Spatial City Park and Ride Transport Planning Essay

Spatial City Park and Ride Transport Planning - Essay Example The system is meant to have people park their cars, motorcycles and bicycles at a given place the take a ride in larger vehicle like a bus to complete their journey. The destinations include offices, market places, banks, schools, hospitals, residential areas, entertainment spots, leisure parks, airports, railway stations and city exit highways among others. The transport system must therefore be designed in a way that enables a smooth transition from a personal to a collective mode of transport (Rondanini, 1981, 42). It is important to note that buses used for this purpose are big and clumsy vehicles that need lots of space to turn, park and take off as the services they offer may demand. The main advantage of buses is that they are cheap to move in because they carry a lot of people at a go thus the passengers benefit from economies of scale. Moreover, despite their clumsiness, they are far more versatile than trams and trains which need more room and rails in order to run. They are therefore an integral part of city transport planning (Le Corbusier, 1985, 81). All the same due to their clumsiness, one of the things to avoid in planning is the idea of the Park and Ride buses moving everywhere in the town thus causing snarl ups and a general bad temper among motorists and pedestrians alike. Buses must have specific routes that they use so as to avoid this unpleasant eventuality. However, these routes will prove to be of little use if they do not get the passengers as close to where they wish to go as possible (Le Corbusier, 1985, 81). The London Park and Ride System Plan A close look at the London Plan reveals that all these factors were taken into consideration when the transport system was being designed. Though it is not a building, a road design still has to adhere to the three tenets of architecture identified by the Roman architect Vitruvius being firmitas, utilitas, venustas (durability, utility and beauty) (Rowland & Howe,1999, 2). For the transport system, durability depends on utility in that the roads must continue to serve their purposes without the need to change them. The system also needs to be well made overall for aesthetic value (Rowland & Howe,1999, 2). The London bus plan seen in Fig 1 below was actually set up to ensure that all the major areas were either served directly by bus and other light transit forms such as small goods trucks or the transport was available as close to them as possible. The main transit line cuts right across the city from Notting Hill in the west to Liverpool Street in the east across the river Thames. Links were created along this main line connecting other parts of the city northwards and southwards. The East London transit phase connected the transit lines in the east of the city while the several extensions that were made later connected other areas to the north and south. Tramlinks at The Bus Route System Fig. 1 London Bus Routes (Courtesy of Maps of the World, 2011, Croydon, Purley and Sutton to the south served a similar purpose of connecting the southern areas of t he city (The London Plan, 2011). As seen in Fig 1 above most of the bus routes are concentrated around the center of the city between the Marble Arch and Trafalgar Square. This is because the center of the city is naturally where most of the business and tour activities take place hence a high number of visitors. As stated earlier, the design of these transport system cannot fail to take into consideration the aesthetic value and general heritage of the city. The routes were strategically designed to pas as close as possible to the major landmarks of the city. The landmarks include the Buckingham Palace, Westminster Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, The London Bridge and the three parks of Regent’