Tursiops
Tuesday 10th January 2012 4:58pm
Welwyn Garden City
9,788 posts
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ January 10 2012, 4:43 PM GMT
Has video conferencing stopped the halt of traffic on our roads? Has email stopped people from sending packages through the post? Will an estimated increase in the UK population stop people from using trains?
Aside from trains, the only other option to get people moving around Britain quickly are planes. But every time a new runway is suggested, people go ape shit, so it has to be a high speed rail network.
Obviously e-mail has not stopped people sending parcels, er how could it? but it has stopped people sending letters, hence the Royal Mail being in such dire straits.
Traffic on the road could most effectively eased by putting resources into improving existing public transport infrastructure, though in fact the cost of fuel is already reducing motorists' annual mileage and the price of fuel is only going to go up, so congestion on the roads is likely to become a decreasing problem. The challenge of the future will be finding money to upkeep the existing rapidly deteriorating infrastructure.
Video conferencing - coupled to tighter budgets - is already significantly reducing business travel, certainly in the public sector. As people get out of the habit of attending meeting sin person and the technology improves so it feels like you are in the same room, face to face meetings will become increasingly rare.
If increasing population is the issue how about we invest the money in immigration controls?