Will you ditch the car to use the tram?

[PaliRichard]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

The tram makes you healthier?

 

Yes-This information is from an English source

 

 

The (Health) benefits that we can gain from using public transport are:

Reduced Stress

Reduced respiratory related illnesses

Reduces the risk of heart diseases

Reduces road accidents

Increases social activity

Increases general health and fitness

Reduces individual costs and NHS costs.

 

Who conducted this data?

 

'Reduced Stress'

 

When, when I have been in a place that actually has public transport links to work I have had to catch two buses, a journey time of an hour and a half whereas the same journey in the car takes fifteen minutes.

 

Almost weekly my link bus didn't turn up on at least two days, the days it did turn up it was almost always late.

 

'Reduced respiratory related illnesses'

 

Catching the bus I had a total waiting time of over thirty minutes each way stood next to main roads, my respiratory health is far better since getting a car.

 

'Reduces the risk of heart diseases'

 

At best no difference between car and PT - but due to the stress of the lack of service with the bus more likely to increase on PT.

 

'Reduces road accidents'

 

I agree with this one.

 

'Increases social activity'

 

nly because everyone gets together to complain about P/T being late - not turning up - which increases stress.

 

'Increases general health and fitness'

 

Waiting for an hour a day for a bus that may/may not turn up in the middle of december when it's freezing does not increase general health and fitness.

 

'Reduces individual costs and NHS costs'

 

Getting P/T costed me far more than using the car does.

 

I can only speak for my own circumstances but these reports always seem unrealistic to me.

 

You may have also noted I have only mentioned buses - this is because the tram is useless for me getting to work - and I have two jobs - in two different areas.

[Cyclone]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

The tram makes you healthier?

 

Yes-This information is from an English source

 

 

The (Health) benefits that we can gain from using public transport are:

Reduced Stress

Ha, I assume that first one wasn't written down by someeone who has ever caught the bus.

Reduced respiratory related illnesses

I assume they must mean as a society, I'm pretty sure that as an individual your lungs breath the same air which ever way you travel.

Reduces the risk of heart diseases

How???

Reduces road accidents

This is not a health benefit. It's a benefit to society.

Increases social activity

Give over, how's that work?

Increases general health and fitness

As previously discussed my walking to the bus stop will have no impact on my fitness, and general health is a vague statement and exactly what I am questioning.

Reduces individual costs and NHS costs.

Benefit to society, if it's true, which I doubt.

[sheffbag]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

The tram makes you healthier?

 

Yes-This information is from an English source

 

 

The (Health) benefits that we can gain from using public transport are:

Reduced Stress

Reduced respiratory related illnesses

Reduces the risk of heart diseases

Reduces road accidents

Increases social activity

Increases general health and fitness

Reduces individual costs and NHS costs.

 

go on i'll bite Annie

 

The source of your claim is a powerpoint presentation from Nexus who are the equivalent of the PTE in the North East, its hardly an objective report of independant verified statistics with no evidencial back up to it. You have merely clipped the slide of re-cap from a presentation but for the sake of argument thats roll with it.

 

Reduced Stress - According to the presentation you will be reducing it by "Talking to friends, reading , listening to music, more relaxed". I can do all of that in a car (bar reading) and its my music not the chav 6 seats back with his tinny phone and my private conversations will remian private. When was the last time you chatted with a stranger on the bus or even tram as you are trying to back up that the tram is healthier in the first place but you produce a powerpoint about bus?

 

Reduced respiratory related illnesses - To actually quote the presentation (not a true information source for clarification) Vince actually puts Repertory related illness on the re-cap slide that you have quoted - if you wish to find something to support your case then please dont use something that has no meaning to it. i presume he means the claim of 156 million tonnes of nitrous oxide. While a bus may produce 80% less carbon monoxide than a car you could take all the cars off London and Yorkshire's roads and they would still be less of a reduction in atmospheric pollution then closing Heathrow and Gatwick. If you wish me to find the source for this then im happy to as it is from a defra report in 2008 which i used in a previous report.

 

Reduces the risk of heart disease - Any exercise will do this, its a fallacy to say walking to the bus stop will unless you live about a mile away and if you do live a mile away from a bus stop then you are probably in a rural area which has infrequent services and the exercise factor is negated by the inconvinience of time scheduling against a car.

