Free public transport?

[Zomboid]

We've been doing it for 2 years, and never once had an issue with short dates or things being wrong (occasionally they have to substitute for something unavailable, but they're up front and if you don't want it you just give it back to the driver and they refund you).

 

The experience is nothing like it was 10 years ago (I used it a couple of times then, too, but then I bought a house 5 mins walk from the shop).

 

We did have a bad experience with ocado though. They turned up with no vegetables. As in none. Not so much as a pea. So that was a failure, but Sainsbury's have been pretty much flawless over the last 2 years as far as I'm concerned.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, weve used Sainsbury, Tesco, and Waitrose at various times, and all proved dependable, but we found that Ocado specialised in bizarre replacements, as in: we’ve run out of the particular brand of peanut butter you ordered, so here is some shoe polish instead. Not tasty on taste!

[scouser]

That is ok if:

A - one can afford Sainsburies.

B - one doe not need to shop for bargains.

Sainsburies shoppers look away now

Edited February 19, 2018 by scouser

[Butler Henderson]

To continue off thread having all of stores bar Tesco in easy range I usually look at http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/ for specific items before setting off, yogurts this week were cheapest at Sainsburys, peas are invariably expensive at Morrisons and cheapest at Waitrose (until they axe the pick your own Waitrose Offers at the end of this month,),

[D854_Tiger]

That is ok if:

A - one can afford Sainsburies.

B - one doe not need to shop for bargains.

Sainsburies shoppers look away now

 

As the chap that launched Kwik Save once said, "A poor man needs a bargain and a rich man loves a bargain" the secret of Aldi's success.

[scouser]

We could solve a lot of these problems if instead of just banning people over 65 from voting, as suggested by the idiot Paxman, we simply euthanase everybody over 65.

Er, ang a mo......

[Zomboid]

It's not the cheapest way of doing things, but the quality from Sainsbury's is good and I value my time (especially not having to brave a supermarket on a Saturday) at more than I'd save by shopping around.

 

Anyway, the point is there is no need for anyone to struggle onto a bus with 6 bags of shopping. For not a lot of money they'll bring it to your house, and the service these days is pretty good and reliable. Going to the shop for provisions is a choice in 2018, and I choose not to.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Zomboid

[D854_Tiger]

It's not the cheapest way of doing things, but the quality from Sainsbury's is good and I value my time (especially not having to brave a supermarket on a Saturday) at more than I'd save by shopping around.

 

Anyway, the point is there is no need for anyone to struggle onto a bus with 6 bags of shopping. For not a lot of money they'll bring it to your house, and the service these days is pretty good and reliable. Going to the shop for provisions is a choice in 2018, and I choose not to.

 

I prefer the local shop, for local people.

[009 micro modeller]

Is this the answer?https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_and_Sugar_Train

Also seen in this documentary: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti5k4rTcQu0

 

(this is assuming you haven't closed down all the rural parts of your rail network... hang on...)

[coline33]

I have just read through this subject to find no mention of probably the only country in the world where in its capital city the trams, trolleybuses and buses are free.   Free in fact to all residents who have paid their council tax.   Tourists are able to pay online for Visitor Travel Passes before they go for the period they want.   The tram system has just been entirely rebuilt and extended with a new fleet of state-of-the-art articulated cars.   On the day I visited, the scheme was in full swing but I had not intended using public transport.   On arrival I suddenly found my afternoon then free.   No one, driver or kiosk, would sell me a day ticket - "trams free" they all cried.   So I travelled the entire tram system for nothing.   The country - Estonia -  yes in the EU.   The capital - Tallin - lovely old parts yet a modern city.   An alternate way that UK councils could reduce the non-payment of their rates.      

[caradoc]

Interesting coline33; I wonder how it works in practice. Do Council Tax payers get issued with a travelcard, or simply have to prove who they are when boarding ? I wonder too, what proportion of residents in Tallin actually pay their version of Council Tax; Maybe their system differs greatly from the UK, but in my household I pay the Council Tax, so my wife, who currently gets free bus travel as she is over 60, would not be entitled to it in Tallin ?!!

 

[Pandora]

In London you have the Over 60 Oyster card,  Trains Tubes Buses and more free within a boundary which is almost the circle of the M25, restrictions are on Network rail Mon to Fri before 9.30 am, since receiving my card in 2015, I  never use the car. 

Edited September 19, 2019 by Pandora

[Butler Henderson]

Sunday services on electric bus worked routes have been free in Harrogate for some months through sponsorship from local businesses

[Pandora]

As a motorist, an annual fee, VED tax is paid and unlimited use of the roads for 12 months ( well almost), so why not make public transport available to the user for a similar one off payment?

[lmsforever]

Just who is going to pay for this idea ,it will have to come out of taxes so it is not free ,would taxpayers be happy with increased taxation no they would not.It would work in a communist state but not anywhere else so use the discount cards and enter the real world  and remember nothing comes for free !

[Davexoc]

51 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

Just who is going to pay for this idea ,it will have to come out of taxes so it is not free ,would taxpayers be happy with increased taxation no they would not.It would work in a communist state but not anywhere else so use the discount cards and enter the real world  and remember nothing comes for free !

But if it is funded by taxpayers and open for everyone to use, it saves in a lot of other ways. Ticketless means no ticket machines needed, so not ticket barriers, and no need for revenue protection.  And no fare dodgers.

