Josephine Roper @jroper@transportation.social

@peter_ellis Generally they don't, but I also see EVs as very far down a list of solutions to the problems with cars - like PPE on a hierarchy of controls. Ofc, EVs are one of the few solutions that could be in their control as individuals, but there are some others, like being satisfied with climbing closer to home, or moving closer to good climbing.

Being internet friends with American rockclimbers is very, very fucking jarring as a sustainable transport person. I feel like I'm living on a different planet from people who drive 5+ hours every weekend to go to the best rocks in whatever surrounding state has the best weather at the time. Need to emotionally separate a bit... from my work and from the Americans both, probably

@Transportist taking the Metro to get between Parisian long-distance train stations can be an equivalent distance to airport people movers. But not the same station and has lots of stuff in between.

@milesmcbain not wrong though... good beer is so expensive. But at price per unit of alcohol I think cheap wine wins in Australia, and if you're only using it for 'enjoyment at the end of each working week' you need cheap wine that doesn't go off before you finish the bottle, leading us to only one conclusion.... the goon sack.

@Transportist looks like they were big trees :/

@jedsetter Wild that they don't make such simple changes (signage) that might make the bus run at less of a loss.

@milesmcbain but if they were genuinely work vehicles it shouldn't really matter how it takes the dust!

@milesmcbain yes but only if it's a high-vis colour like red. It's absurd to me that so many cars are in variations of charcoal, grey, black, silver and other colours that seem designed to blend in with roads (and heat up more).

@walk_sydney Commenters raise justifiable doubt about the speed of putting in light rail, based on the last one. Hopefully cycle lanes could be progressed independently and ahead of a light rail. (Or forget light rail, just close lanes to cars and fill them with buses, but I know that doesn't have the public appeal.)

From Pete Dyson’s ‘Transport for Humans: Are we nearly there yet?’, which I haven’t yet read, but looked like a good read from the parts I flicked through at #utsg2023

@timrichards he may also have been thinking more about shorter trips, between adjacent towns and <1-2 hours, say.

@timrichards well, British rail is fine at catering to people like you at the moment - people with choices who can pay 120 pounds for a fare or who have flexibility to find cheaper ones in advance. But there is a lot of unmet demand over that, and massively expanding the capacity of their rail network would be very expensive.

Anyway, the current energy that appears to be in the Welsh government to pivot transport planning towards meeting access & climate goals rather than increasing mobility was impressive.

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wouldn't have been able to get to Paris, from anywhere in Germany or Switzerland, the next day - it was a Friday in summer, and absolutely every high speed train that would get in by the time I needed to be there was fully booked.

So I did a 16 hour bus trip - not fun but seats were available, and I'm sure nearly always available, because the bus companies can scale demand up and down to the holidays quite easily. Perhaps this is possible in theory with trains but not in Europe right now?

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That one was interesting. I try to go everywhere by train in Europe (7000km, 98 hours over the past 2 months...) and I love having that opportunity compared to Australia, but you also start to see the issues, especially inflexibility to cope with problems or periods of increased demand.

Like I had a night train cancelled in Germany because of storms - doesn't happen to buses. I could get on another one a few hours later (an uncomfortable overnight seater not a sleeping bed) but then

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Someone asked about closing Cardiff Airport and he said that's not on the table yet - still perceived as too many economic + 'national prestige' reasons not to stop subsidising air travel until the rest of the UK does

In his opinion, in a state of climate emergency, investment in buses is going to give much more climate reduction per dollar, quicker, than investment in rail in Britain

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