 

Reduces road accidents - Cant argue with this but when it comes to fatal accidents you really have to concentrate on motorcyclists as they account for 16% of all fatal and serious accidents yet only have 1% of road traffic (source: DfT report http://speedcamerareport.co.uk/dft_motorcycle_accidents.pdf) so whiel taking more vehicles off the road woulld be good dont obsess on cars if you wish to reduce fatalities.

 

increases Social activity - to be honest the bits behind the recap which youve quoted says "a focal point for economic and social activites"? Where exactly woudl these take place? a bus stop? No, on the bus? no, At where the bus is going? no different to going somewhere by car then.

 

increases General health and fitness - see heart disease response. i would counter with "just walking from the car park to the your destination and all associated places such as at petrol stations is equivalent to your journeys walking to a bus stop"

 

Reduces individual costs and NHS costs - No evidence supplied to back that up in the presentation, its a throwaway line in a recap of a presentation. I would be interested to ask the author to give me some figures.

 

and as you are trying to back up the Tram in your reply i'll ask you how much the tram has individually cost every person in sheffield through taxation as the thing still hasnt been paid off and is coming out of the public purse via the PTE. So thank you supertram for increasing my individual costs

[Annie Bynnol]

Comment:"I'm now so much healthier outweighs any inconvenience."

Response:"The tram makes you healthier?"

 

My reponse was to suggest reasons why someone might be/feel healthier for using public transport.

This I provided.

 

Nothing more nothing else.

[LeMaquis]

......i'll ask you how much the tram has individually cost every person in sheffield through taxation as the thing still hasnt been paid off and is coming out of the public purse via the PTE. So thank you supertram for increasing my individual costs

 

Do roads build and resurface themselves for free? And before anyone goes on about road tax - or vehicle excise duty - you have to pay to use the tram.

[Isabelle]

Originally Posted by Cyclone

The tram makes you healthier?

 

Yes-This information is from an English source

 

 

The (Health) benefits that we can gain from using public transport are:

Reduced Stress

Reduced respiratory related illnesses

Reduces the risk of heart diseases

Reduces road accidents

Increases social activity

Increases general health and fitness

Reduces individual costs and NHS costs.

 

I have caught the bus only a couple of times in the past month.

I don't believe it makes you healthier, you are more likely to catch airbourne diseases from being in a confined space with random people.

I also find it more stressful; I was sat on the bus the other day stuck in traffic and all I could think was 'I could be home by now if I walked or cycled' and then wishing I had done.

[beddoe79]

The tram makes you healthier?

 

No the walk down Jenkin road does that

[Del_Boy]

I can only speak for myself here, but I am lucky enough to just have to travel around sheffield, it costs me just under £600 a year in monthly tickets to get around the city, albeit having to wait for trams ect but I am saving a grand or two per year doing it this way so for me I prefer to save a large amount and put up with the waiting and overcrowding

 

It looks like with the new change they are putting on moor buses linking to the tram in more out of reach places such as clowne

[Annie Bynnol]

Lists of how transport effects health are easily found through the internet. You can start with sources of information as I did with American Journal of Preventive Medicine ( but that was an American source) and NEXUS (yes self promoting and with vested interests). My next one is a British and learned source -The Faculty of Public Health Medicine who have this list and the references to go with.

 

WAYS IN WHICH TRANSPORT INFLUENCES HEALTH

Health Promoting

Enables access to employment, shops, recreation, social support networks, health services, countryside.

Recreation

Exercise

Economic Development

 

Health Damaging

Road Traffic Injuries

Pollution - particulates- carbon monoxide- nitrogen oxides-hydrocarbons- ozones- carbon dioxide- lead.

Noise

Stress and anxiety

Danger

Loss of land and planning blight

Severance of communities by road

Constraints on mobility access and independence

Reduced social use of outdoor space and streets.

 

This list applies to all transport modes- other more specific studies will enable those interested to decide the impact of each form of transport.

 

"The The Faculty of Public Health Medicine is a professional organisation whose members are public health professionals or academics in public health medicine. It is a faculty of the three Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom and gives independent advice on the public’s health."

[Cyclone]

No the walk down Jenkin road does that

 

Walking a short distance is only likely to have a measurable affect on health if you're extremely unfit/unhealthy to start with.