but there aren’t too many of those in the outer parishes
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Oh boy there’s no pleasing some people…..
1) is useless for anyone wanting to turn inland at any point,
Get back on to road and signal and cross. Unless you are suggesting cycle paths on both sides of the road on our main thoroughfare?
2) is too narrow to use safely by cyclists going in opposite directions or by any cyclist pulling a trailer,
If you see something coming slow down and accomodate; we do that in our cars. The trailer bit is just bizarre
3) frequently has pedestrians walking in it,
Go round them and get out of the ‘i’m a cyclist its my cycle path”. The same mindset you so ably levelled at some car drivers.
4) has Give Way signs marked telling me to stop numerous times before each junction and bus stop,
Is that a problem? Slow down and give way.
5) has buses parking in it at bus stops,
Buses do have a tendency to use bus stops I’m afraid.
6) has cars turning across it in several places,
As do most pavements and roads in Guernsey. Do you want your own personal skyway?
7) has a sea wall so low that if there was a collision you’d be straight over onto the rocks below, and
Oh boy.
8) when it’s high tide and windy is soaked with corrosive salt spray.
Suggest you use the bus on those days then. Use your common sense and find some alternative transport on those days. Tide table books are freely available.
It’s basically a death trap put there so that car drivers don’t have to put up with cyclists.
No its not, it was put there as an initiative to assist cyclists. I use it, it’s fine, but I’m not an angry cyclist.
James, this pure unadulterated cycle militancy. There is no helping people like you; none whatsoever.
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Neil
The idea of cyclists using pavements for short stretches is the worst idea I’ve heard in a long time from a road safety point of view, for the following reasons:
1. The idea of cyclists having to re-join the traffic on the road with little or no warning is an accident waiting to happen as they would have to drop into the path of motorists.
2. they would cause a major danger to pedestrians or people stepping out of their front gates
3. the cyclist would have to cross multiple side roads, where they will each time be at risk of crossing paths with other roads users – it is generally at such junctions that accidents happen
4. very few pavements here are wide enough for pedestrians to pass each other without care, let alone a pedestrian and a bike, or two bikes.
There is a reason why cycling on the pavements is banned in most countries!
It is much better for the cyclist to be on the road, with right of way, where the motorist can clearly see what they are doing so that the motorist can then safely overtake when it is safe to do so.
I suspect that you are not so much suggesting something for the greater good, but purely because you feel held up by cyclists and feel that you, as a motorist, have a superior right to be on the road. This despite the fact that it is motorists (generally one person per car) that cause traffic delays and if more people were on bikes there would be fewer traffic delays.
The idea that cyclists disrupt the flow of traffic is hilarious. They may slow you up for a while until you can safely overtake, but after you have overtaken you will soon get behind the same car that was previously in front of you. Your journey time is still the same.
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“The idea that cyclists disrupt the flow of traffic is hilarious”
They do at the Val de Terres which was the context of that post. A cyclist doing 3 miles an hour up the Valdes with a line of 20 cars behind it is not an uncommon site.
However, what James, Chris and you now demonstrate is your inability to get into any meaningful debate about accommodating all road users in an island built from extended cart tracks and the odd militiary road.
“1. The idea of cyclists having to re-join the traffic on the road with little or no warning is an accident waiting to happen as they would have to drop into the path of motorists”
Bikes join roadways from cycle paths; which look to me very similar to pavements (or at least defined non-car areas). But are you coming from a different angle and are a cyclist that’s against cycle paths?
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Neil, anyone riding at 3mph up the Val de Terres would fall over! And if they are riding that slowly, they are likely to be weaving up the road to keep their balance, in which case the pavement is completely unsuitable as it is too narrow and any wobble would put them directly in the line of oncoming traffic which would find it difficult to stop as they come down the hill.
So a line of cars gets held up until the cyclist reaches the top. That takes what, 3 minutes? Is 3 minutes of your life (most, if not all, of which will be swiftly made up as soon as you get up to maximum speed again) really more important than the safety of the cyclist?
Making disparaging remarks about other people’s ability to debate merely highlights your own inability. I could debate this all day quite reasonably and with rational arguments. The fact that I think that your views on this are misguided does not mean that I cannot debate meaningfully.
