Goodbye Wheel Clampers

Having driven, motorcycled and cycled in London I think it is beyond dispute who is the most vulnerable at road junctions - badly behaved or not. If you've done all three and formed a different view, I'd be interested to hear it.



That'll be a bit like all those motorists complaining about cyclists who have never speeded, adjusted their radio/satnav at the wheel, jumped a red light or crossing, used a bus lane or eaten whilst driving then

haha! A SatNav? That makes sense!

A bit like dog walkers then, they all swear that they pick up after their dogs yet theres millions of dog sculptures everywhere!
Just thought I`d get my whinge in as this thread seems to have turned into `the moaning old gits thread!` ;D

Everyone has known for decades that the London Underground need a very high level of investement to overcome its problems, yet the problem of under-investment stlll exists. Doesn't Roman Abramovish fancy giving something back to his fans and slapping £10b into a tube overhaul?

As for the BBC, as a Public Service Broadcaster it should ignore viewing figures and put on programmes that cater to the tastes of its viewers: that's its mandate. Personally I enjoy watching the gobby two on Masterchef and that Scottish weasel on Coast; and would accept GB's smugness if the opportunity cost was the removal to the Tower of London of Hansen, Lawrenson and Shearer.

My mother always complains about the amount of repeats on the BBC and then demands they show old favourites like Dad's Army again. What she means is she only likes the programmes she likes and wants more of them instead of the programmes she doesn't like. That's the view of all of the population and is the one thing that the BBC has an issue dealing with: as a Public Service Broadcaster, how does it please all of the people all of the time?.

It would help if Mark Thompson didn't insist on wasting money by moving production departments around the country at regular intervals but the real waste of money is BBC-i, the inaccurate BBC website. It's purpose is not covered by the television licence and is therefore sucking resources away from the screen onto something that is already being covered by other "suppliers".

Merse has touched on this thread about the Stagecoach bus operation here in Torbay and their intension to fight any plans to close Fleet Walk to all their buses. The plain facts of the matter are the mix of pedestrians and buses in what is meant to be more a pedestrian area is an accident waiting to happen and one day someone is going to be killed in Fleet Walk by a bus. There has been and will be more minor accidents with the buses, pedestrians’ and the buildings in Fleet Walk, anyway why call it Fleet Walk if those who do walk it have to dodge large double decker buses while walking it.

One big problem is there is a road right down the middle only wide enough for one bus and so passing places had to be built and it’s these passing places that are the most dangerous parts of Fleet Walk.

When I was young we had the good old Devon General who provided the whole area with a good reliable bus service, there were even such things as bus stations complete with toilets and a café. While the out of town routes to the out lying villages did not make hardly any profit if at all, they were subsidized by the very profitable number 12 bus services from Newton Abbot to Torbay and other profitable routes.

I do not know who ran the bus services after I left Newton Abbot and moved to Torquay, but I do know it was Bayline who ran the bus services back then and what a terrible rubbish service it was. Hundreds of small Ford Transit mini buses touring the streets with thick black diesel smoke pouring out of the back of them.

If you were hoping to get on one say at Castle Circus you were doing simply that LIVING IN HOPE, they were always full when they arrived and unless someone got of at Castle Circus, no one was getting on and it was a case of hoping once again the next one might not be full up. In the end I always ended up just deciding to walk home and it was going to be quicker in the end and far better then being cramped up in one of those silly little buses.

I may be wrong on this but was it not Stagecoach who sent buses down to the Bay and ran a free bus service just to get everyone using their buses? I know I remember well reading about a company doing just that in Torbay and who else could it have been?

What ever happened Stagecoach ended up running most of the bus services in the Bay and soon got rid of the routes that did not make the required profit level and as a result cut off communities to any sort of public transport and greatly increased fares on the routes they still wanted to run along the way.

Most here in the Bay who do live on a bus route only have the one choice and it’s a case of pay their prices or walk or get a taxi. I seldom use the bus service but Carol does a lot and we are a bit more lucky living here as the FIRST BUS SERVICE that runs from Plymouth to Torbay and might even go on to Exeter( not sure about that) runs close to our house. It’s much cheaper than Stagecoach and she can also catch the River Link bus that is part of the round robin trip run by the Paignton Steam Railway and that bus is even cheaper still.