[corneliuslundie]

In Wales at least some TrawsCymru long distance bus services are free at weekends for at least part of the year. The logic is that they are running anyway but normally pretty lightly used, so it costs nothing extra to allow them to be used for free and gets cars off the road. I am pretty sure it has also increased (paid for) weekday usage. Mind you I have a bus pass anyway.

Jonathan

[lmsforever]

The bus pass has opened up many new places for us to visit but typical of our beloved leaders they keep saying they will do away with it  what they need to is sort out the amounts paid to operators by councils.This varies a great deal and should be a national standard so as to ensure that operators can continue to actually run services that are needed by many people.

[62613]

2 hours ago, lmsforever said:

The bus pass has opened up many new places for us to visit but typical of our beloved leaders they keep saying they will do away with it  what they need to is sort out the amounts paid to operators by councils.This varies a great deal and should be a national standard so as to ensure that operators can continue to actually run services that are needed by many people.

Perhaps if the powers that be hadn't hammered local authorities so hard for the last 9 years, they could still be subsidising services. As it is, they are struggling to fund services they are legally obliged to run, e.g. adult social care.

 

In Greater Manchester, First have just withdrawn from running bus services, and Stagecoach haven't taken up all the slack; so, for instance, one service which used to run from Ashton-under-Lyne, to Marple  has been so cut back that it only runs from Ashton to Stalybridge; and direct bus services between there and Hyde now no longer exist.

 

Of course, buses are  a vital service for, for instance, schoolchildren, or elderly or disabled people who can't run a car.

 

The bit about tax touches on a fundamental philosophical point ; you may be alright, Jack (I don't know) but millions in this country aren't. Are you prepared to abandon them, or pay not much more tax to aid them.

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by 62613

[corneliuslundie]

Back to the Tallin example, I assume that part of the thinking was that if people used public transport in the city it would obviate the need for lots of new roads to cope with increased use of cars, as well as reducing pollution. So free public transport may not have been much or any more expensive than other options - and this is a city with many historic buildings, so new roads and wider roads would be very destructive. Of course, it is not free, as it has to be paid for out of national or local taxes but so do new and wider roads, and health care I assume. BTW about a third of the population of Estonia lives in Tallin, about 460,000, so quite a small city in a small country.

Jonathan

[TheQ]

31 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Back to the Tallin example, I assume that part of the thinking was that if people used public transport in the city it would obviate the need for lots of new roads to cope with increased use of cars, as well as reducing pollution. So free public transport may not have been much or any more expensive than other options - and this is a city with many historic buildings, so new roads and wider roads would be very destructive. Of course, it is not free, as it has to be paid for out of national or local taxes but so do new and wider roads, and health care I assume. BTW about a third of the population of Estonia lives in Tallin, about 460,000, so quite a small city in a small country.

Jonathan

In Norwich the most pollluted road, is that which only the public transport (and taxis) can use..All the buses parked up engines on to keep them warm...

 

With the second oldest population in the UK, all the discount / free bus passes have meant the bus routes here have been cut back as the operators can't afford to run them.. ( the council did not refund the full amount of each discount ticket)

Edited September 20, 2019 by TheQ

[stewartingram]

I have a recollection that Gt.Yarmouth once proposed free bus transport in the town.This was in the days when a) it had Corporation buses, b) the town was still very much alive as a holiday resort. (I've been there in recent years in mid summer, and never seen a bus on the prom at all!). I believe the reson given was to reduce the use of cars within the town, and the savings by not having to collect fares were said to have been such that most of the cost of free buses would have been paid for. Must have been around 1980?

 

Stewart

[Pandora]

Imagine if Lord Beeching were alive and asked to repeat the railway  exercise for the public road network,  imagine how the road  map of the UK of rural roads would being  abandoned or closed to motor traffic  on the basis of expense of maintenance of a road  vs usage by vehicles.

 

 There is a precedent for closure of a public road, the A625 road across moors in Derbyshire was formally abandoned,  the repeated failure of the road and costs of restitution led to  closure

Edited September 20, 2019 by Pandora

[Nearholmer]

An interesting way of looking at things.

 

But, the cynic in me says that many really little-used roads seem to get no maintenance anyway, so are already effectively zero-cost to the rate-payers.

 

In some ways, I quite like these barely-used, ill-maintained byways, because they are great cycling territory, if a tad potholed and, therefore, hard on the backside.

 

More seriously, the issue with a lot of the low-use railway network was that it had received little or no renewal, as opposed to maintenance, probably since pre-WW1. It consisted of outmoded PWay, outmoded and labour-intensive-to-operate signalling, and earthworks that were very slowly, but very surely, slithering back to natural slopes. Not only was it expensive to maintain and operate as it was, but it actually needed a good injection of cash to make cheaper to maintain and operate ...... it was a choice between shut or spend, and the railways were already a whopping drain on the national purse, so shut it was.

 

Clearly, a few of the lines that were pruned out of existence shouldn't have been, but, on the whole, at the time, pruning was probably the right option.

[Pandora]

The Beeching Report found a 49 : 1 range,  lines with revenue 1/7 th of operating costs,  lines with costs in parity, lines with revenue 7 times operating costs,   imagine such an exercise where roads are costed for a revenue based upon the tax take  vs  operating costs of the roads