CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting

Single Occupancy Vehicles

(12 posts)
  • Started 8 years ago by Wilmington's Cow
  • Latest reply from jonty

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  1. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    While waiting at one of the crossings into Edinburgh Park (right beside the Gyle tramstop, another example of a transport hub being used by loads of people to go to the businesses in the area, but the pedestrians having to wait aaaaaaaaaaaaages for lights to change, once more demonstrating that this 'war on the motorist' is bunkum) I idly counted single occupancy cars.

    There were 31, in the time before the lights turned red, with 5 multiple occupancy (one of which being a works van, and another a lady with two kids in the back). I'm going to have to do a longer standing count. Now some will have dropped some people off en route, but I suspect it's a small percentage. It just seemed a remarkable waste of roadspace. It just made me think of all the people who complain that the council creates traffic jams with its road management, when car sharing could, at a stroke, virtually half the amount of traffic (if we simply went to double occupancy - imagine if there were triple or quadruple occupancy!).

    Posted 8 years ago #

  2. minus six
    Member

    i have a vision

    red flags fly over edinburgh castle

    its year zero

    they've lived high on the hog long time

    but now

    say goodbye to the primacy of your convenience

    surrender your car keys

    march them all out of town

    work the fields of the lothians

    for a bowl of rice a day

    its the mandate of heaven

    Posted 8 years ago #

  3. Stickman
    Member

    I get a prime view of the Corstorphine congestion. Excluding buses and commercial vehicles, about 75% of cars are single occupancy. At morning/evening rush hour I would say it must be 90%.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  4. robyvecchio
    Member

    I used to do that in the exact same spot just to spend time at the traffic light. I had to give it up after the third day as it was making me angry on the way to work which negates one of the benefits of cycling.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  5. dougal
    Member

    Being on Morningside Road during a work day is eye-opening and hilarious in a black-humour way. Narrow road, prime bus route, lots of pedestrian crossings - almost every single vehicle has a single person sitting in it, going nowhere.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  6. holisticglint
    Member

    ScotGov have a nice chart about this

    http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Transport-Travel/TrendCarOccupancy

    Biggest offenders are commuters so car spends most of the day sitting in the same place. Huge waste of space

    Posted 8 years ago #

  7. Ed1
    Member

    On the canal I would guess 99 % of bikes are signal occupancy , on the NEPN although most bikes are single occupancy I notice most (of the few I have seen) motorcycles are 2 up but they ride like they have stolen the motorcycles.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  8. minus six
    Member

    disappointingly low uptake

    for the zen fascist solution

    Posted 8 years ago #

  9. ih
    Member

    " ScotGov have a nice chart about this"

    Shows car occupancy as 1.57 in 2010. I suspect this is probably an over estimate, given that people responding in the household survey will know that single occupancy isn't a good thing. A bit like when you're asked how much alcohol you drink, and you say, "oh, about 15 units a week."

    Posted 8 years ago #

  10. jonty
    Member

    A continuously kept travel diary will probably be more accurate than a simple survey, in the same way that a drinks diary would be (up until 11pm...)

    Are you sure that "people" know single occupancy is a bad thing?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  11. Ed1
    Member

    Are you sure "people" will know single occupancy is a bad thing? “
    Well in its self-it’s not bad necessarily a bad thing, I suppose it would depend if a multi occupancy vehicle may be considered better if it reduced the number of independent journeys that would have taken place otherwise(Commutes etc)
    If the journeys would not have taken place as independent journeys then it may be worse for environmentally to have a multi occupancy journey if means more journeys.
    The boys racers out for a cruise with a full crew that would not have gone by their self. The person that goes along for the ride adding weight and increases pollution, or even the journeys that would not have taken place independently the drive to a café or cinema.
    It would also depend if applying an economic or environmental or congestion criteria, a single occupancy car of some executive working or such like may have more economic benefit than 4 lads in a nova out for a drive, I suppose part of thinking behind congestion charge.
    (Environmentally would depend on the car type 1 in Nissan leaf better than 4 in a diesel etc hypothetically)a lot of variables may be

    Posted 8 years ago #

  12. jonty
    Member

    I wasn't talking about the philosophy of what makes a journey "bad" (interesting and multi-faceted as it is) but more whether "most people" actually feel any sort of guilt about single occupancy/unnecessary driving, in the same way that they might when they have a cigarette or some unhealthy food.

    See for example the people who scoff when advised to "only drive if necessary" in bad weather and say "of course it's necessary, otherwise why would I be doing it?"

    There seems to be serious political squeamishness about suggesting that any car journey could possibly be bad somehow.

    Posted 8 years ago #

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