Free public transport?

[DavidLong]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/14/german-cities-to-trial-free-public-transport-to-cut-pollution

 

Probably not with double-deck loco-hauled services as illustrated by The Grauniad.

 

Interesting idea but fraught with more questions than answers.

 

David

[stewartingram]

Probably 1978 judging by some of my photos I've just looked at, I was on holiday in Gt.Yarmouth with my caravan. I picked up a copy of the local paper, to find an article on the local Corporation buses. The council were discussing, seriously, making them fareless. The locals were objecting that the holidaymakers would get free travel, during the busy summer season which they (the locals) would be subsidising from their rates. Not too long after, bus deregulation came in, spelling the end for the Corporation bus services. Today the bus service is less than a shadow of what it was, I've been there in peak season for the day and not seen one bus!

[D854_Tiger]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/14/german-cities-to-trial-free-public-transport-to-cut-pollution

 

Probably not with double-deck loco-hauled services as illustrated by The Grauniad.

 

Interesting idea but fraught with more questions than answers.

 

David

 

Didn't Ken Livingstone prove that such a move would be illegal in the UK if council taxpayers money were to be used.

 

As for higher car parking charges, that should finally kill off any reason anyone had left to visit a High Street.

 

Basic problem in the UK, much outside London, there is no public transport to make free, unless you count the bus, and, speaking personally and as much as I like buses, I don't count them when they can take an hour just to travel seven miles in the rush hour.

 

My solution would be more quality public transport (and that means rail obviously) and for the government to encourage more home working, through (significant) company tax breaks, and break the largely pointless Victorian culture of having to sit ten yards from your boss.

 

I'm sure that's a culture that could be seriously challenged (and how) by a reduction (say) in employer's NI.

 

Wonder how many people are travelling large distances just to sit in an office all day, at a computer wondering where the boss is today, when they could be doing it home, wondering where the boss is today.

 

Whenever I visit the States, I'm always struck by the much larger proportion of people that home work compared to over here.

[62613]

Didn't Ken Livingstone prove that such a move would be illegal in the UK if council taxpayers money were to be used.

 

As for higher car parking charges, that should finally kill off any reason anyone had left to visit a High Street.

 

Basic problem in the UK, much outside London, there is no public transport to make free, unless you count the bus, and, speaking personally and as much as I like buses, I don't count them when they can take an hour just to travel seven miles in the rush hour.

 

My solution would be more quality public transport (and that means rail obviously) and for the government to encourage more home working, through (significant) company tax breaks, and break the largely pointless Victorian culture of having to sit ten yards from your boss.

 

I'm sure that's a culture that could be seriously challenged (and how) by a reduction (say) in employer's NI.

 

Wonder how many people are travelling large distances just to sit in an office all day, at a computer wondering where the boss is today, when they could be doing it home, wondering where the boss is today.

 

Whenever I visit the States, I'm always struck by the much larger proportion of people that home work compared to over here.

No, it was Bromley Council who took the GLC to court over that.

 

I'm glad someone else is trying to redefine what 'work' is; to me, the modern pattern of 'work' only started with the onset of the industrial revolution. Before then, there was a different relationship between those making something and those they were making it for, far less oppressive than today. It might almost be said that nearly everyone fitted the description of self-employed.

If we could work back towards that, then perhaps we're on the right track.

[Nearholmer]

Interesting, and indeed it does raise more questions than it answers.

 

The biggest question in my head around all this is something like: so, why is it that we all feel the need to travel about all over the place anyway?

 

Travelling for work reasons (sitting near the boss ..... brilliant phrase) is by no means the whole story.

 

Use any train or bus (if you live where there are any) and people are travelling for all sorts of reasons/pretexts, and the same applies if you look at car usage. A very high proportion of car trips particularly are over short distances, for things like shopping, school runs, and ‘social, domestic, and leisure’.

 

It feels as if the availability of cars has massively influenced the whole way we conduct our lives, with massive change in that respect since the 1960/70s, when mass car ownership really bit in the UK [EDIT: looking at stats, the number of trips we each made per year shot up in the 1960s, after that we made roughly the same number of trips, but each of greater distance.] So to ‘unwind’ to a lower car use situation will involve winding back a bit, to ways of conducting life that were significantly different.

 

My gut feeling is that we all quite like the ‘hyper-mobility’ that comes from having a car, so I guess that we will have to be heavily coerced, for our own good, to readjust ...... carrots like free (at the point of use) public transport might work, but sticks will probably be necessary too.

 

I guess the cheapest stick might be just to let congestion happen, cease to provide ever-more and ever-better roads, cease to improve public transport capacity in urban areas, and let us all work out for ourselves that it is annoying and time-consuming to sit in traffic jams or ride on jam-packed trains. We would then adjust our behaviour so as to travel less, or at different times, or by foot or bike.

