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We're far from out in zombie land and our Friday evening journey (2.9 miles both ways) to go out for a birthday meal for SWMBO and a few friends, took fifteen minutes, was made in silent, air conditioned comfort for the grand expenditure in £0.88 in electricity. Even had free off-street parking at the remote end. There's actually an almost direct bus service (1/4 mile walk at our end) that we have used before for the same restaurant when I've wanted to have a drink, but it goes around the houses so takes at least 40 minutes each way and would cost £1.65 each way. Having the luxury of a choice, I know which one I'd make.
That is the problem with buses or indeed any form of public transport apart from a taxi, they either sometimes involve a reasonable amount of walking, or they go round the houses and take so long doing that. The former is no joke if you're all dressed up and the heavens open up and dump on you, even an umbrella does not afford complete protection, or if it's in the depth of winter, and you're freezing your tits off.
In the example I gave of my journey, the buses all run into the city centre on a circular route, there are no routes that go one side to the other of the city. They all radiate from the centre, so that adds on another couple of miles, and if they get delayed, then you have to wait for your other connection to arrive. So who in their right minds would want to do that when, as you say, you have air-conditioned luxury sitting outside.
Here comes the real issue. Cars are expensive. If you want an electric car it’s £30k investment minimum. If you want a banger it’s a perpetual risk and the fuel is expensive.
Not always. My car (Mazda 2 a.k.a Ford Fiesta) is 18 years old and has failed twice but I managed to get it to the garage, and I only had it serviced once per 5 years. My "parents"
car van (Toyota Yaris Verso) is 19 years old and half-failed once; the AA bloke said they don't see many of those!
I run the mid ground and I can’t justify keeping it for the trivial mileage I do. Most people I know are somewhat screwed financially which means they are not in a position to make either class of investment. That means relying on public transport and living somewhere that there is a decent public transport system.
Living in the
centre of London makes cars difficult and unnecessary. You are just outside the "boundary" of where they have zipcars.
On top of that as you get older, mobility problems arise and disabilities increase. Even getting upstairs in a nice semi out in the middle of nowhere becomes a mortality risk (don’t ask how I know that). That leads to a dependency on simplicity and infrastructure to do simple tasks. Ergo better to be poor or rich in London than anything else anywhere else and leverage public transport.
Except getting to a zipcar by public transport would be difficult with a mobility problem. As for getting a mobility scooter in/out of a (non-van) boot, good luck with that. Then there's the issue of what happens if the convenient car is already booked.
The decent big cities outside London have good infrastructure and you don't have to travel so far to get to somewhere worth going to.
I grew up in Epsom, and there was nothing worth visiting between there and the centre of London. I expect Twickenham and other place equidistant from the centre are simlar.
And then there’s the necessity of transport. Bar people who can’t stay local to work, we should be investing in building cities that don’t need as much travel and transport due to the environmental and capital costs of doing so. But no one will do this because it costs money and takes long term planning and commitment. Our political processes are tuned to very short cycles and are wasteful.
On that note I’ve signed up for zipcar. It’ll do the job for hamfests. If I run all my capital and operating expenditure of my car I break even on public transport and zipcar. That means I eliminate service, insurance and depreciation and capital costs of a new vehicle entirely from my finances. More sleep and the shittiest of zipcar will take a couple of Teks in it
The finances of such things need to be worked out in individual cases.
Zipcar covers 4 cities in the UK; Brizzle is one. To get to the nearest cars would take 45mins using the bus plus either 1 mile walk or a second bus trip. Unappealing, especially if I had mobility issues.
Zipcars seem to be ~£100/day, which means I'd really want to know it would be a good hamfest before setting off. Couldn't fit some of the stuff I've brought back from PPAuctions in them
Having said that, there are three alternative companies in Brizzle, some usefully cheaper (at first glance), but they all have the not-where-I-live issue mentioned above.
Got to have a poke at Cerberus here as well. A friend of mine is always poking me at how much he spends on electricity on his Tesla. My car didn’t cost £88k so I could run mine on Absolut vodka and still be better off
Quite.
Get you friend to demonstrate how, while driving along, he deals with
- the screen starts misting up: how does he redirect ventilation
- you are about to drive through smoke from a fire; how does he switch from external air to recirculating air