And road pricing takes another step forward...

Originally Posted by Colby

Reading Borough Council (or whatever they are called) are one of the local councils that have applied for it. It just wont work in Reading. Wherever they do it, they will push road users onto other routes that are clogged up already. Public transport in Reading at rush hour is full up already. Public transport also goes from the edges of Reading to the centre and not "diagonally" across the town so if like I did, you work in south reading and live in west reading, you are buggered cos you need to take 2 buses.

Queue the politicians answer of "The increased revanue generated by this scheme can be put into increased funding for local, and more importantly, rural, public transport."

Maybe I should run for office...

The buses are run by private companies now, not the council. Reading has got to be one of the worst places in the area for traffic. The road planners seem to make things worse not better.

Those private companies (like Arriva) get a subsidy from the government for running those services. Or if they don't, they'll be able to apply for one at least.

Well, they might not get much money out of it, but it'll be the way to justify it to the public.

Originally Posted by Baph

Off topic: Be advised. You can still track a mobile phone even if it's "switched off" because they have power to keep the clock ticking. The only way to prevent GSM tracking is to literally remove the battery AND sim card from the phone itself. Or change the IMEI.

Oooh, interesting, never knew that Must remember to foil line my helmet as well to stop the aliens

What's strange, and what's fuelling my "this has nothing to do with congestion" thought, is that we already have a reasonably fair and environmentally aligned road pricing scheme - it's called fuel duty. Drive a fiesta, or an SV, only when you need to and you pay relatively little. Drive a BMW X5 and take the kids to school half a mile away, then drive into central london daily and you pay a lot more fuel duty. It's already roughly aligned to income levels (paupers don't drive X5s) and road usage (use it more and it'll cost you more).

The only unfair bit about fuel duty is that it punishes the rural user more so than the inner city user. That could undeniably do with some attention (although house prices are rapidly driving the poor, or even the middle income, out of the countryside and into the slums, preserving the countryside for the rich).

this really winds me up
i hope theres a protest where those 2 million people turn up in to london - on foot

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by Baph

Speed limits are apparently set to the 85th percentile.

i work for a highways and transportation consultancy and as far as i know this isn't exactly the case, speed limit are introduced where other factors such as road geometry and surface quality don't reduce vehichle speeds sufficiently.

the 85th percentile is often used as an arbitrary way of defineing a speed at which something like "most of the drivers will stick to" - this is used in the design of new road layouts or alterations so that if you can say "the 85th percentile speed of traffic approaching this junction is 28mph, therefore it is safe to omit a sign warning of the junction at 300m, but they need them at 10/50 etc" - that was just an example of how the 85th percentile is used, i'm not sure if they use it in the way you describe, or more along thelines of "the 85th percentile speed on this stretch of road is 51mph, but there's a new school with a path that links to a housing estate which crosses it, something needs to be done" - that might be a speed limit or traffic calming or something else

Granted there are other factors governing speed limits, but I know that our local Plod have used the 85th percentile as justification for anti-speed campaigns in the past.

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by Colby

The road planners seem to make things worse not better.

the road planners have to work within the framework set out by a government obsessed with reducing car usage - and the councils planning departments (or at least some of them) are struggling because they used to be full of enginners but are now full of managers and box tickers who haven't the foggiest how to build a safe road whilst keeping traffic flowing, only knowing how to tick off the various "vital aspects" of road design liek safety audits for people who want to make their driveway a bit wider etc

/and breath

What a wonderful democracy we live in. We all shout "no" and the ruling powers go ahead and do it anyway.

Matt

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by Baph

Granted there are other factors governing speed limits, but I know that our local Plod have used the 85th percentile as justification for anti-speed campaigns in the past.

likely because the 85th percentile is a good judge of what the majority of road users travel at. they know they'll never stop every single last person from travelling at >30 so they have to set realistic objectives