Electric buses

[albie]

Coming to South Yorks:
https://www.electrive.com/2022/03/28/zebra-uk-gov-funds-nearly-1000-zero-emission-buses/

It doesn't say how much has been awarded, but a good move forwards all the same.
I didn't know Coventry was 100% electric buses.

[River Don]

They have an electric bus route in York, shuttling between town and Monks Cross shopping centre.

I've used it a couple of times, just for the novelty of travelling on an electric bus. It's just like any other bus really, except when it stops, it sort of dies. Everything goes earily quiet. People even stop talking.

[Sprotyrover]

It’s £27 million across South Yorkshire

[phil old leake]

Theses are a great idea.  There just needs to be incentives to get people out if their cars.  I’m sure people would use more public transport if it was user friendly and cost effective

There are also Hydrogen buses being built in N Ireland by Wright buses. 

The cost of using the public transport has got to be cost effective otherwise people will just continue to use cars. 

In N Ireland everyone over 60 gets free buses and trains anywhere in the country.  At 65 ifs extended to the whole of Ireland

[drfchound]

It can’t be any more cost effective than having a buss pass Phil.

[BobG]

Remember the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive in the late 70's/early 80's? Brilliant services at brilliant prices right across South Yorkshire. Hugely popular.

It fell foul of Tory political dogma. Mrs Thatcher and her dogma ridden colleagues squashed it. So now you, and I and everybody else still has to suffer the resulting shite bus services at shite prices.

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

This is excellent as an idea, but it won't scratch the surface of the problem unless we make it economically a no brainer to use public transport. Run it as a service, instead of a means of enhancing shareholder profit.

I live within 3km of Sheffield centre. If we go into town shopping on a Sunday, we can park for £1. If we take the bus, it costs £5 each way for the family. Which one are people going to choose?

[River Don]

This is excellent as an idea, but it won't scratch the surface of the problem unless we make it economically a no brainer to use public transport. Run it as a service, instead of a means of enhancing shareholder profit.

I live within 3km of Sheffield centre. If we go into town shopping on a Sunday, we can park for £1. If we take the bus, it costs £5 each way for the family. Which one are people going to choose?

This is excellent as an idea, but it won't scratch the surface of the problem unless we make it economically a no brainer to use public transport. Run it as a service, instead of a means of enhancing shareholder profit.

I live within 3km of Sheffield centre. If we go into town shopping on a Sunday, we can park for £1. If we take the bus, it costs £5 each way for the family. Which one are people going to choose?

You could also go to Murderhall and park for nowt. I can park for nothing at Monks Cross. Economics pushes people towards out of town shopping. The whole system we have been building since the 60s is very, very car centric.

It is impossible to underestimate how difficult it will be to change the expectation of convenance, road building, sprawling carparks and general environmental degradation.

There is an expectation now that it's just a matter of dumping the oil burning cars for electric ones but electric cars aren't a panacea and aren't going to be as cheap. We're going to need much better public transport systems. I'm not sure the public understands this yet.

[scawsby steve]

I'll be glad when I become old enough for a bus pass.

BB and Wolfie got theirs 30 years ago, and have never looked back since.

[phil old leake]

Hound you’re right.  I feel very lucky.  One advantage of being an old duffer

It’s funded by the NI Executive. It is something that could be considered nationally. I suppose it’s like all things it has to be paid for. There would also be lost car parking revenue to be recovered from somewhere 

[drfchound]

This is excellent as an idea, but it won't scratch the surface of the problem unless we make it economically a no brainer to use public transport. Run it as a service, instead of a means of enhancing shareholder profit.

I live within 3km of Sheffield centre. If we go into town shopping on a Sunday, we can park for £1. If we take the bus, it costs £5 each way for the family. Which one are people going to choose?

This is excellent as an idea, but it won't scratch the surface of the problem unless we make it economically a no brainer to use public transport. Run it as a service, instead of a means of enhancing shareholder profit.

