Forum menu
On all these threads there are posts where people can’t use public transport because they have a 50 mile each way commute from a small village to an out of town office. Or kids in 3 different schools in two towns. Etc
2 points –
1 – there will always be people for whom public transport doesn’t work – that is not a reason not to improve it for everyone else
2 – we have built a society around car as primary form of transport. People have long car commutes because housing is built on suburban fringes/semi rural locations and work places decentralised. Shopping is out of town. Kids commute to schools miles away etc.
This change happened over decades and may be hard to reverse but to do do will take years and much infrastructure investment. But one thing that has become clear from areas where public transport has been invested in is that build it/provide it and it will be used.
The provide it point is important too, eg increasing frequency of buses on existing routes really increases use as it makes it more convenient and less impact of the odd bus failing to showFinally to achieve any change it has to be publicly owned and run primarily as a service
Can't argue with any of that, but going back to the start - even if PT was capped at £9 a month, or even free using the money saved from Javid's ficational political pleadge it's not going to suddenly mean a huge update in PT because for many, it doesn't work and for those who it does, it's probally already close to capacity.
My idea of transport Nirvana is Prague's excellent Tram network, or Sydney's excellent unified system, even London is usable for most. I'd give up my Car (which I love) without a moments pause of hesitation, but I can't. The best I can do is cycle or use PT when I can and this isn't 'all about me' I represent the majority of those bored idiots you see in traffic every morning, because we're not all driving half a mile because we're lazy or stupid.
1 – there will always be people for whom public transport doesn’t work – that is not a reason not to improve it for everyone else
Exactly... those that still have to drive, still benefit, greatly, from fewer car journeys being made by others. That should be bindingly obvious. More people on public transport makes the roads run better.
2 – we have built a society around car as primary form of transport. People have long car commutes because housing is built on suburban fringes/semi rural locations and work places decentralised. Shopping is out of town. Kids commute to schools miles away etc.
And all that could have happened with public transport infrastructure put in place to support it... but wasn't put in place... because people want to drive... so more people have to drive... and end up complaining about their blocked up roads and whining when someone suggests lowering the ticket price of public transport during a fuel crisis. 🤷🏻
As far as I can tell, direct motoring taxes like VED, Fuel Duty and VAT etc greatly exceeds the cost of maintaining our road network.
Yes, direct motoring taxation is more than they spend on maintaining the roads.
It doesn't cover policing, pollution (noise/air/water), Accidents, injuries and deaths, loss of environmental diversity, congestion, destruction of property (to build the bloody things in the first place), or space to store the cars when they aren't being driven.
And so on.
Numbers i've seen (by people in the know) suggest that in the UK, direct taxation on motorists covers about 1/3 to 1/4 of the "true cost" of motoring. Whatever that is.
it’s probally already close to capacity
It isn't. In Germany where this is happening, or here in the UK. This why this short term measure works there, and could work here. Public transport is not yet being used to the capacity it was before the pandemic. So, unusually, we have the chance to make a quick small positive out of two negatives... the effects of the pandemic can be used to help mitigate the effects of the fuel crisis in the short term. If you can get past the "I don't want more money going into services I don't use" mindset, it could be a win win for all of us this year. Yes, including people who have to drive to work.
The real issue is that once you are outside of London there is no public transport. Busses, privatised, trains, privatised, trams privatised. So what is this much lauded public transport system that we are all discussing? At the moment its poor and another way for public subsidies to be transferred into private sector profits.
The only way to get a better service is nationalisation so there is some proper integration. I know that wont happen and even if it was nationalised it would be as bad as HS2 which is going to the wrong station in London.
those that still have to drive, still benefit, greatly, from fewer car journeys being made by others. That should be bindingly obvious.
That one really gets my goat.
"well MAYBE the ELITIST Chris BOARDMAN is lucky enough to be ABLE to CYCLE but IVE GOT NO LEGS, so i thinkg EVERYONE should be forced to DRIVE eveyhere !11!!!1111!!"
No concept that encouraging and helping people who can get off the roads to do so, might benefit people who cant.
Idiots.
One thing that has always baffled me about the UK, having lived abroad most of my life, is the adversity to public transport. When you suggest getting the bus to someone you often get an almost dirty look, same if you mention you caught the bus somewhere
My mrs has some acquaintances (coincidentally very overweight people with no gainful employment, so the ones who could benefit from and have most time to walk) who will not go somewhere unless they are picked up in a car
I have colleagues who take a taxi from Southampton to London airports for ten times the cost and most times a longer journey time
Of course I’m generalising and it’s not everyone, certainly not my social circle, but I’ve never encountered the same thing even on a tiny scale anywhere else in Europe I’ve been. I doubt the richest 1% anywhere use buses but it’s the sentiment here that is just very weird
Busses, privatised, trains, privatised, trams privatised. So what is this much lauded public transport system that we are all discussing?
