Is Step-Free Access Good For Tradesmen?
Occasionally, on the buses or the trains in London, you’ll come across a plasterer, decorator or carpenter going to his job of the day on public transport. The plasterer just had a yellow bucket with his tools in it and his mobile phone number on the side and the decorator had a fold-up pasting table with his details on the outside.
London now has a severe parking problem, so as we see more step-free stations will we be seeing more tradesmen, with innovative ways of transporting their tools?
But we’re certainly seeing larger and larger packages and cases being carried on public transport.
The Anonymous Widower 
I envy London the transport infrastructure to do that. I had hoped that trams would make it all easier, but we don’t have them in Stockport. Even if we did, I can’t take my scooter on the trams. On the other hand, parking for blue badge holders is good both where I am and in the city centre. I have unlimited free parking on double yellow lines in city, and it means that if I am going to the shots around the Oldham street area, I can literally just move my car from shop to shop.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | September 21, 2014 |
London’s blue badge parking is much more restrictive, but then there aren’t the parking places anyway. One of the reasons, I moved where I did, was that if I didn’t recover as well as I have, I’ve got four bus stops within about sixty metres. If I was in an electric wheel-chair or lightweight scooter, this would go on the bus so easily. I was in Reading recently, where someone needed to get on a busy bus in a wheelchair. As there was no centre exit, a lot of the passengers had to get off and get back on again. All buses must have at least two entrances, with a wheelchair ramp in the second door. We were about seven or eight minutes in Reading getting the wheelchair on.
In a few years time, it will be the law that buses must be easy entrance and exit for wheelchair and scooter users. That’ll sort out these recalcitrant bus companies outside London. London reckons that multi-exit buses pay for themselves in making bus routes a lot faster, which attracts more passengers and raises more money.
Comment by AnonW | September 21, 2014 |