I live within 3km of Sheffield centre. If we go into town shopping on a Sunday, we can park for £1. If we take the bus, it costs £5 each way for the family. Which one are people going to choose?

You could also go to Murderhall and park for nowt. I can park for nothing at Monks Cross. Economics pushes people towards out of town shopping. The whole system we have been building since the 60s is very, very car centric.

It is impossible to underestimate how difficult it will be to change the expectation of convenance, road building, sprawling carparks and general environmental degradation.

There is an expectation now that it's just a matter of dumping the oil burning cars for electric ones but electric cars aren't a panacea and aren't going to be as cheap. We're going to need much better public transport systems. I'm not sure the public understands this yet.

I was speaking about this today with a mate.
When (if) new ICE car sales are banned there is going to be a massive financial gap that will need filling.
Does anyone think that the government won’t begin to charge road tax, or something of the like, on electric vehicles.
The lost revenue will have to be made up from somewhere.

[BobG]

Although I've seen very few electric cars in Colombia, when that change really does arrive, Colombia and Colombians will be in a far better place than we will be in.  Towns and cities are not designed around the car. Neighbourhoods have hundreds and hundreds of local shops. There is no need to drive anywhere no matter what it is you want to buy. As a result Colombia doesn't have the sprawling car parks or the maze of roads going God knows where. Nor will it need endless lines of town and shopping centre charging points. It'll need  some of course, but the nature of shopping will mean the need will be dramatically less than our need will be. There will be far less need for changes to infrastructure or transport. There will be zero change necessary in shopping habits. Economically, Colombia is going to be much better off than GB when the change comes.

BobG

PS There are also large numbers of 'Centro Commerciales', usually within walking distance, where you get the poncy stuff that shopping centres always seem to favour.

[BobG]

Maybe road pricing Hound? The technology exists now. Modern cars are already equipped with the necessary devices. The subject gets raised every now and again. I suspect it's an idea who's time is almost upon us.

BobG

[River Don]

I find it difficult to believe in the 60s there was a plan to demolish the entire Covent Garden area in central London (you know that city down the road from Coventry). The whole area was to become essentially a massive roundabout, with concrete walkways, tunnels the lot, the whole brutalist thing. All driven by the requirements of the car driver.

To me the idea looks completely unhinged but it was more than just a proposal, the town planners were pushing on with it and it took a huge campaign to stop it.

[danumdon]

I can just see the period in 10 to 15 years time becoming a proper battleground for extreme elements from the green lobby to the libertarian brigade having running battles about who and what you can have or do with a personal owned car, be it ICE or some green thing, the majority will be forced to use whatever passes for public transport because they will be completely priced out of the car market by over zealous government policy that will manage to pi*s the whole nation off.

Really depressing times ahead for petrol heads and any folk who like to take a car for a spin as and when they please.

Welcome to public transport that serves no one right, costs the earth and will hasten the rush into more working from home like a little dormouse in its hole in the ground , nice and safe but utterly bored and pis*ed off with their underwhelming life of constant restriction.

I can think of some rabid lefty's who will love this!

[BobG]

Christ! I can't!

They must be deranged if they exist.

BobG

[albie]

BobG mentions the old SYPTE, which gave the low cost bus network I grew up with.

This is central, because the high fares are a consequence of a range of private companies looking to milk the transport market.
Now as the electric bus replaces the older diesels, the air quality is improved, but also the fuel costs for running the network are lower.

If the service provider generates their own power, via solar or wind for example, the cost of providing the service falls.

That gives a chance to reduce passenger fares, which helps to change the balance between car and bus.
That can happen if public services are in the control of a public authority.

Road pricing is inevitable going forward, and is a good idea, because those who do the most miles pay the higher cost.

[ravenrover]

Remember the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive in the late 70's/early 80's? Brilliant services at brilliant prices right across South Yorkshire. Hugely popular.

It fell foul of Tory political dogma. Mrs Thatcher and her dogma ridden colleagues squashed it. So now you, and I and everybody else still has to suffer the resulting shite bus services at shite prices.

