Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

In just under two weeks' time, Trecynon (and the wider area of the Valleys, in fact) will resound to the relentless drone of motorcycles. The National Road Races have taken place in the Park, only a tyre's throw from my house, since I was in my early teens. When I lived in my old house, it wasn't too bad. I was too young to go to the pubs anyway, and if the Park was out of bounds for one Saturday a year, it wasn't any great loss. When I lived in Llwydcoed, we were more or less within earshot, but we still didn't get the full effects. I was working in Pontypridd, and later on in Cardiff, so I generally managed to be out of the house before the first wave of bikers arrived in the village. When I got back to Aberdare in the evenings, the pubs would be full of people winding down after the day's event (see Motorcycle Emptiness .) My young friend Cath P., was in Cardiff one day and called into the shop on her way to the station. We made our way home on the train, and...

Back in the old days when dinosaurs and Conservative Governments walked the earth, it used to be easy to find information about public transport. You looked in the phone book, found the number of the bus company serving the area you were intending to travel in, and spoke to someone who lived in that area and knew the routes in the way that a local person would be expected to. If you were really lucky, and lived in a fairly large town, there would be a bus station with an information office. Timetables and booklets were freely available, listing all the services in a particular area. Then the services were 'degulated' (which was privatization by any other name) back in October 1986 – and it all went to shit. I first experienced difficulties with the new system while trying to get to Llandough Hospital in May. I tried the Traveline Cymru website, expecting a straightforward 'from' and 'to' expert system which would take me instantly to the relevant timetable. Inst...