Reinventing the Wheel.
Ever since Oliver Cromwell galloped across the Fens to Cambridge in 1640, politicians have been obsessed with spending money to ‘improve’ transport to that city.
The invention of the wheel helped no end, it didn’t get stones in its hooves. The journey from Huntingdon to Cambridge took around 3 hours.
They cobbled the roads in an attempt to get everybody using the same route – ‘Look! dry feet, and only 15 groats in toll charges’ they crowed. The citizens created their own cobbled routes, and ignored the toll roads.
‘Ha’! said the politicians, ‘How about an iron road, no more rattling your bones on the cobbles – but you’ll need to use our special wagon’. They called it A Railway. It cut the journey time down to around half an hour – but it was expensive, and you could only use the iron rails with the permission of the railway company – when they wanted to.
The citizens had a word with a travelling fellow who had a load of tarmac left over from another job, poured it onto the cobbles, and went back to the roads. They invented their own special wagon, and called it A Car. They could go where they wanted, when they wanted. They could still get to Cambridge in under an hour.
The Politicians were furious; they made the fuel so expensive that it took 30 or more people in the same vehicle to make the journey viable. ‘Hah!’ said the politicians, can’t get 30 people in your car? Then you’ll have to use ours. We call it A Bus.
That worked for a while, until they made the bus fare so expensive that the citizens got their cars out again and clogged up the roads. The Bus took hours to get to Cambridge, and eventually no one used it.
‘Go back on the Train’ said the politicians. ‘Nah, too damned expensive’ said the citizens.
‘Well, the Bus then’. ‘Nah’, said the citizens, ‘might be cheaper but its too slow’.
So the politicians ripped up all the iron rails, tore down the little stations, ticket offices and all, sold the Trains to China, and then – can you guess what they did next children?
They built concrete rails, little stations, ticket offices and all, and put the Buses on rails…They call it a ‘Busway’, and now you can get from Huntingdon to Cambridge in just over an hour – that’s twice as long as the ‘Railway’ used to take.
Of course, they are subject to the odd delay, rather like the roads; for no sooner had they opened the ‘Busway’ than the cyclists said ‘Great, a railway track without those bumpy old ‘sleepers’, it must have been put there for us’ – so they started cycling along it, and before you could say ‘Haven’t we been here before’, along came a nasty old bus and flattened them. So in addition to the special tunnels for Dormice to cross the track, and the Toad breeding quarters, and rehousing the Crested Newts and everything else, the council built a special track for the cyclists. And they moaned because it got wet when it rained…
Isn’t that clever? And it only cost the odd £200 million.
It’s only 21 miles from Huntingdon to Cambridge – the planners are working on a new means of transport already, its got four legs and a tail, and they’re planning to call it A Horse.
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February 11, 2012 at 12:09 -
“A Horse?” said the Citizens. “But you have to stuff hay and oats into it twice a day. Every day. And then there’s the by-product.”
“But the by-product is very good on rhubarb” said the Politicians.
“We prefer custard.” Replied the Citizens. “But if you let us take our doggies with us, we might think about it.”
“You can’t do that!” said the Politicians. “The doggies might chace the ickle foxes!”
“Well, there are far too many ickle foxes anyway,” said the Citizens, “And they keep eating the chickens.”
“That’s it then – no horses!” said the Politicians. “Anyway, they might be a danger to our nice, new shiny Very High Speed railway. You can’t use it because it goes so fast it can’t stop anywhere near you, but the Brummies will like it because we’ve told them to.”
The Citizens scratched their heads. “So we have to pay for this shiny new Very High Speed railway, but it doesn’t go anywhere near us, and even if it did it wouldn’t stop?”
“That’s right!” said the Politicians, preening themselves.
“Right then,” said the Citizens, “We’ll just keep our old Land Rovers going for as long as we need them. We could even run them on chip fat or red diesel”
“You can’t do that!” said the politicians, “It’s bad for Global Warming!”
“Sod Global Warming.” said the citizens. “It’s bloody freezing, we’ve got work to do, and old Ethel from up the road needs to get her clinic. Now piss off and let us get on with life.”
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February 11, 2012 at 12:22 -
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February 11, 2012 at 21:19 -
Brilliant observations from Ms. Racoon and Engineer…
This is almost as mad as the plethora of speed humps (sleeping policemen), 20 mph limits, ‘traffic calming’ measures and speed restrictions on previously national speed limit roads, all in a period of unexampled improvements in vehicle safety – crumple zones, air bags, pre-tensioners etc.
‘Those in charge’ will not be satisfied until there is a man with a red flag walking in front every car again. Might solve the problems of unemployment…
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February 12, 2012 at 07:06 -
Do you really think our legions of unemployed yoof could really be trained to do such a highly skilled and responsible job? Because I’ve got my doubts…
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February 12, 2012 at 16:03 -
“crumple zones, air bags, pre-tensioners etc..”
I live in a residential side road.
Little Emma on her bike hasn’t got any of that shit, which is why we’ve got speed bumps, arsehole.
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6
February 11, 2012 at 12:23 -
So £9.5M a mile to make a jouney half speed that only specially designed vehicles from a monopoly supplier can use?
