Awful traffic: Reading residents give their views
The Evening Post has published a summary of traffic and transport complaints submitted to the Reading Independent Transport Commission by local residents. The Commission has been gathering comments since November last year.
On the whole, residents’ views have been rather negative. The Evening Post reports:
Of the 541 submissions the think tank has received, a mighty 523 have described Reading as awful.
Ouch.
Without getting into specifics, I believe that traffic has significantly worsened in the town in recent years - and that it will continue to worsen still.
I also believe that our problem is far from unique. Traffic is horrendous in other parts of the South East. It seems to be a widespread problem. London’s Tube, the oldest underground network in the world, feels tremendously inadequate these days. Our skies are crowded: we have 5 international airports in London and yet there are calls for a 6th Heathrow terminal (T5 is not even open yet!) and a new airport in the Thames Estuary. Do I need to mention our trains again?
We are struggling and in need of some big ideas. Let’s be brave. Bangkok and KL have monorail systems. European cities from Geneva to Istanbul have modern trams. We have services and infrastructure that are frankly rubbish. Time to act, I think.
Matt Brady on February 21st 2008 in Transport
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vamos responded on 21 Feb 2008 at 1:29 pm #
Quite simply England’s investment in public transport infrastructure stopped at some time in the past - I think the reason it stopped is very clear - i.e. lobbying from very powerful groups such as car and oil forced us onto the route we are now traveling. Its almost like a drug the car - its warm, snug and most importantly under our full control. We decide when to leave home - when to drive back - no schedules set in stone. But now the genie is out of the bottle getting people off this substance is very difficult - it doesn’t help that public transport ends up MORE expensive to use than a car.
Trams/monorails/light railway schemes could improve the situation, but in Reading, for example, its a major headache to build such a scheme. The quite frankly appalling bus operators won’t like anyone muscling in on their very nice monopoly - and the civil engineering challenge of building in the system means it’ll never happen. Mark my words - the Junction 11 scheme in Reading will lose the lightrail part at some point..
The powers that be in this country have had 10 years to do something and have shown that for some reason they don’t want to change the status quo.. funny that.
» M4 mirage: TVEP vision of an integrated transport systemReading Roars! - a local blog bringing news and views from the Thames Valley town of Reading, Berkshire responded on 29 Mar 2008 at 11:56 pm #
[...] Creative thinking is a must. I stressed the new for big ideas in a previous post (”Awful traffic: Reading residents give their views“), even mentioning two new monorail systems deployed in South-East Asia. [...]