Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Agreed. Any real improvement to the railways is going to take a lot of money and cause potentially decades of disruption. Governments tend not to think beyond the next general election. Railways also aren't practical everywhere, but where they are, they have the advantage that trains can carry a lot more people. I've not done any research into this, so don't know for sure, but I would have thought the cheapest way to improve public transport would be to have more bus and coach routes.

There also needs to be more integration between the various transport systems. They have started doing this in London, but get public transport elsewhere in the country, and it feels as though they don't want you to change to a different mode of transport.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

I think you've missed an additional point here and that is the price of public transport in general outside of major cities.

If i want to go to the office my commute is just outside Middlesbrough too York city center.

By car:-
Jump into car, drive down to outskirts of York, park car and get on a park and ride into the center of York.

Costs fuel approx £15 return. park and ride £3.50 return total 18:50 per day.

By motorbike
Jump into car, ride straight down to the office and park in the small secure car park

Costs fuel approx £15 unless i go for a blast on the way home :D

By public transport.
Any time return std class Middlesbrough to York £48 ish, (season ticket price is approx £650 per month if i were to go that route) turn bus fair from nearest stop to train station £6 + I'd have to get up an hour earlier to ensure i was at the office, and i'd get home an hour later.

it's a no brainer really!

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Don't get me wrong, although I mentioned London, I am well aware that London's transport, while it has faults and is in need of massive upgrades, is probably the best in the country.

I was referring to the whole country. I'd like to see what is currently offered in London to be the baseline standard for public transport all over the country, and I'd like to see prices reduced massively, with a lot more journeys actually being free. This *will* require subsidising, and I remember watching an interview years ago, where they talked to the transport minister of another country that had tried our current system of companies owning various parts of the transport network, and gone back to Nationalisation because they couldn't make it work and keep the fares low enough to encourage people to use it rather than cars. They concluded it was impossible to operate a public transport system at a profit. Sadly, this was well before the internet, and I cannot remember the name of the country.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Currently, London buses need a subsidy of 722 million pounds per year. What chance has the rest of the country got for anything like this kind of subsidy?

---------- Post added at 10:02 ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 ----------

Link for London bus subsidy:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tran...-a4096581.html

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Not a lot as around Devon and Cornwall they have cut a lot of the bus subsidy's thus some of the bus routes have now disappeared or been reduced,

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

In Scotland, Wales and England (EXCEPT for London), the majority of bus services are provided commercially with no cost to the rate of tax payers. Local authorities have an obligation to pay for 'socially necessary' services not provided by commercial operators. Unfortunately, in recent years such services have been drastically reduced. Some councils do not subsidise any bus services.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Our council owned our local bus service until they sold it lock stock and barrel to a national commercial operator who were full of promises in the first few months but now they have cut back on some routes while reducing the volume of buses in other routes throughout the day.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

I'm well aware of that, and that is why I said the public transport network needs to be subsidised. The trouble is, Austerity has pretty much put any chances of this kind of subsidy happening out of the window. Even Labour have never funded transport properly, preferring to put the money in the hands of companies, who have shareholders, than put it into services.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Exactly as both major political parties are just as bad as each other and unless there is a great sea change then nothing will change sadly.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Well, austerity is now being cast aside, and with the reduction in public spending that we have experienced as a result of that austerity, we now need to re-build our public services in a more beneficial way. We must not bring back the waste, and we need to do a line-by-line national budget approach, stop doing what we don't have to do and re-direct that money into where it needs to go.

Putting in a comprehensive bus and coach system with frequent services and fare reductions will cost an absolute fortune, but I do think we need to look at that, given the benefits that would result. It should always be much cheaper to use public transport than the private car.

---------- Post added at 12:30 ---------- Previous post was at 12:21 ----------

Yes, ask the general public about foreign aid and most will say it needs to be reduced significantly. Not many would object to the UK contributing to disaster relief, but most believe a lot of the foreign aid budget is being wasted.

The problem is, any government that tries to reduce the budget would have to field questions from charities, the UN and the bleeding heart liberals in this country who like that nice warm feeling they get when they see hard working populations being deprived of money that could be better used on their own needs.

What we need is a strong government that is not suffocated by the nonsense being spouted by the extreme left and extreme right, and just make sensible decisions for the overall benefit of the British people.

Surely, that starts with the health of the nation, and reducing pollution that a vastly improved public transport system would bring will also reduce NHS costs.

Fat chance, though.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

You sure about that? as many councils are still cutting their services severely.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...rity-hits-hard

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ease-pain-cuts

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...o-come-on-cuts

---------- Post added at 12:37 ---------- Previous post was at 12:34 ----------

l certainly agree with much of your statement here OB.:tu:

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Only after the introduction of motorway speed limits in the late 1960's - before then you could go as fast as your car (or bike) would allow!!

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

I know, but that's all based on previous budgets. Now that we are in the new financial year, the government has already announced increased funding to many areas and this will now continue. It takes time to turn things around.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Public transport in South Yorkshire in the late 70's/early 80's used to be under local authority control and the fares were kept very low (I remember reading somewhere adult fares were capped at 2p/mile on busses - cheapest in the country??).

When I was at school in the early 80's I used to get a bus to see a friend in Sheffield and it cost the grand total of 25p each way (child fares)!! The fare was 15p to the West Yorkshire / South Yorkshire boarder (4 miles). 2p from the boarder to Barnsley Bus Station (4 miles). 6p from Barnsley Bus Station to Sheffield Bus Station (16 miles). 2p from Sheffield Bus Station to friends house (5 miles). So it worked out at nearly 4p/mile in West Yorkshire and 0.4p/mile in South Yorkshire. It used to take an age but once across the boarder in South Yorkshire the buses were rammed!!!

Public Transport was a very successful 'socialist' policy that I'm sure was one of the many reasons the Government of the day went out of its way to get rid of the GLC and the six Metropolitan County Councils.

Re: 400 more miles of the hard shoulder to be removed.
 

Regarding Austerity being cast aside, that would be good, but I prefer to see what the government do, rather than what they say. They are politicians, after all, and, in my experience, most politicians would greet you warmly, while vigoursly shaking your hand with one of theirs, while manoeuvring the other so they can stab you in the back with the knife it is holding.

I do agree that we need to go through expenditure line by line, and eliminate waste.

It should. How else are people going to be persuaded to get out of their cars? Even the best public transport system will never have the convenience of a car. If you own a car and can drive, you can get in it at a moments notice and just drive off to wherever you want. Public Transport is never going to be able to offer that conveniance. Most public transport operates to a timetable (even if they only advertise that the next train or bus is in a given number of minutes, that's still a timetable) and requires the passenger to go to a certain stop or station, then get off at another stop or station, and the journey time to get to the stop or station may be significant as it may not be near.

Black Cabs and taxis don't have that restriction as such, but good luck finding one of them unless you are in a busy area.

There are also mini cabs and these upcoming driverless car systems (Uber, Tesla etc), but these may require the user to have a working mobile phone, which is something you can't necessarily guarantee.

Cars go from wherever you are to wherever you want to go, at whatever time you are willing to drive them, and not only do they not require a mobile phone, they can often charge yours if you have one.

Public transport needs to be a lot cheaper (and ideally free) to compete with that convenience.

I do realise I am asking for Unicorns though.
Encourage enough people to get out of their vehicles (whatever vehicle) and walk, and you also potentially save the NHS money.