Shared use of pavements by cyclists and pedestrians is dodgy at the best of times. It works best when there are wide pavements of 4m or more. The Bulwer Avenue pavement is the only one in Guernsey that is vaguely suitable, and I do use that from time to time. But pedestrians do (and should) have right of way at all times. This then makes it impossible for cyclists to travel unimpeded at any reasonable speed if the path is so narrow that they have to slow and stop every time they meet a pedestrian. That might work for motorists, but it does not work for cyclists or pedestrians.
So, in return for saving the motorist the indignity of driving slowly for a few seconds (at least until they meet the next traffic jam) by taking the cyclists off the road, you have impeded the journeys of pedestrians and cyclists in a very real way and have increased the dangers to both of them. That sounds like a pretty selfish attitude to me, and hardly “accommodating all road users”.
Yes, you are right that many cycle paths do rejoin the road in places. The best designed will do so very infrequently. The worst (and there are many examples of bad cycle paths in the UK) will do so too often. What you seemed to be advocating was even worse than the worst examples – a free for all where cyclists use a pavement that is less than a metre wide (as most country pavements are) until then meet a pedestrian or another cyclist, in which case they have to rejoin the road.
Are cyclists against cycle paths? In many cases yes, when they are badly designed (as too many are). Cycle paths have their place in that they encourage the less confident cyclist. But if you are not phased by traffic, by far the safest place to be is in the road and being part of the traffic, obeying the rules of the road and behaving in all respects like a car.
I ride around this island a lot. I ride to work and I ride recreationally. I aim to do so safely at all times and consider myself to have the utmost respect for other road users and their safety. The only pavement that I would ever consider to be safe to ride on is the Bulwer Avenue cycle path, and even then it is dangerous because cars will turn across it without warning to get to the car parks and busses will pull in without much care and pedestrians change direction and wander into your path. If the road is not busy, I will stay in the road. That is hardly a problem as there is plenty of room for cars to overtake.
I also drive a lot around the island but never feel held up by cyclists. So you seem to be trying to fix an imagined problem. Surely we have much more important, and real, issues to fix?
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Neil,
The point everyone is trying to make to you is not that cyclists are against cycle paths.
Nor are we trying to avoid the problem that there is not enough space to accommodate three streams of traffic separately (motorized, cycle and pedestrian).
The point we are making is that if we don’t have that space, then it’s wrong to force pedestrians to make a concession to cycles, just so that cycles can make concessions to cars. Reducing congestion means promoting alternatives, and promoting alternatives means that cars will have to make concessions to cycles and pedestrians.
Re your comments to James – could you address a specific point for me: Regardless of whether you agree with his critique of the path, do you recognise his right to use the road, instead of the cycle path, if he prefers to?
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Chris
Re James’ point. Yes he does. But he gives every impression of doing it in a petulant and annoyed way.
Everyone makes concessions, cars for buses, buses for pedestrians, pedestrians for cars out of driveways.
TL some pavements are rarely used Val des Terres; one drive way. There is no rational reason that a cyclist could not be allowed to ride up the hill on the pavement – none whatsoever.
There is no ‘everyone’ just you and TL and no doubt Rosie. Take a leaf out of Ian Brown’s book – a sensible pragmatist that gets column inches.
Round 4
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As both a cyclist and motorist may I make this point …
If motorists want cyclists to get out of the way when they a re moving slowly and holding them up …
Then motorists should do the same for when they are moving slowly and holding up the cyclists !!!!!
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Interesting debate.
Some of the points raised by TL, Chris and James I agree with entirely. It really bugs me that quite a few motorists have the attitude that we cyclists should stick to the cycle path when it is a matter of choice for us as to whether we use the path or the road.
Personally I like to use the path but when cycling south-north in heavy traffic it is sometimes hard to find a break in the moving traffic to cross onto the path. My own technique when I’m on my MTB is to zip over the slightly raised central bit by the black railings between the Longport building and North Beach (not such a good idea on a racing bike with thin 27″ wheels).
