I’ve been working from home since the virus. Its the sort of thing that before, they’d have said ‘oh you can’t do that’, but it is working really well. Its much more relaxing, I have conversations all day and arrange things for customers, and then jyst send the paper work through by email, or by post if they don’t have email. I am going to see if we can carry on once its over - there’d be less cars on the road, less pollution, less accidents and maybe stronger communities because we’d be around more.
Supposedly we need a bypass [the Caernarfon bypass]. But that bypass is causing loss of habitat, fragmentation, severing of habitats, alteration of natural features like water courses. That’s why its always conflicted, there’s the nature and there’s the kind of progress, travel to places quickly – we live in a society where speed is of high importance. The quicker you do things…. Something is always lost in the process of doing things quicker. It seems more efficient, but something is lost. You can drive now between Llanberis and Caernarfon in 20 minutes. If you went on the bus it would take you half an hour or more, but you’d stand at the bus stop and perhaps you’d chat to some people, while you are on the bus, you’d chat to some people then. Maybe they’d be tourists or maybe they’d be local people. You can even walk between Llanberis and Caernarfon – its like 7 miles. So at a leisurely pace it would take you all day. So a journey that might take 20 minutes could take you all day long, and you’d have experiences along the way.
I suppose an appreciation of space – if you can travel between places in 20 minutes, rather than it taking all day long, then you might not really have such an appreciation of space and also it reduces the space as well, by travelling fast. So that means you don’t appreciate what’s in that space as much.
See website: https://gmobility.wfa.cymru/
I’ve started cycling again since the virus thing - I’ve nicked my wife’s bike. Cycling now is a joy. I’d stopped because of the traffic. Also the weather helps, of course, but now I would think of cycling first, taking the car would not be something I’d think of doing at the moment.
I’m really thinking about how different it is here now the traffic has almost disappeared [a month into the coronavirus]. Yes, its nicer because no-one else is driving around, but also because I’m not using the car like I used to. I am rethinking how much i used to travel. Its showing us isn’t it, that we don’t need to travel as much. Look at what they are doing in italy, where they are re-prioritising pedestrians and cyclists. Making less room for cars. Its happening here now - if you drive down a road you are unusual, the cyclists and people doing their daily walk have priority. I really hope this continues. Then the Caernarfon bipass will look really stupid won’t it? All that for nothing.
The road being like this [we are standing on the empty road through Nantperis, during lockdown] makes me think of when I was a kid, and we’d sit on that wall, right next to the road, and note down people’s number plates and work out where they were from.. there were so few cars then. I don’t know, maybe 5 cars would go past in an hour? Just like this. I don’t want to harp on about the old days, but it had gone mad hadn’t it? I really hope we can keep something of this in the future. Maybe we don’t need to drive round willy-nilly….
It would be nice if it could stay like this forever [another conversation on the empty road!]. I love the idea of having a car-free day a month. Maybe one day in the first month. And the next month two days…. [laughs]
I think they’ve finally woken up, the council, the park, to the fact that we’ve got a real problem on our hands. They’re doing these consultations on the transport strategy, its good and everything, but they are talking about 5 - 10 years ahead. What about this year [2021], when lockdown ends, we’ll be inundated by cars again.
There’s this really good scheme in Dyffryn Conwy, where you can order a bus rather than have these buses junketing around. They should bring that here.
Lots of coverage of people’s feelings about the return of tourism traffic in July 2020:
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/snowdonia-parking-warning-huge-crowds-18623325
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/row-breaks-out-among-snowdonia-18657509
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/new-video-shows-snowdonia-chaos-18634774