 

Kevin

Edited February 14, 2018 by Nearholmer

[D854_Tiger]

No, it was Bromley Council who took the GLC to court over that.

 

I'm glad someone else is trying to redefine what 'work' is; to me, the modern pattern of 'work' only started with the onset of the industrial revolution. Before then, there was a different relationship between those making something and those they were making it for, far less oppressive than today. It might almost be said that nearly everyone fitted the description of self-employed.

If we could work back towards that, then perhaps we're on the right track.

 

Not to mention homeworking opening up employment opportunities to those whose home isn't so close to where the employment is.

 

The gig economy is already a fact of life, as an IT contractor I have been part of it, but boy does the state resent us for it, they would always far prefer a 1950s weekly paid (9 - 5) world where everyone fits into nice little compartments stuck on PAYE.

 

It goes without saying why they like it, for tax collecting, and whenever I speak to HMRC it's not altogether clear to me that they don't still reside in that world.

[JimC]

Before then, there was a different relationship between those making something and those they were making it for, far less oppressive than today.

I don't know that those who flocked to the new cities in search of regular wages would agree with you. Awful as most of the industrial revolution cities were, it was clearly still better than working on the land, struggling to have enough food to get through the winter living in a wet mud floored hovel at the Lord of the manor's beck and call. Easy to pick up the romanticised Arts and Crafts movement vision of the happy peasant living securely on the land, with a nice paternal lord and lady looking after him,but all to often the brutal reality was very different...

[JimC]

The gig economy is already a fact of life, as an IT contractor I have been part of it,

 

One thing to be properly self employed in a skilled job where you are difficult to replace, quite another to be a minimum wage peon dragged back to all the worst excesses of 19thC exploitative employers... Just because its an electronic queue outside the Amazon distribution web site, instead of a real queue of real people outside the factory gates waiting to see if there's any work today, it doesn't make it any better...

 

Damn, I sound like a bloody socialist. I'm not, but some of the way things are going...

[LBRJ]

The problem with free public transport is that it is free! There is a high chance that rather than struggling to get more people onto the buses, getting them off would be the problem.

back in the 80s prior to de-regulation, South Yorkshire had probably the best bus service in the country and it was virtually* free - Virtually being the key point; you did have to pay something for your journey - which does prevent the bus becoming a sort of mobile day centre.

 

2p for Children 5p or 10p for adults - Even 30 years ago it was not more than spare change.

[JimC]

It feels as if the availability of cars has massively influenced the whole way we conduct our lives, with massive change in that respect since the 1960/70s,

Absolutely and completely. How many people do you know who let the availability of public transport to their workplace influence their choice of house? And how many do you know who move house to be in easy reach of the new job? Indeed how many jobs outside London would be even practical to live within public transport reach of? I think the end of "jobs for life" mass employment has completely changed the living and travel culture as well as the actual workplaces.

Edited February 14, 2018 by JimC

[D854_Tiger]

Interesting, and indeed it does raise more questions than it answers.

 

The biggest question in my head around all this is something like: so, why is it that we all feel the need to travel about all over the place anyway?

 

Travelling for work reasons (sitting near the boss ..... brilliant phrase) is by no means the whole story.

 

Use any train or bus (if you live where there are any) and people are travelling for all sorts of reasons/pretexts, and the same applies if you look at car usage. A very high proportion of car trips particularly are over short distances, for things like shopping, school runs, and ‘social, domestic, and leisure’.

 

It feels as if the availability of cars has massively influenced the whole way we conduct our lives, with massive change in that respect since the 1960/70s, when mass car ownership really bit in the UK. So to ‘unwind’ to a lower care use situation will involve winding back a bit, to ways of conducting life that were significantly different.

 

My gut feeling is that we all quite like the ‘hyper-mobility’ that comes from having a car, so I guess that we will have to be heavily coerced, for our own good, to readjust ...... carrots like free (at the point of use) public transport might work, but sticks will probably be necessary too.

 

I guess the cheapest stick might be just to let congestion happen, cease to provide ever-more and ever-better roads, cease to improve public transport capacity in urban areas, and let us all work out for ourselves that it is annoying and time-consuming to sit in traffic jams or ride on jam-packed trains. We would then adjust our behaviour so as to travel less, or at different times, or by foot or bike.

 

Kevin

 

Most congestion is work related though, people busy getting to work, so they can afford a car that mostly gets used to get to them work.

 

Then the full station car parks, round my way, are proof of the large number of drivers, looking for an alternative, that fully understand the futility of it all.

