NewcastleFalcon wrote:
What do you know about Milton Keynes?
I have lived in or on the edge of Milton Keynes since I was 16 years old so I've watched it grow since 1975 to where it is now...
So, that’ll be getting on 42 years I've been here now bar for a few years living overseas.
I love the place, always have, always will. It works brilliantly and I love how you can be in the 'city'* centre and yet in the middle of the countryside..
Our two Milton Keynes parkruns take place in the middle of the city but you could be forgiven for thinking it was out in the middle of nowhere. The place is more green and open-space than concrete and has a mass of linear parkland unequalled.
Travel around the place is excellent by car as it was designed around the car. Three cars waiting at a roundabout constitute congestion.
The design of MK makes public transport hard to make work and I'm sure they could still do better. Despite that north-south communication links are excellent with the M1, West Coast Mainline, the A5 and the Grand Union canal passing right through the middle of the place. We enjoy a fast and frequent train service to London but east-west communications are very poor. This is allegedly being addressed but a full dual-carriageway (or motorway preferably) link between the M1 at MK and the A34 at Oxford is badly needed. The old 'Varsity Line' between Oxford and Cambridge badly needs to be reopened. This is slated to be happening in 2024.
It's good for cyclists with hundreds of miles of dedicated cycle routes.
I get very annoyed by the 'knockers' who don't like the place. They clearly don't live here. I will defend the place to the hilt- always.
It has it's issues but then what large urban conurbation doesn't? Truth is, you only appreciate the place when you leave for a while and then return.
Milton Keynes - Happy Birthday and live long and prosper!
I intend to live nowhere else for the foreseeable.
* We locals call it 'the city' even though technically it's a town.