Scottish Infrastructure

[strichener]

5 hours ago, Ekhibee88 said:

Takes me 30 minutes to walk to the railway station !

Wow, just 30 minutes.  It would be about 11 hours for me to walk to the nearest station. 

[effeffsee_the2nd]

Hate the classic attitude of “it won’t work here” or “nobody will use it, waste of money.”

Is it just me or does that wound like a particularly Scottish mentality?

On the other hand do people who’s actual job it is to do feasibility studies on Scottish infrastructure maybe know more than bored football supporters?
Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle, many things are held back due to lack of funds, lack of predicted demand , potential white elephants OR those in charge have a lack of vision and that office has grown stale in ideas?

There’s been discussions over opening a train station in bonnybridge for some time, which would give some 15-20 thousand people fast and regular services to glasgow Edinburgh Stirling and falkirk where many work or travel for leisure. The railway line already runs through the town but the suitable location for the station would be slightly out the way for the majority of people. So it’s being met with the predictable ach nae one will use it, shite location waste of time etc etc
Surely a short drive, bus or taxi ride to a local train station is much preferred to a longer one to Stirling or falkirk? Even if it’s not walking distance to denny i still dont get the negativity

[effeffsee_the2nd]

I grew up in Glasgow and for only 2 of my 25 years there we had access to a car. The rail network is brilliant and there are even some decent east-west routes in the southside. The bus network used to be good but it's shite now as soon as you get off the main drags, and it's much too expensive. Prices are ridiculous for a city with as much poverty as Glasgow - this is what happens when you end up beholden to First Group, and I'm still grumpy about Thatcher's bus deregulation.
Same as anywhere, routes in and out of the city centre are much better than around the town, but at least things are more centralised in Glasgow than elsewhere. I remember some long, cold waits for the 89/90 on a Sunday.
East Kilbride is a new town, and they're all built for cars. I don't know how that can be fixed - that's probably the kind of place where electric cars are more of an answer. Are the bike paths any use? One of the many mistakes in new towns is that the paths aren't alongside roads, so they feel unsafe after dark and a lot of people, especially women, won't use them. East Kilbride seems bad for that.

All the new towns and new estates in the uk that were built with that awful prefab concrete are the same. Who in their right mind thought that having a rabbit warren of enclosed out of sight alleyways in the middle of a built up area was anything but a terrible idea ? Even if not dangerous it looks shit

[Hampden Diehard]

17 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

All the new towns and new estates in the uk that were built with that awful prefab concrete are the same. Who in their right mind thought that having a rabbit warren of enclosed out of sight alleyways in the middle of a built up area was anything but a terrible idea ? Even if not dangerous it looks shit

Plus the rail links are pish or non-existent. EK  and Cumbernauld stations are not central, Livingston's stations aren't in the town and Glenrothes doesn't have a station either. Mind you, we haven't got round to putting rails to the main airports yet either. Greenock has something like 7 stations; move a few of them.

[Hampden Diehard]

On 17/01/2021 at 13:13, welshbairn said:

If the tram's as slow as it was when I took it from the airport not long after it opened, there won't be many people taking it from Fife.

Correct. And let's not even raise the question of the cost of the fares.

[vikingTON]

6 minutes ago, Hampden Diehard said:

Plus the rail links are pish or non-existent. EK  and Cumbernauld stations are not central, Livingston's stations aren't in the town and Glenrothes doesn't have a station either. Mind you, we haven't got round to putting rails to the main airports yet either. Greenock has something like 7 stations; move a few of them.

The number of stations is only proportionate to the significance of the metropolis. 

[Detournement]

Any new train line really needs to have guaranteed regular commuters rather than be justified because it will make the occasional day out in St Andrews easier. 

[101]

8 hours ago, Lurkst said:

Hopefully there are no plans to introduce "smart" motorways in Scotland. 

Who'd have thunk that getting rid of the emergency lane would lead to more people being killed?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/18/smart-motorways-present-ongoing-risk-of-death-says-coroner

 

That is a mad idea - I think that the signs above the lanes are good albeit widely ignored but such a huge change like ditching the emergency lane should require at least everyone going back through the theory test.

[GordonS]

3 hours ago, Detournement said:

Any new train line really needs to have guaranteed regular commuters rather than be justified because it will make the occasional day out in St Andrews easier. 

That's a remarkably capitalist position for you to take. Isn't public transport supposed to, y'know, transport the public wherever they're going? As long as there's a reasonable amount of traffic, who cares if they're going to work?

