It does
If we had a car we could get to Patterdale in 45 minutes. By bus it would take 3 hours.
There is always a risk relying on public transport (PT) for walking and Islandplodder list some. Having spent 5 years on a LAF, I believe the authorities and those pressure groups, who supposedly represent us do not fully understand the positive points of using PT as an adjunct to both day walking and multi-day projects.
In Shropshire there is a shuttle bus for walkers, high season, joining points in the South Shropshire Hills, this is considered a jewel in the crown by the Outdoor team in Shire Hall, but I have never used it. The main routes radiating out from the county town and surrounding market towns and their relationship with the rail network is a far more valuable asset. The knack is to recognise these as 'transport hubs', then see how the access network fits the pattern.
When I tried to explain this on a LAF meeting and promote the idea of Linear Walking, I was told to read a guide book by some Uni-boffin from Loughborough called Lumsden, as this subject had already been covered. I found the book in Waterstones and skip read the relevant pages, the grasp of the idea was infantile,I hope his subject was not Geography and he is just an enthusiastic walker, with a penchant for Shropshire. I suspect the reason why I was steered of the subject was to avoid my taking up agenda time.
Maybe this points to walkers in general not saying how the craft is evolving. Having spent more than a decade browsing this site, I could point to many touched on this subject and Linear Walking and yet the reality is no one really understands how far it could develop.
A landowner on the LAF at the same time as myself, was very dismissive of the idea that anyone would want to walk between Bishop's Castle and Craven Arms. I think it was about 11 or 12 miles and I passed through that landowner's 2000 or so acres, when I tried to piece together a route that maximised the terrain and those rights of way that had real value. Bishop's Castle is on the end of a Bus route from Shrewsbury, but is also itself a transport hub interconnecting with other services, these all cease after children are got home safely after school hours, but Craven Arms is a rail station with an hourly service that continues to midnight.
Should these sort of factors come into our understanding of how the existing fabric of society be modeled to fit a developing leisure industry?
The landowner referred to became chair of the LAF and I was booted post-haste off that forum. Not that I minded, because I had served more than my allotted time, but it is notable that there is a lack of original thought going into access in relation to the existing infrastructure that is still there.
Now Jac's post highlights a county that has caught on to some extent. I think of the top of my head that the Welsh coastal path earns the Welsh economy about £80,000 per mile per year on the one year's figures I have manage to find. But is the Coastal Path the whole picture, how much does the other paths, which access it play in the economic's. If Wales manage to go the way of the Scottish Land Reform Act, will the Welsh coastal path show us how Demand Led route finding might boost this route into greater performance.