Carrots and sticks

[ladyofastolat]

This morning I drove for almost half an hour through the back-streets of a town, failing to find a parking space, and beginning to panic at the thought of the 30 children who were expecting me to entertain them in two minutes' time. Every year, more and more car parks disappear, or get hidden behind confusing and ever-changing one-way systems. Every year, the roads get busier, as they build more houses, but don't build more roads to carry the extra traffic; as they make more and more confusing one-way systems; as more and more local facilities such as Post Offices close. And as for petrol prices…(at least three times more expensive than in the US, I believe.)

I suppose this is deliberate policy. I know there are environmental arguments involved, but I think the government and local authorities have missed something vital. If you want to stop people doing something, there's no point making it harder or more expensive, unless you provide a valid alternative. Without that alternative, people continue to do what they've always done, just complain about it more.

Take my old work place, which was in the middle of nowhere, served by only two buses a day. The Council wanted to discourage car use, so said that everyone had to pay to park at their work place. The only way I could get to work by public transport would get me there an hour after I was due to start work, and meant that I had to leave half an hour early. Moreover, it took an hour and half, and cost six pounds. (It was 17 minutes by car.) Plus, my job was deemed one for which a car was essential, since most days I had to go off to schools – themselves often not on bus routes – or libraries, often (as this morning) with several heavy boxes. It was completely impossible to do my job without a car, so I just paid for the privilege of parking, grumbled, and carried on driving to work.

Then take my parents. They do all their basic shopping locally, walking or cycling there, but do a weekly shop in the nearest big town, seven miles away. For years they drove. Then free bus travel came in for the over 60s, so now they go by bus.

It's easy enough for policy makers to sit there in central London and assume that you can get everywhere by public transport, but in some places you just can't, not at present. Rural communities are very different from cities. Whenever I go to mainland meetings, I go by train, but there are nice shiny conference centres situated a good ten miles from the nearest train station or bus stop. I was once one of around 80 people stranded at one conference because there was a two hour gap in the timetable of the buses that would take us back to the railway station.

If the authorities seriously want to discourage people from using cars, they should concentrate on improving the alternatives. Carrots work better than sticks. At the moment, here on the island, everyone who drove still drives, but they just take twice as long to get anywhere, and drive several extra miles as they struggle to park. But for most of them, at present, it isn't about choice, but necessity.