RAILWAYS OR ROADS

Tarmac the Railways & Get Britain Moving Fast



CITY CENTRE TO CITY CENTRE. RAILWAYS ARE EMPTY
90% OF THE TIME - SO CONVERT FOR BUSES & LORRIES 

Addison-Lee, the civil-disobedience London mini-cab taxi firm, are economically correct in demanding access to bus-lanes. It is barmy to build and maintain, say, a three lane road and close off one-third of it. In old towns and cities with narrow streets, bus lanes are doubly barmy, as they shut-down half the network; this creates gridlock; as in Oxford UK, on the London Road, where many millions have been spent over the past 5 years on traffic management - including bus-lanes - resulting in daily gridlock.

No accountant ever meant to be an accountant - but I reluctantly accept that I am a long experienced professional bean counter (and Futurist) with a natural inclination to count and to try to be balanced - neutral politically - when counting. I have professionally studied the real costs of transport systems for decades.

IF TRAINS ARE ALWAYS FULL, THEY ARE EFFICIENT.
IF NOT - THEY ARE TRANSPORT DINOSUARS.

THE FUTURE: FACTS.  In correspondence with Lord Weinstock, Chairman of GEC UK, we figured out mass transit systems. They included vehicle free zones served by moving walkways - conveyor belts for people (cheap, robust, pollution free - some New York escalators have operated for 80 years), including replacing The Underground in city centres; peripheral car-parks; electric powered bicycles for the halt and lame; main routes with free hop-on buses only, one bus instead of six or seven fighting for a bus-stop; computer summoned shared public taxis replacing local buses; small low-pollution cars (not unlike the BMW Oxford Mini) with rapid hire networks (the average private car lives for 105 thousand hours and is parked for 98 thousand hours); AND, most controversial of all, giving train-spotters apoplexy, - turning railways into roadways. Railway tracks are "covered" by trains, empty or full trains, for a few minutes each day, 1.5% of the time, and even at that the train systems are dangerously overloaded. Using the centre to centre railway routes for buses, coaches and commercial vehicles will clear the roads for people to enjoy.

These ideas were formed before the 2008 FOODTUBES Project (Google it) to take 50% of vans and lorries off the streets.

In a powered vehicle study for New Zealand, we found that in money and pollution terms per passenger mile, trains are the worst (because they are so damned heavy, often empty and need exclusive routes), one-person cars, buses next, and the most efficient are cars with two or more people. Best of all - the purpose of the study - stop commuting and work at home by computer.

Will London's Mayor Boris Johnson, head of Transport for London (TfL) support Addison-Lee - and go on to tarmac the railways?