I mean, the North Highland lines cost a lot to run and don't see much in the way of commuting.

[GordonS]

4 hours ago, Hampden Diehard said:

Correct. And let's not even raise the question of the cost of the fares.

At £1.80 the tram is great value. It's only expensive if you're going to the airport, and if you're going to get on an aeroplane then I don't think you can really quibble.

Incidentally, the airport price is so high because Edinburgh Airport charge Edinburgh Trams £2.80 for every passenger they drop off or pick up. They charge bus companies the same. Doesn't compare well with the £2 they charge per car at the drop off, regardless of the number of people.

[10menwent2mow]

The true test of how good your town is, is how many high schools does it have.

Aberdeen has none.

[G51]

43 minutes ago, GordonS said:

That's a remarkably capitalist position for you to take. Isn't public transport supposed to, y'know, transport the public wherever they're going? As long as there's a reasonable amount of traffic, who cares if they're going to work?

I mean, the North Highland lines cost a lot to run and don't see much in the way of commuting.

A lot of that is because it goes to fucking Forsinard, in all fairness.

[Erih Shtrep]

6 hours ago, strichener said:

Wow, just 30 minutes.  It would be about 11 hours for me to walk to the nearest station. 

Time ya.  

On your marks, Get set, GO!  

[Detournement]

6 hours ago, GordonS said:

That's a remarkably capitalist position for you to take. Isn't public transport supposed to, y'know, transport the public wherever they're going? As long as there's a reasonable amount of traffic, who cares if they're going to work?

I mean, the North Highland lines cost a lot to run and don't see much in the way of commuting.

I was talking about new lines under the status quo of Tory austerity which Labour and the SNP want to continue perpetually.

There is definitely more bang for your buck in improving and regulating bus services at the moment. 

[GordonS]

5 hours ago, Detournement said:

I was talking about new lines under the status quo of Tory austerity which Labour and the SNP want to continue perpetually.

There is definitely more bang for your buck in improving and regulating bus services at the moment. 

Buses are much slower, less reliable and less popular than trains, which is a large part of why bus use in Scotland and across the UK has been in major decline for decades while train use has been rising for 15-20 years. Three-quarters of public transport journeys are by bus but it's less and less popular, especially for commuters. Buses don't have the same capacity to get people out of their cars - ironic as the biggest problem buses face is being stuck in traffic.

Public investment is required in both, obviously.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

49 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Buses are much slower, less reliable and less popular than trains, which is a large part of why bus use in Scotland and across the UK has been in major decline for decades while train use has been rising for 15-20 years. Three-quarters of public transport journeys are by bus but it's less and less popular, especially for commuters. Buses don't have the same capacity to get people out of their cars - ironic as the biggest problem buses face is being stuck in traffic.

Public investment is required in both, obviously.

Plenty of people have a stick up their arse when it comes to using a bus " am no daein that av goat a car, buses are for tramps etc" but don't have the same attitude about trains

Edited January 20, 2021 by effeffsee_the2nd

[Detournement]

3 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

Plenty of people have a stick up their arse when it comes to using a bus " am no daein that av goat a car, buses are for tramps etc" but don't have the same attitude about trains

Because Thatcher didn't slag trains. 

If 75% of public transport journeys are by bus then that's where the investment should be going. 

[LongTimeLurker]

17 hours ago, Detournement said:

Any new train line really needs to have guaranteed regular commuters rather than be justified because it will make the occasional day out in St Andrews easier. 

A St Andrews to Dundee commuter route is definitely the only reason that's ever getting built, and odds on it would have been done by now if there was a strong case for it. Same comment applies to all the other projects that tend to get mentioned like Grangemouth, Ellon and the South Suburban line in Edinburgh. Glasgow Crossrail is the project that probably should still get done but there's maybe too much of a Labour vs SNP vibe going on over that for the old St Enoch line to ever be used again that way in the short to medium term in the absence of a shock election result in May. The other option is waiting to do it properly with a tunnel some time down the road, which will no doubt have to happen eventually if/when Central and Queen's Street hit maximum capacity on services.

[Detournement]

What would a Glasgow Crossrail involve?

[LongTimeLurker]

10 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

It's just the plan to connect Queen Street and Central isn't it?

It's a wee bit more than that. Part of the reason it never gets anywhere with the goods line option that is already there is that it would do that connection very badly. It's more a way that people on north-south commuter services could interchange more easily with east-west ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail_Glasgow

Edited January 20, 2021 by LongTimeLurker