6 replies to this topic

[Favs]

If you’ve sat in a traffic jam recently on Britain’s roads, you’re not alone. It will come as no surprise to anyone who regularly drives in the UK that our roads are very busy, but the proof is now in that they’re actually the most congested in the whole of the EU.

The proof comes from a study of EU cities performed by Inrix, and reported on by The BBC. Inrix, a data analysis organisation, spent time studying traffic data from over 120 European cities and identifying “traffic hotspots.” These are “pinch points” where drivers have to slow down to 35% (or less) of their expected speed for at least two minutes.

It turns out that here in the UK, we have over 20,000 of these hotspots across 21 of the cities studied. This is by far the highest number of any EU country. Behind us, by a long way, is Germany, with 8,517 hotspots, and Italy, with just over 5,000. Without doubt this means many UK drivers suffer more frustration on the roads than anyone else across the EU.

The rest is here https://www.petrolpr...556740ea96aba46

Brexit steals another GB European title,  

[Robodene]

Not surprising, as you say. With rising population here (presumably mostly adults, and not entirely as in rising birth rate?) it seems inevitable. We are not building new roads in proportion to the traffic increases, neither will we. Apparently, only 17m more people to go and then our population is supposed level out - in 2050 or summat. I always thought that we should be prepared to share this wonderful country with others but this seems to have got a bit out of hand. (Rant over)

[fixitsan]

Because we have some very old roads and because over time we have built sometimes right to the edge of the roads, it's inevitable that traffic volumes would be limited in a lot of places.

 

I wonder if we have more town bypass roads than anywhere else ?

 

I read a study somewhere which reckoned that if 10% of car drivers elected to use a motorcycle then congestion would be reduced by up to 25%....and the percentage of drivers needed to switch to eliminate all congestion is about 25%.

 

There would be whole lot more waving and nodding going on.

 

 

I wonder which country has the highest single occupancy rates for cars ?

 

It makes sense that Germany has fewer pinch points, i bet they have less traffic per se.....because although their public transport system is heavily subsidised it does actually work very well, it is a very real alternative in more cases than in the UK IMHO

[Studley Ramrod]

It's prolly a lot worse than the figures suggest as using an arbritary "where drivers have to slow down to 35% (or less) of their expected speed for at least two minutes." is a load o bollox.  Try using 60% and they should include most roads in the UK, not just cities.

[Bjørge]

The problem with roads is much the same as with building wooden ships; at some point in size, wheight of necessary structure reinforcements exceed the increased weight, leaving a poorer net load capacity.

 

What happens when you widen roads ? Houses need to be knocked down, moving them away from each other. Roads (where I live, at least) occupy quite much land, especially if you count in the areas affected by noise....

 

Communities designed 100% for cars exist (e.g. Los Angeles area) - illustrating that you can't make them practical for cars and other means of transportation (like feet) simultaneously. 

 

And - if you reduce number of cars by 10% to avoid cars there will soon be another 10% of people experiencing that "hmmmm...using car is both faster and more comfortable !". There are two main factors limiting car traffic: congestion and parking. Without parking you have a cubic metre of steel weighing more than a ton and nowhere to place it....

[jono49]

The only reduction needed in this country is the population! all people are in the grand capitalist idealism is consumers, to hell with the consequences, polluted roads, rivers, air, sky's, the G7 summits used to put "Overpopulation" on the agenda, but now "Overconsumption" is the big thing regarding climate change etc, You dont need a degree to weigh up one causes the other!

[fixitsan]

I didn't know who or what to believe and tried to rationalise the population issue in a meaningful way.

I looked at Total Fertility Rate (birth rate in old money)...

 

In most European areas the TFR is far too low to sustain the population.

 

In Scotland the TFR is below the EU average of 1.5.  A TFR of about 2.1 is required just to maintain a population. Germany's TFR had got as low as 1.4.....and so perhaps we understand why Germany just settled more refugees than any other EU nation.

 

Regardless of where someone comes from, when exposed to capitalist goals and lives one side effect is that TFR always goes down, as if people seem less willing to want to share their gains with their kids (infant survival rates become very high usually too)

 

With no immigration, or no increase in baby production, Scotland will become one of the first UK nations to see population collapse become reality, just as happened in the more remote areas and islands already

 

The large rise in UK population is due mainly to 'population momentum' following the baby boomer years. In the UK as a whole, even taking into account all immigrants and their kids, the UK TFR is still barely 2.0 . 

 

There was a good article in one of the broadsheets recently titled "Why Europe needs lots more babies", words to that effect..  but when the topic of discussion is no longer "overpopulation" the reason might be because it isn't such a problem today.

 

Largest growing populations are still in the old 'third world' , and several well respected anthropologists and social scientists  believe that all we need to do is help them to advance, using capitalist goals, and their TFR will fall quickly just as ours has done.  Then we'll reach someone's intended ideal state of "as many people as the market is able to support"

 

Currently we believe we are in control of the market (as consumers)....we're not. We're the essence of the market....

 

Hmmmm.... https://youtu.be/jxiT30N6ti4

Edited by fixitsan, 03 December 2016 - 10:14 am.