For nearly all my working life I lived close to where I worked. I pitied all those who didn’t. Yet millions travelled every morning and afternoon in crowded trains, buses, by underground or on congested roads to their place of work.
It prompted me to write a paper, for the Design and Industries Association (DIA) Yearbook, proposing that taxation could be used to make the management of companies aware of how far their employees were obliged to travel and find ways to minimise this. Obvious options would be working from home or from satellite offices near by, finding them local accommodation or relocating the workplace to a geographically suitable site. No company likes paying taxes and would likely benefit from such measures. I foresaw a happier, more efficient workforce, and a significant reduction in the use of energy for all forms of transport and with it a corresponding reduction in pollution.
I wrote my piece in 1990 and John Langley’s motoring correspondent commented on it favourably. Thirty years later, with the advent of the Coronavirus, we may well adopt such a lifestyle.
Reducing the need to travel