M for murder
Posted by Robert Bright at 10:30AM on Friday 08 February, 2008 8 Comments
I'm on the M4 and nothing is moving. Nothing has been moving for a long time now and the bile is rising. Thoughts turn from the present gridlock to a more general sense of stagnation, a creeping belief that something is rotten at the heart of the nation.
Maybe we really are a country of obese whingers, chasing heart attacks trying to pay off over-inflated mortgages, our leisure hours spent eating plastic food under the plasma glow of television sets tuned to Celebrity Face-lifts or The World's Hairiest Nazi Babies or some other variation on the whole narcissistic freak show.
Yes, the bile is indeed rising. It's been 90 minutes and I've moved less than half a mile, sat amid the quiet hum of hundreds of metal boxes, shunting along the asphalt to the tick of a geological clock, charting beard-growth with each passing lamp-post. Beyond the windscreen, black and grey clouds hang like wet newspaper, briefly separating to reveal a perforated moon in the pale blue sky.
I fix my weary, jaded gaze on it, this moon, and think how it's nearly 40 years since man first set foot on its surface. At lift-off, the Saturn V rocket that took Apollo 11 there was developing thrust of about 160 million horsepower, while the command module reached an eventual speed of 24,226mph.
In the time I've spent here, being mocked by an electronic sign saying QUEUES LIKELY, Apollo 11 would have travelled more than 36,000 miles, the equivalent of going around the Earth one-and-a-half times.
As it made its slingshot out of our orbit, Apollo 11's crew were among the first humans to see the planet as a planet, a glowing blue and white globe floating in the void.
And on a microscopic strip of that planet's surface, I'm still going nowhere. For a brief moment I think about setting fire to the dashboard, leaping from the driver's seat, jumping over the bonnets of neighbouring cars and scrambling up the grass banks at the side of the motorway, screaming like an ape returning to the wilderness.
There is a hard truth to be faced and it is this; that despite technology evolving to the point where we can go faster and further than ever before, everything's grinding to a halt.
Higher and higher numbers are being added to the speedometers of cars driven ever slower. As for travelling at the 'rush hour', so monumental is the daily struggle to get back to the commuter belt that it might as well be Orion's Belt.
So what's the solution? Jet packs? Teleportation pod next to the dishwasher? Or else just stay at home and hunker down with a lifetime prescription of Xanax and the lobotomised pleasures of daytime TV? Jeez, I don't know. I only know that it's going to get worse before it gets better. More people, more cars, same roads, same creaking public transport.
Of course, like all of us, I have to hope that it will get better. I have to hope that a giant leap is just around the corner. Especially as the traffic on the M4 has finally broken the 10mph mark.
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8 Comments for "M for murder"
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The solution?
Motorcycles.
Well a few good starts... offer tax breaks for people who move house to reduce their total commute (if the total mileage of work and schools trips is cut by half, you don't pay stamp duty).
How about making re-opening the road the first priority after an accident, instead of conducting a forensic investigation?
Tax breaks for firms that offer flexible working hours and encourage telecommuting - or shops that open, say, 11am to 7pm instead of 9 to 5.
There's plenty that can be done without incriminating and taxing everyone in the country.
Read this after completing my morning commute - in Houston TX. However bad things may be on the M4, my guess is it is better than my motorcycle commute on Interstate 10. First of all, here in 'the colonies' there is virtually NO public transport (creaking or otherwise). So, all those people are on the road (alone) in their 25 foot long SUV that can't be seen over or got around.
Also, 'filtering' on motorcycles is illegal here so there's little incentive to get out of that 3-ton sled and onto something that would take much less space and be far more fuel efficient. Cheers....
I know entirely what you mean and echo this blog wholeheartedly. I'm fed up with better technology and better opportunities actually making people more rude, selfish and behave worse. Transport is the best it ever has been, we have trains, planes, motorways, A roads and lots of other types of roads and they are all blocked at rush hour.
We have all the technology in the world and we are still sad depressing gits who can't move anywhere! Something is definitely wrong!!
The other solution is to work from home, as I do. No commuting, never late for meals, watched the children grow up, listen to Radio 3 all day - heaven! I even make appointments for after 10.00am to avoid unnecessary hold ups. Given how green my lifestyle is, you'd think I'd get a special tax break. With Goofy Gordon and co, sadly no chance.
Oh dear, two recurring themes in all these posts; 1) Why is petrol so expensive, I can hardly afford my 80 mile commute? 2) Why is there so much traffic on my 80 mile commute? The commute 25 years ago was 8 miles. Hmmmmmm.
I know EXACTLY what you are talking about, here in Melbourne we have the same issues.However... this is not a road issue, nor a transport issue, you could double the width of freeways and it would make little difference :It's a zoning issue!
'What?' I hear you think, but hear me out:
These days, more and more jobs centralised in the big cities, so we have more and more demand for housing close to said cities which makes it too expensive for most of us.
Solution? Market forces have more and more people living further and further away from where they work, hence the steady rise of the 'commuter', the 'rush hour' is now pretty much all day, people leaving earlier, working back later to avoid the mad crush of traffic.
We throw up more and more 'housing estates' here in Melbourne, further and further out, with no public transport and no upgrades to roads, end result... more and more people stuck in endless traffic jams.
Compare this to the lives of those who CAN afford to live within 10kms of the city centre, who simply leave their period home, walk down an 80-year-old leafy street, hop on a tram, and spend 20mins getting to the office!
You can't build medium density housing in these areas, it's against the planning laws.
Governments need to bite the bullet and scrap these restrictions on residential development within a 10-15km radius around the city heart, you MUST get your citizens closer to where they work, and this means that you MUST increase the supply of quality housing on the market close to city centres.
This must happen, or the gridlock that everyone is experiencing will become a major hinderence to ongoing productivity and our collective sanity.
Hey John(the Melbournian), ditto same in Sydney. On top of that, we have public transport that is outdated/inefficient or non-existent due to lack of planning foresight by the government and developers.
I have a mate who commutes by car up to three hours every day. This is partly due to being stuck in constant traffic jams on the either the freeways or in main arterial roads. With no traffic on this route however, it would take him less than and hour to get there and back.
The NSW Govt has added to our commuter dilemma by building a few nice new bypass roads (like the M7 motorway), and tunnels like the cross city tunnel, but are charging the public more than a nosebleed in tolls (some times multiple tolls) to use these roads, causing people to think twice about using them, especially with the cost of fuel rising with the interest rate on the mortgage.
With the golden age of internet technology and all it has to offer, perhaps it might be logical for for some big corporations to consider allowing many employees to work from home. Just think what they would save on in overheads for not needing so much office space. They may make a saving on sick leave as well as there may be more satisfied employees who no longer get ill from the added stress of a long frustrated commute.
And Wayne, yep, filtering here on motorcycles is illegal too. The cost of a bike compared to the SUV's and 4x4's (you know the type, the ones that inner city twits buy but never take off road... what a waste!)