Why does Edinburgh Council hate cars?
May. 31st, 2025 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerI occasionally see people complaining that Edinburgh Council hate cars. And, to be fair, I suspect that some of the council members do dislike them (The Green Party are not known for being big car fans). But the Green Party don't run the council (it's currently Labour supported by the Tories and Lib Dems - but their policies about cars vs buses are very similar to the SNP administration), so why is it that people think the council as a whole hate cars?
It's because the council has very little choice.
In a very rural area cars make total economic sense and buses make very little. There aren't enough people travelling between any two points at a given time to make it worth running buses that often, so buses either don't exist, or only connect larger areas rarely. And because they don't run that often, you can't just wander out and leap on to one to get where you need to. So you pretty much *have* to have a car.
Once you more urban you have a situation where buses are running regularly on key routes, so if you live on them then you'll be able to rely on a bus to get too/from work/school. And if you're doing that enough that you're paying for a bus pass, or that you're able to get to most of the places you want then a chunk of people don't need cars any more.
And then, as you get even more urban, you reach a key point where there are *lots* of buses. And to manage the concentration of people in the city you run out of space on the roads, at least at key parts of the day. You now have traffic jams at rush hour. And that's because you have vehicles that are 4.5m long that are carrying one person and other vehicles that are three times that length that are carrying 100 people. If you want to keep those 100 people moving then one of the most efficient ways of doing it is to get the incredibly wasteful vehicles carrying only 1 person out of the way.
Now, this is problematic. If you do it before you have decent bus routes set up for people to switch to then there will be a lot of resistance. You clearly need to hit a critical point to make it doable. And obviously you need some exceptions. But *something* like it is inevitable as people get more concentrated together. You simply cannot fit everyone in the roads if they are using cars, you need something more compact than that.
It's because the council has very little choice.
In a very rural area cars make total economic sense and buses make very little. There aren't enough people travelling between any two points at a given time to make it worth running buses that often, so buses either don't exist, or only connect larger areas rarely. And because they don't run that often, you can't just wander out and leap on to one to get where you need to. So you pretty much *have* to have a car.
Once you more urban you have a situation where buses are running regularly on key routes, so if you live on them then you'll be able to rely on a bus to get too/from work/school. And if you're doing that enough that you're paying for a bus pass, or that you're able to get to most of the places you want then a chunk of people don't need cars any more.
And then, as you get even more urban, you reach a key point where there are *lots* of buses. And to manage the concentration of people in the city you run out of space on the roads, at least at key parts of the day. You now have traffic jams at rush hour. And that's because you have vehicles that are 4.5m long that are carrying one person and other vehicles that are three times that length that are carrying 100 people. If you want to keep those 100 people moving then one of the most efficient ways of doing it is to get the incredibly wasteful vehicles carrying only 1 person out of the way.
Now, this is problematic. If you do it before you have decent bus routes set up for people to switch to then there will be a lot of resistance. You clearly need to hit a critical point to make it doable. And obviously you need some exceptions. But *something* like it is inevitable as people get more concentrated together. You simply cannot fit everyone in the roads if they are using cars, you need something more compact than that.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-01 10:39 am (UTC)(Admittedly, I've avoided the trams so far as they always look rather full of people! With luck, supply will meet demand … Have yet to try the P&R.)