Has cycling passed its peak? Cycling levels down as motor traffic doubles

You're quite right. We've based our entire lives around the car; shopping, commuting to work, etc Problem, it's going to take a major u-turn for people to give it up.

I would class myself as a car fan, and love motorsport - but I've begun to turn. Are all these cars neccessary? Are all these 1 person vehicle commutes really neccessary? 

Can't people walk, cycle or use a scooter/motorcycle all of which are surely better than the car/ public transport for commuting. However, the car has a large lobby in the corridors of power.

I would say this is one of the major barriers to reducing car use. If you weigh up the total cost of running a car versus public transport, public transport is likely to be attractive.

However, once you've bought a car, insured it, tax it, MOT'd it, the marginal costs of driving it (i.e. the petrol) are pretty low - it's almost always cheaper to drive somewhere than to leave the car sitting in the driveway and take public transport. 

This creates a viscious cycle - once you have a car, it becomes economically rational to use the car, which means fewer people use public transport, which puts pressure on to raise fares and reduce timetables. Making public transport less attractive, so more people buy cars...

Solutions: 1) Free (or very cheap) public transport. Free has the advantage that you can do away with tickets, ticket barriers etc. No need for customers to plan or think, just hop on the train.

2) Congestion charging, parking charging etc - even if the cost of petrol remains low, you can increase the marginal cost of a car journey (and indeed target the most harmful car journeys, rather than penalising people who live in rural areas with no public transport).

Both of these make it rational to leave the car sitting in the driveway, and use public transport. Once people starting doing that, the viscious cycle works the other way - public transport becomes more regular, more reliable, more route options. It becomes more feasible for people who don't currently own a car to think they don't need to buy one, or for people who already own one to think about selling it rather than leaving it on the driveway eating money for nothing.

Completely agree with the point about marginal costs.

IMO that is the main thing holding back public transport.

Unfortunately can't see any way of increasing the marginal cost fairly without road charging which would be a very difficult sell politically.

Abolish VED, fuel duty and VAT on new cars and you might persuade motorists to accept it.

Once it's in the virtuous circle can begin!

Very cheap can also do away with a lot of the infrastructure, etc., if you simplify the fare structure and run it largely on an honesty system. Yes, you will get some who just opt not to pay, but if it's cheap enough and doesn't require much thinking about (e.g. single fare for any journey, pre-pay cards for different usage levels widely available, simple scan the card when you board process), the vast majority will pay, providing income for little investment.

So many cars have aircon as standard, sitting in heat is not an issue.

My wife claims is a scarred from a trip back from the Lakes many years ago in a ford escort with no air con.

hirsute wrote:

So many cars have aircon as standard, sitting in heat is not an issue.

Especially with a slide in fuel prices making it cheaper to run.

I could only find estimated figures for cycling when the government quoted the original figures in the Covid briefings,so Ive no idea really what they are basing these numbers on or how they are measuring it, car numbers are easier to track through all kinds of means, but cyclists I dont know how they are doing it,shame really as it would be nice to cite real figures at all the cycling naysayers for a change especially as they are riling against all the popup infra complaining they werent consulted (ie allowed to object).

anectdotally my experience is yes cycling numbers did go up noticeably through March/April & into May,but I felt they dipped back when the first easing of lockdown started and motor vehicles were back in the ascendency, but last couple of weeks its felt like there are more cyclists out again maybe not as many as before but certainly groups of families,couples old & young, so there are plenty of new cyclists around

Of course. The Govt and councils all started talking about pop up infrastructure etc, but very little of it made it beyond committee stage before everyone started saying, "You know what? I think I'll just take the car" again.

Bids for the 1st tranche of funding had to be made by 5th June, and work must be started within 4 weeks, i.e. 3rd July.

It is disappointing to see an immediate lack of action, but at least the DfT is imposing a tight timetable for councils to do something.

I'm trying to push my (hopeless) Highways Authority, North Yorkshire, hold them to account, and make sure they meet the deadline.