Covid has affected many parts of our lives and the fall (from already low levels) in use of public transport is just one of them, Climate Change means we can't afford to continue using petrol/diesel driven cars. The Government's solution is to replace them with electric vehicles. But we know that this won't solve the congestion problems many parts of the Lake District suffer, and we don't want to see more and more of the countryside covered in car parks with all the destructive implications for wildlife.
Some of our members have been very active in creating lists of cafes etc which are happy to provide charging facilities for electric bikes but this won't work for everyone.
So how do we fund proper bus provision?
Should we charge people to use our roads? Road charging discriminates against poorer visitors and might increase the number of big cars on the road both of which are undesirable.
Should we levy a tourist tax on holiday accommodation, proportional to the cost of their accommodation, so the wealthy pay more? Should holiday cottages contribute to local council tax (currently many are exempt), which would enable local councils to fund/subsidise bus services again? Both of these are fairer but don't catch the day-trippers.
For day-trippers maybe a car-sharing app would help so that at least cars when they did come would be full and not one or two people per car.
If we make things easy for car-users they will never transfer to public transport in sufficient numbers. Bus travel needs to be cheap and convenient. Car travel needs to be expensive and difficult.
Maybe narrow roads should be reduced in width to single carriageway by using road markings and passing places, then the extra unused width could be turned over to cyclists, making it safer for them. A twenty mile an hour speed limit would also help.
If our visitors arrive by public transport, much better transfer services are needed from Penrith and Oxenholme with a full range of bus transfer, electric bike and small electric car hire. These need to be well advertised and easy to access. Transport could be booked at the same time as the train ticket if rail companies and ticketing companies promoted and sold the service.
It is going to be difficult to find the funding and the political will to make the travel shift necessary but it is also vital to put some creative thinking into sorting out this knotty problem.
Jill Perry
