From: nwp90@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Nick Phillips)
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Re: Transport subsidies - Was: Car Parking
Date: 6 Jan 93 15:17:52 GMT
Distribution: uk
Organization: The Southampton Net.Cabal :-)
Originator: nwp90@cezanne

Now I've finally decided which post to use to reply to, here goes:

In <29907@castle.ed.ac.uk> eset08@castle.ed.ac.uk (J Strobridge) writes:

>There really *is* a problem with subsidies though and not paying full
>costs for things such as public transport.   I was down in rural Devon

...

>where he would make the bulk of his profit.    Consequently I think he'd
>decided not to bother - and I suspect this is the case with most other
>budding entrepreneurs out that way!    If you haven't got the
>opportunity to compete you just don't bother to try so I'm left paying
>for a lousy bus service that only works when it wants to and not when I
>need it!   

It depends who you think is more important, and how good the public
(subsidised) service is. If you think that people who can afford to
start up bus companies should be able to make profits by providing a
service which some people have no choice but to use, or if the public
service is crap, then you will quite likely think that the free market
should be left to run its course.

If, however, you think that in certain areas (transport, provision of water
& other 'essential' services) the "customer"'s needs are more important than
allowing people to make money by providing this service, then I can't see
how leaving it to the free market can possibly be the right thing to do.

If you leave public transport to the free market, then people in busy areas
will quite possibly be well-served (well maybe not - look at London), but
those in more remote areas will likely as not get no service at all. In
respect of transport, I would like to see a subsidised and efficient (ha ha)
service, which provides everyone with what they need.

I suppose it comes down to individual laziness and, for want of a better word,
greed again. Even if the London underground were cheap and efficient and clean
and wonderful, I can imagine stereotypical 'rich executives' still demanding
to be driven around because of the way they perceive public transport.
Even if British Rail ran services which ran quickly, cheaply, regularly, on
time etc. people would still want cars because they would be slightly more
convenient - people would still perceive them as being 'door-to-door'
transport, even if parking problems meant that they couldn't park within a
mile of either door.


And to answer someone else, road tax does not nearly pay for the roads. It's
like national insurance - just a token payment which you think goes to pay
for something specific. Whack the duty on petrol sky-high, I say - and
provide a decent public transport system (decent == cheap, efficient, clean,
goes roughly where you want to go). I saw an item on the news the other day
mentioning a proposal to quarry stone for road-building from out of the side
of Harris. I'd rather have neither the roads nor the quarry.


Hmmm... I think that'll do for now, before I get too wound up.



Nick



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Nick Phillips        17,Tennyson Avenue, Hitchin, Herts. SG4 0PX - UK
nwp90@ecs.soton.ac.uk
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Newsgroups: uk.misc