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Simple transport improvements at limited cost - please list
radio4extracrap
Posts: 2,933 Forum Member
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There are plenty that could help transport links and provide employment to British infrastructure workers and train workers, here goes:
Extend Witham/Braintree line to Stansted Airport (linking to Peterborough/London)
Extend Central line from Epping through Ongar onto Brentwood
Extend District Line from Upminster to Cranham
I'd welcome the return of pan-London express bus services (improving journey times, by not having to stop every three hundred yards).
Please add suggestions for your area, I am sure there are many opportunities.
Extend Witham/Braintree line to Stansted Airport (linking to Peterborough/London)
Extend Central line from Epping through Ongar onto Brentwood
Extend District Line from Upminster to Cranham
I'd welcome the return of pan-London express bus services (improving journey times, by not having to stop every three hundred yards).
Please add suggestions for your area, I am sure there are many opportunities.
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Insist that any company taking over honours weekly and monthly bus passes now and into the future.
Too right.
I also agree with that.
I agree 100%
How would you deal with the lack of capacity on the West Coast Mainline?
Not through HS2. I'm more interested in spending £43b in a way that impacts the lives of large numbers of railway commuters and not a scheme that will if you are lucky in 2026 get a small number of those users from London to Birmingham and back slightly faster.
The primary purpose of HS2 is not to get to Brum a bit faster!
I've no idea, the solution seems to be HS2 now what was the problem.
Well they shouldn't mention it when asked what the benefits are then and afaik it will do very little else than take you from London to Birmingham.
Anyway I see you ignored the main point of post.
Reopen the Great Central Main Line with services from Manchester and Sheffield to London bypassing Birmingham.
Thus releasing capacity on West Coast Main Line which can have a more Birmingham to London focus.
In fact "West Coast" should use the old Great Central Main Line from Manchester to London and the existing "West Coast" south of Manchester would become a Grand Midlands Line instead.
Travellers to the (North) West Coast and Glasgow / West Scotland shouldn't be routed through the nations second city (Birmingham) in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Central_Main_Line
That's one of the benefits so they should mention it. The main benefit though is increased capacity, there is no cheap and easy way to get this.
Increased capacity on the WCML isn't the be and end all for spending £43b on the rail network. There are millions of commuters paying sky high fares who are crammed into trains day in day out who this £43b will do absoluely diddly squat for.
Reinstall freight handling facilities in many towns, if possible run spur lines into supermarkets / factories to take lorries of the roads. Put in a light transit system in Aberdeen so trains can get to the terminals. Look at rebuilding the Yorkshire coastal route Redcar to Whitby and Scarborough.
[rant on] For roads, educate drives on how to drive on narrow and twisty roads so the pull over and let faster cars pass - I'm sick of bloody tourists slowing down to 20mph on corners because they have never learnt to drive, especially those in camper vans!!! [rant off]
Simple improvements :-
- Allow left turns at red traffic lights for all vehicles, with drivers having to treat them as give-way signs.
- Review and then scrap most dedicated bus lanes outside of city centres, they are invariably under used, do not speed up journeys and simply reduce road space.
- Stop the recent trend of removing roundabouts and either replacing them with traffic lights or leaving the roundabout and adding lights to the them, it increases congestion.
- Locally, the government should purchase Midland Expressway Ltd the loss making operators of the M6 Toll and make the road toll free to ease congestion on the M6 and other midland motorways.
If we're going that small...
Change all pedestrian crossings so that they work on a strict timer instead of 'coincidentally' activating when all the cars have gone and there is already a gap in the traffic.
Either that or don't add them in the first place, if they won't seriously help people across the road what's the point of them in the first place.
Agreed. Thankfully the Conservatives weren't stupid enough to de-regulate buses in London. Outside London, bus passenger numbers have declined. Inside, bus passenger numbers have increased.
And that's why we still have deregulation. London is ok so the disaster elsewhere is ignored.
I think the commuters who use the full up WCML will disagree.
Just renationalising buses and railways would be pretty good, actually. Then reduce fares to a level that actually makes public transport cheaper than going by car.
Tomorrow I'm working in Eastbourne, 20 miles from where I live and only 2 stops by train (5 if you get the slow one). It's £12 return and it only costs £6 in petrol to drive. The trains and buses don't go at the right times, so it takes twice as long as driving. Taking the car's a no-brainer, but it really shouldn't be cheaper for one person to drive a 40-mile round trip than to get the train.
Yeah, fabulous idea, get more people on the rail network, whose central spine won't even be able to cope with projected increases without any more improvements.
Getaway with ya! Your so called central spine is not touched by the majority of rail users.
What's more important in the grand scheme of things- relieving the busiest rail line in Europe or ensuring people from Witham can get to Stansted direct by train?
So where in London, Sheffield & Manchester would you terminate the trains.
Remember the lines into the previous terminus stations are now heavily used by other services.
The Point of HS2 is to remove all the Inter-City Express services on the WCML, MML & ECML.
Then Network Rail can put more long distance stopping services, commuter services, cross country services and Fright services on those lines.
To achieve the above any other way is likely to cost more than HS2.