Entries Tagged 'travel' ↓
January 11th, 2010 — travel, weather
The gritting routes have now been published. To find them follow these instructions.
1. Go here:
http://suffolk.elgin.gov.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=streetworks.streetworksMap&layers=streetworks
2. Go to the “Zoom To” box
3. Choose Postcode
4. Enter your full postcode
5. On the left hand side scroll down until you get the Highway Network folder and then choose the salting routes box
If you are on a purple route you are priority 1 and you’ll have your road (not pavement) gritted reasonably frequently. If you’re on a green route you’ll be gritted quite infrequently, but still gritted. If you have no route (like I do) then there will be no gritting. None.
January 8th, 2010 — General Election, travel
Thank you to Andrew Coates for pointing out the Labour Party’s response. They’re still saying “we’re against the sell off, but it’s not the right time”. I wonder if there were heated discussions before that equivocation came up. They must think they’ve got a chance of winning next year if they are saying “not yet” because they are going to have to do something very similar, although doubtless it will be packaged in a different way.
Let’s face it, if Labour councillors were really serious about stopping this sale they could do it with one phone call. The junior transport minister is Chris Mole, who is in charge of encouraging councils to sell off buses. Councils like Plymouth, Reading … and Ipswich. Ipswich can not be won without the work of the Labour councillors. They could simply say “Look Chris, we are not going to do a lick of work for you in any safe Labour ward and instead concentrate on winning the marginal wards in Ipswich Council unless you veto this bus sell off.” He’d almost certainly lose if Labour were out canvassing in Bridge rather than Gipping, and he knows it. And Labour could possibly win the council in May.
Instead Labour are not actually going to stop the sale, they’re going to use it to get the disgruntled and ambivalent to rally round the flag. And it’s working well. And then they will sell the buses off.
January 5th, 2010 — travel
At last the Tories respond on the potential sale of the stake in Ipswich Buses to the Go-Ahead group. Obviously it’s partisan, mercilessly mocking Labour on their three positions on bus privatisation (nationally for, locally both adamantly against and saying maybe but not yet). That’s to be expected, after all with Chris Mole as the transport minister Labour can’t make much of the running on this unless Chris Mole were to veto or delay this measure. And if he were to do that in his backyard then there would be wild fires in all these areas such as Plymouth where he’s helped to push through bus sell offs. Expect a lot of Conservative canvassers to point out the role of the undersecretary of transport and MP for Ipswich in the bus sell off.
Labour’s best local issue has for some time been the buses, but their MP has been instrumental in the municipal sell offs. If I were a local councillor I would be furious to see my best gun spiked. And after the hospital.
A left of Labour candidate could clean up, although in Ipswich there’s no real action on the ground apart from a couple of blogs (Andrew Coates has written nothing since his “utter numpty” post, instead talking about the attitude of the Irish Greens on blasphemy laws, the socialist leanings of David Tenant. No really, I didn’t make either of these two up.
Will the Greens move in with a full throated cry for municipal ownership of the buses, with public transport, anti-commercialism and local ownership it should be made for them. If they do would they be able to get their message through to the large Estates on the outskirts where the issue could catch fire? Even if they weren’t pushing all their troops into Norwich South at the General Election, this is probably not something they could do even if they wanted to.
I still think this is going to get the Labour vote out and could lose the Tories a knife edge seat (like Bridge) but it could have been so, so much bigger. Oh Mr Mole, what have you done?
January 2nd, 2010 — travel
Well, it’s actually on an Irish transport forum:
http://garaiste.yuku.com/topic/10119/t/And-now-Ipswich-.html
What’s striking about all of these comments from outside Ipswich is the sense of inevitability of stand alone operators being subsumed and the advantages of taking advantage of the expertise and capital of a larger group.
It would still be a shame if we lost the local control that means that anyone in Ipswich can get a decent answer out of the head of Ipswich Buses within a couple of days. If we could keep that then it would be the best of both worlds.
January 1st, 2010 — travel
It’s easy to ignore what the Ipswich Labour group thinks as they do tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything these days. It’s like a headless chicken, just because it runs around it does not mean that it’s thinking. However they are the biggest party in Ipswich and could always get back in control of the council.
Alistair Ross has put the reaction on his blog and, he’s against it. I’m not going to quote him verbatim, and instead link to his post.
His arguments are:
1. It’s been owned by the “people of Ipswich” for more than 100 years
Well, it’s been owned by Ipswich Council, which is hardly the same thing. However public influence does not need to be done through 100% ownership. If we’re getting rid of any influence that Ipswich council has over this then it will be a problem.