If I wanted to do a project really, really badly I would insist:
(a) It was vastly more expensive than it needed to be*
(b) A single, monopoly supplier decided when you travelled
(c) The operator would probably lose money
(d) There was no alternative use for the construction
(e) It was slow and inconvenient
(f) I would accept no criticism despite the obvious, vast, sprawling, ongoing failure and no-one would be fired or even held accountable for this utter shambles.(* road prices vary wildly due to political ineptitude all over the world and local soil conditions and gradient and local labour costs, but if it’s flat as in Cambridge, they should be able to build at Texan prices of about $1M a mile).
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February 11, 2012 at 12:25 -
The misguided bus is several years late and somewhat over budget. It has a service road adjacent to it, which was always in the plans as being used as a cyclepath. However, the council couldn’t put a decent surface on it until the busway was finished and handed over, so many cyclists used the guideway because it was nice and smooth compared to the service track. It actually takes a lot of concentration, because the track is not that wide, and has a raised kerb one side and a drop into the centre on the other.
Given that the service track was always supposed to be used as a cycle path, it does flood badly in places, thus limiting its use. There’s also the point that should a bus break down, it might also prevent the maintenance vehicle coming along the service track to fix it.
They still have the problem that they’ve managed to bypass all the villages with no traffic problem, and just as the bus gets to Cambridge, the busway ends and the bus is dumped out onto the main roads where the real traffic jams are. To me, the buses are useless, twenty minutes’ walk each end to/from the nearest bus stop, an uncertain wait for the next bus, and twenty minutes travel time on the bus. Compare this to under half an hour in the car, and about half an hour by bike (down the service track).
The only good thing for the locals is that the whole country got to pay for it via a central government grant. Now we just need to hold the county council to their promise that it would be self-funding and not take any council tax money.
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February 11, 2012 at 12:26 -
I continue to be delighted by the desire of people to flip a bird at centralised planning and control, even when it gets them squished.
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February 11, 2012 at 15:14 -
“…to flip a bird …” Isn’t that an American response (eg: sticking up ONE finger)? *sigh*
What happened to the good old British Harvey Smith TWO fingered salute?
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February 11, 2012 at 14:12 -
A horse? Garn, it will never work. Why doesn’t the government organise the travellers into “Legions” and march them together to ensure Health and Safety? The journey would only take a day. Moreover, the travellers could be obliged to carry things in order to make the project cost effective. All together now, sinister, dexter, sinister dexter……..
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February 11, 2012 at 16:38 -
What’s wrong with using rivers? Down the Great Ouse and up the Cam, it’s only approx 30 miles and hydrofoils go very fast these days. Never mind river traffic, wildlife and bank erosion, people must get to work on time!
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February 11, 2012 at 17:08 -
How about a bicycle powered semi-rigid airship? The passengers’ pedals would be linked to a pusher propeller and the blimp would be connected to a trolley on the track to prevent crosswinds blowing away it.
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February 11, 2012 at 17:08 -
… blowing it away.
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February 11, 2012 at 18:46 -
Huddersfield may be a moribund textile town but the council’s new transport policy owes everything to desperate lateral thinking. The scheme to suspend aircraft from a monorail could render all airports obsolete.
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February 11, 2012 at 18:46 -
….fly-by-wire.
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February 11, 2012 at 19:51 -
Why are you all so surprised. Let’s be honest, since we are talking about transport there is an excellent illustration: the camel is the proof that politicians existed before evolution, because it the best example of a horse designed by a committee of politicians.
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February 11, 2012 at 19:57 -
Ahhh…urban transit boondoggles, which city cannot do without them? Especially when they are “world-class”. The bank of england recently bought up another GBP50,000,000,000 of bonds so that they can continue funding such schemes. Its all funny-munny these days, the Greeks funded the Olympics in a similar fashion and no doubt yUk has done the same, be very afraid.
As to the “technology” employed for the guideway, I would think that if Mattel had been contracted to provide it, they could have constructed it from recycled pop bottles at a fraction of the cost. Travel time might also have been considerably reduced with the added benefit of multiple loop-the-loops added to an otherwise dreary commute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzTRTQkmHpU&feature=fvwrel
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February 11, 2012 at 20:38 -
It’s Cambridge’s little provincial version of Edinburgh’s Tramway.
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February 11, 2012 at 21:52 -
When this idiotic plan was first mooted the old railway track was still in place. At that time one mile of brand new twin track with overhead power catenary was priced at £1m per mile. At that time one mile of dual carriageway was costed at £5m per mile.
But they didn’t want a high speed railway with overhead power lines. All was needed was a few million spent on upgrading the line and it would have been back in use within a year or two.
Unfortunately the gummint of the day was anti-railway and there was no money (so they said).
However, there was plenty of money available to convert old railtracks into guided busways. So that is what we were given.
Somebody somewhere made a lot of money out of that decision.
Lessons have been learned.
yeah right. -
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February 11, 2012 at 23:29 -
Mere amateurs……………… I give you (druuuuuum roll)
The Edinburgh Tram System.
tah dah
I thank you.
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February 12, 2012 at 04:24 -
Yo could not make it up if you tried…..
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February 12, 2012 at 07:04 -
I now believe in de-evolution…
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