Trying to make sense of highways and transport in the UK

摘要

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know who The Doodle is. For those who don't, it's my youngest daughter and a recent walk to school (primary) with her got me thinking about road pricing and how it might affect the school run. What triggered the thought was observing a neighbour bundling their kids into the car and driving them to the same school, which is less than one kilometre away. As it happened, we left at the same time and my neighbour got back home about 30 seconds before I did. According to Google Maps, it's a 12-minute round trip by foot and four minutes by car, but of course that doesn't include messing about trying to park near the school, which is always reminiscent of a Mad Max movie! I'm not here to vilify people, because in many cases children are dropped off before the parent or carer goes on somewhere else, and yes, some disabled people have little choice other than to drive. However, let's put that to one side slightly and wonder about short car-based journeys more widely. They are a product of many factors including the availability of local services (including schools), how the planning system has led to cars being the default transport mode for many people in many places, the complete absence of choice for some people, the 'free at the point of use' model for driving where it's easy to forget the purchase and running costs of a car; and of course once we have a personal method of transportation, why wouldn't we want to maximise its use?