More buses
The public transport system in the UK is a big mess. There has been a lack of investment in it for decades and consequently it is possibly the worst in Europe. London fares better than most of the rest of the UK. But none-the-less commuters stuffed into the Tube during the rush hour certainly wish for something better.
The only answer possible is that public transport cannot be privately run. If it is run for profit, and people have to take it - they are a captive audience - customer comfort will never be a priority. The privately run bus and train services don't really face any competition. Over the small areas each one covers they mostly have a monopoly.
But what can be done? It will take many years to build new railway tracks - the tracks that should have been built years ago - while instead branch lines were being dismantled.
A short term solution must simply be this. Buy lots of busses (and employ lots of bus drivers) and put them on the roads that were built instead of the train lines. It's not an ideal solution - but it's a cheap way of quickly improving the situation, and it has the advantage of using past (misguided) investment in road building infrastructure to its full environmentally friendly potential. If a bus runs every 5 or 10 mins (rather than every half hour) and people know that they can turn up at a bus stop (preferably with a shelter) when they feel like it and not have to wait for a bus - then they will use the bus instead of the car. Who would want to spend half an hour looking for somewhere to park in the town centre (and possibly scraping their car in the process) - when instead they could simply spend 5 mins waiting for a bus?
And what about tolls on the roads? The Government should charge tolls on the roads where busses run. It's not fair to tax people in cars when they have no alternative - but it's fair to charge people driving along bus routes. And it would have the added advantage of keeping the bus routes relatively free of cars - thus enabling the busses to run on time (a nice alternative for bus lanes when the road isn't wide enough).
The only answer possible is that public transport cannot be privately run. If it is run for profit, and people have to take it - they are a captive audience - customer comfort will never be a priority. The privately run bus and train services don't really face any competition. Over the small areas each one covers they mostly have a monopoly.
But what can be done? It will take many years to build new railway tracks - the tracks that should have been built years ago - while instead branch lines were being dismantled.
A short term solution must simply be this. Buy lots of busses (and employ lots of bus drivers) and put them on the roads that were built instead of the train lines. It's not an ideal solution - but it's a cheap way of quickly improving the situation, and it has the advantage of using past (misguided) investment in road building infrastructure to its full environmentally friendly potential. If a bus runs every 5 or 10 mins (rather than every half hour) and people know that they can turn up at a bus stop (preferably with a shelter) when they feel like it and not have to wait for a bus - then they will use the bus instead of the car. Who would want to spend half an hour looking for somewhere to park in the town centre (and possibly scraping their car in the process) - when instead they could simply spend 5 mins waiting for a bus?
And what about tolls on the roads? The Government should charge tolls on the roads where busses run. It's not fair to tax people in cars when they have no alternative - but it's fair to charge people driving along bus routes. And it would have the added advantage of keeping the bus routes relatively free of cars - thus enabling the busses to run on time (a nice alternative for bus lanes when the road isn't wide enough).
posted by high_horse at 4:21 AM
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