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Letter: We Need to Think Outside the Box to Solve Guildford’s Transport Problems
Published on: 1 Dec, 2024
Updated on: 1 Dec, 2024
From Jim Allen
In response to: Forcing Cyclists to Share Roads with Motorists Will Not Allow the Change We Need
There are many discussions regarding road loading for all users. However, similar to the pollution in the Wey navigation being caused by not just discharge (but incorrect licensing criteria output rather than treatment capacity and input), we face a similar situation on the roads.
The computer programs used to measure additional vehicles per development do not provide actual documentation showing the capacity of the roads and whether they are reaching overload.
I propose that the accepted time to exit a junction is four seconds, and allowing five seconds means that any urban road exceeding 720 vehicles per hour is exceeding capacity. Out of 16 roads around Burpham, 12 will exceed this capacity in 20 years.
Most roads in Guildford are estimated to be below nine meters wide, which means none can meet the criteria for cycle lane demand widths or separate bus lanes.
We need a comprehensive reevaluation of the entire transportation problem, not just in terms of modal shift and demanded change, but also considering the rational thought patterns and engineering principles of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Bazzelget. They got it right!
So let’s all think outside the box jump the rails and come up with something better for Guildford’s transport problems. Mag lev, monorail, cable cars, moving pavements, to name but a few.
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Responses to Letter: We Need to Think Outside the Box to Solve Guildford’s Transport Problems
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H Trevor Jones
December 2, 2024 at 2:37 pm
On a recent long organised Ffestiniog Travel small group tour travelling 2,000 miles across South America, half of it by train and bus, I was most impressed with the municipal transport in La Paz, a city growing out of a deep gorge up both hillsides and onto the high plateau above, about 4,000m above sea: instead of a metro the city has a series of connecting cablecar lines up and down the hillsides giving fantastic views and running along the top of various streets both up on the high plateau and down in the main city below.
Ben Paton
December 3, 2024 at 10:19 am
Guildford could use a tram, or something like a tram, running from Merrow/Burpham, down the High Street to the university, hospital and Park Barn. Do the politicians ever think about it?
Guildford could also use more council houses. Do they think about that?
The hard truth is that infrastructure must be built. That costs money.
Given the hard choice between spending money to do something real and lasting (like buying land to make new capacity) the politicians have chosen to go for window dressing and sticking plaster solutions that cost little but also achieve little: like painting white lines on existing roads to conjure cycle lanes out of thin air.
Politicians love to be big-hearted when spending the taxpayer’s money and to waste it on their pet dogmas. But given how Woking went bust and given that Guildford is not all that far from the same precipice itself, the politicians have not got the courage to spend the required money on infrastructure. They would prefer to signal their virtue by spending money on the consequences of the bizarre fantasy that they embarked on in Afghanistan.
Another bizarre fantasy that the politicians waste inordinate amounts of time and money on is the so-called “Local” Plan. This plan is based on statistics that are known to be wrong and puts half the houses on green field, arable land that was formerly in the green belt. It does the opposite of protecting the environment and reducing CO2 emissions. A work of political genius.
Sam Neatrour
December 7, 2024 at 11:32 am
In response to thinking outside the box, the above is utter nonsense; trams, spaceships, moving pavements and cable cars etc. It’s a little old Guildford and the UK doesn’t have much money.
No need to reinvent the wheel here folks.
Perfectly good blueprint for local active travel designed to reduce car journeys on London Road in Guildford was turned down recently by Surrey County Councillors. A majority of the cabinet based their decisions not on the will of the silent majority of local people here in The Town but a noisy bunch of Facebook transport experts, citing irrelevant, incorrect and irrelevent reasons. Even when asked to look again, Surrey County Council choose not to.
The result is we still “have a problem, Houston” and no one has the courage to fix it. Meanwhile anyone travelling on London Road and not in a car is in danger and those in a car are in a jam. We are all loosers.
Jim Allen
December 7, 2024 at 8:47 pm
The core issue lies in a fundamental misunderstanding of the technical challenges posed by past, present, and future dimensional constraints, and the precise geographical origins and destinations of the journeys involved.
Dismissive generalizations about expertise, coupled with a preoccupation with advocating specific social media platforms over others, overshadow the critical need to address the transportation requirements of the 100,000+ individuals traveling in and around Guildford, Woking, Godalming, Send, Shere, Chobham, Cobham, Bramley, and Cranleigh.
“London Road in Burpham” is not a single transport link, but rather part of a complex, integrated routing system serving numerous origins and destinations—a basic fact seemingly overlooked by the author.
Ben Paton
December 8, 2024 at 9:36 am
Scorn is not a substitute for analysis. Repetition of inaccuracies is not a substitute for truth. And walking and cycling are not substitutes for a hundred years of combustion engine civilisation. “Working people” do not have time to walk and cycle to and from their office/shop/factory and also put in a long day’s work.
If “Green” fundamentalists turn back the clock to the Middle Ages and force the public to walk everywhere they will reap a revolution. They should have the courtesy to examine the facts. Making our economy “green” overnight is the equivalent of changing all four engines on a Jumbo Jet at 30,000 feet. It will cause the economy/plane to crash. Watch what happens to the British car industry over the next few years.