It's still called public transport because it's open to anyone and you use it with lots of other people, even if it's privately owned.
The real issue is that once you are outside of London there is no public transport.
I live in Manchester, and although I have a car, i don't need to use it on any regular basis, I can easily jump on a tram or go by bike to most parts of the city I might need, and the same is true of lots of my family who live in Newcastle.
Two very good examples, but other areas aren't like that Nick, sadly.
But anyway... this short term thing that is happening in another country isn't a fix to all and any transport issues, it's something to reduce fuel use during the fuel crisis. Whatever your knee jerk reactions to someone else getting a bus... why would you not want to try the same here for a short while? I can see no real downsides, except some people might object because, I dunno... they don't want to use public transport themselves, at this stage of their lives... as if that's relevant.
Sounds like a fantastic idea. Its currently cheaper for me to tax, insure and run a 4.2l V8 than it is to take public transport over a year.
Make it free
I would happily pay more tax to have a workable transport system for all.
So everyone else gets to subsidise your travels choices. No thanks
Tory voter perchance?
What dick thing to say.
Hospitals. Pensioners bus pass. Schools.
I bought the 9€ ticket for last month just to get to the airport as it was cheaper than the standard fare.
Bought it for this month just because it's useful to have.
Munich is even offering a 365€ ticket for the year to ride all their buses, trains and trams.
Fortunately the bus and rail network in Germany is still pretty expansive and covers most areas reasonably well.
Can't see that being the case in the UK.
The Schönenwochenende ticket is awesome for touring as well if you don't mind taking all day to cross the country.
Also agree that outside of cities public transport is largely crap. But that's still not a reason not to encourage people to use it. If it's a viable option people will use it including those who are otherwise not as socially mobile
Drivers aren’t subsidised.
Take your £250 a year road tax and ask Tarmac plc how much road they would build you for that...
I doubt the richest 1% anywhere use buses but it’s the sentiment here that is just very weird
I guess it's part of British culture and class / status system eg the false attributed quote of Thatcher of 'when I see a man on a bus I see someone who has failed in life' etc. It just reflects out status driven society.
Maybe if all Victorian architecture in the UK was levelled, there would be an opportunity for decent rail networks.
Also, taxes are levied on things seen as 'bad'/private ie pollution, profit etc. They are spent on things seen as 'good'/public eg health, education etc. They are independent of each other.
The UK just isn't at the same stage as Germany, we need more investment over decades to improve.
European cities (I believe) are more densley-packed than say London or Manchester, so public transport is a better option. I would guess the average commute in UK is much longer than germany/France/Spain
Busses, privatised, trains, privatised, trams privatised. So what is this much lauded public transport system that we are all discussing?
well that sounds almost like Germany 😉
The only way to get a better service is nationalisation so there is some proper integration.
Tell that to Germany 😉
What Germany does have is many many regional "transport unions", kind of like TFL, which are jointly owned by each state, the cities and local authorities, etc. and every local transport operator provides the services in that fully integrated transport union region. And I mean *all* transport. Buses, trams, metros, trains (except intercity), underground, the lot. One ticketing system valid everywhere.
Many countries eg Germany, Japan + Spain have 'better' railways than the UK, using private operators. Granted, they may be subsidised.
You can have private operators on railways, if they are paid to run things for a certain rate and with well specified terms, and are not-for-profit.
Spain have announced something similar…
The President of Spain’s Government, Pedro Sánchez, has announced discounts of up to 100% for Renfe’s local, Rodalies and Media Distancia train tickets, as reported on Tuesday, July 12.
Pedro Sanchez announced the latest policies for Spain including free Renfe train tickets during the debate on the state of the nation, currently taking place in the Congress of Deputies and ending on Thursday July 14.Sanchez promised that all Renfe multi-journey train tickets would be free of charge from September 1 to 31 December this year.
The measure comes after a 50 per cent discount was approved in the last decree of anti-crisis measures approved by the Council of Ministers.
One thing that has always baffled me about the UK, having lived abroad most of my life, is the adversity to public transport.
You know the problem with public transport?
The Public.
Drivers aren’t subsidised.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Key facts
The researchers’ in-depth analysis has found for the first time that the health impact costs are significantly higher for diesel cars and vans compared to petrol, hybrid or electric vehicles over their 14 and 9-year lifetime. In inner city areas such as inner London:
Average cost to the NHS and society of a car is £7,714
The health damage cost from diesel cars is £16,424 and vans £24,555
Battery electric cars and vans are as little as £827 and £1,443 – the lowest cost
Petrol damage costs are £2,327 and £10,101 for cars and vans, respectively
Petrol hybrids cars have a damage cost of £1,824
Nearly 90% of the total £6 billion bill caused by emissions to the NHS and wider society comes from the impact of diesel emissions
Source: https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/health-damage-from-cars-and-vans-costs-6-billion-annually-to-nhs-and-society/
Tell me again how you pay "road tax"?