The subject of closing Fleet Walk to buses has come up before and I wonder if the council has not pushed it forward fearing a long and expensive legal battle with Stagecoach. I’m not sure how it all works, maybe Merse will, but as taxi drivers have to be licensed by the local authority surely a private bus company must be as well?

If that is the case I can’t see how a private company would be able to dictate to the local authority what roads it can or can’t use, I would have thought when any licence to operate a bus service was granted the roads that could be used were specified and clauses inserted so changes could be made if required.

What is being said is there would be pick up and drop of points at each end of Fleet Walk for Stagecoach to use and even me with my very short legs and now bulging waistline can walk Fleet Walk in under three minutes so there is no great hardship anyone will suffer for not being dropped off in the middle of Fleet Walk.

The real problem is Stagecoach are always going to want to be able to drop off and pick up passengers around the harbour area and many of the buses that end up by the harbour be it ones coming from Paignton or say Babbacombe that currently go up Fleet Walk and up Abby Road and on to Castle Circus and then beyond and just how can the harbour be linked to Castle Circus using other roads.

Let’s take a look at the bus coming from Babbacombe to the harbour as an exsample, it will come down Torwood Street and then onto Cary Parade and I suppose it could then go along the seafront but would it be able to get around the very Sharpe bend and onto Shedden Hill? It’s the only way it could go if it also wants to pick up and drop off passengers at the top of Fleet walk. But then Abby Road would need to be closed to all cars and made into a two way bus road and the roundabout would have to be altered at the top of Fleet Walk so the buses could swing round and go back up Abby Road.

But then what of the cars that come down the first part of Union Street and then have to use Plimlico Lane that comes out onto the roundabout at the top of Fleet Walk and all the cars coming down Market Street that also have to use Plimlico Lane as well. I suppose the traffic system could be reversed in the part of Union Street from Castle Circus to Market Street so cars coming from Market Street would drive up to Castle Circus but then the two main car parks in the town centre would be cut off from all traffic coming from the Castle Circus direction.

I just think the above plans would just cause so many problems and so after leaving Cary Parade the only sensible route the Babbacome bus could take would be along the seafront, up Belgrave Road turning right into Lucius Street down Tor Hill Road to Castle Circus but then it would have not been able to pick up and drop off at the top of Fleet Walk. So if Stagecoach still wanted that to be a drop off and pick up place the bus would have to go around the town hall and back down Union Street and then Plimlico Lane to get to the top of Fleet Walk and then back up Abby Road to get back to Castle Circus.

This is going to mean that Stagecoach would indeed find their fuel bills rising and fairs would go up to maintain the profit levels they want and you can see they do have a reasonable argument about Fleet Walk being taken out of use for them and there simply are no easy answers as to what other roads the buses can use to serve all the points they need to.

At the end of the day while I support the banning of buses in Fleet Walk I just can’t see it ever happening, just like I can never see the Kingskersell bypass ever being built. I had high hopes work was going to start on the bypass next year, but due to the new government and all the cutbacks they do have to make; it looks now the bypass is going to be scrapped again. There has been recent talk of building the road and making it a toll road. Sorry but the Bay has been allowed to fall into a bad state of repair as money as been wasted on Byes pipedreams and not spend on the very basic things such as cleaning painting that would smarten up Torbay, so I can’t see people wanting to pay to enter Torbay and once they knew that had to would simply choose to go elsewhere.

If it ever became a toll road the rat runs around here would be jammed up solid, I sure would not be looking to add to my costs to get to work by paying to use a road to get there each day and so many here in Torbay have had to find work outside the Bay as there simply are no jobs other then in the holiday trade and even they are getting scarcer these days here.

Maybe the only answer is to bring back the tram system that once operated in Torbay, but I would have thought even that system had to go the long way around certain parts of the Bay due to the fact the Bay is built on seven hills. Yes those same seven hills I claimed Roberts once stood on to announce his arrival to Torbay.

As you know merse its not that easy as you have found out in London, we went down the route of change and got fobbed of with a system where we no longer have a thing called democracy, just a dictatorship and while we can get the dictator out in nine months, we are stuck with the system for many more years to come.