BobG

Totally agree Bob, I was often asked why as a young man I hadn't learned to drive , why would you when buses were so frequent and cheap, ran till the pubs closed no bother with drink driving and if I missed the last bus I was usually that pissed that a 7 mile walk home didn't seem such a bad thing. It was only after I was married that I could see some advantages of being able to drive and own a car particularly when it came to working opportunities

[drfchound]

We are having two of the grandkids to stay with us at the weekend.
I will be picking them up on Saturday morning and their mum will be coming to collect them sometime on Sunday.
They live about fifty miles away, off a bus route and nowhere near a railway station.
It wouldn’t be easy to do if I had to use public transport only and would be almost impossible to do timewise.

[albie]

That's fair enough, Hound.

Nobody is saying you can't do what is the best arrangement for you.
What it is about is changing the balance of advantage in favour of public transport where it is a viable option.

Like BST said above, you don't want folk making poor choices because the financial incentives point the wrong way!

[drfchound]

The biggest problem albie, is probably that we have got used to the convenience of having a car.
We throw stuff in that we might need, like a coat in case it rains.
We take the dogs, maybe a pushchair if there are kids on the scene and maybe the kids little bikes.
We might acknowledge that it is “the right thing to do” to travel on the bus or train but it isn’t practical.
As has been said earlier in the thread, whoever forces the change is going to be tremendously unpopular.

[River Don]

We are having two of the grandkids to stay with us at the weekend.
I will be picking them up on Saturday morning and their mum will be coming to collect them sometime on Sunday.
They live about fifty miles away, off a bus route and nowhere near a railway station.
It wouldn’t be easy to do if I had to use public transport only and would be almost impossible to do timewise.

But this is only possible with the high waste, unsustainable lifestyle we've come to take for granted. In the olden days families could not live far apart and regularly meet each other. People HAD to live no more than a bike ride from work.

I know it seems inconcievable now.

[River Don]

It's very difficult for us to get our heads around the idea that being able to take the car for a spin is actually a huge privilege. At scale, it's  just too energy intensive, too resource intensive. As so much of our modern lifestyles are.

We are continuing to push on with the dream of infinite growth and industrial progress. Far from falling, emissions continue to grow annually. We can already see resources are stressed, the changes in the climate are ever more clear and the degradation of natural ecosystems obvious.

Basically we are f**ked. It's only a question of time.

[drfchound]

We are having two of the grandkids to stay with us at the weekend.
I will be picking them up on Saturday morning and their mum will be coming to collect them sometime on Sunday.
They live about fifty miles away, off a bus route and nowhere near a railway station.
It wouldn’t be easy to do if I had to use public transport only and would be almost impossible to do timewise.

But this is only possible with the high waste, unsustainable lifestyle we've come to take for granted. In the olden days families could not live far apart and regularly meet each other. People HAD to live no more than a bike ride from work.

I know it seems inconcievable now.

Again RD, I have spoken to people about the close proximity of relatives in the bygone years.
My mum came from a family of ten kids and most of them lived within three or four miles when I was a young boy.
My grandma was less than a mile away and whenever we walked down to see her you could always guarantee that there would be two or three of my aunties there along with half a dozen cousins.
Cue a football match on the field behind her house.

You are right about families being spread far and wide these days and it seems that most are the same.
With regards to taking the car for a spin, that is something I don’t do now.
I do go out in the car but always with a purpose rather than just to have a run to the coast etc like we used to do.
I am retired but have a busy life, which is something that I like, and often have to use the car to go to places or to get things done.

[River Don]

Families certainly are spread far and wide these days.

My sister went to uni in the US and still came back three times a year for the holidays. Like that's just a normal thing to do.

My grandad never went to uni. He cycled to work all his family lived in walking distance.

[danumdon]

We are having two of the grandkids to stay with us at the weekend.
I will be picking them up on Saturday morning and their mum will be coming to collect them sometime on Sunday.
They live about fifty miles away, off a bus route and nowhere near a railway station.
It wouldn’t be easy to do if I had to use public transport only and would be almost impossible to do timewise.