You know the problem with public transport?
The Public.
What about them?
“well MAYBE the ELITIST Chris BOARDMAN is lucky enough to be ABLE to CYCLE but IVE GOT NO LEGS, so i thinkg EVERYONE should be forced to DRIVE eveyhere !11!!!1111!!”
Never point out to these people that the disabled grannie they have to take to the doctors every other day is disabled by a world built around cars rather than people. Put in public transport so she's able to get around like everyone else.
You know the problem with public transport?
The Public.
That makes you part of the problem too (and also part of the solution).
Your link gives annual costs of £6Bn. Motoring taxes raise £35Bn.
£7Bn is spent on the roads.
Drivers are not subsidised.(except EV drivers)
.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/789/report.html#heading-0
Drivers are not subsidised.
Of course we are. I own zero miles of roads. I can drive on a quarter of a million miles of roads in the UK. We all subsidise each other.
Your link gives annual costs of £6Bn. Motoring taxes raise £35Bn.
£7Bn is spent on the roads.Drivers are not subsidised.(except EV drivers)
Sure, if you ignore the 10,000 early deaths each year as a result.
The argument as to whether drivers are or aren't subsidised is pointless - as is the argument that public transport shouldn't be free because drivers pay more than they cost. The government will find some stupid scheme to p*** that money up the wall if they don't spend it on something useful. Driver's aren't getting it back any time soon.
Remember what happened in lockdown and car usage went down? Petrol prices did too. Drastically reducing the need for fuel purchasing through free public transport would create an almost immediate price war on the forecourts which would (I have no doubt) see far more than 10p chopped off the price of fuel, whereas a cut to fuel duty would have very limited effect on anything but treasury receipts and oil companies profits.
So everyone else gets to subsidise your travels choices. No thanks
Basically Yep because that's essentially what we already do for the precious, precious motor car: All that Tarmac doesn't lay itself, and those car parks don't just grow out of the earth for free, Car's are very heavily subsidised, well above what your VED covers.
The automotive subsidies come from both the public and private purses, and and are seldom questioned as being "essential" to allow society to function and people to get about or make their travel choices, But somehow subsidy of train tickets is a problem?
TBH it's a pretty good idea; if the cost of car commuting is a barrier to getting people moving for certain economic activity (mostly service hospitality and retail sectors?) to help restart industries recovering form covid, and we already have that Rail infrastructure it's a relatively easy/cheap subsidy and in theory the payback to the public purse will be via NI and corporation tax takings.
The battle here is around preventing a cost that workers face, which the government can't control (because essentially OPEC do) from preventing them engaging in economically beneficial activity (work)...
Of course a wee bit of joined up, consideration of the bigger picture isn't really part of the "Brexit Britain" mindset...
Drivers are not subsidised.(except EV drivers)
So what if they are or aren't?
For the forum, not specifically irc, a basic economics lesson:
Taxes go to run the country. That means all your goods and all the people who work at the places that supply your goods and the places that supply them and so on and so on, they all need to get around one way or the other; they need to be kept safe, they need medical care and education and all that. All our taxes go towards running a country. It makes no difference if you personally use a service or not - you live in the country, you work here (presumably) and that depends on the economy which depends on things governments provide.
The question is what is the best way to operate the country? Specifically with transport, is it better to build more and more roads to fill up with more and more cars? Or should we condense the travellers into mass transit solutions? Quibbling over who subsidises whom or who's paying for what is utterly destructive and pointless. It just allows people to sling mud from their own entrenched positions to those in other entrenched positions, and that is exactly how unscrupulous politicians want us to behave because this obfuscates things and enables dodgy politicians to continue to govern badly whilst ****ing over the people who vote for them.
It’s journeys where there is no public transport and which are too long to walk, ride whatever which are becoming too expensive, not the silly pointless ones.
This is my situation. There is public transport between Chippenham and Westbury where I work; however it isn’t direct, and while I could catch a bus relatively nearby, it takes two hours to get to Westbury, involving a change at Trowbridge, with no bus stop close to where I work.
Same with the trains, I have a mile walk to the station, there’s a change at Bath, and the small local train takes some time to get to Westbury, with a walk of nearly three-quarters of a mile to get to work. I have to start work at 6.30am, and I finish at 6.30pm. As it is, I’m getting up at 5am, and getting home at around 7.15pm.
Using public transport, even if it was virtually free, would mean around a fourteen hour day, possibly closer to sixteen, which is just not reasonable or practical!
