Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Plate 35.1
A typical village
general store including
franchised post office, Suffolk,
England. While providing easy
access, on foot, for village
dwellers, such facilities, where
they survive, are inadequate
for most people's aspirations
and transport to town is
normally thought essential.
The community bus parked
alongside is a recent
alternative to declining public
bus services, and is run by
local volunteers for specific
travel needs.
ownership rates between 68 and 80 per cent by
household, which are fairly typical of Western
Europe. It is therefore easy to assume that car
owners have no real difficulties of accessibility in
rural areas, apart from longer distances and
associated costs, and following this, also to assume
that only relatively small minorities deprived of
a motor vehicle are left to suffer 'problems'.
As car ownership increases over time, it is very
important to refute any complacency over the
numbers of people likely to be affected by the
rural accessibility (or transport) problem. With
saturation coverage of automobiles in the USA,
the widespread perception is that no problem
exists, except for a small non-car population of
elderly people, the disabled and the very poor
(Maggied 1982; Nutley 1996). But even here,
some authors draw attention to other problematic
groups such as young people below driving age,
and individuals within households where the
number of vehicles is insufficient for everyone's
needs (Kidder 1989). Perhaps peculiar to America
is the recognition of the burdens of rural car
owners: there are constant complaints about costs
(ironically in a country where gasoline is
notoriously cheap); elderly people who dislike
driving are forced to become 'reluctant drivers'
in the absence of any public transport alternative
(Kihl 1993).
Plate 35.2
A mobile bank, County Clare, Ireland. While
access to services for rural dwellers usually means travel
into town, there are alternative means of service delivery.
One such is 'bringing the service to the people' by mobile
or peripatetic means, more common in remoter areas.
of choice of route and timing, the ability to carry
heavy loads, sheer convenience, and flexibility. In
the countryside, there are fewer constraints on
car use, such as congestion or parking problems,
and pollution is rarely an issue. However, it is
need
rather than wealth that causes the higher car
ownership rates always found in rural areas,
compared with urban, in the more affluent
countries. In the United States, car ownership
extends to 95 per cent of rural households,
including 67 per cent with two or more vehicles.
Rural districts of the United Kingdom have car