Also, at Bulwer Avenue it is often easier to carry on riding the pavement where the cycle path ends and to wait for a break in the traffic further on rather than hang about trying to cross into Grande Maison Road.
As Ray has pointed out, common sense dictates that there are times when riding the pavement makes absolute sense. Such as my traffic beating ride along the footpath on the morning of the Route Militaire/St Claire/Vale Road snarl up.
After all, practically every car driver uses the pavement almost every time he or she goes out and the bus drivers spend half their days on the pavement these days. As long as you carry on giving way to pedestrians I don’t see a problem.
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Neil
Re the Val de Terres, you have ignored my points about it being unsafe for a slow cyclist to use the pavement. I did not say they should not be allowed to use it (I don’t think they should be, but that’s a different point) but I am saying that it is unsafe for them to do so.
who said anything about column inches?
“Round 4″ what is this, a fight? and you said that I was incapable of reasoned debate?
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Neil,
OK, so you recognise James has a right to use the road. Would you join me in condemning the aggressive actions of drivers who give him abuse for doing so?
Looking back over this thread, it’s clear we’ve gone off down a blind alley arguing over your proposal re cycling on pavements, because we haven’t actually taken the trouble to find out what your proposal is. Is it that there are specific pavements, e.g. Val de Terres (and other places like the ones you’ve mentioned) which should be somehow reclassified so that cyclists are permitted to ride on them? Or that cyclists should be allowed to ride on all pavements (via an amendment to the local implementation of the highway code)? Or simply that the law should stay as it is, but that the Police should clarify their position, and acknowledge that cyclists may reasonably use the pavement in certain circumstances? And what concessions exactly do you think cyclists should be required to make to pedestrians if they are legally riding on such a pavement?
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It’s not the fare hike that has driven me off the buses, it’s the attitude of the drivers and the management. I have had several reasons to complain recently (late buses, early buses, buses that don’t stop, buses that take the wrong route etc) and the attitude of the “complaints department” is confrontational and very unhelpful. Nothing is ever their fault, they’re completely unwilling to take criticism on board, and I for one shall not be using them in the future. Well done Island Coachways, that’s another car on the roads every day.
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Chris
Do you agree that James appears to be the type of militant cyclist who rides with an attitude? You can’t not, it’s there in black and white.
In my world common sense is applied to situations. Pedestrians priority, cyclists to use their brains at decide whether its on to pop on to a pavement when and if appropriate. The concept isn’t hard; I ride like Martino describes regarding his Northern route.
TL
I haven’t ignored your points re Val des Terres I just believe the safety issue is being over-egged, further engagement being pointless.
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Further to my post of last night I did the Route Militaire/St Claire run again this morning at about half past eight. Another snarl up so I used the pavement nearly the all the way to the half way filter, stopping only once behind a single pedestrian who was kind enough to let me pass.
I think ChrisJ hit on what should be the generally accepted solution when he asked if “…the law should stay as it is, but that the Police should clarify their position, and acknowledge that cyclists may reasonably use the pavement in certain circumstances?”
As for the argument over the Val des Terres, this is moot because there’s no need to ride the pavement going down (I’m faster than most drivers when descending) and on the way up there’s only a tiny stretch of pavement at the start of the hill that’s not worth going onto anyway.
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Of course, since there is no traffic problem, the reason the buses are late is because of poor staff and confrontational complaints departments!
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Neil
I have no idea how you can conclude that James “rides with an attitude” based upon a few words stating his opinions. I am afraid that this says more about you.
I agree with the second paragraph in your post of 9.38, but this is not how you started off. It seemed that you were saying that cyclists should get off the road for the good of the motorists, not because it may be best for the cyclist. As ChrisJ says, some clarification may clear up any perceived differences in views.
You did ignore my concerns about safety because you said that there is no rational argument why the pavement up the Val de Terres could not be used. The entirely rational argument that I had put forward was one of safety. Which you ignored in order to make that statement.
Martino – I think that Neil is advocating using the pavement on the other side of the road to cycle up – ie on the same side of the road as the cars coming down – hence my concerns about safety.
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Spot on Phil. I’ve also been on the receiving end of Island Coachway’s so-called “Customer Service”.