My car journey is around twenty-five minutes in the morning, and around forty in the evening.
Drastically reducing the need for fuel purchasing through free public transport would create an almost immediate price war on the forecourts which would (I have no doubt) see far more than 10p chopped off the price of fuel, whereas a cut to fuel duty would have very limited effect on anything but treasury receipts and oil companies profits.
A very very good point.
Shame none of current candidates would even consider hanging their hats on such a bold, progressive policy, for risk of upsetting their core voter base
Democracy is about pleasing core voters.Nothing bad about that.
As for free public transport? Not sure how much it would reduce traffic I get free bus travel and the last time I was on a bus was when my car was being serviced.
The number of local bus users here looks like a tiny percentage of those qualifying for free bus travel.
which is just not reasonable or practical!
Same for lots of people. The idea of this kind of policy is help reduce fuel usage during a fuel crisis. Lots of people will still need to drive. But some people would be driving less, using already running public transport... so less fuel used during a fuel crisis. For those still driving regularly... the inflationary pressure on their fuel prices would be reduced, and as a bonus they'd face less congestion, which would mean that they would also be using less fuel.
Win... win... win... including for those who have to drive!
Democracy is about pleasing core voters.Nothing bad about that.
Yes, but sadly far too many of the core voters will only be pleased by policies that specifically prevent other people from being advantaged in some way, irrespective of whether those policies do in fact indirectly benefit them. A perfect example being raised in this discussion. It is the duty of any responsible politician to see past this and see the wider benefits, even when it's not 'popular'. Thats the problem with populism; it favours doing the popular things even where they're just bloody minded stupidity.
The number of local bus users here looks like a tiny percentage of those qualifying for free bus travel.
True, but then who's qualifying for it? The young, well they probably do get their bus in the morning to school and then home again. The old? Where have they got to get to? Nowhere specifically really. They do go places, but it's not like they need to commute. Its also a chicken and egg situation. I would get the bus a lot more if it was free. I cant really get a train as we dont have any services locally so harder to say on that. But if I get the bus a bit, and so does my wife and kids, and so do some, but not all, of our neighbours, then eventually they'll need more buses. When more buses come more often, the neighbours that were not willing to wait 15 mins (average) for a bus but would wait 7.5 will get on it too sometimes, and before you know it we'll have a truly functional public transport system for once. All it really needs to make it work is passengers.
As for free public transport? Not sure how much it would reduce traffic I get free bus travel and the last time I was on a bus was when my car was being serviced.
you are clearly not the demographic suffering most from the cost of living issues and fuel price in particular? that is the low-paid, in-work, who "need" to drive to get to work. Some of them do vote tory (at least some of the time), and some of them have parents who vote tory. It's not necessarily as bad for the tory party as you might think - but I expect its not good for the actual party members who elect the leader.
Right, with all costs going up, and the school holidays nearing their end... is it time to shake up public transport in this way? A couple of months of free or near free travel for all... get rail commuter numbers right up when the offices are filling up and fuel ain't cheap... get shoppers into town and city centres to help reduce the retail slow down that inflation is likely to force on to shops?
Yes, it's time to shake up public transport and yes, it's a good idea from an environmental and personal finance point of view but...
It'll never happen.
The Tories have shown absolutely no interest in helping the man/woman in the street and no doubt won't until it's nearly election time.
It doesn't just help the man/woman in the street though, does it. It also helps the ivory tower dwellers that rely on rent, entertainment, eating out, shopping, commuting all continuing to happen at scale this winter. Only the oil companies will lose out (and they're doing okay right now). It's great for "business".
didn't someone from the current mob say "f@*K business" though so apparently they don't care for them either.
@kelvin I couldn’t agree more, it has huge benefits in so many ways but, as ever, it’ll struggle when it’s up against the “but my petrol isn’t subsidised” brigade. And as these are the people who, I’m guessing, vote for the current government it’ll never happen.
The other issue is, of course, that public transport probably couldn’t cope with a huge increase in numbers. Sure, it’ll still be easy to get a bus at 10 in the morning or 10 at night but they’d be absolutely mobbed around rush hour. At least until the weather turns bad then they’ll be back to the way things were.
As ever, I’ve no idea what the solution is.
(only read the first page of the thread)
My view is to control the technology to make it more efficient and clean whatever but Not the freedom of the people. Let people choose as how they wish to live their life.
Increase fuel tax/cost in the current climate? Yeah right ... Let's see how many govts or societies will collapse. It's like adding salt to the wound.
Nope, I will continue to drive my car (although I only drive less than 10 times per month) until world doom.
that public transport probably couldn’t cope with a huge increase in numbers
Numbers are still down "post pandemic" in many areas of the country. Valid point though.
Let people choose as how they wish to live their life.
No one said otherwise.