But this is only possible with the high waste, unsustainable lifestyle we've come to take for granted. In the olden days families could not live far apart and regularly meet each other. People HAD to live no more than a bike ride from work.

I know it seems inconcievable now.

My Dad worked on the railway in Donny and lived in walking distance of his signing on point, he didn't work his whole life so that his kids and grand kids could continue to do the same. he had higher expectations for their's and future generations to strive out and thrive.

I know that sounds a bit crass but we do have expectations now in our lives that our parents or grandparents could never dream of. Its a natural evolution to want to develop and progress but at what cost and what do we end up with.

I remember being able to smell coal burning fires on a winters night all around the area when i was a kid, smoke billowing from factory chimneys in Carr Hill that i could see from a bedroom window, smelly exhaust fumes from awful buses and cars in traffic jams on Carr House Road when the Rovers were playing or the races where on, and its not that long ago in the greater scheme of things.

When you look now, its all changed, in a relatively small frame of time all that and more has gone, not just from Donny but all industrial towns in this country, its now on a completely different level.

A small hydraulic leak now in industry is a comprehensive investigation followed by remedial actions that try to mitigate future spillages, and its now environmentally cleaner biodegradable stuff, not long ago, they were dumping tons of the stuff as waste oil into the ground, massive changes have taken place to such an extent we don't really do industry and manufacturing anymore.

Yet we still push and strive to improve on all aspects of environmental compliance. some say we don't do enough , others will dispute the science and say we have done too much. Nothing ever stays the same and things will always change.

When we get tired of expanding our horizons and developing our world then we will all reap the whirlwind of stagnation.

[River Don]

That industrial world may appear to have receded in Donny but around the globe there's far more of it than there ever was. And it is still growing, it has to, the economy demands it

For 99% of human history stagnation was normal. We will consume the rescources of eons in little over a couple of centuaries.

Humanity has released more Co2 in the last 50 years than we did in the entirety of human history before it.

We are experiencing a mass extinction like no other. The poles are melting while the deserts grow.

But yeah. Everything is under control.

[danumdon]

That industrial world may appear to have receded in Donny but around the globe there's more of it than there ever was.

For 99% of human history stagnation was normal. We will consume the rescources of eons in little over a couple of centuaries.

Humanity has released more Co2 in the last 50 years than we did in the entirety of human history before it.

We are experiencing a mass extinction like no other. The poles are melting while the deserts grow.

But yeah. Everything is under control.

Wow, you sound a barrel of laughs. I take It from your doom and gloom outlook that you live a pious and simple life without the needs and trappings of someone from a western  society.

Either that or your related to William Straw in Worksop?

Suffice to say we all try to do our bit for the planet and society in general but I hope you have taken your query to China, India, America, and the developing world, please let us know how you got on.

[River Don]

That industrial world may appear to have receded in Donny but around the globe there's more of it than there ever was.

For 99% of human history stagnation was normal. We will consume the rescources of eons in little over a couple of centuaries.

Humanity has released more Co2 in the last 50 years than we did in the entirety of human history before it.

We are experiencing a mass extinction like no other. The poles are melting while the deserts grow.

But yeah. Everything is under control.

Wow, you sound a barrel of laughs. I take It from your doom and gloom outlook that you live a pious and simple life without the needs and trappings of someone from a western  society.

Either that or your related to William Straw in Worksop?

Suffice to say we all try to do our bit for the planet and society in general but I hope you have taken your query to China, India, America, and the developing world, please let us know how you got on.

I'm not very pious but I do not consume like I used to. I haven't stepped foot on a plane for years for example.

Truth be told it's all too big a thing for an individual to deal with, way beyond my control. Most of the time I put it to the back of my mind.

If it comes up in discussion, I'll explain the grim reality as I see it. If anyone can convince me I've got it wrong I'm all ears but looking at the evidence. It's hard not to be pessimistic.

[SydneyRover]

You have to get between the fossil fuel lobby and government, you have to drive a bus through it.