At times catching the bus is something of a guessing game. I note that the new winter bus service came into effect on 1st October and that there have not been any improvements to the timings of buses to encourage commuters out of their cars and onto the bus. Sadly though, neither Island Coachways not Environment care about providing a good workable service.
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Neil,
TL is right – I have read James’s post again, and I can’t see that there is anything ‘militant’ about it, unless you find his exercising his right to use the road to be ‘militant’. Perhaps you do; I note you have ignored my question about whether you condemn the aggression of drivers who give him abuse.
I also agree with your point that cyclists should be able to apply common sense to the question of riding on the pavements. But the fact is that when you ride on the pavement, you are breaking the law; there is no stated Police policy that they will not prosecute you because you applied ‘common sense’. Do you have any proposal for a change which should be made, or are you happy with the status quo?
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Hi Chris
No one can excuse abuse to other road users be that car on car, cyclist on car or car on pedestrian. It might be a perception/ignorance thing but on the North to South and South to North ride I use the perfectly usable cycle path; it’s what it was put there for. Exercising your right not to use it, although perfectly legal, just appears bonkers – as demonstrated by the desparate ‘reasoning’
Ideally we would just use common sense, including the law enforcers. If someone is riding their bicycle along any of our numerously under used pavements I see no problems with that. The police policy was media driven; they have to be seen to be doing something as a reaction to a minority article or two and the odd bleat on a phone-in. It’s not their fault that they are, sometimes, driven by who is shouting the loudest. That’s Island politics for you.
“Surely we have much more important, and real, issues to fix?”
Indeed
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Thanks for that clarification on the Val des Terres issue TL. I should have realised that for myself and, yes, I accept it’s not a great idea to cycle up on the pavement on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. It’s not something I’ve ever done and I don’t even like going up there when the traffic’s heavy because the place is real trap for car/lorry fumes. The only time I choose to go UP the ‘Valdies’ by bike is on a Sunday or a weekday evening/night when the traffic is very light. At the same time I wouldn’t condemn a fellow cyclist for riding up on the pavement.
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Neil,
Round 10 million…
Saying James ‘appears bonkers’ is mildly less prejudiced than saying he’s ‘the type of militant cyclist who rides with attitude’, but I still can’t agree with it. If traffic in the Les Banques is free-flowing, and a cyclist doesn’t want to risk colliding at speed with pedestrians on the pavement, or compromise their speed, then it seems eminently sensible that they may decide to get off the path and on the road.
What really started all this off was your hazily-sketched ideas to achieve ‘Cyclists out of the way allow[ing] for the free movement of traffic.’ I wish we could be discussing bus provision, paid parking, employee parking, or even just the wider issue of common-sense concessions which could safely be extended to cyclists. But regrettably we’ve had to spend 25 comments or so going round in circles trying to get an answer to the question: What is it you actually want done in order to help pavement-surfing cyclists and drivers’ stress levels?
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Phew! There’s enough material there about cycling or not on the pavement for a paperback
Now that it seems to easing off a little I still think that the only way to stop commuters driving into Town is to take away their long term parking slots
Thirty years of paid parking in Jersey has NOT stopped morning congestion and it will not work here
Remove the long term slots or just put up with
the congestion twice a day
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For the record I am both a cyclist and a motorist.
On an island like Guernsey with narrow roads there is a need for a common sense approach to cycling on pavements.
Obviously I wouldn’t be too happy riding along a pavement with a lot of blind driveway exits (death trap!) and there are many pavements which clearly aren’t suitable or safe to ride on. There are however pavements around the island where cycling on the pavement would be beneficial to cyclist and motorist alike.
Obviously care should be taken and priority given to pedestrians but that’s standard common sense, or “due care and attention.”
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Arnald
Well done once again, you pick out one point and completely ignore the facts surrounding it. Most unlike you old chap.
The traffic problem is obviously to blame for early buses, buses not stopping and buses taking the wrong route too. Correct again, there’s no fooling you is there?
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@ChrisJ
” If traffic at Les Banques is free-flowing..”
Chris, it always is free flowing after the ‘rush hour’
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