 

But, as you say, where the car is king is social, domestic and pleasure, the supermarket, that hospital visit or picking up the daughter (out on the lash) late at night, you are never going to trust to that perfectly good night bus.

 

Trouble is, once (if) they automate them, I've a feeling it's going to generate an awful lot of empty mileage opportunities, just because you can.

[roythebus]

Free transport, a wonderful idea, but who is going to pick up the bill for it? For all I care they could pay me to go by bus, but where I live there's 3 buses a day into Ashford Kent, morning, noon and pm school time! None on Saturday or Sunday so rather isolated. 

 

Where I work in my zero-hours contracted job driving rail replacement buses is 84 miles away in Hertfordshire. Yes, it's just about do-able by train, AFK-STP-KX-Potters Bar then an hourly bus to the depot, but nothing to get me home when I finish as I only do lates or night rail replacement. The journey would take twice as long as by car (depending on our old adversary, the Dartford Crossing). It's my choice to work there, but there's no similar work nearer that suits my life style, semi-retired with a free bus pass anyway! 

 

These people who propose working from home, well, it just isn't possible unless you do a paper and IT based job.

[D854_Tiger]

One thing to be properly self employed in a skilled job where you are difficult to replace, quite another to be a minimum wage peon dragged back to all the worst excesses of 19thC exploitative employers... Just because its an electronic queue outside the Amazon distribution web site, instead of a real queue of real people outside the factory gates waiting to see if there's any work today, it doesn't make it any better...

 

Damn, I sound like a bloody socialist. I'm not, but some of the way things are going...

 

All technological advancement brings with it its down sides.

 

That's why we have a government (a state) to bring some semblance of order, restraint and safeguards to it but I don't think that's necessarily socialism.

 

Though the worry must be now that such is the pace of technological change are our political institutions capable of keeping up with it.

 

Socialism is perhaps when you start going to far, treating the future as the enemy, to be resisted at all costs and some might even describe that as conservatism as well, no shortage of those and on both sides of the political spectrum. Corbyn certainly strikes me as more conservative than radical, not so sure about the student union bar loons in thrall to him though.

 

My attitude to technology and the future has always been a nice problem to have, not another bloody headache, although when the smart phone arrived (and I was part of that) it did make me have some second thoughts.

 

Did I tell you I once met the CEO of Grinder.

[jjb1970]

There is no such thing as "free" public transport. Someone will be paying.

[D854_Tiger]

 

These people who propose working from home, well, it just isn't possible unless you do a paper and IT based job.

 

Of course, it's not for every job but looking at those thousands upon thousands of central London commuters and a city full of offices, its doesn't take a genius to work out the kind of jobs they are mostly doing, in some of the most expensive real estate on the planet.

 

Thousands for a season ticket, millions for the office, glad there are companies and workers out there that can afford it, but for how much longer.

 

If those companies don't reduce their costs then someone else will and inevitably using the kind of technology that will take out the jobs full stop.

[LBRJ]

There is no such thing as "free" public transport. Someone will be paying.

 

Take it out of the bottomless pot that supplies " Free Roads" to motor vehicles.

[jjb1970]

Take it out of the bottomless pot that supplies " Free Roads" to motor vehicles.

You mean tax, quite, so it isn't "free".

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...My gut feeling is that we all quite like the ‘hyper-mobility’ that comes from having a car...

You only have to see the profound interest most toddlers take in the talisman of power car keys to know that this is not going away. The question is what we do to satisfy this demand in some semblance of an orderly and sustainable fashion. Proposals predicated on significant behavioural changes must be personally demonstrated during the lifetime of the proposers, before being given any credence...

 

My proposal is that everyone under 35 is entitled to nothing more complex than a bicycle as privately owned transport. That's what I did!

[D854_Tiger]

You only have to see the profound interest most toddlers take in the talisman of power car keys to know that this is not going away. The question is what we do to satisfy this demand in some semblance of an orderly and sustainable fashion. Proposals predicated on significant behavioural changes must be personally demonstrated during the lifetime of the proposers, before being given any credence...

 

My proposal is that everyone under 35 is entitled to nothing more complex than a bicycle as privately owned transport. That's what I did!

 

I would do it the other way let the toddlers and kids drive then once they reach seventeen ban them, cars are wasted on most adults only kids truly appreciate jet aircraft, locomotives and cars.

 

When I visit London, all those adults and not one being enthralled by the sight of a Boeing 747 passing overhead, I mean how can you ignore something so wondrous as that, the kids notice though.

[Nearholmer]

Picking up on the work-related part of the transport issue: I’m convinced that there is a fairly solid rule that people will choose to live in the most pleasant place they can afford within about an hour of their work, then will extend travel time over an hour if places within an hour are either utterly grim, or utterly unaffordable.

