Funny thing Paddy, I have been looking over my own "walking" website and wondering if I could perhaps indicate some bus routes to some of the walks that I have on there. To be honest though, on most of the walks that I have chosen to illustrate, there is not even a bus route, let alone a bus stop within miles of them. As I stated previously too, I would not be allowed on local buses with three dogs, and if my dogs don't go, then neither do I.
It has started me thinking though that I could perhaps do more on my website to cater for people who either WANT or HAVE to use public transport and as I am thinking of another "re-vamp" of my site, I will give this consideration, if only to provide links to timetables etc where there is a service.
The link to my hiking site (avoiding my homepage and the links to all my other website) is below.
The photos are very much optimised for speed of loading as the site is now 6 years old and conceived in the days of 28k modems !!!! (although I have obviously been adding to it over the years.)
See, people DO listen to alternative viewpoints and adjust their own accordingly!
Even I am not too set in my ways to explore new angles to everything!
Hek! some good ideas coming through. take a while to wade through this lot. I still think a little some thing to prize the 'limpets' out of their shells is necessary
A shame they won't let you take your dogs on the bus - but different operators have different rules. Some will allow dogs free, some charge them a fare, some say dogs are OK, but not on the seats, some just say no dogs, no way, no how! Some leave it entirely to the driver's discretion, which means you could be OK on the outward trip, and totally stymied on the way home!
Anyway, your site is another action-packed taster for the joys of walking in Wales.
Here's an approach that should work well enough if you want to add some public transport walks to the contents:
* First - find out where the most useful and most regular buses are running. This way you're not going to be trying to 'force' a route to work. * Second - figure out if there is a great cross-country walking route between bus services. This can lead to some remarkable routes that are fun to work out. * Third - check carefully that the projected walking times and the bus timetables are going to allow a successful traverse. * Do the walk and enjoy it - then tell everyone about it!
1. Hikers and workers have different transport needs
2. People often think they need their car and public transport is too awful to use for a hiking trip, but as pointed out above there are often ways to make it happen, but people use the path of least resistance (i.e. their car). If you don't have a car then you have no choice, so thank heavens public transport exists!
3. Car users for leisure are not penalised enough, but a complete ban is clearly not going to work, as local residents still need to live and work in the area. I would ramp up car parking fees to non-residents, but give all people who live/work within so many miles of the area an opportunity to apply for a special badge that gives them cheaper car parking fees. To counteract people trying to park away from the designated car parks, I would instigate large no parking except in emergency zones.
4. Public transport obviously needs improving. This can be done with buses (which must carry a ramp that the driver can operate for disabled users). People need to use them. They will use them if parking becomes expensive.
5. Provisions need to be made for cyclists. e.g. safe off road cycle routes. In Oxfordshire I have been extremely impressed by the fact I can take my bike on a train, then follow a very well signposted route to get to a nature reserve, much of it off road, and surfaced to prevent damage to the land. OK it is flat here, but where possible cyclists should be considered.
6. People need to learn to be more flexible with their leisure time. Traffic problems are a fact of life, and we need to learn to live with them-even if we all stick to our cars eventually traffic jams will slow us down considerably. Therefore, we need to arrange our walks etc. around a sensible schedule. If public transport does not work, consider car sharing, or hiring a minibus for group trips. Exploring the countryside is a priveledge, and is potentially damaging to what we have come to enjoy.
7. W.r.t commuting. Commuting is hell and there are complex reasons for why people live away from work and have to endure a commute. However, many people choose to live far away from work so they can live in the 'countryside' and enjoy the best of both worlds. If there are financial motivations for this, fair enough, but if it is to enjoy the country life, then you cannot complain about poor public transport services. People's taxes are not there to subsidise those who choose to move out in the countryside for a taste of the goodlife, when they work in the city. If you don't like it move back to the city and use the countryside for leisure or learn to endure the commute. If your job is in a rural area, then you have no choice but to endure poor public transport, but if more tourists use it, then this can only help local residents (either by reducing the volume of traffic or by increasing useful bus routes).
I find I see more of the countryside now I live in the city centre. Living in a city gives you more transport options as you can see more areas surrounding the city. If you live in a village you always have to go into the city to get transport out again to see somewhere different.
And Tony, you've just made me realise how lucky i am here. With a bit of creativity i can make good use of the buses to get to any major point in northern snowdonia.
I'm setting myself the challenge of doing all the major peaks in north wales (including Berwyns) without once making use of a car. Gives things another slant, and it'll really wind my car-loving mate up!
In fact, this whole topic is so complex it's giving me food for thought for my MA thesis on an environmental topic i start next May. Sustainable practices in outdoor pursuits anyone?!
tdave - don't forget to post some good bus info to let others know how to do it.
Now I think about it - I've NEVER used a bus in Wales. All my trips to Wales have been long-distance walks - so I've only ever concerned myself with getting there and getting away again at the end. The rest of the time it's just been weeks and weeks of continuous walking.
well the links are :- http://www.gwynedd.gov.uk/gwy_doc.asp?cat=2567&doc=12522&Language=1 for gwynedd timetables.
http://www.traveline-cymru.org.uk/English.htm for travel line and other areas of Wales.
As i asume you mean on the site, i'll definately Emphasise the bus routes in future updates. And once i sort out the Guide section (easier now i've found the 'book' i started in '93) it will include much on the public transport.
tony, with the technology, the boundaries can be placed anywhere. main roads run through the parks and "entry fee" is only when you drive off the main roads (broadly speaking). not being familiar with the road network and congestion in these areas i am just making a suggestion for a possible silution.
the congestion charge in london was the work of the devil and would never work. oops! those whingers eat your words. the london population so hated the idea we voted in for another term the man responsible for it!! it's just gone up from ÂŁ5 to ÂŁ8 too...mmmm! didn't hear all those howls of protest again. public transport use has been a great success story.
the people who shout the most are the people who don't live there and who can't be bothered to change.
