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Encouraging figures from the RAC (via the BBC) suggest that fuel pricing may be reducing unnecessary car use with a third making fewer short journeys. Hooray!
As mentioned in the article, rural areas tend to find this a difficult issue as public transport coverage is usually sparse and often absent. For example, around here, you have the choice of two buses in the morning (before 9am) and one in the afternoon (after 4pm) should you want to venture into the nearest city.
Alternatively, you can walk a couple of miles to the next semi-important road junction and try to synchronise your arrival with the bus from the village up the hill. Getting to any of the nearby towns requires either going into the city or splashing out on the on-demand Go-Flexi Taxi-Bus – the sobriquet Taxi-Bus presumably derived from the fact that it replaced the scheduled bus service and costs as much as a taxi!
Cheaper than a Taxi-Bus
I can only guess that some wit on the local council branded it Go-Flexi because a flagrant and irresponsible attitude to personal credit cards is a prerequisite to using it on anything approaching a regular basis. For the four of us to get to work and school in St Andrews – and home again too - using this “award-winning taxibus service”, costs a budget-bruising £64.00 per day.
“You just phone to book a journey and your fare will be similar to a bus fare.” Errrm…no! We regularly take the train to Edinburgh for less.
Joined-up transport policy? Not in Fife!
I wish I was back on two wheels…
r:B
r:B
The nights, as we say around these parts, are rapidly drawing in and this has seen a a plague of bicycle ninja visited on the streets and wynds of the auld grey toun.
This presents a problem, not just for the safety of the ninja themselves, but also for other bicyclists and pedestrians using these often narrow, poorly-lit, mediæval wynds.
There seems to be a red thing happening in the better-dressed parts of bicycledom.
I’m never going to be accused of cycle chic…bicycle fogeyism, perhaps! However, to keep the red flag flying, here’s my contribution…a gorgeous, new, bright red Kronan that someone has decided to use as a litter bin for their pizza box…damn them! Come the revolution…
R:B
Remeber RAMP? Well, it only took six weeks but the men from the Council finally fixed the road. This is actually an interim shot and they’ve now covered it in a fine top coat which makes it a lot smoother. Nice job, chaps!
However, the red and white signs proclaiming “RAMP” remain and prompted me to wonder if this wasn’t perhaps the name of a new, and as yet uninhabited, micro-hamlet and we’d simply missed the planning notice in the local paper. Don’t laugh, it could happen!
Imagine…a terrible homage to the “new town” where the full folly of Le Courbusier arrives at its (il)logical conclusion. All road…and no people! Welcome to Ramp (population: zero…but aren’t the streets clean?)
Then I pulled myself together and remembered that I wanted to repost this old composite snap of happier times on the nicer bits of road around here…
R:B
Ramp!
Alas, our wonderful late summer weather has washed out part of the road that connects us to everything eastward. To alert the unwary traveller, those fine fellows from the Council have seen fit to place a sign either side of the problem; a single-syllable warning that does nothing to diminish the impending catastrophe…
Ramp?
Given that this is a branch of the Kingdom Cycle Route, perhaps the words DISMOUNT, BRIDGE OUT! or simply AAAAAAAAAAARGH! would have been more pertinent…
R:B
Mark Beaumont, an ambitious young gent from just down the road, is officially the fastest around-the-world cyclist and managed to record his 18,300 miles in 195 days on video for BBC Scotland which has been re-screening them in four episodes ending tonight. Forget about Chris Hoy’s triple gold at the Olympics, this was the big circuit. The full extent of his travels were also logged by his ex-geography teacher on her fascinating GeoBlog.
Just in case you aren’t blessed with BBC Scotland, have a look at the BBC iPlayer and try to catch up with The Man Who Cycled the World. All episodes should be available for the next couple of days…
R:B