 

Take everyone’s car away, and provide no public transport, so people have to walk or cycle, and I’m convinced the same rule will apply, possibly modified slightly because nobody much likes walking for an hour in the p•••••g rain on a dark February morning.

 

Not sure this contributes much to the debate, but I needed to get it off my chest!

 

Kevin

[D854_Tiger]

Picking up on the work-related part of the transport issue: I’m convinced that there is a fairly solid rule that people will choose to live in the most pleasant place they can afford within about an hour of their work, then will extend travel time over an hour if places within an hour are either utterly grim, or utterly unaffordable.

 

Take everyone’s car away, and provide no public transport, so people have to walk or cycle, and I’m convinced the same rule will apply, possibly modified slightly because nobody much likes walking for an hour in the p•••••g rain on a dark February morning.

 

Not sure this contributes much to the debate, but I needed to get it off my chest!

 

Kevin

 

 

A hundred or so years ago you could have made the same claim about the railways but no one ever said take Metroland away it's encouraging people to travel more.

 

Technology is supposed to make people's lives better, and the best technology does, it's just that where railways are concerned the best technology isn't always allowed to prosper.

 

I'm a huge fan of light rail and believe there is still plenty of way to go doing that at a lower cost, maybe even using diesel if necessary.

[Nearholmer]

I’m not advocating taking people’s cars away, merely exploring the thought that people will travel an hour to work, even if they have to swim there.

 

Light rail? Yes, it is good, but I noticed in Nottingham people use it to get to the city edge, in about half an hour, then drive another half hour home. We will push on for an hour in search of domestic paradise!

[62613]

I don't know that those who flocked to the new cities in search of regular wages would agree with you. Awful as most of the industrial revolution cities were, it was clearly still better than working on the land, struggling to have enough food to get through the winter living in a wet mud floored hovel at the Lord of the manor's beck and call. Easy to pick up the romanticised Arts and Crafts movement vision of the happy peasant living securely on the land, with a nice paternal lord and lady looking after him,but all to often the brutal reality was very different...

'Those that flocked to the cities'  had been displaced from the land by the reforms in agricultural practice which had been occurring since the middle of the 17th century, chiefly the enclosure of the commons.

 

I was thinking also of those like the farmer-weavers in the West Riding, the stocking-makers around Nottingham, or those listed on the first page of E.P. Thompson's monumental work, whose livelihoods were destroyed by the industrial revolution

[Rivercider]

I’m not advocating taking people’s cars away, merely exploring the thought that people will travel an hour to work, even if they have to swim there.

 

I'm sure that is absolutely right.

 

Consequently if you improve a road so traffic can travel faster then the one hour commute distance is increased, and over time more folk will choose jobs furhter away from home, so the commute mileage is increased. So the road needs improving, etc etc,

 

cheers

[298]

One thing to be properly self employed in a skilled job where you are difficult to replace, quite another to be a minimum wage peon dragged back to all the worst excesses of 19thC exploitative employers... Just because its an electronic queue outside the Amazon distribution web site, instead of a real queue of real people outside the factory gates waiting to see if there's any work today, it doesn't make it any better...

 

Damn, I sound like a bloody socialist. I'm not, but some of the way things are going...

  

 

All technological advancement brings with it its down sides.

 

That's why we have a government (a state) to bring some semblance of order, restraint and safeguards to it but I don't think that's necessarily socialism.

 

Though the worry must be now that such is the pace of technological change are our political institutions capable of keeping up with it.

 

Socialism is perhaps when you start going to far, treating the future as the enemy, to be resisted at all costs and some might even describe that as conservatism as well, no shortage of those and on both sides of the political spectrum. Corbyn certainly strikes me as more conservative than radical, not so sure about the student union bar loons in thrall to him though.

 

Capitalism might have beaten Communism, but it has now invented a new form of "Worker Ants" living wage jobs where you don't have to be particularly skilled or motivated to work for the Man, as automation and Lean has taken away thinking and decision making. If you don't like it you can join the Merry go round of mundane jobs with diminishing benefits whilst your paymasters try to wring more profit out the business to justify their bonus culture whilst being questioned by those above as to why there isn't double digit growth anymore.

 

Some may think the "Job for life" culture doesn't exist anymore, well I'm sure it does but don't expect it to pay very well anymore. I used to think that being safe from the threat of automation was a bonus, but employers will chase a few £k saving over paying someone at a lower rate instead of the much higher saving of not employing them at all. That's why thgr Guards dispute doesn't make sense to me, unless it is the precursor to a long term plan.