A simple solution that might work would be to issue special tax type discs to residents /workers or who ever else it was deemed necessary to drive within park boundaries. If your caught parked up without one you get a heavy fine. If you’re just passing through it does not affect you. If you’re visiting private premises it does not affect you.
I think that deep down everyone who genuinely appreciates the outdoors & drives to get to see it has a prickly feeling in their conscience that they are part of the problem. They also don’t know what to do about it. They (we) are also aware that doing something about it, whatever it is, means a considerable loss of freedom and choice. So are happy to sweep it under the carpet for now. But we are starting to trip up over the lumps in the carpet. My dad’s generation spent quality time in the outdoors, they managed without cars, that was the reason for club huts springing up every where. Whether it was caving clubs climbing clubs or rambling clubs they all had huts so they could make a full weekend of it, maybe not as often as we do but it was a solution. The remnants of these are still about today but used in a slightly different way (weekend pissups). People are very resourceful if you take one option away from them they’ll think of something else. Of coarse, you’d need to be club full of millionaires to get a nice shack somewhere now.
Remember when Youth Hostels were for walkers and cyclists? And if a walker turned up late, the Warden might ask a cyclist to leave on the grounds that they could get to another hostel quicker than the walker!
Now the Youth Hostels are swamped by car-owners and if a walker turns up late - then he can go and sleep under a hedge!
You don't even have to be a member now, just pay an extra ÂŁ3 a night!!
On thread, have you seen that it is proposed to bring in 'congestion charges' countrywide now? They would reduce car and petrol tax and institute charges as high as ÂŁ1.30 per mile in the busiest areas. Will they include National Parks as some of their busy areas??
Office M. - That is the 6 million dollar question.
Up til now, national congestion charge models have assumed that tackling urban congestion is the prioirity, and that the highest charges will only apply to London and other metropolitan areas at the busiest times.
At the same time, it has been assumed that the cost of using a rural road 'off peak' will be negligable and that the cost of motoring in rural areas will actually fall.
This was assumed to be a good thing. i.e fuel duty is unfair on rural motorists, who have no alternative to the car and who enjoy higher annual mileages (Personally I believe that that argument is an over generalisation that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, but that's a different story).
So what happens if you substantially cut the cost of rural motoring? Well you do improve rural access for those with a car. But encouraging more car use will also have some less positive outcomes: -further undermining the viability of rural shops , services, heath care, and some public transport. - Increasing traffic levels and pollution is some busy villages and market towns, - increasing house prices, especially in rural areas within range of park and ride or commuter rail routes
And reducuing the cost of rural motoring is bound to further incrase traffic levels in our national parks and other honeypots.
What is the solution? Well bodies like CPRE would advocate instituting a relatively high charge on roads in the national parks.
Premumably not what you want to hear if you live there
Are these measures intended to tackle congestion? Are they also intended to reduce pollution? or is it about introducing a fairer way of taxing car travel? Or is it a mixture of all these?
If it’s about congestion, then yes, the main problem areas are towns and cities and the roads which link them at peak times of the day. If the higher charges of using these busy roads is meant to act as a deterrent then public transport must be in place to provide a cheaper, efficient and viable alternative. If people don’t have this option, it seems really unfair to charge them more for an essential journey. No doubt in the long term it will have an impact on where people want to live and work. But this is happening anyway.
It will only reduce pollution if the number of cars on the roads , and the time that cars sit in traffic jams is reduced. Replacing cars by public transport for commuters would be beneficial for congestion and pollution. I guess this will be the focus of the new scheme.
If the new proposals are intended to charge motorists according to how far they travel and whether that is on busy or quiet roads, then there will be winners and losers and that will depend on how the weighting of charges is applied. It will be interesting to see if these new proposals has much impact on where and when people spend their leisure time. It will give people more of a choice when they weigh up the cost of travel. Currently we simply calculate how much it will cost to travel from a to be based on distance and the price of petrol. By introducing another variable, there may be more awareness of which are the busiest roads, when are the busiest times, and hence the busiest places. It could lead to some very interesting road maps, I wonder how they will show the charge per mile on each road and how it varies at time of day or year?
People may spend longer planning their leisure time. I expect RAC and AA route planner will eventually be updated to give the cheapest route, thus also avoiding the most congested areas. This may reduce congestion but not necessarily reduce the number of miles we travel. In fact we could end up spending more time in rural areas with cheaper roads and overall pollution could increase.
Alistair Darling hopes to get public backing for his scheme. If it can be shown to have the potential to reduce congestion and pollution then in general terms it has to be good. Individuals will measure its’ fairness as to whether they will be winners or losers financially and I think having good public transport options are essential and should be in place sooner rather than later. As for National Parks, I suspect that people living and working somewhere like the Lakes may have to pay more to use their cars but hopefully they too can make use of public transport improvements. Maybe people will think twice about visiting on a bank holiday weekend, but out of season trips will increase. Or maybe that’s just too optimistic!
I mentioned the Isle of Man Walking Festival before in this thread. It takes place in the next fortnight and is about 90% based around public transport.
The other day I heard that a large number of people are booked for one of the walks, which is already billed as requiring the use of the steam train from Douglas. Seems that this is no problem down at the depot, since they'll add another carriage to cope with the extra passengers, or even another engine if the whole train needs extra power.
Thinking about it - providing an extra steam train must take more thought than providing an extra bus - given the fact you have to fire the thing up and get a good head of steam first.
I still think it looks odd seeing all the 'city slickers' making their way to the financial service industry in Douglas on Thomas the Tank Engine lookalikes - but as a system it works splendidly.