2. Profit’s bad
No it’s not. Profit means that food can be provided far more effectively than it was in Poland or East Germany, for one example. Profit means that services are provided more efficient, investments are made that couldn’t be done through the public sector and there is more incentive to change. To take the profit’s bad idea to its logical conclusion would be to nationalise all opticians and Ipswich Grammar school. Andrew Coates may approve of that, but the Labour Party did not even agree with that in the 1983 election.
The question is whether profit will get in the way of providing a service more than a cash strapped council will. There are arguments on both sides, but “profit is bad” is not one of them.
3. Higher fares will mean higher concessionary bus fares
If there are higher fares. However council subsidised fares will be more expensive at whatever price point. It may be a price that we are prepared to pay, but there really should not be the one sided equations that are presented here.
4. It’s the wrong time – as it’s too cheap
This is a decent argument, as it points to the fact that Labour will reach a very similar deal if they get elected in May, with one or two cosmetic adjustments.
However councils are having the cash taken away from them now, not when the economy recovers from Gordon Brown’s recession in five years’ time. Councils of all stripes need the cash now and they need to keep the costs down in the next three or so years.
5. Total opposition to privatisation
Leaving aside that it’s a hostage to fortune, the Labour government have instructed councils to sell assets and Ipswich Labour MP Chris Mole has said that Councils should decide on bus company sales and joint ventures. Is the Ipswich Labour Party declaring UDI from the Labour government and their own MP?
December 24th, 2009 — travel
Why are some through routes gritted and others aren’t?
Will our road be treated?
When you phone up to warn of impending accidents and told that the road will be gritted, why isn’t it?
I think we’ve got to be honest and say that people have been very confused as to the response of Ipswich council on the gritters. But the problem is not that there isn’t a gritter up every street, it’s just we don’t know where the gritters are.
The council needs to tell people before hand whether or not there road will be gritted. This will mean that people can prepare, by for example keeping rock salt. If they want to elect someone who’s going to tax them till the pips squeak but put a gritter up every path and side road (and run out of rock salt within three days) then they can vote Labour. That’s what a democracy is.
It’s the not knowing that’s really infuriating. Both on the Ipswich Council site and the Highways department there’s no update or advice. There’s no explanations as to why no pavements are treated, even busy ones such as those leading down from Belstead Road and into Burrell Road. There’s a perception that gritting is much less than in previous years.
One of the most troubling worries is that council officials (I know that there is a taboo on publicly criticising council officials, but it needs to be done) will come down on people like a ton of bricks if they clear the road or pavement. This perception doesn’t come about by accident.
So we need to be informed of whether or not the roads and pavements we use will be gritted. We should be kept informed through the cold period as to what’s going on. And we need to be told clearly that we will not be punished for helping to maintain the safety of our streets.
December 19th, 2009 — travel
My wife works in London on Saturdays. Last week and the week before she lost clients because cable thieves took the wire. This week she’d had enough and she decided to stay in London last night. There was no way to get any information over the phone (they could only give the normal timetable and tell us there may be some changes), so we simply had to walk down to the station and find which train was or wasn’t cancelled.
This week also saw me having to return to Ipswich on Monday and losing a day’s holiday. On Thursday both me and my wife caught the 9.30 train and arrived at 1.15 AM, two hours late. In the last two weeks I have been late more often than I’ve been on time, needless to say it’s starting to be noticed. Thank God that I’m going to be able to extensively work from home next year.
At least in Ipswich we can vote out the minister responsible for railways.
November 8th, 2009 — travel
If you are a commuter who lives in Bridge ward (like me) then you may be interested in this facebook group. If you are a commuter who does not live in Bridge, could you please stop parking in Rectory Road?
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166832928595&ref=nf
There do seem to be a quite a few people who don’t live in Ipswich who want to belong to this group, which suggests that some people have too much time on their hands. But then there are a couple of councillors who don’t live in Bridge that suggests that they don’t think their neighbours appreciate them.
August 20th, 2009 — ipswich station, travel
Our councillors may think that we are moaning about nothing and maligning the far left unions but it was grim to be a commuter during the strike. Sadly the RMT won’t compensate us for their strike to increase their pay rise so you will have to make do with National Express.
Click here to get your compensation.
August 6th, 2009 — ipswich station, travel
I would be very interested if someone could help me find some television footage of Councillor Phil Smart on the local news on Tuesday 4th August. He was interviewed outside Ipswich Station (it was nice of him to make it so far from his house) in which he talked about the train strike.
This self described transport guru was saying how easy he found to get to work, without making it clear that he was commuting into northern Essex rather than London, like so many of his constituents. Why he was making light of this appalling treatment of the far left rail unions by this councillor elected in 1983 is a mystery that I find it hard to resolve.
Now why would a 1980s era Labour councillor make light of the plight of his constituents in a way that covers up the actions of Marxist led trade union?
